[stop-imf] UK Committee calls for IMF reform
Forwarded from stop-imf I suggest that this list of reforms is very likely to have a chance of implementation. The Labour Government will do nothing that is openly against finance capital. The agenda of greater transparency will be hard to object to from any quarter in view of some of the scandals about IMF funding. That does not mean of course progressives should be content with this, but it looks like a step on the road to bringing the IMF into a global governance and global civil society. (Not entirely a good thing of course either.) But watch this space. For example >the choice of IMF Managing Director should be a much more transparent and >openly democratic process; This proposal is neatly and innocently pitched in a situation where oddly, third world countries would like the US favourite for the job, Fischer, but the US is making a play of holding back out of courtesy to the Europeans who want Koch-Weser. Some sort of tinkering with the election process would be of interest to most participants. Meanwhile the underlying message is that it is embarrassing if the head jobs at the WB and the IMF look like a complete carve-up between Europe and America. I suspect other of the reforms will be shrewdly pitched too, in a thoroughly reformist way. Reprehensible though that may be, they may for that very reason be more likely to happen. Chris Burford London >Feb 24, 2000 >From: Angela Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >The UK's Treasury Committee which watchdogs the Treasury has released a >report on the IMF following its recent inquiry. > >The committee heard and received written evidence from NGOs, academics and >Treasury officials on aspects of IMF governance and its role. Much of >which is published in the report, including the letter from UK academics >and NGOs to the Committee concerning the MD selection process. > >Recommendations include: > >The Treasury should provide an annual report to parliament after the >Autumn meetings on its work in the IMF; > >The IMF should publish agendas and minutes of Board meetings; > >the choice of IMF Managing Director should be a much more transparent and >openly democratic process; > >the Chancellor should publish the UK voting record. > >Other recommendations focussed on the role of the IMF in transition >countries (particularly Russia); encouraging developing countries to be >involved in standard setting and codes; rules for including the private >sector in crisis resolution; refocussing the IMF on its original mandate; >increased transparency on conditionality; and a limited role for >governance conditionality. > >The report is available from the Stationery Office (=A315.90) email orders >to or call 0845-7-585463. > >For copies of BWP submissions email me [ ] > >Angela. >
China and the trade deficiet
If China has a trade surplus of 100 billion dollars and the US suffers a financial crisis, it will have a catastrophic effect on the Chinese economy. A 100 billion surplus represents a 100 billion dependency on the health of the US economy. (unless, of course, one is a neo-classical who believes that the resources in the export industries could be costlessly reallocated.) Rod -- Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archive http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://Batoche.co-ltd.net/ 52 Eby Street South Kitchener, Ontario N2G 3L1 Canada
Re: Re: China Deal Redux
I agree with your logic Doug, If the U.S. deficit with China approaches even 100 billion I think the chances of a financial crisis for the U.S. seems likely. But, Scott is predicting a collapse for China and a devaluation of the Chinese currency; something rather unlikley if the Chinese are enjoying the surplus Scott is talking about. That is what seems troubling about his analysis of the numbers, at least as I read it. Marty What if there was a strategic attack on their currency? http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/CSGR/current/rbws4.pdf http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/CSGR/glob-fin/shark.pdf See also "Currency and Coercion" by Jonathan Kirshner, Princeton U. Press 1995. Also, didn't Der Spiegel have a lengthy piece back in the summer of '98 on how Goldman, Sachs and others attacked the Thai Bhat? Doesn't price stability on basic commodities imported into the US depend on putting deflationary "pressure" on those economies that supply the "factor inputs"; the exporting of inflation here? Ian
Re: Re: China Deal Redux
On Sun, 27 Feb 2000, Doug Henwood wrote: > >My question is where does this financial crisis come from? If I > >understand Scott's logic correctly, he is predicting a financial crisis > >for China, much like what Mexico experienced in 1994-95. > > Sounds more like he's predicting a U.S. financial crisis, not a > Chinese one, at least in this context. A $600b c/a deficit would > probably shake even the giddiest New Economy partisan. > > Doug > I agree with your logic Doug, If the U.S. deficit with China approaches even 100 billion I think the chances of a financial crisis for the U.S. seems likely. But, Scott is predicting a collapse for China and a devaluation of the Chinese currency; something rather unlikley if the Chinese are enjoying the surplus Scott is talking about. That is what seems troubling about his analysis of the numbers, at least as I read it. Marty
Re: China Deal Redux
Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: >More specifically, Scott adds that: "Following the USIT's own logic, >assume that imports and exports continue to grow in the future at the >rates predicted by its own model. How long would it take before the trade >deficit narrows? . . . it will take 50 years before the U.S. trade deficit >with China stops expanding, with a peak deficit of $649 billion in 2048." >However, Scott claims that this trend is really "unsustainable and would >lead to a financial crisis long before the deficit with China reached >anything approaching $600 billion." > >My question is where does this financial crisis come from? If I >understand Scott's logic correctly, he is predicting a financial crisis >for China, much like what Mexico experienced in 1994-95. Sounds more like he's predicting a U.S. financial crisis, not a Chinese one, at least in this context. A $600b c/a deficit would probably shake even the giddiest New Economy partisan. Doug
[Fwd: [BRC-MUMIA] Report: Party for Mumia Success, Despite Police...]
Original Message Subject: [BRC-MUMIA] Report: Party for Mumia Success, Despite Police... Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 17:13:45 -0800 (PST) From: chris kinder <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: ... Report: Party For Mumia Success, Despite Police Harassment! The ILWU Rank and File Committee to Defend Mumia Abu-Jamal, and the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, held a "Party for Mumia" on February 14th, at the ILWU Local 10 hall in San Francisco, to build labor support for the next round of struggle to free this courageous fighter for social justice. With over 100 in attendance (on a Monday night) and over $2000 collected through advance ticket sales, the event was a tremendous success despite TWICE being driven from venues by anti-Mumia forces! The Oakland police were directly responsible for the first such attack on this event. The Party was originally going to be held at a club, Sweet JimmieÕs, in Oakland, owned by a retired longshoreman. As planning got under way, however, the Oakland police contacted the owner and said in no uncertain terms that the event was "too controversial" and "not a good idea." Facing the threat of police harassment, the club owner felt compelled to cancel the event. Thus the cops, in line with the nationwide Fraternal Order of Police campaign to kill Mumia, struck a blow at labor supporters of his cause in the Bay Area. Determined not to be intimidated, the ILWU Committee and Labor Action Committee sought another venue for the event. In solidarity, the Open World Conference In Defense of Trade Union Independence and Democracy (OWC) offered the Bay View Boat Club, which they had reserved for a social/cultural evening for delegates to the conference. Tickets sold well after extensive promotion and a report on the cancellation of the first venue, which ran on KPFA News. Within a couple hours of the event, however, the Boat Club cancelled as well, without giving a clear reason. We can only assume the same forces were at work! Though faced with a last minute scramble to get a new location and redirect ticket holders, we were still confident. Arrangements were made on short notice to use the Henry Schmidt room at Local 10Õs headquarters in FishermanÕs Wharf, and to assemble supplies to replace the bar we had expected at the Boat Club. The party went off without a hitch, as guests danced to the music of dj Haywood Richmond, a longshoreman who volunteered for the event, and enjoyed their evening in support of Mumia. A greeting card for Mumia was signed by participants at the party, including among others, members of Local 10 of the ILWU, Swedish and Liverpool dockworkers, postal workers, letter carriers, communication workers, print workers, and operating engineers, as well as Labor Video Project, Inkworks, October 22nd Coalition, Refuse and Resist, and the Mobilization to Free Mumia. Individuals selling tickets in their unions were the biggest earners for the event, with the longshore workers in the lead at $705, followed by East Bay postal workers at $187. A donation of $300 was voted by Local 10 of the ILWU as well. Sales at political events, area bookstores, and donations helped boost the total to $2295, with some of the receipts still to come in as of this writing. Expenses for the Party, including printing of tickets and flyers, and last minute supplies came to $396.71. With a donation for some of the expenses from the Labor Action Committee, a check for $2,000 will be sent to the Bill of Rights Foundation, earmarked for MumiaÕs defense. --Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal PO Box 16222, Oakland CA 94610. [EMAIL PROTECTED] REMINDER: Come out to support the mass civil disobedience demo in San Francisco, 7th and Mission, at 8 am Monday 28 February! __ BRC-MUMIA: Black Radical Congress - Mumia Abu-Jamal News/Info/Discussion Questions/Problems: send email to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Learn more with SmartPlanet. It's a new way of learning online. SmartPlanet offers hundreds of courses to take on your time, in your space. Join for FREE today! http://click.egroups.com/1/1703/0/_/20091/_/951700429/ -- Check out your group's private Chat room -- http://www.egroups.com/ChatPage?listName=brc-mumia&m=1
China Deal Redux
I want to raise a question about the logical consistency of Rob Scott's February 16, 2000, Issue Brief #137. Scott is, of course, arguing against China's admission into the WTO. Scott notes that Clinton is "confidently forecasting that the huge U.S. trade deficit with China will improve if Congress accords China permanent normal trade relations in order to accommodate Beijing's membership in the WTO." But, argues Scott, that will not happen. In fact, quite the opposite is likely; the trade deficit will continue to grow. Scott says that China's entry will set "the stage for rapidly rising trade deficits in the future that would severely depress employment in manufacturing." More specifically, Scott adds that: "Following the USIT's own logic, assume that imports and exports continue to grow in the future at the rates predicted by its own model. How long would it take before the trade deficit narrows? . . . it will take 50 years before the U.S. trade deficit with China stops expanding, with a peak deficit of $649 billion in 2048." However, Scott claims that this trend is really "unsustainable and would lead to a financial crisis long before the deficit with China reached anything approaching $600 billion." My question is where does this financial crisis come from? If I understand Scott's logic correctly, he is predicting a financial crisis for China, much like what Mexico experienced in 1994-95. Thus Scott says that China will be forced to devalue its currency. "The [U.S. trade deficit with NAFTA countries] expanded in part because, shortly after the agreement took effect, Mexico devalued the peso in 1995 to increase the competitiveness of Mexican products in the United States. . . . The USIT's estimates of the benefits of that agreement assume fixed exchange rates. But China will most likely follow a cycle similar to Mexico: sometime after China enters the WTO is will experience a currency crisis and devaluation which will be followed by surging FDI and then rapidly expanding trade deficits." I just do not get this. Mexico went into crisis because its liberalization resulted in growing trade deficits, covered only by greater and greater inflows of foreign capital. When that capital started moving out the government, faced with a large and growing structural trade deficit, had no choice but to let the currency fall and the economy contract. But if Scott is correct, and China is going to be running enormous trade surpluses with the U.S., where is the basis for its currency crisis? I am just interested in the internal consistency of the argument here. Am I missing something? On the one hand, Scott seems to assume that China will not liberalize but in fact will remain a closed economy and on this basis will continue to run surpluses, thus hurting U.S. manufacturing workers. This will leave the Chinese economy strong. On the other hand, he is predicting a collapse of the Chinese economy, resulting in a big devaluation, which will generate huge Chinese trade surpluses and thus hurt U.S. manufacturing workers. Scott seems to combine the two scenarios as if they reinforce or fit together. It seems to me that they are based on very different predictions and both cannot be true. Marty Hart-Landsberg
Re: BLS Daily Report
BLS Daily Report: "The number of work stoppages hit an all-time low in 1999, with only 17 reported, BLS said. The 17 work stoppages amounted to half the number reported in 1998 and the lowest since BLS started keeping records in 1947. In the early 1950s, the high point of work stoppages, nearly 500 stoppages a year idled workplaces. The previous low was in 1997 when BLS reported 29 stoppages." Timothy Fogarty: "Under active lobbying from business leaders, the U.S. Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947. This legislation constrained the spread of union organization especially in its designation of certain union activities as unfair labor practices. In addition, in the early 1950s, unions were placed on the defensive by allegations of communist infiltration. These developments stunted much of the momentum that had previously fostered the growth of unions. After 1955, labor relations were increasingly subdued as union power waned." Stuart Ewen: "The 1930s and then the 1960s were periods in which the challenge to the business system became widespread. If you want to see the flowering of corporate public relations strategies look at the decade following those periods. After World War Two a kind of gung-ho corporate public-relations strategy tries to present the private business system as the quintessence of the American Way -- a kind of commercialistic rendition of democracy. This became almost a national ideology used to roll back policies and ideas that came out of the 1930s New Deal -- for example, the very idea that government might compete with business by providing public housing. In the 1960s people began to wonder if democracy was being violated by a destabilized business system. In the 1970s and 1980s, with the triumph of Reagan and Thatcherism, there comes to fruition a set of national public relations strategies catalyzed by the political issues of the Sixtes." On page 308 of _PR!: a social history of spin_, Ewen mentions the Public Relations Advisory Board of the National Association of Manufacturers. The board was responsible for developing the "American Way" public relations counter-offensive against the labor policies of the New Deal. In 1938 the board was made up of representatives of major corporations, among them McGraw-Hill Book Company. McGraw-Hill also ran a regular public relations forum. A report on the forum in the October 1939 Public Opinion Quarterly (p. 704-709) makes it clear that the labor issue was an over riding concern. After the war, in 1946, the McGraw-Hill Book Company published _The American individual enterprise system, its nature, evolution and future_ written by the Economic principles commission of the National Association of Manufacturers. Since the turn of the century, the Association had put "educating public opinion" high on their agenda and has produced much "educational" literature. Also, as Philip Wright wrote in the 1915 Quarterly Journal of Economics article, "It endeavored to interest the college world in its propaganda. . ." Roger Burlingame's 1959 corporate bio of McGraw-Hill, _Endless Frontiers_ gives a fascinating account of a species of textbook marketeers called "college travelers" that expanded rapidly with the advent of the G.I. Bill after the end of World War II. The traveler's job was to go from campus to campus talking to faculty, showing them the M-H textbooks in their field, sounding them out about what they are teaching, what they are writing about, what they need in a textbook, coaching the young faculty on how they might make their output more saleable. Tom Walker
Henry Liu on the Diallou verdict.
The Diallo case is a clear manifestation of systemic brutality. When news first came across on television that four members of a white police elite force unleashed a barrage of gunfire that required squeezing the triggers of their semiautomatic weapons 41 times at an unarmed African immigrant in his own vestibule in the Bronx, the first reaction from most viewers was dismay and incredulousness which gradually transformed to resignation and expectation. The facts of the case were not in dispute. An unarmed man with a "dangerous" racial profile in a neighborhood "hostile" to the police was gunned down reflexively by a police force conditioned to kill first and ask question later, for making an otherwise benign motion of attempting to show his I.D. in his wallet. Despite the sensational nature of the killing, the media was immediately accused by the system as having sensationalized the incident. The venus of the trial was move to Albany where such racial profiling of both victim and neighborhood is consider a natural fact of life by a white jury. Apparently, it was not possible to find 12 fair-minded persons in the Bronx. As expected, the officers were acquitted on the ground that they did not violate any departmental guidelines. Yet an innocent men was killed, for having the wrong profile and for having his home in the wrong neighberhood. The verdict was that Diallo fault was his color and his address and that he actually caused his own murder. The verdict implied that had Diallo been white and lived on Park Avenue, his shooting death by the police would have been unquestionably a murderous crime. The verdict was perfectly consistent and logical within the societal values of the system. Both the prosecution and the defense lauded the justice system for "working" in a very "difficult" case. Yet an innocent man was killed by the very authority whose very function was to protect him from criminal harm. Just because individual police officers were found by the justice system to be not at fault, that does not make the crime of murder disappear. These four white men killed a black man who was not breaking any laws. If police departmental guidelines result in such murders, then obviously such guideline are guilty. The institutional culprit, by the logic of the verdict, must be the law enforcement establishment specifically and the social system generally. The verdict of not guilty is a condanmnation of the justice system. It is a declaration theta justice is part and partial of an unjust socio-political system that has been flawed at its founding, that high sounding words of freedom and equal justice for all has color limits. The justice system logically draws from the depth of the American psyche that to be non-white is a structural social crime that can justify institutional mass paranoia. Diallo's human right had been violated twice, once when he was killed for being of the wrong color, and the second time for being denied justice in his wrongful death for being the wrong color. Yet the Federal Civil Right Division is hinting that a successful civil right violation suit would be difficult for lack of direct evidence. That position may be arguable relating to charges against the four police officers, but the evidence of institutional human rights violation is undeniable. Again, the justice system is not designed to police the institutional faults of the system, because The Us cannot accept that the system is structurally flaw, only that individuals sometimes violate the just rules of a perfect system. The annual country reports on human rights just released by the State Department dealt with more than 100 countries which the US considered in violation of international norms. American citizens who are outraged and frustrated by the the structural institutional injustice of their system can file, through their NGOs, a dissenting report on US conditions and sponsor a resolution to censor the US government at the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Henry C.K. Liu Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Bad writing
"Mystification is simple. Clarity is the hardest thing of all. You trust the mystifier more if you know his deliberately choosing not to be lucid. You would trust Picasso all the way because he could draw like Ingres." Julian Barnes, "Flaubert's Parrot" (author/quote in today's NY Times acrostic) Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
BLS Daily Report
BLS DAILY REPORT, FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2000 RELEASED TODAY: Unemployment rates decreased in 35 states and the District of Columbia from 1998 to 1999. All four regions and eight of the nine geographic divisions also had rate declines. The national jobless rate decreased from 4.5 percent to 4.2 percent from 1998 to 1999. ... The number of work stoppages hit an all-time low in 1999, with only 17 reported, BLS said. The 17 work stoppages amounted to half the number reported in 1998 and the lowest since BLS started keeping records in 1947. In the early 1950s, the high point of work stoppages, nearly 500 stoppages a year idled workplaces. The previous low was in 1997 when BLS reported 29 stoppages. In its work stoppage report, BLS counts strikes and lockouts involving at least 1,000 workers and lasting at least one shift. ... Twelve of the 17 work stoppages in 1999 were in the private sector. The remaining five occurred in state and local government education services. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-4). Initial claims filed with state agencies for unemployment insurance benefits decreased by 7,000 to a seasonally adjusted 278,000 in the week ended Feb. 19, the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration announced. ... The seasonally adjusted insured unemployment rate remained at 1.7 percent for the week ended Feb. 12, the most recent date for which this information is available. This figure indicates the number of people covered by the unemployment insurance law who are actually receiving benefits. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Factory orders for big-ticket manufactured goods fell in January, led by the steepest decline in orders for electronic and other electrical equipment in 2.5 years. The Commerce Department reported that orders for durable goods -- items expected to last at least three years -- dropped by 1.3 percent last month, the first decline since October. ... (Washington Post, page E2). Most regions of the country logged a greater volume of help-wanted advertisements in January than in December, raising the Conference Board's help-wanted index 3 points to 89 percent. The index, which is based on help-wanted ads appearing in 51 U.S. newspapers, compares monthly ad levels with the average volume recorded in 1987. The difference is expressed as a percentage. ... (Daily Labor Report, page A-1). Lump-sum payment provisions were found in 15 percent of all non-construction contracts negotiated in 1999, according to an analysis by BNA of 762 collective bargaining agreements that together cover more than 1.9 million workers. Seventeen percent of agreements analyzed in 1998 and 22 percent in 1997 included lump-sum provisions. The weighted average first-year wage increase in all non-construction settlements reported in 1999 was 3.1 percent, and the median wage increase was 3 percent. In settlements with lump-sum payments, the weighted average increase was 4 percent, and the median increase was 3 percent. Agreements without lump sums provided a weighted average first-year increase of 2.9 percent and a median increase of 3 percent. ... (Daily Labor Report, page D-7). The U.S. economy is staying robust this quarter despite some wan January stats. Weather skewed the January data--sometimes up, sometimes down. Job growth soared because the Labor Department took its survey during a mild week. Then the winter turned harsh, keeping shoppers indoors, which depressed the month's retail sales. But, despite the deep freeze and snowstorms, builders still managed to break ground on more new homes. The strongest argument against a meaningful moderation in growth comes from the industrial sector. Manufacturing, unfazed by winter's whims, is accelerating. Based on past patterns, it would be highly unlikely that overall growth is slowing at a time when this extremely cyclical segment of the economy is speeding up. ... (Business Week, Feb. 28, pages 29-30). application/ms-tnef
Suburbia
NY Times, February 27, 2000 Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened By ROSALYN BAXANDALL and ELIZABETH EWEN Reviewed by SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN (clip) For all their populism, however, Baxandall and Ewen have not written an apologia for suburbia. Their book will unsettle the social conservatives who hallow the image of nuclear families on leafy streets as much as it will the cosmopolitans. In tracing the development of Nassau County's suburbs from the plutocrats who erected estates on the ''Gold Coast'' lining Long Island Sound to the Salvadoran laborers living 20 or 30 to a house in the blue-collar sections of the South Shore, the authors devote plenty of attention to class and racial bias. In the 1920's, magnates manipulated state law to allow them to declare their estates separate municipalities (with the family and servants as the sole residents), thereby depriving others of access to beaches and roads. A few decades later, William Levitt created Levittown partly on the principle of barring nonwhites. Baxandall and Ewen inform us that Levitt himself had practiced white flight, leaving his Brooklyn neighborhood after a black attorney moved in next door. The authors do not accept it as some kind of fact of nature that the suburbs should have been developed almost entirely by private capital. They write at length about the New Deal planned community of Greenbelt, Md., as a potential model for public housing in suburbia, and also point favorably to the New York apartment complex built by the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union. Fearful of losing market share to huge public construction -- a prospect supported in the postwar years by the powerful building-trades unions as well as by liberal politicians -- Levitt formed an alliance with Senator Joseph McCarthy, the future redbaiter. In a series of Congressional hearings in the late 1940's, described in fascinating detail by the authors, McCarthy effectively portrayed private housing as central to American democracy. (Levitt, of course, had no moral qualms about selling to customers who had federally backed mortgages.) (clip) Full Review at: http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/27/reviews/000227.27freedmt.html First chapter of book at: http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/b/baxandall-picture.html Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Virtual debate
G'day Doug, >So we passed Turing's test? Yep, now we KNOW you're human. A little-known qualification Turing mentioned in his paper was that the interrogator shouldn't be allowed to ask mathematical questions, as here the computer would establish its non-humanity beyond doubt. As the upshot of this discussion is that clearly neither you nor Louis has calculated the market's near-term prospects, I consider your humanity well and truly established. But the again ... he did show earlier on that certain mathematical problems cannot formally be solved ... Anyway, as it happens, I agree with that Stanford boffin. Atleast insofar as it's something we should be thinking about carefully. One thing mailing lists prove is that we behave very differently towards each other in e-space than we do toe-to-toe. In terms of the supplementation of meaning, the regulation of behaviour, the generation of empathy - shit, even the reinforcement of a sense of intersubjectivity, rather than subject-to-object relations - in all these regards, e-mail is something very different - and infinitely emptier of humanity - than putting your faces in the same space. Mebbe most of us might be alright - being as how we're people who had real social intercourse (whether we wanted it or not) throughout the crucial years of our socialisation and individuation - but mebbe those for whom this medium has taken the place of much of that process, well, that'd be a bit of a worry, no? Luddishly yours, e-Rob.
