[PEN-L:10537] Re: French elections
Michael Perelman wrote, >during the Nixon years. Did Nixon have an effective reformist program? >Of course not. People were in the streets. Exactly my point in portraying the French elections as a ray of hope. People _were_ in the streets not long before the elections. I find it fascinating that the one thing uniting Max, Michael and Shawgi in this thread seems to be "having no illusions". As if having none were a test of highminded political engagement. Or could it simply be a trace of Calvinist asceticism? Isn't it conceivable that the greatest illusion of them all is to "have no illusions"? Calvinist? Well, just because the PS was *elected* doesn't mean they're the *Elect*, eh? ;-) Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Though I may be sent to Hell for it, [EMAIL PROTECTED] | such a God will never command my respect." (604) 688-8296| - John Milton ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10536] Re: French elections
On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: > The answer is that I would not even think of coming up with such a > program. I would devote my energies to reinvigorating the grass roots. > In the U.S., much the most progressive legislation in our history came > during the Nixon years. Did Nixon have an effective reformist program? > Of course not. People were in the streets. But Michael, that's a cheap way out of the question. I don't think any of us -- well maybe Max -- would rather be in Jospin's place than where we already are building grassroots movements. The question was, "Well, what do you expect?" You had bemoaned the fact that the "left" had won without any program and suggested that this might mean things will get worse. I really don't know what kind of a program you might have hoped for. If the new government passes a 35-hour workweek, fucks up the timetable for the Maastricht treaty, and stops privatizations, it will be (well I may be having a memory lapse and this is a bold thing to say but I'll say it) better than anything Mitterand did and he stayed in power for an awful long time. Of course Mitterand discredited "socialism" but then most social-democratic leaders discredit social democracy by the time they leave power. Saying that that makes a social- democratic victory depressing, as if it will make things worse, sort of has the ring of "first Hitler, then us" > In some sense, we might excuse Clinton by this standard. Lacking strong > left pressure, he capitulates to the right. Were we doing our jobs > better, we might have something to be proud of coming out of the Nixon > years. We could excuse Clinton, or Bush, or Reagan who knows what any of them "really" wanted to do after they got elected? The point is that Maastricht is near death because of popular discontent, and the change in leadership reflects that (in part because Juppe was so relentless in not caving in). The bulwark of the neoliberal program is -- for now -- unable to survive popular discontent in France and and some major reforms are now on the table. That's nothing to be depressed about. For free baloney after the revolution, Tavis
[PEN-L:10535] Re: French elections
Daniel Singer is writing the most interesting things about the French elections. Just the other week, before the elections, he made the observation that the number of people in the streets in the 1996 protests involving truckers, et al, were actually larger than in 1968. The elections were a product of street actions indirectly. Whether the left will operate on this quasi-mandate is another story entirely. Louis Proyect On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: > In the U.S., much the most progressive legislation in our history came > during the Nixon years. Did Nixon have an effective reformist program? > Of course not. People were in the streets. > > In some sense, we might excuse Clinton by this standard. Lacking strong > left pressure, he capitulates to the right. Were we doing our jobs > better, we might have something to be proud of coming out of the Nixon > years. > > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 916-898-5321 > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > >
[PEN-L:10534] Blair's latest
The WSJ says: "Britain's Mr. Blair ... [has] outlined a "welfare-to-work" program that is more right wing than what many European conservatives would dare suggest." Kind of like Clinton's ending welfare "as we know it." Cheers, Sid Shniad
[PEN-L:10533] APEC 9-11 June, Toronto (fwd)
> APEC Ministerial Conference in Toronto June 9-11 > (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) > > Australia Brunei Darussalam > CanadaPeople's Republic of China > Chile Hong Kong > Indonesia Japan > Republic of Korea Malaysia > MexicoNew Zealand > Papua New Guinea Republic of the Philippines > Singapore Chinese Taipei > Thailand United States > > The Environment Ministers from the 18 APEC countries, which > together account for more than half the world's trade, will > be meeting in Toronto, Canada on June 9, 10 and 11. > > The Anti-Apec Action Network is organizing protests at the > Royal York Hotel in Toronto, the site of the Ministerial > Conference. > > June 9, 3:00 - 6:30 pm at the Royal York Hotel. > > June 9, 5:30 pm rally at Old City Hall, Queen and Bay Sts, > march down Bay St (Canada's financial district) > to the Royal York Hotel. > > June 9, 7:30 pm Public Forum at Holy Trinity Church, behind the > Eaton Centre. Speakers include: > - Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians > - Tony Clarke, Polaris Institute > - Edwen Guillan-Panay, Human Rights Committee > - Bern Jagunas, CAWG > - Danny Beaton > > June 10 and 11, 1:00 pm - 2:00 pm and 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm > > > For more information call 416-537-7290 or 416-323-9726 > > > > Laura Eggertson, writing in the Toronto Globe and Mail reported on > May 12, 1997 that: > > The Asia-Pacific countries have transformed their trade group > from a chat club into a powerhouse that will sidestep the World > Trade Organization and set the agenda on opening global markets > to goods and services. > > APEC members, which include Canada and the United States, account > for about half the flow of goods and services around the world. > Although APEC is a voluntary organization that reaches non-binding > decisions by consensus, it will now take on greater prominence in > the world trade scene. > > Members have decided to move quickly to identify specific products > and services for which they can eliminate duties and quotas, > instead of waiting for another interminable round of negotiations > on global free trade at the World Trade Organization. > > The products and services chosen are closely driven by the private > sector, through a business advisory group. > > "One of APEC's key features [is] its close collaboration with > business on the trade agenda," federal Trade Minister Art Eggleton > said at the close of the meeting Saturday. (10 May 1997) > > Once a significant number of APEC countries have agreed on the > outline of a deal, negotiations can be moved to the WTO -- the more > unwieldy trade watchdog, which has 130 member countries. The last > group of global negotiations, known as the Uruguay Round, took > seven years to complete. > > WTO agreements are binding and subject to dispute settlement. The > United States and Canada have been pushing for APEC to gain more > prominence because they believe it's easier to get deals among a > smaller group of countries which are large enough to carry enough > weight to intervene on the world scene. The Asia-Pacific nations > have set a deadline for free trade among them -- 2010 for the > developed countries and 2020 for developing nations. > > Politically, the U.S. administration has been criticized in > Congress and by right-wing Republicans such as Pat Buchanan for > surrendering sovereignty to the WTO. Drafting trade deals under > APEC -- a less-visible, less-structured organization -- would > remove some of the political heat. > > "As the Asia-Pacific region becomes more and more important in > the world economy, so the impact of what you decide in APEC > assumes a greater global significance," he told the Montreal > conference. (10 May 1997) > > The Montreal meeting and a leaders' summit that Canada is > slated to host in Vancouver in November are also expected to > accelerate talks toward a deal on financial services, which > would eliminate restrictions that now make it difficult for banks > and insurance companies to operate globally. Countries have a > Dec. 15 deadline to reach that deal. > > Washington scuppered the last attempt to reach a deal on financial > services by pulling out, saying that other countries' offers were > not enough to justify opening t
[PEN-L:10532] MAI Sierra Club (fwd)
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Sierra Club of Canada) > Subject: Recent postings to web sites of WTO/MAI info > Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 01:24:36 -0400 > > Subject: Recent postings to web sites of WTO/MAI info > > > A home page for Common Front on the World Trade Organization > information has recently been added to the Sierra Club of Canada > web site. The url address is: > > http://www.sierraclub.ca/national/trade-env/ > > The final draft of "An Environment Guide to the World Trade > Organization" by Steve Shrybman is available at this address. > > Additionally, the page contains a link to a text version of Tony > Clarke's document on the MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investments), > "The Corporate Rule Treaty". This document is available from the > Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives web site at: > >http://www.policyalternatives.ca/ > > The full text of the draft MAI (January 13, 1997) is available from > the Multinational Monitor's web site: > >http://www.essential.org/monitor/ > > (specifically: http://www.essential.org/monitor/mai/contents.html). > > This site also provides useful links to a number of other NGO and > government sites, including SEC filings for U.S. corporations. > > Andrew Chisholm > Sierra Club of Canada
[PEN-L:10531] MAI-CAW (fwd)
> Message from Bruce Allen CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) Local 199 > > > Date: Tue, 3 Jun 1997 21:38:47 -0400 (EDT) > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Resolution on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment > > Fellow Workers, > > The following is the text of a resolution that I am trying to get > adopted at the 1997 CAW Constitutional Convention slated for August > in Vancouver. I am widely circulating this owing to the secrecy which > has surrounded the Multilateral Agreement on Investment and the > resulting lack of public awareness about it. > > Your comments are most welcome. > > In Solidarity, > Bruce Allen > CAW Local 199 > > > Resolution to the 1997 CAW Constitutional Convention > > Whereas the Federal Liberal government has been secretly involved in > negotiations for a Multilateral Agreement on Investment since May > 1995 and, > > Whereas the Multilateral Agreement on Investment is being negotiated > to further advance the policy course that was established by the 1988 > Canada - U.S. Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA and the GATT and to make it > even easier for transnational corporations to buy, sell and move their > operations whenever and wherever they please on a global scale and, > > Whereas the net effect of this Multilateral Agreement on Investment > will be to further implement a global corporate agenda without any > regard for the socio-economic and ecological consequences of it, > > Therefore, be it resolved that the CAW initiate a major public campaign > to demand that the Canadian government immediately suspend its > particpation in the negotiations to conclude a Multilateral Agreement > on Investment and convene the broadest possible public hearings > regarding its socio-economic and ecological implications.
[PEN-L:10530] Re: French elections
Tavis Barr wrote: > If Michael Perelman were suddenly plopped at the > head of the French PS and forced at gunpoint to come up with an effective > reformist program, what would he call for? > > Poke, poke, > Tavis The answer is that I would not even think of coming up with such a program. I would devote my energies to reinvigorating the grass roots. In the U.S., much the most progressive legislation in our history came during the Nixon years. Did Nixon have an effective reformist program? Of course not. People were in the streets. In some sense, we might excuse Clinton by this standard. Lacking strong left pressure, he capitulates to the right. Were we doing our jobs better, we might have something to be proud of coming out of the Nixon years. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10529] Tijuana strike/emergency alert (fwd)
> Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers > Craftsmen Hall, 3909 Centre Street, Ste. 210 > San Diego, CA 92102 > phone (619) 542-0826; fax (619) 295-5879 > > June 2, 1997 > > E M E R G E N C Y A L E R T > Maquiladora Workers Demand Union Recognition! > Faxed Letters Urgently Needed > > Workers at the Han Young de Mexico maquiladora which produces chassis and > platforms for tractor trailer trucks for Hyundai Precision America > refused to enter the plant in Tijuana for work today to demonstrate their > unified demand for union recognition. While the company's failure to pay > utilidades, the 2% profit-sharing bonus as required under Mexican labor > law, was the immediate impetus for the work stoppage, the workers' > overriding concern is health and safety problems in the plant. Workers > are often not provided with appropriate facial shields, gloves, coveralls > or safety shoes. Some workers are losing their vision and many > experience a burning sensation in their eyes due to constant exposure to > lead fumes. Workers exhibit burns on their hands, chest, arms and clothing. > > While the workers assemble and weld at least 26 chassis daily that sell > for $1800 each, they make between 280 and 360 pesos ($33-$46) weekly. > Workers complain this is not enough to cover basic necessities. Han > Young employes 125 workers. Current production involve a large contact > Hyundai has to produce trucks for the U.S. Marines. > > The Han Young maquiladora, like most maquiladoras in Tijuana, pays a > government connected "union" known as the Confederacion Regional de > Obreros Mexicanos (CROM). Workers do not participate in any meetings of > the "union" and have never seen a copy of its contract with the company. > It is a standard practice by the maquiladora industry to pay for > "protection contracts" against independent organizing by the workers. > > It is clear that international pressure can play a key role in the > Mexican government's determination to recognize the workers' right to > organize a union of their own and in the company's decision to bargain > with the union. The Support Committee urges you to send letters > immediately to the Mexican Labor Board with copies to the Governor of > Baja California and Hyundai and Han Young expressing your solidarity with > the striking workers. > > DEMAND RECOGNITION OF MAQUILADORA WORKERS' > RIGHT TO ORGANIZE THEIR OWN UNION! > > PLEASE FAX LETTERS (see sample) ASAP to: > Antonio Ortiz, Presidente > Junta de Conciliacion y Arbitraje > 011-52-66-86-33-00 > If the above number does not answer, call 011-52-66-86-32-14 and > say that you want to send a fax. > > Please fax copies of your letter to: > Governor Teran Teran 011-52-65-58-11-78 > Ted Chung, President, Hyundai Presicion America (619) 293-7264 > Won Young Kang, Gerente General, Han Young de Mexico > 011-52-66-80-44-81 > Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers (619) 295-5879 > > == > SAMPLE LETTER > > Sr. Antonio Ortiz, Presidente > Conciliacion y Arbitracion > > By fax: (66) 86-33-00 > > Senor Ortiz: > > I am writing to express my support for the Han Young maquiladora workers' > demand for union recognition. > > The Han Young maquiladora workers suffer numerous health and safety > problems due to the company's continual failure to provide adequate > safety gear. Such injuries include burns, and, due to constant lead > exposure, failing vision. After years of unfulfilled promises of safety > shoes and other protective devices, and the company's failure to pay > utilidades in compliance with Mexican labor law, the workers felt they > had no choice but to withhold their labor. > > Most Han Young workers are petitioning for their own union because they > feel the CROM has not assisted them in any way, nor has it represented > their interests. The workers have never had union meetings and have yet > to see their employer's contract with the CROM. In the interests of > these workers' right to organize and choose their own union > representatives, we urge you to expedite registration of the Han Young > workers' union and facilitate the positive resolution of this dispute. > > > Added note: Given that their pay is less than a dollar an hour, the Han > Young workers have not been able to build up a substantial strike fund. > They are currently soliciting donations. > DONATIONS to purchase food and support the families of striking workers > can be sent to: > Support Committee for Maquiladora Workers > Craftsmen Hall, 3909 Centre Street > San Diego, CA 92103 > > Please make your check payable to "SCMW" and write "Han Young Worker > Strike Fund" in the memo section of your check. > > Thank you for your support!!! > > > > > < End Included Me
[PEN-L:10528] Re: French elections
Max, Your irrepressible optimism vis-a-vis "social Europe" and unification reminds me of the kid who's whistling away as he's shoveling tons of horse shit out of the stall. When aske why he's so happy, he answers: "With all this horse shit, there's got to be a horse in here somewhere!" How the hell can you translate all of the recent events that have transpired in Europe into renewed evidence/pressure for a "social" Europe in the context of the EU? Cheers, Sid Shniad > > Maybe the electoral result gives the requisite kick > in the ass to the European unification process to > hasten the rise of "Social Europe." > > A bientot, > > MBS
[PEN-L:10527] Reply To Michael
Greetings, On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: > The French elections were a tragedy. From what I understand, the left > comes in without a program. Please correct me if I am wrong. They will > offer a kindler, gentler neo-liberalism, something like Giscard. The > people will become disgusted, giving more credibility to the right. The so-called "left" are social-democrats who, as in many other countries where pseudo socialists and phoney communists have come to power, do not differ ideologically from the so-called "right." Both servants of the financial oligarchy champion capitalist private property as the basis of "civilized" society and both believe capitalism will, can and should last forever. Both take ideas, and not real-life, as their starting point and pretend that capitalism does work. That is, they ignore reality. The situation is presented as one of socialists and communists coming to power to do exactly the same thing that standard reactionaries and imperialists do. In this way the people are supposed to come to see that socialism and communism (as presented by the financial oligarchy) are no better than capitalism, that capitalism might actually be a "better" alternative, perhaps even the only alternative. This is the main function of the "left-Right" dogma. It serves to conceal the stubborn fact that the real struggle, the key struggle, remainss between the two main, the two key, irreconcilable classes in society, the bourgeoisie and proletariat and not the so-called "right" or so-called "left." > It is sad that we are in such a mess as to look to a disaster in the > making like this as a ray of hope. Who are you speaking for? Many ordinary people see through the talk-shop and diversionary character of the so-called "multi-party system" being imposed on everyone by western imperialists, especially U.S. imperialism. They realize that 18th and 19th century institutions are an impediment to progress on the eve of the 21st century. many see that this system of so-called "representative" democracy is designed to fool the people. It is this "multi-party system" which is effectively marginalizing and ghettoizing the broad masses of the people all over the world, particularly Canada and the United States. It seems that what is needed is for the people themselves to search for solutions and to set the agenda in society. Relying on the so-called "experts" and politicians is extremely unhelpful, useless. Of course, for the people themselves to become politically empowered there must be organized collective discussion (i.e., all-sided concrete analysis of concrete conditions) in educational institutions, workplaces, neighborhoods, seniors' homes, youth organizations, military units, religious congregations and elsewhere. Such discussion on creating a New society is largely absent, especially in academe. But without such discussion, inquiry and investigation there can be no working class unity and political effectiveness, there can be no end to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in all its forms. Michael, what do you think is needed to move society forward? How can the people, the vast majority, come to have a real and decisive say in the direction of society for the first time? > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 916-898-5321 > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10526] Re: French elections
Wellfurchrissakes, Michael, they're social democrats. Their options are limited by what they can allow themselves to call for as reform. I think the CP has as good a program as one could hope for from a party that's moved by the powers dat be, and they seem to be trying to impose it on the PS as a basis for a coalition. If raising the munimum wage and calling for a 35-hour workweek is adopted as a framework for combatting unemployment in Europe, then we're in a lot better shape than being resigned to listening to the International M-F types talk about the need to cut social programs and generate jobs through competitiveness. Me, I'm more scared by the continuing rise of the FN. Okay, can I be corny? If Michael Perelman were suddenly plopped at the head of the French PS and forced at gunpoint to come up with an effective reformist program, what would he call for? Poke, poke, Tavis On Wed, 4 Jun 1997, Michael Perelman wrote: > The French elections were a tragedy. From what I understand, the left > comes in without a program. Please correct me if I am wrong. They will > offer a kindler, gentler neo-liberalism, something like Giscard. The > people will become disgusted, giving more credibility to the right. > > It is sad that we are in such a mess as to look to a disaster in the > making like this as a ray of hope. > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 916-898-5321 > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
[PEN-L:10525] Re: request for help on AFL-CIO economics education curriculum
I don't have too many short articles to recommend, but I'll share the few references I have. On Wed, June 4, 1997 at 11:23:33 (-0700) Eric Verhoogen writes: >The Center for Popular Economics and The UMass Labor Center in Amherst, MA, >have been hired by the AFL-CIO to create an economics education curriculum >for study groups of rank-and-file workers, called "Common-Sense Economics," >and we need help finding engaging, popularly written articles (or book >excerpts) on the following subjects: You mean, aside from The Center's _The War on the Poor: A Defense Manual_? Also good is Nancy Folbre's _The New Field Guide to the U.S. Economy: A Compact and Irreverent Guide to Economic Life in America_ (The New Press, 1995). David M. Gordon's _Fat and Mean: The Corporate Squeeze of Working Americans and the Myth of Managerial "Downsizing"_ (Free Press, 1996) might be useful. Holly Sklar's _Chaos or Community?: Seeking Solutions, Not Scapegoats for Bad Economics_ (South End Press, 1995) is well done, and has some of Matt Weurker's characteristically excellent illustrations. Edward S. Herman recently put out a collection of _Z_, _Monthly Review_, and other articles as _The Triumph of the Market: Essays on Economics, Politics, and the Media_ (South End Press, 1995). Finally, I've found Michael Perelman's books to be good common-sense stuff: _The End of Economics_ (Routledge, 1996), and _The Pathology of the U.S. Economy: The Costs of a Low-Wage System_ (St. Martin's Press, 2nd edition, 1996). Greg Hill wrote a very good article in the Winter 1996 issue of _Critical Review_, entitled "Keynes's Moral Critique of Capitalism" which is quite easy to read. He is attacked by Steven Horwitz in the Summer 1996 issue, and he responds to this attack therein. On the PKT list, Paul Davidson noted that he will publish an article by Greg Hill in a forthcoming issue of the _Journal of Post Keynesian Economics_, but this might be too academic for your uses. >(1) Income inequality - not only how the rich are getting richer and the >poor poorer, but also how the middle is slipping down towards the bottom. > >(2) The federal deficit - why balancing the budget now is not a great idea, >why public investment to spur economic growth is a better one. You might try some of the writings of William Vickrey. A web page of his stuff can be found at http://pw2.netcom.com/~masonc/vickrey.html. Also is Sidney Plotkin and William E. Scheuerman's _Private Interests, Public Spending: Balanced-Budget Conservatism and the Fiscal Crisis_ (South End Press, 1994). Jamie Galbraith has posted about 40 of his articles to the gopher site at CSU (gopher://csf.Colorado.EDU/11/econ/authors/Galbraith.Jamie). He has an article in the May 23, 1997 issue of the _Texas Observer_ entitled "Free Democrats and the Budget Deal" which is unfortunately not at the CSU site. As usual, _CounterPunch_ has stirring commentary on the issue, see the May 1-15 1997 piece "The Budget Deal Fraud". Robert Eisner wrote a piece for _The Nation_ of February 24, 1997 on the Balanced Budget Amendment entitled "The B.B.A.: a Spent Idea". He also wrote _The Misunderstood Economy: What Counts and How to Count It_ (Harvard Business School Press, 1994). >(3) The positive and necessary roles that government plays in the economy - >regulating business, stabilizing the business cycle, reducing inequality, >providing public goods - and how corporate interests have gained political >power and in many cases prevented government from fulfilling these >functions. Try Fred Block's _The Vampire State: And Other Myths about the U.S. Economy_ (The New Press, 1996). You might like Ruth Conniff's piece in the May '97 _Progressive_ on "Welfare Profiteers". >Session 5: Of the People, By the People, For the People - the positive >economic functions of government and why government has often not been >fulfilling them. I can't too highly recommend Thomas Ferguson's _Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems_ (University of Chicago Press, 1995) to answer questions as to "why government has often not been fulfilling" its proper functions, and since he teaches at UMass, you folks might wander over there and speak to him directly. But you better hurry, he'll be out of the country in July. He also wrote "Bill's Big Backers" for the November/December '96 issue of _Mother Jones_ on the '96 elections. The latest _Z_ (May '97) has a good article by Noam Chomsky, "The Passion for Free Markets" covering some of the functions government chooses to fulfill, instead of it's obligations to the people. Also in this issue of _Z_ is an article by Edward S. Herman, "Golden Rule Shenanigans" which picks up on Ferguson's _Golden Rule_ themes. Of similar bent is his article in the September 1996 issue, "The Blues Versus the Buffs". >Session 6: It's a Small World After All - how corporate-led globalization >has hurt U.S. workers and communities and
[PEN-L:10524] Re: French elections
The French elections were a tragedy. From what I understand, the left comes in without a program. Please correct me if I am wrong. They will offer a kindler, gentler neo-liberalism, something like Giscard. The people will become disgusted, giving more credibility to the right. It is sad that we are in such a mess as to look to a disaster in the making like this as a ray of hope. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 916-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:10523] Re: French elections
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Tom Walker) > Subject: [PEN-L:10505] French elections > The significance of the French elections is magnified by the fact that it > follows on the heels of last year's general strike and mobilization against > Juppe's neo-liberal policies. Seventy-five percent of French voters polled > said that the main issue for them was jobs and unemployment. Might we even > presume that Jospin is aware of the unique popular dimension of his party's > electoral victory? Magnified but not necessarily clarified. Maybe the electoral result gives the requisite kick in the ass to the European unification process to hasten the rise of "Social Europe." A bientot, MBS === Max B. SawickyEconomic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax)Washington, DC 20036 Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:10522] Re: yet more planning & democracy
> From: James Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [PEN-L:10515] yet more planning & democracy Sorry to put you out of sorts, Jim. I know that snipping your posts annoys you so I tried to inhibit myself. I'm doing the best I can. For me at least, it gets hard once you're past four or five levels of back-and-forth to maintain a coherent exchange. I'll state how I see our differences and leave you the last word. Given the capacities and inclinations of persons in an economy where capital is held in common, there are one or more allocations of resources which are feasible and which do 'pretty well' for social welfare and efficiency. Maybe there is even one best one, but that is not material to my argument. Democracy in its myriad forms gives play to individual and group interests, the aggregation of which would not be consistent with any of those 'pretty good plans.' More and better democracy for this reason does not move a society closer to a good plan, though it has appeal for other reasons. The free play of self-interest does not make chaos inevitable. Political harmony can indeed result. I see no normative economic value to such a harmony, though I can see other values pertaining to justice, among other things. By contrast, you seem to define a good plan as the one which a democratic process throws up. I think this is a circular argument. In this vein, I see political rights (including the procedures for making collective decisions) as much more elastic than property rights, your vehemence notwithstanding. All things considered, the implied economic outcome of a democratic process appears to be bereft of normative economic content, such as social efficiency. That's why, in my view, you haven't answered how something as basic, albeit profound, as a relative price consistent with a pretty good plan would be determined. In this light, I suggest that "social efficiency" means quite a bit more than achieving an arbitrary set of goals at least cost. Bringing up 'Nazi death camps' in this context is a little over-heated. Having said all that, like you I'd be for "giving it a try" if there was a snowball's chance in hell of such experimentation. I will risk incurring your further wrath with one snip, your final paragraph, in toto: > Equity and efficiency and democracy have to work together; they should be > seen as complements, not substitutes. These are the normative principles. > Ultimately, the economist's abstract conceptions of equity and efficiency > must be subordinated to what people want, i.e., democratic decision-making. > Planning is one part of making this work. That we would like equity and efficiency and democracy to be complements does not mean that they are or that they can be. That they 'must' is not a normative principle to me, since it begs the question of whether or not a circle can be a square. If, "ultimately," our own notions of these things must give way to "what people want" -- granting the problematic premise that they will get what they want by some kind of democratic process -- then I would say that you have extracted economic science, radical or otherwise, from the process. You are left with plans to make plans, rather than economic progress. Cheers, Max === Max B. SawickyEconomic Policy Institute [EMAIL PROTECTED] 1660 L Street, NW 202-775-8810 (voice) Ste. 1200 202-775-0819 (fax)Washington, DC 20036 Opinions above do not necessarily reflect the views of anyone associated with the Economic Policy Institute. ===
[PEN-L:10521] Re: On Russia
Thanks to Michael for posting some really fascinating material on the current U.S. role in Russia. Those working on Russia might be interested to know that some of the same techniques were tried out, though on a smaller scale, in Central America during the 1980's. In Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and especially in Costa Rica, U.S. funds were channeled through a series of para-governmental organizations that often duplicated or circumvented official agencies; in Costa Rica, this was termed a "parallel state" by John Biehl, a Chilean working with the government. The effort to keep aid funds out of the elected government's hands was quite open: a USAID official in San Jose told me with a straight face in 1988 that if they didn't do this the money would be "sopped up in social programs." Two good sources on this are, on all Central America: _The Soft War : The Uses and Abuses of U.S. Economic Aid in Central America_ Tom Barry and Deb Preusch Grove, 1988 and on Costa Rica: _Hostile Acts : U.S. Policy in Costa Rica in the 1980s_ Martha Honey Univ Pr of Florida, 1994 U.S. Out of Russia! Colin
[PEN-L:10520] Re: bio-determinism
We all eagerly await the pen-l postings of Wojtek's cat. The cat (what is its name?) might first want to peruse the archives of a discussion on postmodernism that took place on this list three years ago. A main archive can be found at: http://csf.Colorado.EDU/lists/pen-l/pomo-discussion.94 but some important followups are missing; they can be easily found by looking through the May and June 1994 gopher archives. Wojtek's cat will notice that while a certain testiness is evident at the outset of the 1994 discussion, it quickly settles into a rather interesting exchange of ideas, not a slanging match. As for the cat's owner I find little worth responding to in his latest post. Others can judge for themselves whether his second round of explications of the Copernican paragraph make much sense. If one pays really close attention to Wojtek's writings what seems to emerge is that he believes that metatheoretical grounds exist for choosing the correct ontological and epistemological positions and tossing out the others. (I also see what look like bits of Wittgenstein floating by but it's hard to tell.) In any case if that's his position that's where our basic disagreement lies. On natural science per se I see nothing more than repetition; I'm dismayed that the rest of the post degenerates into abuse. In the midst of throwing around words like bullshit and crap and rabid and nihilism, we get "Me stigmatising adversaries???" Go figure, Colin
[PEN-L:10519] Re: The latest high tech merger
> Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 11:22:10 -0700 (PDT) > Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > From: D Shniad <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [PEN-L:10512] The latest high tech merger > World Wide Web giants Netscape and Yahoo have announced their plans to > merge to become the world's largest internet provider. The new firm will > be located in Israel and will be known as: > > Net'n'yahoo. > > This coincidentally coincides with the merger of El Al Airlines and Al- > Italia Air Lines to be based in Rome and will be known as "Vell I'll tell ya." > Will they be flying Hairier jets? MBS
[PEN-L:10518] Dadetown review
DADETOWN ** (No Rating) Directed by Russ Hexter. Produced by Jim Carden. Cinematography by W.J. Gorman. Running time: 93 minutes. No MPAA rating (nothing objectionable). By Roger Ebert *Warning: Secrets are revealed in this review; read at your own risk.* A few weeks before I saw Russ Hexter's ``Dadetown,'' I received e-mail from a friend who told me there was an ``amazing'' development during the closing credits. Then the film opened at the Nuart theater in Los Angeles--where, according to Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times, it played with the warning, ``No one will be allowed to leave the theater during the last five minutes of this film.'' He agreed that it was ``essential to stay through the end credits.'' All charged up, I saw ``Dadetown'' and then, somewhat perplexed, watched the closing credits on video a second time. Then I went to the Internet for other input, and found a review by the excellent James Bernardinelli. He writes: ``Whatever you do, don't leave before the final credits have rolled. Dadetown's most startling surprise is reserved for them.'' Nothing in the closing credits had surprised me. But before I discuss them in detail, let me describe the movie. ``Dadetown'' begins with the information that it started out as a 15-minute PBS documentary about the small towns of America. Developments during the shoot, however, inspired the filmmakers to stay longer, watching the town transform itself from a smokestack to a silicon economy. The film works through interviews with locals: town council members, workers at the Gorman metal works, a sheriff's deputy, a store owner, and many others--including spokesmen for API Technologies, a high-tech outfit that has relocated to Dadetown's bucolic upstate New York landscape, with its low taxes and small town charm. It's hard to explain exactly what API makes, or does, or is. The initials stand for ``American Peripheral Imaging,'' and the company is ``a facility dealing in the transmission of scientific and commercial data.'' Say again? The spokesman who explains is a little sheepish, as well he might be, since he is fluent only in Corporate PR-Speak. (The school board in Oakland should have included publicity double-talk among the languages our students should speak; ebonics would be joined by euphemistics.) Dadetown's major employer, pre-API, was the Gorman plant, which during World War II had won glory by turning out aircraft parts for Grumman. It has since come down a notch or two, and produces ``small metal products,'' which is euphemistic-speak for paper clips and staples. The filmmakers visit with Gorman workers, who talk with pride about their town and their jobs. And they visit API newcomers, who are moving into new luxury homes and wishing the town had boutiques and maybe a movie theater. Then calamity strikes: Gorman lays off 150 workers, in preparation for shutting down. The economics are clear. For the cost of 10 tons of paper clips in Dadetown, 120 tons can be made in Asia. The town is in an uproar. Local elections are affected. A beloved, recently deceased councilman might have agreed to a shady settlement. The Gorman workers are out of jobs. There's a building boom for nice new API homes, but dozens of Gorman workers' homes flood the market. And then we arrive at the famous end titles. What do they reveal that is so stunning? Read no further unless you want to know . . . that the documentary is a fake. ``Dadetown'' is a fiction film masquerading as a documentary. It had a script and actors. I was underwhelmed. I didn't know the secret when I saw the film, but it was clear to me from the film's opening moments that it was fiction--not only because of obvious clues, but because any sophisticated viewer can just plain *tell* by listening closely to the tones and nuances of the dialogue. The most perplexing and fascinating documentary I have ever seen is Errol Morris' ``Gates of Heaven,'' about pet cemeteries in California. Its dialogue and developments are so remarkable that many feel it must be fiction. But, no, you can sense instinctively that the people on screen are actually talking spontaneously to the camera, and not delivering prepared dialogue, however wonderfully worded. (I checked; the people were real.) By the same token, I could sense that the actors in ``Dadetown'' were actors. They are good actors, for the most part, but I believe that no actor is good enough to deliver fictional dialogue as if it is real and get away with it for very long. (Some of John Cassavetes' movies come close.) Yet all the reviews I've mentioned preserved the ``secret'' that the movie was a fake, as if audiences would be astonished by the end credits. As I was watching it, I recalled Barbara Kopple's ``American Dream'' (1992) about the tragic Hormel strike in Austin, Minn. No one who has seen Kopple's documentary footage of displaced workers could mistake similar scenes in ``Dadetown'' for the real thing. Apart from my disenchantmen
[PEN-L:10517] [E-NODE] HOW ELECTRIFYING THE INTERNET WILL SCREW WORKING
E N NOOOE
E NN N O O D D E
N N N O O D D
E N NN O O D D E
E N NOOOE
Vol 3, No. 3
May 1997
To subscribe to this monthly newletter on information
technology and society, send the message "subscribe" to
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
HOW ELECTRIFYING THE INTERNET
WILL SCREW WORKING FAMILIES
-- Nathan Newman, [EMAIL PROTECTED], Progressive Communications
As commentators gush about Dell conducting $1 million per day of
Internet commerce or other companies making those first tentative steps
onto business on the Information Superhighway, the electricity industry is
quietly launching $50 billion of transactions onto the World Wide
Web--leading a revolution not only in electronic commerce but in the
utility industry itself. Unfortunately, while the technology of this
change is remarkable, the politics of this electricity "deregulation"
promises to screw working families in order to benefit big business.
First the technology: Mandated by the Federal Energy Regulatory
Commission (FERC) as part of creating new national markets for purchasing
electricity, the new Open Access Sam-Time Information System (OASIS) will
become the new marketplace for utilities and energy producers to reserve
and purchase energy and reserve transmission capacity to distribute that
energy to markets across the country. With a system compared to an
airline reservation system, , each utility (or in the new welter of
acronyms, Transmission Provider), is required to continually update the
total transmission capacity of their individual area while listing the
available transmission capacity (ATC) at any moment. Any producer of
energy may request a "seat" on a utility's electricity grid from one point
to the next, possibly across as many as a dozen grids to a final
destination. This request is effected by thousands of other energy
producers attempting to place similar transmission reservations all asking
for a similar "seat" to get the best price at the right "departure" time.
The continuous nature of power distribution makes the real-time aspects of
Internet information exchange critical to the whole system as power
producers seek to sell their energy to utilities, which in turn will
retail it to their consumers (or will have multiple "power marketers"
competing to offer it to consumers). In order to enforce fair
competition, utilities are being forced to separate their functions into
three kinds of divisions: retail marketing, power production, and
transmission provider functions. Utilities are now required to provide
transmission information to their other divisions in exactly the same way
they do to competitors to those other divisions and must post to OASIS and
charge itself the same way potential customers would be charged. The
motivation for using the Internet, embodied in what is known as FERC Order
889, was to create standardized access to information with no time-based
advantages for any competitor. All utilities with transmission capacity
would now be required under the rule to post a common set of data about
that capacity on the Net in consistent data formats with common
transmission protocols. Those Internet information standards were seen as
even more critical as many states moved beyond the federal creation of
competition in the sale of energy to utilities themselves (a $50 billion
per year enterprise) to allowing competition in the direct sale of power
to retail customers (a $200 billion potential marketplace). Inspired by
foreign experiences with retail power competition in countries like Great
Britain, New Hampshire became the first state in 1996 to allow selected
customers to choose between thirty different energy sellers, with
California becoming the first large industrial state the same year to open
the local energy marketplace to competition. With phase one of the FERC
mandates for availability of information on transmission capacity on the
Internet being implemented in 1997, many companies looked to 1998 when
phase II would include information on the OASIS system about retail
access, scheduling, and a financial spot market for power exchange. This
mandate by FERC would assist states in separating the functions of power
production, transmission, and marketing to customers as they drew up the
lengthy "deregulation" regulations that introduced competition into first
power production and then marketing in their regional utility regions. The
unanimous passage in August 1996 of California's AB 1890, the law that
opened up competition in the state's $23 billion electric utility
industry, will be the first large market to test the new system at the
retail level.
Much of the responsibility for t
[PEN-L:10516] FW: BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, JUNE 3, 1997 The National Association of Purchasing Management reports that growth in the manufacturing sector advanced at a faster pace in May than in April, spurred by a surge in new orders (Daily Labor Report, page A-3) Construction spending fell 1 percent in April as both private and public construction weakened, the Commerce Department reports (Daily Labor Report, page A-5). Personal income and consumer spending edge up 0.1 percent in April, the Commerce Department reports (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Economic reports are mixed. Americans' income growth slowed to a crawl in April, but a surprisingly strong manufacturing rebound in May raised fears the U.S. economy may return to a pace likely to aggravate inflation. The 0.1 percent increases in personal income and spending fit with other statistics suggesting that U.S. economic growth slowed sharply as the second quarter began, after racing at a breakneck speed during the first three months of the year. A separate report showed construction spending in April fell 1 percent, the first decline of the year. A third report, however, suggests that April's moderation might prove only a brief pause and that growth will soon return to a level likely to increase inflationary pressures. The NAPM's index of business activity advanced more than many economists had expected However, the group's prices-paid index declined (Washington Post, page C2)_Industry index in unexpected May rebound; the report counters data showing slower growth (New York Times, page D1)_Manufacturing strength picked up in May in a sign the economy's April showdown may have been short-lived (Wall Street Journal, page A2). Black male workers are lagging even further behind their white counterparts, despite the past several years of strong economic growth. Blue-collar workers face particularly daunting odds, says a Wall Street Journal article by Christina Duff (page A2) Though the latest expansion has helped both blacks and whites, it hasn't done much to narrow the gap between them. Black workers are making just 76. 5 percent of what white workers make per week -- down from the 78 percent they made in 1990. Black males, in particular, are losing ground, especially if they didn't attend college -- and only about 14 percent did The article says that a long-term shift in the workplace is part of what's holding back lower-skilled black men: an emphasis on so-called "soft skills" Charts include median weekly wages in 1996 dollars for black men: earnings of blacks as a percentage of the earnings of whites, men, and women; unemployment rates of black men and white men; and additional earnings of black male college graduates vs. black male high school graduates (Wall Street Journal, page A2). The administration kicked off an educational campaign aimed at convincing small businesses to provide at least some form of retirement benefits for an estimated 32 million workers. The program is aimed at the majority of small businesses with fewer than 100 employees that do not provide any form of pension for their employees. Labor Secretary Alexis M. Herman announced the effort saying, "There are more than 5 million firms with fewer than 100 workers, but only slightly more than 1 million of these small firms offer pension plans to their employees" (Washington Post, page C1). A new survey said more U.S. manufacturers plan to increase hiring this year, reflecting continued strength in the U.S. job market. The study, by Grant Thornton, LLP, Chicago, said 59 percent of U.S. manufacturers plan to add full-time permanent production employees this year, up from 46 percent a year earlier. About 32 percent say they plan to keep full-time staff size the same, while 7 percent plan to cut payrolls (Wall Street Journal, page A10). Workers placed by temporary agencies rose to 1.87 percent of the average daily U.S. employment in 1996, from 1.78 percent the previous year and 1.01 percent in 1991, the National Association of Temporary and Staffing Services in Alexandria, Va., says. The figure hasn't reached 2 percent, "despite 2.3 million temporary people on any given day," an NATSS spokesman says (Wall Street Journal "Work Week" column, page A1). The computer software business has risen by a rapid 12.5 percent a year to become America's third-largest manufacturing industry, according to an industry-sponsored study. It generated revenues of $102.8 billion last year, and the industry's 619,400 employees earned an average of $57,300, more than twice the national average pay of $27,900 The study, sponsored by the Business Software Alliance and done by Nathan Associates of Arlington, Va., is partly a lobbying tool Calculating size and employment is tricky in most industries, but especially so in high-technology fields. The industry classifications used
[PEN-L:10515] yet more planning & democracy
To start, I think the below is only for the more dedicated students of the
subject; most pen-lers will want to skip it. There's no real content added
in either this missive or the one it was replying to. It's also too long.
Repeating what's at stake: Max is >>still utterly unconvinced, at any rate,
of the following, which is what [he] think[s] we have been arguing about
[i.e.] that democracy facilitates planning ...<<
I wrote: > For your consideration, one way to organize planning that would
allow democracy to facilitate it:
>1) democratic control over the enterprise helps keep the managers honest
and also promotes morale and thus productivity. <
He responds:>> Sure, but that has nothing to do with planning.<<
This is true only if one defines the issues surrounding planning in the
narrowest possible way! I think it's an issue of political economy, not
narrow technical economics.
>The former (say, embodied in the ability to fire managers) encourages the
rank and file to trust the managers in their dealings with the planners. <
>>But the issue is not workers trusting managers, but enterprises (workers
and managers, abstracting from the internal hierarchy) subsuming their
interest in the plan. I don't see how democracy within the enterprise ...
has an important bearing on the relation between the enterprise and the
center.<<
I don't see any reason to abstract from the internal hierarchy. That kind
of abstraction would allow us to abstract from the class divisions which
made old Soviet-style planning even more difficult and distorted than the
usual information-based critique has it. (This is similar to Robin's recent
posting, which if I remember correctly said that the information problems
of Soviet-style material balances planning could be solved, but not its
lack of democracy.)
BTW, I was NOT advocating the enterprises "subsuming their interest to the
plan." That's the Soviet-style, hierarchical, class-ridden, way of looking
at things, one that should be rejected.
I was instead looking at how the interests of the enterprises could be
_harmonized_ with those of the planners and co-ordinate with a mutually-
agreed-to plan. The plan depends not only on what the technocrats at some
future Gosplan want but what the enterprises (and especially the enterprise
rank-and-file) want. Negotiation, not dictation, is the goal.
> 2) in addition to various generally-accepted rules and regulations which
would apply to all enterprises in order to encourage the communication of
accurate information to the planners, it seems reasonable to presume that
a<
In response to this fragment (which makes no sense at all given the way he
mangles it), Max writes that: >>You treat this casually, but it is the crux
of the problem. Calculation is susceptible to technological advance (though
the magnitude of calculation and information involved still dwarfs existing
computer capacity, in my view). The problem is getting accurate information
and having the plan's instructions carried out without the eye and hand of
God behind every economic agent.<<
Max, this is a BS way of arguing (first, slicing and dicing what I said and
then ignoring what I said). I was NOT talking about the calculation issue
(that's point 6, below). In fact, I WAS talking about the information issue
-- and the political economy of the issue of cooperation of the
participants with the plan.
The key issue -- one that applies under capitalism too, by the way, and
will apply just as strongly in the ideal social democratic dream -- is the
principal/agent problem. By addressing the issue which you elide, i.e., the
basis for societal consensus, I am directly addressing the issue of the P/A
problem. Rather than repeat what I said and have you again ignore it, I'll
refer interested readers to my previous missive ("more planning &
democracy").
> 6) all of these elements are made easier with simpler and more automatic
methods for making planning decisions (of the sort that Albert & Hahnel
write about).<
>>Re: my 'spaghetti' charge, this seems to contradict all the emphasis on
democracy.<<
This assertion assumes [or seems to assume since accusations of presenting
"spaghetti" seem meaningless at best] that people will never democratically
agree to having their various organizations should fit together in a
coherent, rational, way. On a more abstract level, it seems to make an
illegitimate conflation of centralization with dictatorship (or
decentralization with democracy).
To give an example: the US Congress, in conjunction with the Big Friend of
Paula Jones, can decide on a coherent plan for the nation's government:
balance the government budget within certain parameters (defend some
programs, gut the others, defined in a broad and abstract way). Within the
totally distorted one dollar/one vote parameters of capitalism, that's
democratic planning. Then, within that plan, various compromises are made
serving various special interests. The specifics of the "pla
[PEN-L:10514] request for help on AFL-CIO economics education curriculum
Dear PEN-Lers, The Center for Popular Economics and The UMass Labor Center in Amherst, MA, have been hired by the AFL-CIO to create an economics education curriculum for study groups of rank-and-file workers, called "Common-Sense Economics," and we need help finding engaging, popularly written articles (or book excerpts) on the following subjects: (1) Income inequality - not only how the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, but also how the middle is slipping down towards the bottom. (2) The federal deficit - why balancing the budget now is not a great idea, why public investment to spur economic growth is a better one. (3) The positive and necessary roles that government plays in the economy - regulating business, stabilizing the business cycle, reducing inequality, providing public goods - and how corporate interests have gained political power and in many cases prevented government from fulfilling these functions. The readings should be short and should build on people's experience with the subject matter. Humor is plus. Heavy analysis is to be avoided. Newspaper clippings are the sort of thing we're looking for. We'd really appreciate your suggestions. In addition, we will be providing a reading list for each of the topic areas listed below. These might include entire books and/or longer articles. Again, they should be accessible to a popular audience. Here are the topics: Session 1: The Economics of Power - how the power stuggle between workers and capitalists over the relative size and distribution of profits and wages shapes the economy as a whole. Session 2: A Good Job is Hard to Find - how changes in the labor market underlie the declining standard of living of workers in the U.S. Session 3: The Incredible Shrinking Standard of Living - how and why inequalities of wealth and income are increasing in this country. Session 4: Is What's Good for Wall Street Good for Main Street? - what are the political and economic obstacles to full employment, why certain powerful groups oppose full employment. Session 5: Of the People, By the People, For the People - the positive economic functions of government and why government has often not been fulfilling them. Session 6: It's a Small World After All - how corporate-led globalization has hurt U.S. workers and communities and how more worker- and community-friendly rules of the game would lead to more beneficial outcomes. Session 7: Reclaiming Our Economy - strategies for the labor movement to build political and economic power. Any and all input will be most welcome. Hope to hear from some of you. Eric Verhoogen Center for Popular Economics
[PEN-L:10512] The latest high tech merger
World Wide Web giants Netscape and Yahoo have announced their plans to merge to become the world's largest internet provider. The new firm will be located in Israel and will be known as: Net'n'yahoo. This coincidentally coincides with the merger of El Al Airlines and Al- Italia Air Lines to be based in Rome and will be known as "Vell I'll tell ya."
[PEN-L:10511] Jane Kersey on APEC -- long
http://www.carleton.ca/~shick/kelsey.htm DEMYSTIFYING APEC Dr. Jane Kelsey APEC (the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum) is hard to get a grip on. Unlike the European Union (EIJ) it is avowedly not a trade bloc. Operating under the slogan 'open regionalism', APEC exists to service the needs of capital and promote its optimal expansion through unregulated markets, unrestrained foreign investment and unrestricted trade- firstly among its own members, then globally by ratcheting up the process in other parts of the world. What is APEC APEC has no institutional or bureaucratic structure, nor even a set of binding agreements of the kind the North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) does. Instead it operates through a secretive annual cycle of ministerial meetings, scripted by meetings of officials and coordinated by a small secretariat in Singapore. The agenda, deliberations and outcomes of those meetings are visible only to those with privileged access, either as representatives of the member 'economies' or as official observers. The latter are limited to the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC), APEC's Business Advisory Council and the South Pacific Forum. It is impossible for any outsider to participate. A different member takes the chair of APEC each year and. depending on who it is, can wield considerable influence on the direction in which APEC moves. Commitments made by APEC members are described as voluntary and non- binding. That is formally true: APEC toes not directly regulate its member's economies. Agreement is reached by consensus; commitments are not binding on members: there is no formal dispute resolution process; and APEC has no enforcement powers. Peer pressure is meant to push governments to remove restrictions faster than they would on their own, and to minimize the risk of retreat. However, recent progress has been too slow for the Anglo-American members (US, Australia Canada and New Zealand) and they have begun pressing behind the scenes for a more legalistic, binding approach. While there are no formal criteria for membership of APEC, actual or promised liberalization is a de facto condition of entry. It is not clear where the APEC 'region' begins and ends. The 'Asia Pacific' is an artificial construct, with no natural geographical boundaries no common historical, D cultural social base, and no distinct or coherent identity of its own. It spans a diversity of small, middle and major powers with conflicting domestic concerns and in international alliances and interests. The 18 members comprise the six ASEAN countries of Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Brunei, plus Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea South Korea and United States.. Yet the US and Canada have no obvious non-economic link to Asia. Australia and New Zealand have some geographical contiguity, but little more. Some obvious participants like China and countries of the South Pacific wore originally omitted altogether, most of the latter still are. The ASEAN countries who are integral to Asia have been least enthusiastic about the project. Indeed, Malaysia has actively promoted the idea of an East Asian Economic Caucus which would leave the US, Canada Australia and New Zealand out. A three year moratorium on membership was imposed in 1993. A number of countries, including Vietnam and India, are now seeking to join. The 1996 meeting in Manila will have to decide whether to take in new members and if so, an what criteria. Concern has been expressed that the inclusion of India, in particular, would significantly alter the dynamics of APEC, because of India's size, the intense domestic opposition to its structural adjustment program, and the difficulties India already faces in meeting its commitments under the Uruguay Round of the GATT/WTO. APEC has always been market driven and is heavily influenced by big business and private sector free marketeers. It mainly relies for research on the tripartite think tank of business representatives, academics and officials acting in their own capacity' known as the PECC, which operates through specific task groups, forums and sponsored studies. It bas had formal observer status at APEC meetings from the start Between 1993 and 1995, APEC sought guidance on its vision from an ad hoc Eminent Persons Group (EPG), made up of radical free traders nominated by APEC members. Its reports were highly influential during that time in pushing APEC rapidly down the 'free trade and investment' road. But it was also perceived as heavily US driven, and far too ideological to be of practical use. Its role has since been assumed by the new Business Advisory Council (BAC), whose first report in Osaka in 1995 urged the accelerated implementation of Uruguay Round and APEC commitments, and expansion of APEC's mandate. Originally the
[PEN-L:10510] Kuttab, his US employers, & torturing Palestinians into submission (fwd)
FYI Shawgi Tell Graduate School of Education University at Buffalo [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Forwarded message -- Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 11:17:21 -0700 From: MID-EAST REALITIES <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Kuttab, his US employers, & torturing Palestinians into submission MID-EAST REALITIES - Kuttab works for the Americans, others don't ** TORTURING PALESTINIANS - It's really the Americans ** To receive MER weekly send a reply message with words "SEND MER". [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** For past MER information: WWW.MiddleEast.Org - DAOUD KUTTAB GETS WHITE HOUSE HELP OTHER PALESTINIANS TORTURED TO DEATH MER - Washington - 6/3/97: While the White House was busy protesting Arafat's police arresting Daoud Kuttab -- a Palestinian essentially working for the Americans through the thin veil of an organization known as InterNews -- a Palestinian was being tortured to death by the Israelis. Kuttab was never in any real danger -- and in the end he praised Arafat, ceased his broadcasts, and is enjoying all the attention. The Americans have created a journalist and hero out of a very ordinary Palestinians who has no significant accomplishments to his name and who is known for being an opportunist despised by many who know him. Khalid Abu Dayyeh, and large numbers of Palestinians did need serious help, however. He was being tortured, now he is dead, and even the story of what happened to him has been lied about by the Israelis -- something they get away with because so much of the press allows them to and because the Americans refuse to step in. For Kuttab the Americans held back visas, monies, and insisted he be freed from Arafat's jails. For Abu Dayyeh and so many others the Americans do worse than their silence; they actually make the money and guns available in ever greater amounts to those willing to ratchet up the intimidation and the repression. These days ordinary non-opportunist and non-American-employed Palestinians are being grossly abused, severely intimidated, and sometimes tortured to death, by both the Israeli government and the "Palestinian Authority" it serves. In the end, however, it is the American government that bears the real responsibility for this terrible state of affairs; and the American press that does such a terrible job of exposing the realities while usually reporting the lies. The Israeli lie, for instance, that Abu Dayyeh was arrested for trying to steal a gun from a soldier in occupied East Jerusalem never made much sense. The following article from PALESTINE TIMES about what really did happen seems alot more credible: "H o s p i t a l " o r " P l a c e o f T o r t u r e " Occupied Jerusalem- From Khalid Amayreh (30/5/1997) Khalid Ayesh Abu Dayyeh, 37, who died on 16 May of brain hemorrhage at West Jerusalem's Share T'zedek hospital , was not the first Palestinian to die of torture at an Israeli hospital. However, the circumstances surrounding his death provided a fresh testimony to the utter savagery and bestiality with which Palestinians detainees are routinely maltreated at the hands of Israeli interrogators. Abu Dayyeh was actually beaten to death "inside the hospital" where he was supposed to receive treatment. Hence, rather paradoxically, the very people who were supposed to provide medical care for him, killed the helpless Palestinian deliberately, by beating him on the head until he was no longer alive. Khalid's fatal saga began on 4 May when he headed for the Al Aksa Mosque for prayer. There at the Mosque's entrance, he was stopped by four Israeli soldiers who started making sarcastic and obscene remarks about Islam and the Prophet Muhammed. According to his mother, Khalid (a practicing Muslim) could not bear hear the Jews mock Islam's Holy Book and Prophet. And as he sought o defend his religion's dignity (verbally), the four soldiers attacked him savagely, handcuffed him, and took him to the notorious Russian Compound detention center, often referred to by Palestinian detainees as the "butchery of the Shabak." There Khalid was reportedly subjected to various forms of severe torture, particularly beatings. Consequently, Khalid sustained serious injury in the neck which necessitated his transfer to the Share T'zedek hospital in West Jerusalem. Khalid had called his mother shortly before he was taken to the hospital. He told her "not to worry" and that he would be released in a few days. But that was the last time she heard his voice. Khalid died almost immediately after he arrived at the hospital. The Israeli authorities initially sou
[PEN-L:10509] Labour Films
For a real documentary on collective bargaining, see the CBC/NFB film "Final Offer" which is a film of the Canadian UAW-General Motors negotiations in 1984 (?) which led not only to a different pattern of agreements in Canada but also to the breakoff of the Cdn Automobile Workers from the UAW. It is an incredible documentary in that both parties allowed the cameras into their negotiations and into the union caucus sessions. (It also comes with a language warning -- this is the real stuff.) Paul Phillips, Economics and Labour Studies, University of Manitoba
[PEN-L:10508] Re: bio-determinism
At 07:33 PM 6/2/97 -0700, Colin wrote:
>A. Main point: Ehrenreich & MacIntosh wrote that "postmodernists"
>resist arguments about the role of biology in social phenomena, and
>that these postmodernists are resistant for reasons "eerily similar"
>to those motivating fundamentalist Christians, who are represented as
>having a dogmatic attachment to a certain notion of human nature and
>the position of humans with respect to the natural world.
>
>Wojtek reproduced this line of thought in a post on Friday, writing:
>
>> The only difference in the subject matter area that still can be maintained
>> is that between "naturwissenschaften" (or what is called science in English)
>> and "geisteswissenschaften" ("cultural sciences" or humanities), and this
>> indeed is the major (if not the only) battle zone over reductionsim. Since
>> the realm of spririt is where "human uniqueness" seems to reside, this is
>> really an ideological battle over the unique position of "man" in the
>> universe. For the very same reason, most of the contemporaries vehemently
>> rejected the Copernican theory, sticking to the empirically indwadequte
>> Ptolemaic system -- for the Copernican system removed the Earth, the "man's"
>> habitat, from its central position in the universe.
>
>In which, again, anyone who argues for a nature-culture divide is
>tarred as tantamount to a religious dogmatist ("for the very same
>reason"). I protested this specious reasoning, pointing out that one
>can sustain nature-culture divides for a number of very different
>fundamental reasons.
I reply: First, I did not use the term "religious dogmatis" let alone
stipulated that comparison to a religion amount to "tarring." IMV, religion
is just a mode of knowing, akin to science, except that it sometimes attmpts
to address ontological questions without having adequate tools. Since
religion's method of verification is limited to logical consistency and
illustration (invoking supporting evidence while ignoring contradictory one
-- juts like neo-classical economic theory, BTW), it naturally views
everything from an exclusive human perspective, and that is only step away
from claiming human uniqueness. If one takes a radical social
constructivist position, one essentially places him/herself on the same
epistemological ground: everything one claim is considered as a subjective
perception of thinking subject, and that is only one step away from claiming
that the only objective reality is the thinking subject (which is exactly
what Rene Descartes did in his cogito).
Since when finding commonalities is considerd "tarring?" Of course, I do
not consider what Pat Robertson, Christian Coalition and kindred zealots say
as a "mode of knowing" religious or otherwise. They use ideas, including
religious ideas, the way drunks use street lamps -- for support rather than
enlightenment.
>
>In his latest point Wojtek now says "it was the distinctenss in general
>not its particular form (such as centrality) I was arguing about."
>Either he is backing away from the above-quoted position (and hence
>from Ehrenreich & MacIntosh) or there is an argument missing.
Au contraire. Centrality is but one possible form of calimed uniqueness of
human condition, and I tried to deconstruct more than just that one form.
As far as "Ehnrenreich & McInosh's ideas" are concerned, I consider myself a
scientist not a literary critic and I do not recognise intellectual property
rights. If I find and element in someone's thinking that I like, I use
without necessarily buying the whole package and wondering whetehr my usage
of that idea is consistent with the "intent of the author, or whatever else
that author happened to say." I think that Ehrenreich's idea of common
epistemology between two intellectual trends that otherwise stand in two
opposing political camps is an intersting one, her agenda of making that
claim (imputed or real) notwithstanding.
>It's difficult to tell because Wojtek seems to veer away from this
>question and instead devotes a good chunk of his post to arguing
>against the nature/culture divide per se. He's of course welcome to
>his own position, but not to conflationist arguments about those who
>hold other positions.
>
>B. Point on the construction of knowledge in natural science: the
>wiggle-word here is "compartmentalization." Terry made what I took
>to be an ontological argument for the need for different kinds of
>knowledge, but one which was precisely and carefully non-
>compartmental. Biology requires chemistry and is in important
>ways inextricable from it, but natural history cannot be worked out
>from chemical (or physical) first principles.
I reply: Somehow, I fail to see how you can maintain the argument of
irreducability without maintaining that reality itself is naturally (i.e
assuming the basence of the thinking subject making distinctions) divided
into different realms, each addressed by differnet science. Without making
th
[PEN-L:10507] On Russia, forwarded from L. Turgeon
Forwarded message: Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 11:22:47 -0400 (EDT) From: "LYNN TURGEON, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF ECONOMICS, HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY, [EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Michael, Someone on Pen-l might be interested in this. LT To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-UID: 5669 From: IN%"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" "David Johnson" 2-JUN-1997 17:49:08.20 To: IN%"(Recipient list suppressed)" CC: Subj: Matt Taibbi: How USAID Helped Anatoly Chubais Screw Russia Return-path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 02 Jun 1997 17:49:03 -0400 (EDT) Date: Mon, 02 Jun 1997 14:57:55 -0400 From: David Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Matt Taibbi: How USAID Helped Anatoly Chubais Screw Russia To: (Recipient list suppressed) Johnson's Russia List 2 June 1997 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ** From: "Mark Ames" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: BogUSAID Date: Mon, 2 Jun 1997 22:25:37 +0400 Dear David, Sorry it took so long to get this piece to you--u nas svoi poryadok (we have our own way of doing things), as the Russians would say. Glad that the USAID story is still hot. By the way it was Jonas Bernstein who got the scoop on the letter that Chubais sent to USAID asking Harvard to be cut off. Chubais is a machine, a late-20th c. Machiavelli. It's damn impressive --how evil he is. Basically, when he decided to throw in his lot with the bankers and the Central Bank against Vasilyev and the budding Federal Securities Commission, he took Vasilyev's advisors (i.e. Harvard) down first. What impressed us was how he then turned the issue around, speaking to reporters "in English" of course, and made it a Russian nationalism issue by saying that the whole campaign against his Harvard "friends" is being orchestrated by American anti-Russian interests. I wonder how Chubais treated his grandmother--one doubts he passed up an evening with the Komsomol club to console her in her last days. Here's Matt's piece. It comes with a prank we played on death star pr firm Burston Marstellar. Thanks again. Mark >From The eXile BogUSAID How USAID Helped Anatoly Chubais Screw Russia by Matt Taibbi Whenever they travel overseas, most Americans are aware that the locals hate them, but few know why. Usually Americans ascribe bad blood to jealousy. Iranian flag-burning mobs? Uneducated, unfortunate and misguided people, afraid of progress. Okinawans? Sore losers, still mad that we invented the bomb first. Russians? A gang of layabouts, too used to the security of communism, afraid of the hard work and responsibility necessary in the free enterprise system. Russians' hostility to us, we think, couldn't have anything to do with our foreign policy; after all, we're donating hundreds of millions of dollars in aid, and you can't expect more than that. Or can you? Just as Americans are quick to forget that their government once propped up the brutal Shah of Iran-that there is a reason why Iranians are constantly blowing up their planes and taking them hostage-they're very quick to avoid the reality of their foreign aid policy to Russia. New reports have revealed that the American way of distributing aid has become a process so corrupt, inefficient and shortsighted that in Russia, at least, it has achieved exactly the opposite of America's stated objectives. It has fostered broad anti-American sentiment and meddled heavily in domestic politics while lining the pockets of scores of American consultants and achieving next to nothing in building lasting democratic and free-market institutions. In fact, if a recent report by George Washington University scholar Janine Wedel is to be believed, the U.S. government in Russia has done even worse than that: it has energetically pursued a policy of circumventing Russian parliamentary processes to bring about the rise of a small group of politicians who have ushered in a corrupt new oligarchical government, one that has stripped the ordinary Russian of what little political and economic power he had before 1991. The thrust of Wedel's report, entitled "Clique-Run Organizations and U.S. Economic Aid: An Institutional Analysis," is that the United States government's Russian aid policy has been limited to supporting Anatoly Chubais and his "St. Petersburg mafia"-- a team of reformers which includes Maxim Boyko and consists mainly of people Chubais knew during his university days in Leningrad. The report argues that in giving financial support for Chubais' reform programs, most notably the voucher program and privatization, the U.S. has actually intended to finance not reform, but the advancement of Chubais' personal political career. Wedel's report, which first reached Russian readers when it was mentioned in an article in "Obshaya Gazeta" in March, argues that foreign aid allowed the St. Petersburg "mafia" to seize political power by distributing aid as communist leaders had once distributed goods and materials: "By serving as the chief recipients and hence distributors of foreign aid, the new political l
[PEN-L:10506] What Is a B.A. Worth?
June 3, 1997 By THOMAS GEOGHEGAN CHICAGO -- It may be a good year in the job market for new college graduates, but in the 1990's a surprising number of them have found that a B.A. is not all that it's cracked up to be. Median income for a college graduate, of course, is still much higher than median income for a high school graduate. But the median income of recent college graduates fell in the first half of the 1990's, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington research group. Through most of this decade, the percentage of college graduates in "non-college jobs" has been remarkably high. At least one in five employed B.A.'s was in a non-college job, according to a 1994 survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the latest such study available. Supply and demand apply even to college graduates. Yet many New Democrats, including President Clinton, seem to tout college as the answer to our scandalous income inequality. This is at least part of the reason for President Clinton's proposed $1,500 tax credit -- he wants to make the first two years of college "universal." The President has also proposed a $5,000 tax deduction for college education or job training. Is this the Big Idea of Neo-Liberalism: Draft all of us into college? Of course, college tuition is absurdly high. There should be more opportunity and more college aid for the less well off. But we won't slow our rising inequality just by jamming more and more kids into college. First, a college degree is no guarantee of anything. The median annual income of Americans in the work force with no more than a B.A. degree barely nicked $34,000 last year. And the thing about median income is that a whole lot of college graduates make less. Besides, if America doubles or triples the supply of B.A.'s, this might lower the median income. Second, if kids go to college because high school jobs are so terrible, they may end up with these jobs anyway. If one in five employed B.A.'s is already in a non-college job, just what would happen if there's a doubling of the percentage of college graduates now in the work force, a figure that now stands at about 20 percent? What does the Bureau of Labor Statistics define as a college job? Manager of a Blockbuster video store? Yes. Assistant manager of Blockbuster? Maybe. Legal secretary? Can be. Police officer? Perhaps. Claims adjuster? Maybe. In many such occupations, a "college job" is just one where the boss prefers to hire someone with a college degree, and someone with a B.A. in fact takes the job. Willy Loman's job would today be called a college job. In the 1990's it comes with the territory. Then there are the real non-college jobs. There are B.A.'s selling ties at big downtown department stores. Now some college graduates do this voluntarily. But many have no choice. A study financed by the MacArthur Foundation found that 9.2 percent of the working poor in Chicago have B.A.'s. True enough, holding a non-college job is a temporary condition for some. But the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the percentage of B.A.'s in non-college jobs is high in all age groups. It's true that B.A.'s may have a shot at some of the best non-college jobs. But is that slight advantage worth the high cost of tuition (even with the Clinton tax credit)? In the end, "universal college" could end up as a kind of surcharge for the same "Dilbert"-type or sub-"Dilbert" jobs that workers would have gotten anyway. S houldn't the United States be making non-college jobs more attractive, by making non-college work better paid -- through union power and collective bargaining? We forget that in the 1970's, before union busting, the income of high school graduates generally rose as fast as the pay of those with college degrees. Indeed, when college graduates went to work in the 1970's, college income began to wobble. Why? Plain supply and demand. Richard Freeman, a noted labor economist at Harvard, even wrote a book in 1976 called "The Overeducated American." True, once unions collapsed in the 1980's, the income of college graduates rose much faster than high school graduates'. But that was far from true in other countries. In Germany and the Netherlands, for example, the gap between college graduates' income and the pay of high school graduates actually decreased over the same period. And in many developed countries, like Japan and France, there was little or no increase in the gap. It's true that if I were advising an 18-year-old, I would say go to college. But "universal college" is no universal panacea. What makes sense for one 18-year-old will not necessarily raise the income of the whole country. The fallacy here is pointed out by Douglas Huff in his classic, "How to Lie With Statistics," a book some college freshman have to read. One of Mr. Huff's favorite examples is the relation between college education and income: Does college really raise income, he asks, or is it just a way we "sort out" who
[PEN-L:10505] French elections
>From the NY TIMES, Monday June 2, >By voting [the Socialist] party back into >office just four years after it suffered a >crushing defeat, the French have >expressed their deep reservations about >the American-led economic reforms >they see sweeping the world. Far from >suggesting opportunity, globalization is >widely equated here with menace and >with the country's 12.8 percent >unemployment. "The essential message >is that our entire political system is in >crisis," said Philippe Séguin, a leader of >President Jacques Chirac's defeated >Gaullist Party. "The French continue to >look for the means to master the new >world that is upon them and that they do >not want to equate always with >regression and loss of jobs." The significance of the French elections is magnified by the fact that it follows on the heels of last year's general strike and mobilization against Juppe's neo-liberal policies. Seventy-five percent of French voters polled said that the main issue for them was jobs and unemployment. Might we even presume that Jospin is aware of the unique popular dimension of his party's electoral victory? Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [and in spreadsheets] [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
[PEN-L:10504] Re: Labor films
At 03:09 PM 6/2/97 -0700, Louis Proyect wrote: >The reason that you put "documentary" in quotes should be spelled out. >There is no such town as Dadetown and the film-makers simply created a >"faux" documentary which turned many people off. I suspect that the >film-makers were more interested in making a statement about signifiers >and spectacle rather than the plight of the working class. I did not mention this for the obvious reason that the film is much more interesting without knowing it is a "real". I was being respectful to people who have not seen the film. That being said it is a great film that has been extremely well recieved by everyone I know who has seen it. The charge it has "more" to say about "signifiers and spectacle" than the "plight" of the working class was not my experience. I do have a lot to say about its narrative structure (all positive) but the request was about good labor films and *Dadetown* is that. I found it a very powerful movie on the plight of the 90's worker (you know the one's without powerful unions and being represented by community leaders selling every possible shread of integrity to any corporate bidder). I could say a lot more but why listen to me, the film speaks for itself--it is well worth the effort to find it and watch it. Peace, Jim Westrich "Ideas improve. The meaning of words participates in the improvement. Plagiarism is necessary. Progress implies it. It embraces an author's phrase, makes use of his expressions, erases a false idea, and replaces it with the right idea." Guy Debord , *The Society of the Spectacle*, ch. 8, sct. 207 (1967; tr. 1977).
[PEN-L:10503] FW: BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, JUNE 2, 1997 Slightly more than half of the largest US. employers now offer work at home or job sharing arrangements to their employees, according to a survey of 519 companies by the management consulting firm of Watson Wyatt Worldwide The survey found that 51 percent of large companies and 31 percent of all respondents allow employees to work from home, an arrangement that is most popular in communications and publishing firms, as well as in electronics, computer, and software industries, according to the survey. Job sharing arrangements in which workers split the responsibilities of one position is an option at 50 percent of companies with more than 5,000 employees and at 26 percent of all firms in the survey Large companies reported that, over the past five years, the percentage of their workforce sharing jobs has risen by 81 percent and the number of employees who work from home has risen 70 percent, Watson Wyatt said, adding that the trend is likely to accelerate since 90 percent of the large companies expect more employees to work from home in the next two to three years and 75 percent predict more job sharing among their workers (Daily Labor Report, page A-6). After rising briskly for four years, prices for used cars have begun to fall and the effects are rippling through the auto industry, according to The New York Times (May 31, page A1) Used-car prices climbed 4 to 9 percent a year from 1992 through 1995. Auto industry officials attributed the rise to the greater durability of cars, the wider availability of used-car warranties, and a growing public acceptance of low-mileage, late model used cars as an alternative to new cars. But retail prices for used cars, as measured by part of the CPI, have fallen 2 percent in the last 12 months, even as new car prices have inched up by nine-tenths of 1 percent Stronger exports and more inventory accumulation caused the Commerce Department to upwardly revise estimates for GDP to a robust annual rate of 5.8 percent in the first quarter of 1997. The surge in real GDP is the highest quarterly increase since a 6 percent gain in the fourth quarter of 1987. Analysts expect a slowdown in the second quarter of 1997 as consumer spending slackens from the frantic pace of the first quarter and businesses hold back production to sell off inventories (Daily Labor Report, page D-3). __Analysts broadly expect the economy to cool after the steamy pace of the first quarter -- when it grew at 5.8 percent -- and the last three months of 1996 -- when growth was a robust 3.8 percent. But beyond the certainty growth will cool, it is less clear what the summer will hold. Economists split on whether the economy will be resilient or if it could hold some downside risks (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). __The U.S. economy grew in the first three months of this year at a faster rate than earlier estimated, but a senior Fed official said that since then growth "clearly is starting to slow down". The Commerce Department raised its estimate of first quarter growth Coming at a time of low unemployment, the unusually rapid growth sparked concerns that it could cause an increase in inflation Meanwhile, in a separate report, the Commerce Department provided what analysts said is added evidence of slowing. Sales of new homes fell 7.7 percent in April, after rising 2 percent in March. The April figure was close to the selling pace of the final three months of last year (Washington Post, May 31, page D1; New York Times, May 31, page 23). __Corporate profit margins climbed to 11.8 percent of output in the first quarter from 11.5 percent at the end of last year, the Commerce Department said, suggesting that companies have room to absorb some cost increases without raising prices (Wall Street Journal, page A2). In an article on internships, The Washington Post (June 1, page H4) says that workers gain experience and contacts through them, while employers get a chance to try before letting someone fly A 1996 survey of 434 members of the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a professional association of human resources professionals who hire college graduates, found that 70 percent of employers require new hires to have had internships or other job training. Work experience was second only to "major" on the list of factors used to screen students for interviews. Sixty-one percent of the respondents said they offer summer internship programs, and 96 percent of those said they use the programs to find permanent employees. On average, nearly half of summer interns were offered full-time positions When companies were downsizing and slashing payrolls, many laid off executives decided to start their own businesses. Now, with a booming job market, many executives have decided it's easier and more secure to work for someone else, reports
