[PEN-L:1887] Re: A + B Theorem
William Ryan wrote: 1. John Legge writes: Li Feng's model shows a strong rate of growth in the rate of profit as technological progress occurs...one can imagine workers bargaining for a share in this "rent from technological growth"... This diametrically contradicts the A + B theorem. whose A + B theorem is that? Foster Catchings? Expressed in purely financial terms, the A + B theorem concludes that the general rate of profit must diminish to nothing as technological progress occurs, if sales of increasing production are limited to the reflux from salaries, wages and dividends paid during the course of production. This results from the differentially greater rate of growth of the "B" circuit as compared to the "A" circuit, funded ultimately by bank credit--which leads to the hypercompetitive struggle for foreign markets. Tugan-Baranowsky argued that capitalist accumulation can realize the excess product that can't be purchased by salaries, wages, etc. Keynes had a similar argument: based on borrowed money or accumulated savings, capitalists can spend on investment, so that aggregate demand is C + I, not simply C (ignoring G and NX). "Animal spirits" (concerning expected future profitability) can motivate capitalsits to do this. One can hardly imagine that immiserated workers, who are being continuously displaced from the productive process and their sovereign role as consumers of their own product, as being in a position to "bargain" for anything. In this context, the displacement of labor need not equate to unemployment, but to labor's undercompensation. it is possible, as in the late 1960s, that the progress of accumulation would pull up wages (since creating and installing plant and equipment requires labor-power). The result of "immiseration" (stagnant wages relative to labor productivity growth) depends on supply-side conditions in the labor-power market. 2. The human mind does not function logically or mathematically but logistically or metaphorically. This *Inclusive Logistic Progression* has no excluded middle. Formal logic and mathematics are included subsets to the progression that are used by the human mind as tools of expression and creation. They are tools that are useful to us; they do not define reality. Nor do they necessarily lead to understanding. Quite often the opposite is the result. The applicability of a logical or mathematical argument to the real world depends entirely upon its premises.Just changing, adding, or removing one premise in such an argument, known, unknown or implicit, may radically alter the outcome and thereby prove anything, even the absurd. It is through creative expression that the human mind can put order to such apparent chaos. In this respect, we as humans are truly made in the "image" of God, and have the ability to participate with God in building a better world. what do you mean by "logistic"? does that mean that deductive logic is combined with inductive reasoning? Is the A + B theorem based on logic or logistics? If it's based only on logic, mightn't it be contradicted by the complexity of the real world? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
[PEN-L:1885] Fwd: Re: Vicious Holiday Sillinessboundary=part0_914810400_boundary
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --part0_914810400_boundary Happy Holidays to All eventhough personally I think that Scrooge was an advanced thinker. My daughter is learning alternatives early. For example, to the tune of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen: God rest ye merry merchants let nothing you dismay Christmas is the time of year to make the workers stay in debt throughout the coming year Thank God for charge accounts Our profits bring comfort and joy, comfort and joy, Our profits bring comfort and joy Mind you, the parents of other children think she is a victim of child abuse but I call it early ideological propholaxis. Jim Craven n a message dated 12/27/98 4:37:26 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: ubj: [PEN-L:1884] Re: Vicious Holiday Silliness Date: 12/27/98 4:37:26 PM Pacific Standard Time From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Peter Bohmer) Sender:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi Gar, Happy Holidays to you and your mom, Peter Gar Lipow wrote: For some reason this season made me think not about the real meaning of Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Ramadan, Solstice or any other holiday, but about the real meaning of Santa Claus -- and all the valuable lesson Santa teaches for living in corporate America. Think about what a kid learns on first discovering there are is no Santa Claus. She learns (if she does not already know) that authority figures lie, and that lies by authority figures are good lies, lies you are rewarded for believing, lies you should go believing for as long as possible. If (as is usual) it is another kid who tells her there is no Santa , she learns that those who expose the lies of authority figures are wicked destroyers of innocence, that the proper response to learning that an authority figure has lied is to protect others from the awful truth. -- Gar W. Lipow 815 Dundee RD NW Olympia, WA 98502 http://www.freetrain.org/ --- Headers Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Received: from rly-yc04.mx.aol.com (rly-yc04.mail.aol.com [172.18.149.36]) Received: from galaxy.csuchico.edu (galaxy.CSUChico.EDU [132.241.82.21]) by rly-yc04.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) Sun, 27 Dec 1998 19:37:25 -0500 (EST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) Sun, 27 Dec 1998 16:38:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from elwha.evergreen.edu (elwha.evergreen.edu [192.211.16.10]) Received: from [192.211.16.62] by elwha.evergreen.edu; (5.65/1.1.8.2/16Jan95-8.2MPM) Message-Id: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Peter Bohmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Accept-Language: en Mime-Version: 1.0 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:1884] Re: Vicious Holiday Silliness References: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.2.08 -- ListProc(tm) by CREN --part0_914810400_boundary Return-Path: [EMAIL PROTECTED] by rly-yc04.mx.aol.com (8.8.8/8.8.5/AOL-4.0.0) Sun, 27 Dec 1998 19:37:25 -0500 (EST) Sun, 27 Dec 1998 16:38:27 -0800 (PST) (5.65/1.1.8.2/16Jan95-8.2MPM) Date: Sun, 27 Dec 1998 16:34:16 -0800 From: Peter Bohmer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:1884] Re: Vicious Holiday Silliness Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hi Gar, Happy Holidays to you and your mom, Peter Gar Lipow wrote: For some reason this season made me think not about the real meaning of Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Ramadan, Solstice or any other holiday, but about the real meaning of Santa Claus -- and all the valuable lesson Santa teaches for living in corporate America. Think about what a kid learns on first discovering there are is no Santa Claus. She learns (if she does not already know) that authority figures lie, and that lies by authority figures are good lies, lies you are rewarded for believing, lies you should go believing for as long as possible. If (as is usual) it is another kid who tells her there is no Santa , she learns that those who expose the lies of authority figures are wicked destroyers of innocence, that the proper response to learning that an authority figure has lied is to protect others from the awful truth. -- Gar W. Lipow 815 Dundee RD NW Olympia, WA 98502 http://www.freetrain.org/ --part0_914810400_boundary--
[PEN-L:1884] Re: Vicious Holiday Silliness
Hi Gar, Happy Holidays to you and your mom, Peter Gar Lipow wrote: For some reason this season made me think not about the real meaning of Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Ramadan, Solstice or any other holiday, but about the real meaning of Santa Claus -- and all the valuable lesson Santa teaches for living in corporate America. Think about what a kid learns on first discovering there are is no Santa Claus. She learns (if she does not already know) that authority figures lie, and that lies by authority figures are good lies, lies you are rewarded for believing, lies you should go believing for as long as possible. If (as is usual) it is another kid who tells her there is no Santa , she learns that those who expose the lies of authority figures are wicked destroyers of innocence, that the proper response to learning that an authority figure has lied is to protect others from the awful truth. -- Gar W. Lipow 815 Dundee RD NW Olympia, WA 98502 http://www.freetrain.org/
[PEN-L:1883] Vicious Holiday Silliness
For some reason this season made me think not about the real meaning of Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Ramadan, Solstice or any other holiday, but about the real meaning of Santa Claus -- and all the valuable lesson Santa teaches for living in corporate America. Think about what a kid learns on first discovering there are is no Santa Claus. She learns (if she does not already know) that authority figures lie, and that lies by authority figures are good lies, lies you are rewarded for believing, lies you should go believing for as long as possible. If (as is usual) it is another kid who tells her there is no Santa , she learns that those who expose the lies of authority figures are wicked destroyers of innocence, that the proper response to learning that an authority figure has lied is to protect others from the awful truth. -- Gar W. Lipow 815 Dundee RD NW Olympia, WA 98502 http://www.freetrain.org/
[PEN-L:1882] Re: Open letter to Gennady Zyuganov
Thank you, Robert Naiman, for a well reasoned letter in an increasing confused world. Henry C.K. Liu Robert Naiman wrote: Open letter to Gennady Zyuganov from a Jewish leftist in the U.S.A. Gennady Zyuganov Russian Communist Party Dear Brother Zyuganov, Greetings. I hope my letter finds you in good health. Allow me to address you as an American Jewish leftist, as one with great concern over the suffering of Russias people, and also as one deeply concerned with the suffering of the Arab peoples of the Middle East, indeed as one who has brought medicine to Iraq in violation of the U.S. embargo and who was imprisoned by the Israeli authorities in February 1996 for attempting to nonviolently obstruct the demolition of a Palestinian home by Israeli authorities, and who remains to this day barred from Israel by the Israeli government. Let me begin my letter by expressing my deep regret for the destructive role that the United States, through its military, economic and political policies, has played in Russia, particularly for the role of the U.S., the IMF, and USAID in supporting "shock therapy" for the Russian economy, which has caused so much suffering for the Russian people. While I continue to be saddened by the suffering of the Russian people, I have been heartened by the recent moves of the Russian government to "declare independence" from the IMF and the U.S. and return to economic policies more attuned to the interests of the Russian people than to the interests of international banks and multinational corporations. However, I was quite dismayed to read recent press reports that you have recently and publicly attacked the role of "Zionist capital" in Russia, accusing it of "ruining Russias economy." I hope that these reports are not accurate. If they are not, please accept my apologies and my hope that in the future, you will bear in mind how your remarks may be distorted in the Western media and choose your words more carefully. If these reports are accurate, however, I must vigorously protest. Your remarks are being interpreted in the West a thinly veiled anti-Semitic attack. Sadly, I must agree with this assessment. In making these remarks, not only do you do a great disservice to the Jews of Russia, who must surely feel less safe today knowing that the head of the Russian Communist Party is willing to engage in anti-Semitic diatribes, you also do a great disservice to all those who struggle for more economic justice in the world and to all those who support the just demands of the Palestinian and Arab peoples for self-determination. That you do a disservice to the Jews of Russia, by making an issue of the religious or ethnic background of some of the clique around Yeltsin instead of attacking them for their specific activities, I think is obvious. That you do a disservice to those who support economic justice and Arab and Palestinian self-determination may not be so obvious to you, so let me attempt to explain. To begin, I hope that you would agree that the opinions of the newspaper-reading public in the United States are a matter of great import for the world. It should not be so; in a just and more perfect world, power would be more evenly distributed, the U.S. would not be able to push other countries around so much, and so the opinions of Americans would not matter so much. But while we should all work to reduce the power of the U.S. relative to other countries, for the foreseeable future U.S. policy will have a great impact. Now, I would not claim that we in the U.S. democratically control the U.S. government. Clearly this is not the case; our democracy is rather imperfect, to say the least. Nonetheless, public opinion does have some impact. Consider the Vietnam War as an example. The war continued long after it was deeply unpopular in the U.S. Nonetheless, popular protest shortened the war and thus saved many lives. More recently, activists opposed to the policies of the IMF succeeded in blocking the Clinton Administrations request for more money for the IMF in the U.S. House of Representatives. While the IMF eventually got the money through a backroom deal, we believe that this battle significantly weakened the IMF politically and contributed to the somewhat increased flexibility the IMF has shown recently, at least in Asia. I assume you are aware that for many years Yeltsin and his clique have been portrayed in the West as "democrats " and "reformers," who are only opposed by "remnants of the Stalinist regime" and "extreme nationalists." (The term "nationalist" in this context has the connotation not of those who defend the general public against the interests of foreign powers but of those who promote ethnic hatred and xenophobia to advance their political careers. ) With this portrayal, increasingly at odds with reality as you know, the U.S. government was able to maintain public support
[PEN-L:1881] A + B Theorem
1. John Legge writes: http://csf.colorado.edu/pkt/seminars/feng.dec98/0019.html Li Feng's model shows a strong rate of growth in the rate of profit as technological progress occurs...one can imagine workers bargaining for a share in this "rent from technological growth"... This diametrically contradicts the A + B theorem. Expressed in purely financial terms, the A + B theorem concludes that the general rate of profit must diminish to nothing as technological progress occurs, if sales of increasing production are limited to the reflux from salaries, wages and dividends paid during the course of production. This results from the differentially greater rate of growth of the "B" circuit as compared to the "A" circuit, funded ultimately by bank credit--which leads to the hypercompetitive struggle for foreign markets. One can hardly imagine that immiserated workers, who are being continuously displaced from the productive process and their sovereign role as consumers of their own product, as being in a position to "bargain" for anything. In this context, the displacement of labor need not equate to unemployment, but to labor's undercompensation. 2. The human mind does not function logically or mathematically but logistically or metaphorically. This *Inclusive Logistic Progression* has no excluded middle. Formal logic and mathematics are included subsets to the progression that are used by the human mind as tools of expression and creation. They are tools that are useful to us; they do not define reality. Nor do they necessarily lead to understanding. Quite often the opposite is the result. The applicability of a logical or mathematical argument to the real world depends entirely upon its premises. Just changing, adding, or removing one premise in such an argument, known, unknown or implicit, may radically alter the outcome and thereby prove anything, even the absurd. It is through creative expression that the human mind can put order to such apparent chaos. In this respect, we as humans are truly made in the "image" of God, and have the ability to participate with God in building a better world. And here there is no necessary requirement for God to be thought of as anything more than the *theoretical limit* to the progression. Bill Ryan: http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7018/ Get your FREE Email at http://mailcity.lycos.com Get your PERSONALIZED START PAGE at http://personal.lycos.com
[PEN-L:1880] Open letter to Gennady Zyuganov
Open letter to Gennady Zyuganov from a Jewish leftist in the U.S.A. Gennady Zyuganov Russian Communist Party Dear Brother Zyuganov, Greetings. I hope my letter finds you in good health. Allow me to address you as an American Jewish leftist, as one with great concern over the suffering of Russias people, and also as one deeply concerned with the suffering of the Arab peoples of the Middle East, indeed as one who has brought medicine to Iraq in violation of the U.S. embargo and who was imprisoned by the Israeli authorities in February 1996 for attempting to nonviolently obstruct the demolition of a Palestinian home by Israeli authorities, and who remains to this day barred from Israel by the Israeli government. Let me begin my letter by expressing my deep regret for the destructive role that the United States, through its military, economic and political policies, has played in Russia, particularly for the role of the U.S., the IMF, and USAID in supporting "shock therapy" for the Russian economy, which has caused so much suffering for the Russian people. While I continue to be saddened by the suffering of the Russian people, I have been heartened by the recent moves of the Russian government to "declare independence" from the IMF and the U.S. and return to economic policies more attuned to the interests of the Russian people than to the interests of international banks and multinational corporations. However, I was quite dismayed to read recent press reports that you have recently and publicly attacked the role of "Zionist capital" in Russia, accusing it of "ruining Russias economy." I hope that these reports are not accurate. If they are not, please accept my apologies and my hope that in the future, you will bear in mind how your remarks may be distorted in the Western media and choose your words more carefully. If these reports are accurate, however, I must vigorously protest. Your remarks are being interpreted in the West a thinly veiled anti-Semitic attack. Sadly, I must agree with this assessment. In making these remarks, not only do you do a great disservice to the Jews of Russia, who must surely feel less safe today knowing that the head of the Russian Communist Party is willing to engage in anti-Semitic diatribes, you also do a great disservice to all those who struggle for more economic justice in the world and to all those who support the just demands of the Palestinian and Arab peoples for self-determination. That you do a disservice to the Jews of Russia, by making an issue of the religious or ethnic background of some of the clique around Yeltsin instead of attacking them for their specific activities, I think is obvious. That you do a disservice to those who support economic justice and Arab and Palestinian self-determination may not be so obvious to you, so let me attempt to explain. To begin, I hope that you would agree that the opinions of the newspaper-reading public in the United States are a matter of great import for the world. It should not be so; in a just and more perfect world, power would be more evenly distributed, the U.S. would not be able to push other countries around so much, and so the opinions of Americans would not matter so much. But while we should all work to reduce the power of the U.S. relative to other countries, for the foreseeable future U.S. policy will have a great impact. Now, I would not claim that we in the U.S. democratically control the U.S. government. Clearly this is not the case; our democracy is rather imperfect, to say the least. Nonetheless, public opinion does have some impact. Consider the Vietnam War as an example. The war continued long after it was deeply unpopular in the U.S. Nonetheless, popular protest shortened the war and thus saved many lives. More recently, activists opposed to the policies of the IMF succeeded in blocking the Clinton Administrations request for more money for the IMF in the U.S. House of Representatives. While the IMF eventually got the money through a backroom deal, we believe that this battle significantly weakened the IMF politically and contributed to the somewhat increased flexibility the IMF has shown recently, at least in Asia. I assume you are aware that for many years Yeltsin and his clique have been portrayed in the West as "democrats " and "reformers," who are only opposed by "remnants of the Stalinist regime" and "extreme nationalists." (The term "nationalist" in this context has the connotation not of those who defend the general public against the interests of foreign powers but of those who promote ethnic hatred and xenophobia to advance their political careers. ) With this portrayal, increasingly at odds with reality as you know, the U.S. government was able to maintain public support for its destructive policy of supporting Yeltsin at all costs and destroying the Russian economy. I hope you will see then, that by making
[PEN-L:1875] Re: Re: Re: marginalism uber alles
G'day Bill, Of Brazil's financial swings and roundabouts, you ask: I'm curious how this mechanism works. Could you lay out the actors, and the events that occur for this to happen? I reported what happened in such general terms, 'coz that's how I got it from *The Economist*. I don't know the actual answer to this (I'm a complete finance simpleton), but I have a guestimate how it could happen. Plenty here can do much better, but I'm so grateful somebody has finally evinced some interest in Brazil, I'll put my neck on the block in the hope the inevitable corrections put my mind at ease. If a 'hedge fund' (worth scare quotes, I reckon, as the term's meaning is apparently changing) load up on the local currency over a period of time (anticipating a much-heralded IMF injection in such a strategically important economy), a few billions' worth, what situations would they be confronting when the injection does come? They know the IMF bail-outs are attempted via the finance system (after all, business has to have 'certainty', dunnit?), but they don't necessarily know what the government will do with its money (unless the IMF telegraphs its conditions - and if it were a horse, its form might well be taken as a better pointer than is the case with most conveyances, eh?). If the currency is particularly sick, they've a good chance the Brazilian government will try to put a floor under it by buying it (the government has no way of knowing such a significant amount of currency power is in one hand - no-one knows what the big hedge funds are up to - after all, they're not obliged to tell anybody under our 'transparent' system). The currency quickly exceeds the price the fund paid, and the fund unloads the lot overnight, mebbe making a billion on the spot, and also depleting the government of its borrowed reserves, and also (given the volatile ambience definitively associated with such a scenario) starting a run on the currency. This next bit, I got from Henry Lui over at LBO, who has described details of an attack on the Hong Kong Dollar in August. Suddenly out of readies, the government seeks then to protect the currency by way of interest rates (the IMF will probably demand this, anyway). As they go up, the stock market takes a kicking. Said hedge fund could just happen to taken positions 'predicting' just such a fall (they could have bought 'em up as recently as the night they dumped their billions) and they make a mint on both sides of the Brazilian coin. The fund could unload its futures winnings, too, handing the local currency yet another bath. Brazil's government is down a heap of borrowed money but its stock market is in peril now. Interest rates have to drop. If the fund decides not to unload its newly won Brazilian currency, it could just wait for the next 'IMF bail-out', and mebbe pick up some cheap futures against a stock market now apparently in recovery ... after all, no-ones fixing what is decidedly broken ... Of course the government could do something else with the IMF money. It all depends on whether the IMF will let 'em, I s'pose - but who'd bet on that? I've no doubt it's not this simple, and have some doubt it's even close, but someone'll come along in a minute, Bill ... Cheers, Rob.
