[PEN-L:4299] HELP INDIGENOUS ACTIVISTS TO GET TO HAGUE CONFERENCE
From: "viviane lerner" [EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Zohl de Ishtar [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Abolition Caucus [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Saturday, March 13, 1999 11:22 PM Subject: Assistance for Indigenous People to get to HAP INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIAN AND PACIFIC ACTIVISTS REQUIRE ASSISTANCE TO ATTEND INTERNATIONAL FORUM Dear I am writing to you to gain your financial sponsorship for ten Indigenous Australian and Pacific activists to enable them to attend the Hague Appeal for Peace Conference - the end of millenium peace conference being held in The Hague from May 11-16, 1999. The Hague Appeal for Peace Conference to be held May 11-16, 1999, is a major end-of-century international campaign and conference for peace and justice. It will commemorate the centenary of the First Hague Peace Conference, and will complete an extraordinary sequence of world conferences and summits convened during the last decade. Aiming to delegitimize war, the conference will bring together all sectors of international civil society to develop specific global strategies for disarmament and nuclear abolition, the peaceful settlement of disputes and the development of international humanitarian law. The program covers four substantive themes: disarmament, conflict prevention/resolution, humanitarian law, and culture of peace. Organized by civil society rather than governments, documentation from this conference - tabled as "The Hague Agenda for Peace" - will be presented to world governments at the parallel intergovernmental process, which will comprise high-level meetings in 1999 in The Hague, St. Petersburg, Geneva and New York. Through participating in this conference Indigenous Australian and Pacific activists will be able to place on "The Hague Agenda for Peace" issues such as: Native Title rights in Australia, Bougainvillean Peace Process, French occupation and nuclearisation of Te Ao Maohi (aka French Polynesia), the Indonesian illegal occupation and military violence in West Papua, , racism, human rights violations, uranium and other mineral mining, the proposed international nuclear waste repository planned for southern Australia, US military bases, the impacts of nuclear testing, and many other issues of the independence and nuclear free campaign of our region. The lasting effects of such an achievement can be expected to be felt for many decades into the future. Without the Indigenous Pacific contribution to this conference it will fail in its attempt to represent a global perspective. The Indigenous Australian and Pacific activists represent 4 nations: Aboriginal Australia, Bougainville, Te Ao Maohi (aka French Polynesia) and West Papua (aka Irian Jaya). These nations will join delegations from Ka Paeaina (aka Hawaii) and Aotearoa (aka New Zealand). The individuals involved are: Aboriginal Australia - Kathy Malera-Bandjalan (Malera-Bandjalan traditional custodian of Timbarra under threat of gold mining); Jacqui Katona (Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corp./ uranium mining at Jabiluka-Kakadu World Heritage Park); Christine Christopherson (Mirrar woman from Jabiluka area); Joan Wingfield (Kokotha/Arabunna people/threatened Billa Kallina nuclear waste repository). Bougainville: Lucy Madoi (Bougainville Women for Peace and Freedom, President); Marcelline Tunim (Bougainville Women for Peace and Freedom, Vice-President). (Survivors of nine year long Papua New Guinea imposed war; involved in Bougainvillean initiated Peace Process.) Te Ao Maohi (aka French Polynesia): Oscar Temaru (Tavini Huirratira, President); Lucie Pereire (Tavini Huirratira, Womens Association), Marie Bopp Du Pont (Tavini Huirratira, Youth) (Campaigning for independence, end of French colonisation and ending of military occupation, including cleanup and compensation following French nuclear testing program.) West Papua (aka Irian Jaya): John Otto Ondawame (Organisasi Papua Merdeka/Free Papua Movement); Win Zonggonau (Organisasi Papua Merdeka/Free Papua Movement, NANGO-PNG) (Campaigning for independence, against Indonesian illegal occupation, removal of Indonesian military forces, ending of human right violations.) Together these people represent some of the most significant Indigenous Australian and Pacific issues of decolonisation, demilitarisation, denuclearisation, peace and justice and reconciliation issues facing the world today. Funds Required: The full amount required is $34114. This consists of: Australia: It will cost each of these 4 women $2760 to attend the conference. Total = $11,040. Bougainville: It will cost each of these 2 women $4432. Total = $8864. (This is so high because these women have to travel to Sydney first as it is dangerous for them to travel through Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.) Te Ao Maohi (aka French Polynesia): It will cost each of these 3 people $2850. Total = $8550. West Papua: These 2 activists will require $2900 each. Total = $5660. The Indigenous Australian and Pacific attendance is being
[PEN-L:4303] Re: Re: Japan stares down Uncle Sam's 'Big Three'[fwd]
Tom Walker wrote: But as for losing the U.S. as importer of last resort -- wouldn't the loss of export volume to the U.S. be offset (to ? extent) by whatever alternative use Japan found for the cash from the liquidated U.S. Bonds? Couldn't Japan conceivably get "more bang for its yen" by priming the Asian pump rather than by propping up the American bubble? Yeah. About 30% of Japanese exports went to the U.S. in the first quarter of 1998, compared with over 50% for the "developing" countries as a whole, and 40% to "developing" Asia. Doug
[PEN-L:4304] Irony I. Was (1) Marx Justice (2)lefter-than-thou-ness
digloria[kelley]@mindspring.com wrote: yeah but catherine y'all get the kewler status of having dossiers kept on you about your activities trying to smuggle irony across the borders when you visit the states. I must confess that despite many years study of Irony I have never quite been able to understand it, at least to my own satisfaction, and I was never able to define it so my students could fully understand it. Perhaps some of the participants in this discussion (which began I believe with Marx on justice)can fill in the gaps in my understanding and correct my errors. Some forms seem pretty simple at first. The seemingly simplest and most common, for example, might be compared to a dog exposing its throat to another dog to indicate friendly intent. Wayne Booth starts out with this in his careful book on the rhetoric of irony. I don't have that book at hand now but if I remember correctly the example he gives is somewhat as follows. It is raining hard outside, and a student comes into his office dripping wet. He says to the student: "I'm glad the weather has finally turned sunny." Now this seems to fit the dictionary definition, sense 1 (AHD: "The use of words to convey the opposite of their literal meaning"), but if so it seems hardly worthy of all the praise successive generations of critics have piled on it. But Booth suggests a more complex construal, which lets us see part of the power. (It doesn't, however, explain why Kelley should think it would have to be smuggled in.) Booth's paraphrase (as I remember it) is something like this. "I know you know that it is really raining outside, so by saying it's sunny I am showing that I trust you not to think I'm stupid; I also know that you will know that I don't really think you are so stupid as to think that it's sunny outside just because a professor says so, so you will know both that I trust your intelligence and that I trust your good will, because you will neither think I'm stupid nor calling you stupid. So we can both relax and trust each other." That of course only begins to unravel the complexities of the example, and perhaps someone more skilled at glossing irony than I am can provide a better paraphrase -- and also explain to me why the U.S. should forbid the importation of such phrases, thus requiring that they be smuggled in. And of course Wayne Booth is an American, so perhaps someone can tell me who smuggled the information to him. And finally, he is (was) a professor at one of the higher institutions of learning, so I'm a little surprised (judging from comments on this list) that he should have any idea at all of what irony is, and certainly not be able to provide examples of it. Now I think there are examples of this friendly ground-breaking kind of irony in the *Iliad*, and if so they would be our oldest examples of irony in the west, but I don't have time just now to look those up so I will take up the oldest I remember right away, those in *Oedipus Tyrannus*. The Chorus of citizens begs Oedipus to search for the murderer of Laius, and his speech answering them contains the following words: Since I am now the holder of his [Laius's] office, and have his bed and wife that once was his, and had his line not been unfortunate we would have common children -- (fortune leaped upon his head) -- because of all these things, I fight in his defence as for my father. . . . If I have been misconstruing this in the many years I have taught it to ISU undergraduates it will be painful to learn that, but as Sophocles' contemporary Socrates always argued (or at least so Plato claims), it is better to know the truth no matter how painful. So if my construal is terribly wrong I hope some subscriber to this list will teach me the truth. Basically this seems to be the same as the example Booth gives; that is, it is a way of establishing trust between writer and reader (listener), and like that example involves two different levels of knowledge, but whereas in the Booth example the speaker pretends to know less than the listener, in the Sophoclean example, the pretended speaker (Oedipus) really does know less than the listener (the audience), so the words are not ironic for the speaker but they are for the listener. But actually this is misleading, for the "real speaker" is not Oedipus, who is only a mouthpiece, but Sophocles, and Sophocles, like the professor in Booth's example, is complimenting his audience on having a higher level of understanding than the nominal or fictional speaker. And with this comparison in mind, I would think of the Booth speaker as actually being two speakers, one (the dumb one) a fictional or nominal speaker, the other (the "real" one) being an intelligent speaker intent on massaging the ego of the listener. But this leads to trouble. Surely the U.S. censors would not object to a rhetorical technique aimed at massaging the ego of the reader. That seems to be the central aim of most WSJ
[PEN-L:4305] U.S. Jets Bomb again and again and again
Sunday March 14 8:05 AM ET U.S. Jets Bomb Iraqi Artillery In North ANKARA, Turkey (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes bombed Iraqi air defenses in the no-fly zone over northern Iraq Sunday, said a spokesman at the base in southern Turkey from which the jets operate. He told Reuters the planes dropped an unspecified number of bombs after ``aircraft observed Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery fire and detected Iraqi radar posing a threat to coalition aircraft.'' Such strikes have been common since Iraq decided in December actively to oppose U.S. and British jets patrolling the no-fly zones in the north and south of the country. The jets flying out of the Incirlik airbase patrol a mountainous Kurdish-held enclave and a swath of Baghdad-controlled territory around the city of Mosul. ``F-15E Strike Eagles dropped GBU-12 laser-guided bombs on several anti-aircraft artillery sites northwest and west of Mosul,'' the spokesman said. Friday jets from Incirlik also bombed anti-aircraft artillery sites after detecting Iraq radar tracking the aircraft. Iraq does not recognize the Western-enforced zones set up after the 1991 Gulf War to protect the Kurdish area in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south. NATO-member Turkey hosts the force, known as ``Operation Northern Watch,'' but has expressed concern in recent months over the policy of close ally the United States toward Turkey's southern neighbor Iraq. Earlier Stories U.S. Jets Strike Iraqi Sites In North No-Fly Zone (March 14) U.S. Jets Bomb Iraqi Targets In North No-Fly Zone (March 12) U.S. Jets Fire At Iraqi Target In North No-Fly Zone (March 12) Qatar Opposes Strikes On Iraq, Hits Go On (March 9) U.S. Jets Bomb North Iraqi Artillery Sites (March 9)
[PEN-L:4307] Re: Re: Re: Japan stares down Uncle Sam's 'BigThree'[fwd]
Jim Devine wrote: My impression is that the Japanese economy doesn't go into recessions every time the Yen rises. The US has been pushing for a higher Yen for quite awhile (and has been getting it), but Japan still has a trade surplus. Jim is correct, but in previous times Japanese exporters tended to keep prices steady and reduced their profits -- they reduced what the specialists call the "pass through". Can they do this again? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:4308] Lynn Turgeon
A memorial service for Lynn Turgeon will be held sometime this week at Hofstra University. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
[PEN-L:4311] Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Japan stares down UncleSam's 'BigThree' [fwd]
Summers, whose credibility has been irrevocably tarnished internationally by his inept handling of the global financial crisis in the past two years, gave another admonishing speech in Japan last Friday, February 26, 1999, warning Japan not to depend on a weak yen to boost its economy, using worn-out slogans such as: "the exchange rate cannot be a substitute for policy." Its an amazing posture after Rubin/Summers turned down a Japanese/EU joint proposal for a 3 currency stabilization regime last month at the G7 meeting in Bonn. Being a bit humbled by his own dismal record of first diagnosing the Asian crisis as merely transient, then IMF off-the-shelve conditionalities as the only cure, and finally non-intervention of free financial markets as a inviolable guiding principle, Summers declared vaguely this time the Krugman cure: "What I think is crucial is the recognition that the goal of price stabily include the responsibility to avoid deflation." He and Rubins declared only last month that while free markets are not perfect, all other forms intervention alternatives are worse. Now, he went to Japan and again asked the Japanese to intervene in their economy with interventionist monetary policies. Yukihiko Ikeda, a senior member of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, reported told the press: "Mr. Summers says, do this, do that. But we will continue with steps already in the works." Japanese officials are generally of the opinion that reflationary policies would further weaken the yen, due to pressure on the value of the yen from any increased supply. It may lead to further currency devaluations in other parts of Asia. The BOJ, Japan's central bank, thinks Summers is offering snake oil cures in the notion of fighting deflation with easing money supply. Meanwhile, the prime minister of Malaysia is publicly urging Japan to dump its US Treasry holding to show Asia's displeasure on US nationalistic globaliztion policies. Henry C.K. Liu "JAPAN AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMY" DEPUTY TREASURY SECRETARY LAWRENCE H. SUMMERS NATIONAL PRESS CLUB TOKYO, JAPAN Just a few months ago we faced what some called the most serious global financial crisis in 50 years. Today I would like to discuss where we are in working through that crisis -- both in terms of sustaining global demand and in terms of building an international financial system that can prevent and better contain future crises. I. The Global Economic Situation This has been quite a remarkable period in the global economy. Six months ago, in the wake of the Russian financial crisis, signs of significant strain in United States and global financial markets, and evident concerns about global growth -- the G7 warned that the balance of risks in the global economy had shifted, and emphasized their commitment to promote sustainable global growth. As Secretary Rubin and I discussed with our G7 colleagues in Bonn last weekend, since then there has been some important progress made. But very large challenges remain. Two stand out. First, there is too little growth in the global economy. The risks around the world are still very much tilted toward lack of growth, spare capacity, and slowdown -- rather than toward economic overheating. Concerns are about excess supply not excess demand. And in many places worries about rising prices have given way to concern about falling prices. Growth in Europe has weakened, and is expected to average at best 2 percent this year. While prospects for Japan also look worse than they did a few months ago, with most forecasters now expecting another year of negative growth in 1999, and IMF and private forecasts projecting a decline in prices. Second, there is too little balance in growth. Growth in the United States has been very strong, but -- at 4 percent -- very likely above long run trend sustainable rates and is giving rise to very substantial imbalances. Private sector forecasts are suggesting that the United States current account deficit rose by more than $80 billion, to $235 billion in 1998, while Japan and Europe are expected to have had current account surpluses of $95-115 billion. United States imports from emerging Asia, for example, rose by close to $12 billion last year, as compared with a nearly $20 billion decline in Japanese imports from these countries. The United States accounted for more than two-thirds of growth last year in the major industrial economies and one third of global growth. On current forecasts it will account for a similar share this year. With growth in the world increasingly dependent on the United States, and growth in the United States increasingly dependent on the American consumer, it is crucial -- both because of the slowdown directly and because of the consequences of imbalanced growth -- that we see a strengthening of global growth as an imperative for policy. And appropriate domestic policies aimed at promoting sound and sustainable growth at home can also help
[PEN-L:4313] US, Japanese, German foreign investment
Dennis, I meant US and Japan investments in Germany. You're right, interlocks between German and French and other European capital are extensive. Which is one reason why there's a euro (by the way, a German Marxist scholar visited yesterday, and he said that the euro was all about defeating the welfare state and the unions). I was careful to say "new, real investments." Meaning in the margin. Doug, I don't think your data distinguish between foreign direct investment that are merely M and A's, contrasted with the FDI that consist of the construction or addition or modification of real productive capacity. I'm speaking of the latter. I see the former mainly as a financial, property transfer transaction that may be motivated my many things..Doubtless the big "capital imports" into the US in the late 1980's pertained to a/ the much cheaper dollar after 1985; thus cheap US productive capacity and b/ Japan's surplus, when Japan was buying up anything they could get their hands on during the Great Bubble after 1985, most of which is now sold off. Again, as noted in my first posting, we have "economic" changes at root due to the politics of the US/ Japan, a strange politics indeed. Doug, do you know if there are any figures on real FDI (new buildings, new equipment, new business services, etc.) vs acquisitions only? Thanks for any help. Thanks also for the new LBO; I learned a few things and more can you say? Jim O'Connor
[PEN-L:4312] Re: Lynn Turgeon
As far as I know, the memorial will be in late April. An obituary is below. June Zaccone, National Jobs for All Coalition (and Economics (Emerita), Hofstra University) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Michael Perelman wrote: A memorial service for Lynn Turgeon will be held sometime this week at Hofstra University. Lynn Turgeon died on Wednesday, March 10th in Ann Arbor, Michigan, after a long illness. He was 78 years old. He joined the Hofstra faculty in 1957 was a Visiting Fulbright Professor of Economics at Moscow State University in 1975 and also at the Academy for Foreign Trade in Moscow in 1991. During the 1966-67 academic year he was awarded the University's Distinguished Teaching Award, bestowed upon him by Hofstra's student body. Professor Turgeon was a specialist in comparative systems, the Russian economy and Keynesian economics. A prolific writer and correspondent on the Internet, his full length books included "The Contrasting Economies", "The Advanced Capitalist System", "State and Discrimination", and "Bastard Keynesianism". He was an unabashed Keynesian and frequently contributed to the Canadian journal, "Economic Reform", which remains a bastion of Keynesian thinking. Ironically, his favorite mentor at Columbia University, where he earned his Ph.D. in 1959, was Robert Fellner, an avowed neo-classicist. Professor Turgeon taught at Hofstra University for 33 years, and reminded his students that often the most important learning occurs when you confront ideas diametrically opposed to your own. Dr. Turgeon's views on Economics were iconoclastic-- often at odds with both conventional economists and colleagues who shared his perspective. He believed the American economy was perpetually prone to under- consumption and therefore advocated continuous "active" federal deficits to spur demand rather than allow "passive" deficits to result from under-use of capacity. An early and vocal opponent of the Vietnam War, he nevertheless argued that large military expenditures were perversely "functional" for an economy that was unable to provide true full employment. He also advocated a neutral monetary policy harkening back to the 1940s when the Federal Reserve was subordinate to the Treasury and interest rates were kept low. Dr. Turgeon believed that inflation in the past 50 years was largely of the cost-push variety and thus monetarist solutions leading to tight money were inappropriate and fundamentally destructive. Professor Turgeon loved to challenge Milton Friedman's maxim of "no free lunch". He argued that because our economy is normally well below true full employment, not only "free lunches", but schools, bridges and many other productive goods can be provided at virtually no opportunity cost to society. Dr. Turgeon was well known outside the United States and might properly be called a citizen of the world. He traveled and lectured extensively in Russia and Eastern Europe during the height of the Cold War and established many contacts with Eastern European scholars whom he hosted here in the United States. Dr. Turgeon is survived by his daughter, D. Kim Turgeon M.D., two grandchildren, Livia Turgeon, a sister Margaret Johnston, as well as legions of grateful students and friends. Martin Melkonian, Department of Economics, Hofstra University, tel: 212-864-4493 516-463-5595 (O) 516-538-0299(H) fax 516-463-6519 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:4310] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Japan stares down Uncle Sam's'BigThree' [fwd]
That is posted by me on February 19 on another list. This should be read in the context of Rubin's repeated statements in recent months that a strong dollar is in the US interest. THE yen plunged to an 11-week low against the US dollar yesterday as speculation intensified that the world's top industrial nations are set to endorse a weaker yen to help pull Japan out of recession. The currency's dive came after Japan's chief economic planner joined the chorus welcoming a weaker yen following an interest rate cut last week to revive the economy. Taichi Sakaiya, director-general of the Economic Planning Agency, said the dollar around 120 yen was ``appropriate''. Asian currencies stumbled as the yen fell below 120 against the dollar ahead of today's meeting of the Group of Seven (G7) in Bonn to discuss currency volatility, dealers said. The Thai baht, South Korean won and Taiwan dollar were the most badly affected by the yen's dip, which came amid differences among G7 officials on how to moderate sharp fluctuations between their currencies. ``Mr Sakaiya's remarks prompted people to buy dollars,'' said Hiroshi Sakuma, a foreign exchange manager at Barclays Bank. ``It's so clear that Japan approves of a weak yen.'' Japan's Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa, about to leave for the G7 meeting, said on the whole G7 members would share the view that recent movements in the currency market were in line with fundamentals. Asked about the dollar's rise above 120 yen overnight in New York, Mr Miyazawa said: ``I'm closely watching the movement.'' Economists said the United States would grit its teeth and allow the yen to slide to 128 against the dollar, despite its huge trade gap with Japan, for the price of a hoped-for recovery in Japan's sagging economy. ``The US has made clear that if Japan does not recover, then it will remain a significant drag on Asian growth and therefore on world growth,'' said Jane Foley at Barclays Capital. In a Reuters survey of 27 forex strategists, the average ``comfort level'' that would be tolerated by the US for the dollar/yen was 128, although views ranged from 115 to 150. The dollar surged as high as 120.75 yen in Tokyo, its highest level since 2 December, before easing later in the day. Adding to speculation that the G7 may stamp its approval on the policy, Kyodo news agency quoted an international financial source as saying that ministers gathering in Germany may voice their support for the dollar's recent rise. Senior Finance Ministry official Haruhiko Kuroda said yesterday there was no change in the ministry's view that it was natural for the yen to fall as a result of the Bank of Japan's credit easing last week. His view echoed recent comments by Eisuke Sakakibara, the Vice Finance Minister for International Affairs, that the yen's fall as a result of the Bank of Japan's (BOJ) credit easing was natural and welcome. The BOJ last week decided to lower its target for the key overnight rate to 0.15 per cent from 0.25 per cent and this week pushed the rate down further to a record low of 0.08 per cent by supplying ample funds to the money market. Excessive yen weakness, however, could rekindle concerns over trade friction between the US and Japan. It coul also put downward pressure on Asian currencies, delaying the region's recovery, analysts said. - Agencies
[PEN-L:4309] Re: Re: Re: Re: Japan stares down Uncle Sam's 'BigThree'[fwd]
It amazing how American economists can read a report such as "Japan stares down Uncle Sam's 'Big Three' - Tokyo Observed, By Andrew Cornell" that started this thread and then ignores the main points by immediately focusing on the technical relation of a rising yen to the prospect of a Japanese recession. Delong's complacency that selling US Treasuries will hurt the Japanese more than the US is misplaced as evidenced by Japanese disinterest in Treasury auctions last month (February 1999). Delong's claim: "Liquidating U.S. Treasury bonds means that the price of Treasury bonds and other denominated assets relative to yen assets falls, which means that the yen rises," is faulty. When Treasurys fall in price, interest rates rise, causing the dollar to rise as well. As for the level of the yen and its relationship to the Japanese economy, looking at export alone is not very illuminating, although Jim and Michael are historically accurate in their observations. The Japanese government has been poised for a long time to absorb the impact of a fluctuating yen from Japanese exporters and the pain of the economic slowdown for its citizens. The real micro significance of a rise or fall of the yen lies in its impact on the very elusive "recovery " of the Asian economies and the impact of the Chinese RMB devaluation. Last July, when the yen fell below 147 to the dollar, the rumor was that if that level stayed for long, Beijing would devalue. That forced Rubin/Greenspan to intervene and pushed down the dollar. Japan went through almost a decade of allowing its economy to be in the dumps, for longterm structural reasons that American policy makers refused to acknowledge. To talk of a yen fluctuation induced recession is rather meaningless. The Japanese are not playing minor micro tinkering games. They are using their very substantial resource to underwrite a vision of the Japanese role in the coming new global economic order. Japan is no longer willing to be American's boy in Asia. The main thrust of the report: Kenichi Ohmae, the man known in the West as Mr Strategy and in Japan as an entrepreneur and citizens' rights campaigner, believes Japan is being "micro-managed" by the United States.by the "Committee of Three" - Federal Treasury heads Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. Their motives, according to Ohmae, are not so much to keep Japan under the thumb as to provide a constant diet of alternative resuscitation measures - such as quantitative easing in monetary policy - so Japan won't be tempted to do what it actually needs to do to revitalise: liquidate assets, including holdings of US treasury bonds. Ohmae argues selling assets would allow Japan to shake off the dead weight of the property market and banking system bad debts without drowning in a flood of new government debt. Of course, it would also be a pretty sharp forearm jolt to the US, the world's biggest debtor nation, which owes much of its debt to Japan. Hence the concern of the Committee of Three. Although radical, this analysis is not restricted to Ohmae. And the solution may not be the orthodox position, but it has many supporters, even within the Ministry of Finance and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party. There are even more supporters of the view that Japan is being micro-managed from Washington. Barely a day goes by without Summers or Rubin, especially, making suggestions or berating Japan for not consuming enough. Nor a day when there are not hints of impatience from nationalists like International Finance Minister Eisuke Sakakibara. Nationalism aside, and there is plenty of that, the American high-handedness is starting to get on quite a few goats. The final paragraph of the report state: But there is a growing possibility that the resentment of American financial imperialism and the new-found friendship with Europe may yet play out into something far more significant than an ideological debate over free markets in emerging nations. Henry C.K. Liu Michael Perelman wrote: Jim Devine wrote: My impression is that the Japanese economy doesn't go into recessions every time the Yen rises. The US has been pushing for a higher Yen for quite awhile (and has been getting it), but Japan still has a trade surplus. Jim is correct, but in previous times Japanese exporters tended to keep prices steady and reduced their profits -- they reduced what the specialists call the "pass through". Can they do this again? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:4306] Re: Re: Japan stares down Uncle Sam's 'BigThree' [fwd]
Brad writes: Hmmm. Liquidating U.S. Treasury bonds means that the price of Treasury bonds and other denominated assets relative to yen assets falls, which means that the yen rises, which means that U.S. demand for Japanese products falls. This means that (with the U.S. no longer serving as the importer of last resort) Japan falls deeper into recession. Am I missing something? What's the alternative theory by which raising your exchange rate expands your economy? My impression is that the Japanese economy doesn't go into recessions every time the Yen rises. The US has been pushing for a higher Yen for quite awhile (and has been getting it), but Japan still has a trade surplus. One thing is that Japan is highly dependent on imports of raw materials, so that a high Yen makes them cheaper. This counteracts the effect of exports becoming more expensive in dollar terms as the Yen rises. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html
[PEN-L:4302] Re: Re: Japan stares down Uncle Sam's 'Big Three' [fwd]
You are missing the key effects due perhaps to your US-centered perspective which comes with a certain degree of complacency that the Japanese are hostage to the U.S. economy. By selling US Treasuries, the Japanese will push up US interest rates and cause dollar denominated assets to fall in price and the trade weighted value of the dollar to rise. The rise of the dollar will increase imports and help the Asian exporters. The fall of dollar-denominated asset prices will at the same time attract global capital to prevent a free fall of the over-valued equity market after a significant but manageable correction. A new global equilibrium of asset prices will find a stabilized level. True, US GDP growth will fall back to less than 2% from its current abnormal high, but 2% is rather normal historically for the U.S. Global merger prospects will favor US firms more because of the rising dollar. The key lies in the speed of the Japanese withdrawal which will be governed by Japanese self interest in not pushing US Treasuries into a sudden deep dive, but to orchestrate a gradual fall. While short-term fundamentals favor the US dollar, long term fundamentals are increasingly and undeniably negative. U.S. trade and current account deficits reached US$250 billion in 1998 and may reach $300 billion in 1999. Net debtor position of the U.S. is around US$1.9 trillion. Whenever foreign-held dollar reserves are sold, an equivalent of U.S. owned assets are liquidated immediately at market price. If the amount sold is large enough, it will cause a recession or even depression in the U.S., as in 1929-32, which the post-war Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates was designed to prevent from occurring again. In 1995, after the Federal Reserve started to hike interest rates in 1994 and sharply curtailed its own purchase of Treasury bills, triggering the Mexico peso crisis and a subsequent U.S. slowdown, the Bank of Japan initiated a program to buy $100 billion of US treasuries. China bought $80 billion. Hong Kong and Singapore bought $22 billion each. Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines bought $30 billion. The Asian purchase totaled $260 billion from 1994 to 1997, the entire increase in foreign-held U.S. dollar reserves. These recycled dollars pushed up stock prices in America. After 1997, flight capital from Asian has played a significant role in the rising US equity markets. A sharp correction of the stock market accompanied by an abrupt slowdown of the US economy is a matter of when and not if. Also, the new euro will pose a direct challenge to the US dollar as the preferred currency for international trade. The financial world is in the process of shifting from a dollar-centered system to a bipolar dollar-euro system. The Japanese would like to make it a tri-polar system. Just like the post-war corrections in U.S. markets in 1971-73, 1978-79, 1985-87, which critically stalled the U.S. economy because the contributing currency overvaluations were permitted to go too far and for too long, the next correction will have equally severe economic consequences if the dollar stay high to long. There are no pure winning moves for any single party any more in this globalized economy. It is to everyone's interest to moderate the rate of change and allow the necessary long term structural readjustments to take place with minimum damage. That is the one lesson we all can learn from the events of the past 20 months. The technology of the finance system now permits lightning speed that can be extremely destructive. It is up to government policies to slow it down while allowing the readjustments to happen gradually and relatively benignly. Henry C.K. liu Brad De Long wrote: http://www.afr.com.au/content/990308/world/wtokyo.html "Kenichi Ohmae . . . believes Japan is being 'micro-managed' by the United States. "In particular, he says it is being run by the 'Committee of Three' - Federal Treasury heads Robert Rubin and Larry Summers and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan. "Their motives, according to Ohmae, are not so much to keep Japan under the thumb as to provide a constant diet of alternative resuscitation measures - such as quantitative easing in monetary policy - so Japan won't be tempted to do what it actually needs to do to revitalise: liquidate assets, including holdings of US treasury bonds." Hmmm. Liquidating U.S. Treasury bonds means that the price of Treasury bonds and other denominated assets relative to yen assets falls, which means that the yen rises, which means that U.S. demand for Japanese products falls. This means that (with the U.S. no longer serving as the importer of last resort) Japan falls deeper into recession. Am I missing something? What's the alternative theory by which raising your exchange rate expands your economy? Brad DeLong
[PEN-L:4301] Re: Japan stares down Uncle Sam's 'Big Three' [fwd]
Brad De Long wrote, This means that (with the U.S. no longer serving as the importer of last resort) Japan falls deeper into recession. This is logical, provided one overlooks who currently has the trade surplus, who has the trade deficit, who has the recession and who has the boom. regards, Tom Walker http://www.vcn.bc.ca/timework/covenant.htm
[PEN-L:4300] Re: Re: Civil Society
Surely what we have to do is to see society both as a whole. And as a
whole divided against itself. It is somewhat idealistic to see the whole
and not to see the parts. The term "civil society" in my understanding
refers to a society in which the distinction between public and private
can be made. A society which has a state but in which the state is not
all. The public and private both oppose and complement each other.
However current use of the term "civil society" in liberal circles,
seems to indicate the expansion of the private sphere at the expense of
the public. Private institutions like the church, various charities and
social agencies would take over some of the social function of the
state.
Rod Hay
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Tom Walker wrote:
Henry Carter Adams ("The State and Industrial Action," 1887):
"It is futile to expect sound principles for the guidance of intricate
legislation so long as we over-estimate either public or private
duties; the
true principle must recognize society as a unity, subject only to the
laws
of its own development."
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:4298] Re: Re: Civil Society
Yes, drawing a bit on Gramsci, Mzwanele Mayekiso did a 1996 Monthly Review book, Township Politics: Civic Struggles for a New South Africa. The book explains why the phrase "working-class civil society" became popular here so as to explicitly contrast the political project of mass democratic struggle organisations with early 1990s efforts of the World Bank, US AID, etc, to shrink the soon-to-be-liberated state under the guise of promoting civil society... and to explicitly stake some turf in what most critical observers knew would be another African nationalist compradorisation process... Patrick (Johannesburg) Jim Devine wrote, But there's a bigger meaning of "civil society": it often means society outside of the state. Within this realm, it's possible we could have a "proletarian (or oppositional) civil society." But for clarity, we have to use a term like counterhegemony (following Gramsci).
