Re: throat singing
There is a documentary about the physicist Richard Feynman mentioned in Mike's post with a considerable amount devoted to his interest in the Tuvans and the Tuvan form of singing. It wasn't clear from Mike's post, but I believe that Feynman's interest--almost obsession--with Tuva began with the singing. Feynman has a few memoirs and I would be surprised if this wasn't covered by him somewhere. If memory serves me correctly, Feynman had a pretty harsh anti-Soviet slant resulting from his experience relating to Tuva and the Tuvans. Mat -Original Message- From: Michael Yates [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Friday, March 03, 2000 9:57 PM Subject: [PEN-L:16844] throat singing I just saw a fine film, "Genghis Blues," about the remarkable experiences of blues singer and musician, Paul Pena. A native of the Cape Verde Islands (formerly a Portuguese colony and now part of Guinea-Bissau), Pena played with many jazz and blues greats and composed many songs. He is blind and at the film's beginning he is living in San Francisco and not doing particularly well. His wife has died and he has just come out of a long period of depression. He has bought a short wave radio and listens to broadcasts from around the world. One day he hears on Radio Moscow some unbelievable singing. It is the harmonic or throatsinging of singers from Tuva, a land north of Mongolia. ( I remember the beautiful diamond-shaped stamps of the republic of Tannu Tuva I lusted after when I was a boy). Tuva became part of the USSR during WW2. One of Genghis Khan's greatest generals was a Tuvan. Under the Soviets, the Tuvans were not allowed to use their language, and many Russians settled there. It is the size of North Dakota, and many people there are nomadic sheepherders and horsemen. The land is extraordinarily varied and has temperatures ranging from 100 degrees F to many degrees below zero. Tuvan singers have learned to sing in their throats in such a way as to produce more than one note at the same time. You have to hear it to believe it. Remarkably, Pena is so taken with the singing that he tracks a tape down in a record store, and he learns to do it himself. Using a braille device he also begins to learn Tuvan, translating letter by letter from Tuvan to Russian to English. Through a fantasitc set of circumstances, involving the Nobel physicist, Richard Feynman (who decided to go to Tuva as his last adventure and helped to establish a Tuvan-US friendship association), Tuvan singers come to San Francisco. Pena goes and astonishes the Tuvans by throatsinging for them. They insist that he come to Tuva for a great throatsinging contest. Others get involved and it is decided that a crew will go to make a film about his visit. The trip to Tuva is an adventure, but Pena's relationship with the Tuvans is the main theme of the movie. I don't want to give it away, but I was moved to tears. What was so awful was the horror of his life in the USA compared to the beauty of his life in Tuva. To the Tuvans he was not some poor blind black man, making his way down some shaby street to the corner store, but a hero, a truly wonderful human being, talented beyond words and beautiful to see and to hear. The Tuvans' embrace of Pena and his love of them make you see what we as humans are capable of, just as his tribulations here in the land of the free do the same though from a different angle. If you get the chance, don't miss this film. Michael Yates
Re: Re: throat singing
I saw the Feynman film. I am not sure whether to trust my memore but thought that he began with seeing a postal stamp. Mathew Forstater wrote: There is a documentary about the physicist Richard Feynman mentioned in Mike's post with a considerable amount devoted to his interest in the Tuvans and the Tuvan form of singing. It wasn't clear from Mike's post, but I believe that Feynman's interest--almost obsession--with Tuva began with the singing. Feynman has a few memoirs and I would be surprised if this wasn't covered by him somewhere. If memory serves me correctly, Feynman had a pretty harsh anti-Soviet slant resulting from his experience relating to Tuva and the Tuvans. Mat -Original Message- From: Michael Yates [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Friday, March 03, 2000 9:57 PM Subject: [PEN-L:16844] throat singing I just saw a fine film, "Genghis Blues," about the remarkable experiences of blues singer and musician, Paul Pena. A native of the Cape Verde Islands (formerly a Portuguese colony and now part of Guinea-Bissau), Pena played with many jazz and blues greats and composed many songs. He is blind and at the film's beginning he is living in San Francisco and not doing particularly well. His wife has died and he has just come out of a long period of depression. He has bought a short wave radio and listens to broadcasts from around the world. One day he hears on Radio Moscow some unbelievable singing. It is the harmonic or throatsinging of singers from Tuva, a land north of Mongolia. ( I remember the beautiful diamond-shaped stamps of the republic of Tannu Tuva I lusted after when I was a boy). Tuva became part of the USSR during WW2. One of Genghis Khan's greatest generals was a Tuvan. Under the Soviets, the Tuvans were not allowed to use their language, and many Russians settled there. It is the size of North Dakota, and many people there are nomadic sheepherders and horsemen. The land is extraordinarily varied and has temperatures ranging from 100 degrees F to many degrees below zero. Tuvan singers have learned to sing in their throats in such a way as to produce more than one note at the same time. You have to hear it to believe it. Remarkably, Pena is so taken with the singing that he tracks a tape down in a record store, and he learns to do it himself. Using a braille device he also begins to learn Tuvan, translating letter by letter from Tuvan to Russian to English. Through a fantasitc set of circumstances, involving the Nobel physicist, Richard Feynman (who decided to go to Tuva as his last adventure and helped to establish a Tuvan-US friendship association), Tuvan singers come to San Francisco. Pena goes and astonishes the Tuvans by throatsinging for them. They insist that he come to Tuva for a great throatsinging contest. Others get involved and it is decided that a crew will go to make a film about his visit. The trip to Tuva is an adventure, but Pena's relationship with the Tuvans is the main theme of the movie. I don't want to give it away, but I was moved to tears. What was so awful was the horror of his life in the USA compared to the beauty of his life in Tuva. To the Tuvans he was not some poor blind black man, making his way down some shaby street to the corner store, but a hero, a truly wonderful human being, talented beyond words and beautiful to see and to hear. The Tuvans' embrace of Pena and his love of them make you see what we as humans are capable of, just as his tribulations here in the land of the free do the same though from a different angle. If you get the chance, don't miss this film. Michael Yates -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: IMF succession
At 08:01 03/03/00 -0800, Jim Devine wrote: Does anyone on pen-l have anything to say about the succession struggle at the IMF? I think that it's interesting that in an era when the US political elites consider affirmative action -- not to mention quotas -- in hiring to be totally beyond the pale, they insist that the IMF head be from (Western) Europe. Also, if the African finance ministers' candidate (Stanley Fischer) is out because he's from the US, how about Rudiger Dornbusch, who's from Germany and wrote the leading intermediate macroeconomics textbook with Fischer? Sure, he's a pig, but he's pretty honest about his piggery. Doug has collected some juicy quotes by the man. It is certainly an interesting struggle, because several contradictions come to a focus in the choice of one individual versus another. On the surface however this is a matter of personalities, and the contradictions are hidden, and often deliberately so, under subtleties about the individual. On the surface therefore we are told that the convention of financial world governance has always been that the US has the rights of nomination for head of the World Bank, and Europe the rights of nomination for the head of the IMF. It would be against the interests of the US to appear to control both jobs too obviously. On the surface we are told that it is Germany's turn in Europe to nominate, and that their nominee unfortunately has not quite got the right personality. Perhaps he is not quite exciting enough, too much of a bureaucrat. But Germans may be perceived in this way by other nations, and the European Union is remaining courteously and doggedly supportive of Koch-Weser. So can it really be that Germany does not have someone of the right personality? And why the curiosity that the third world countries are more sympathetic to an American? Including Arab countries, despite the fact that Fischer is of Jewish cultural background! Clearly much is being hidden beneath the embarrassed manouevrings, which have resulted in the post of head of the IMF becoming vacant as we move into the 21st Century. The underlying issues are the carve up of hegemonic power between the USA, Europe, and now Japan, with the need to win greater acceptance, if not enthusiasm, from the other countries of the world. Secondly, the need for the IMF head to be energetic in winning that acceptance without *openly* abandoning neo-liberal dogmatism. Selecting this criterion is of course difficult on the basis of published public statements. Fundamentally global finance capital needs an adjustment of its global financial governance. Hence in the UK the government has studiously in public supported Koch-Weser's nomination but has just issued a discussion paper about making the process of selecting the head of the IMF more transparent on a global basis. Hence the US has allowed it to be made known that it does not contest the principle of nomination by Europe but is vetoing this candidate. In the UK, one commentary I heard that seemed interesting, went as follows: countries tend to overemphasise how important it is to have their own citizen in post and that the question was a technical one of the job description (an observation looking to a more global frame of reference, and in conformity with human resources management thinking of developed finance capital). The commentator remarked that the sort of person who would do well is Ken Clarke, the former UK Conservative Finance minister. Clarke is a europhile and in the wilderness in his party at the moment. It was suggested however he may not wish to be a candidate. The quality that would make him ideal for the post is that he has the confidence of finance capital, and in a cheerful and robust way (probably unlike Kock-Weser) he can handle interviews and public presentations with his mixture of English public school accent and dressed-down Hush Puppy shoes. He would appear very English and people would know what they were getting, so they might be less paranoid. But he could bargain with other countries and be the human vehicle for softening the sado-monetarist version of neo-liberalism into a more stable consensual version of a 21st century politics of finance capital. There are no indications that he is a nominee. I only discuss his case to illustrate how personal characteristics may be relevant for the bigger underlying financial conflicts, which they mediate. The global tectonic plates are shifting. Chris Burford London
Fwd: SLATE NEWS: Sun., March 5, 2000
The New York Times Editorial Page endorses [US Presidential canditidates John] McCain and [Al] Gore, saying "each of these two men communicates a greater capacity for overarching presidential leadership than his opponent" and praises all the candidates for "reviving public interest in the election process." It is making a pre-nomination endorsement, its first since 1992, "because of the competitiveness of the contests and ... the importance of the choices before our readers." This is the kind of stuff that shows the worthlessness of US politics. Not only do big campaign contributors give to both sides of most political campaigns (diversifying their political investments) but now the NY TIMES chooses candidates from both sides of the official aisle (even though its editors clearly disagree with McCain's positions on major issues like abortion and gun control). Why? because it awakens the public's interest in a fundamentally meaningless process. It's good PR for an election where the fix is already in, legitimating a dramatic waste of time and money. Though no matter what, the interests of the NY TIMES will be served. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/~JDevine/JDevine.html
Philanthropy
Paul LaFargue said philanthropy is the capitalist making gifts at retail of whatever he stole at wholesale. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Slate News
Jim Devine wrote, Why? because it awakens the public's interest in a fundamentally meaningless process. Jim, What do you *mean* by a "fundamentally meaningless process"? Elections in the U.S. are fraught -- overladen -- with "meaning". Couldn't the problem be better stated as _too much meaning_ that has no ostensive referent? Tom Walker
Re: Re: Slate News
Perhaps we could substitute "a process without substance" for Jim's expression. "Sound and Fury signifying nothing." Timework Web wrote: Jim Devine wrote, Why? because it awakens the public's interest in a fundamentally meaningless process. Jim, What do you *mean* by a "fundamentally meaningless process"? Elections in the U.S. are fraught -- overladen -- with "meaning". Couldn't the problem be better stated as _too much meaning_ that has no ostensive referent? Tom Walker -- 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: Slate News II
Rod Hay wrote, Perhaps we could substitute "a process without substance" for Jim's expression. "Sound and Fury signifying nothing." Or signifying something other than what they purport to signify. It seems to me that U.S. presidential elections are extremely important as a substitute for substantive democracy. As a substitute they also function as a bulwark against the emergence of a popular democratic (not Democratic!) movement. How can one articulate a demand for democracy when "that's what we've already got, ha ha." But the fact that the charade goes on episode after episode offers compelling (to me) evidence that beneath the cynicism and complacency on the surface lurks an ever-present danger of popular revolt. Tom Walker
Re: Re: throat singing
There's a book about Feynman's visit to Tuva by Ralph Leighton, "Tuva or Bust". I've got it but have never read it. I couldn't remember its name and author so did a web search. All and more is explained about Feynman and Tuva at http://www.scs-intl.com/traderindex.html. Can't vouch for its political line though! Stuff there also about Pena, including videos and CDs for sale. Extraordinary what web sites people have... Bill Mathew Forstater wrote: There is a documentary about the physicist Richard Feynman mentioned in Mike's post with a considerable amount devoted to his interest in the Tuvans and the Tuvan form of singing. It wasn't clear from Mike's post, but I believe that Feynman's interest--almost obsession--with Tuva began with the singing. Feynman has a few memoirs and I would be surprised if this wasn't covered by him somewhere. If memory serves me correctly, Feynman had a pretty harsh anti-Soviet slant resulting from his experience relating to Tuva and the Tuvans. Mat -Original Message- From: Michael Yates [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Friday, March 03, 2000 9:57 PM Subject: [PEN-L:16844] throat singing I just saw a fine film, "Genghis Blues," about the remarkable experiences of blues singer and musician, Paul Pena. A native of the Cape Verde Islands (formerly a Portuguese colony and now part of Guinea-Bissau), Pena played with many jazz and blues greats and composed many songs. He is blind and at the film's beginning he is living in San Francisco and not doing particularly well. His wife has died and he has just come out of a long period of depression. He has bought a short wave radio and listens to broadcasts from around the world. One day he hears on Radio Moscow some unbelievable singing. It is the harmonic or throatsinging of singers from Tuva, a land north of Mongolia. ( I remember the beautiful diamond-shaped stamps of the republic of Tannu Tuva I lusted after when I was a boy). Tuva became part of the USSR during WW2. One of Genghis Khan's greatest generals was a Tuvan. Under the Soviets, the Tuvans were not allowed to use their language, and many Russians settled there. It is the size of North Dakota, and many people there are nomadic sheepherders and horsemen. The land is extraordinarily varied and has temperatures ranging from 100 degrees F to many degrees below zero. Tuvan singers have learned to sing in their throats in such a way as to produce more than one note at the same time. You have to hear it to believe it. Remarkably, Pena is so taken with the singing that he tracks a tape down in a record store, and he learns to do it himself. Using a braille device he also begins to learn Tuvan, translating letter by letter from Tuvan to Russian to English. Through a fantasitc set of circumstances, involving the Nobel physicist, Richard Feynman (who decided to go to Tuva as his last adventure and helped to establish a Tuvan-US friendship association), Tuvan singers come to San Francisco. Pena goes and astonishes the Tuvans by throatsinging for them. They insist that he come to Tuva for a great throatsinging contest. Others get involved and it is decided that a crew will go to make a film about his visit. The trip to Tuva is an adventure, but Pena's relationship with the Tuvans is the main theme of the movie. I don't want to give it away, but I was moved to tears. What was so awful was the horror of his life in the USA compared to the beauty of his life in Tuva. To the Tuvans he was not some poor blind black man, making his way down some shaby street to the corner store, but a hero, a truly wonderful human being, talented beyond words and beautiful to see and to hear. The Tuvans' embrace of Pena and his love of them make you see what we as humans are capable of, just as his tribulations here in the land of the free do the same though from a different angle. If you get the chance, don't miss this film. Michael Yates
Re: Re: Slate News
I wrote: Why? because it awakens the public's interest in a fundamentally meaningless process. Tom asks: What do you *mean* by a "fundamentally meaningless process"? Elections in the U.S. are fraught -- overladen -- with "meaning". Couldn't the problem be better stated as _too much meaning_ that has no ostensive referent? It's a meaningless process from the point of view of changing the political and economic balance of power in favor of the working class and other dominated groups (here in the US and also in the rest of the world). Rather it's more of an internecine battle amongst the capitalists, with various non-capitalists groupings hoping that by backing one or another capitalist faction, they'll get some of the crumbs that fall off the table. From the point of view of horizontal competition amongst the powers that be, it's not meaningless. Whomever gets elected -- Bush, Gore, or, less likely, McCain -- will govern through a complicated system of checks and balances in which the corporations, the Pentagon, etc., are major players and the actual voters have little or no influence unless they go outside "normal channels." This complicated system will move the new President toward the "center" defined by the balance of economic and political power and expressed so well by Clinton. Gore is a Clintonized Democrat, while Bush and McCain are different versions of Clintonized Republicanism, where of course, Clinton is a Reaganized Democrat (and a spitting image of Bush the Father, the "kinder, gentler" version of Reagan). Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://clawww.lmu.edu/~JDevine/JDevine.html
Re: Re: Re: Slate News
Jim Devine wrote: . Gore is a Clintonized Democrat, while Bush and McCain are different versions of Clintonized Republicanism, where of course, Clinton is a Reaganized Democrat (and a spitting image of Bush the Father, the "kinder, gentler" version of Reagan). I still think that just as the "McCarthy Era" should for accuracy's sake be called the "Truman Era," so the Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Next era should really be called the Carter Era. Most of the damage done by Reagan through Clinton was called for and/or started by Carter. Carrol
a possible explanation for the failure of wages to rise
Heres a hypothesis that may help explain the failure of wages to take off during this expansion: workers have accumulated unprecedented levels of personal debt, and this restrains their ability to negotiate for higher wages. Now for the story behind this hypothesis. It all goes back to 1986, when I was working on my doctoral thesis. I was reviewing the literature on the age-wage profile when my son Nick, who was 12 at the time, walked into the office. What was I working on? he wanted to know. I explained that there is a tendency for workers to make more money the longer they have been in the labor market, and that this had perplexed economists, since the wage trend continued long past any evidence of improved skills or performance. I then explained efficiency wage theory, which was the model I was working with at the time. Workers bargaining position, I went on, is based on their cost of job loss, which in turn depends on how long it would take to find another job and how that job would probably compare to the one theyre in. Employers may pay higher wages to increase the cost of job loss (making the job more valuable compared to alternatives) in order to elicit greater effort or obedience. The question is, why should they be more inclined to do this as workers grow older? Nick thought for a moment and then said that one explanation would be that workers through their lifetime are accumulating savings. Since they can live off their savings for a while, this reduces their fear of losing their job and increases the pressure on the boss to pay more money. I dont know whether there is any basis to this idea in practice, but it is certainly theoretically consistent, and it merited a citation in my dissertation when it was finally done. Which brings us to the present. The facts indicate that, rather than accumulating savings, workers are accumulating debt. The aggregate savings rate is barely positive, negative in fact during long stretches, and the growth of leverage is occurring across the income hierarchy. Perhaps there is truth to this cost-of-job-loss story after all. I owe, I owe, its off to work I go is an old joke, and there have been many flip comments about the effect of a mortgage on a formerly wild youths work ethic. But workers now face an unending stream of credit card payments, car lease payments, and other forms of consumer debt service that leave them a paycheck away from insolvency. Perhaps this new economy debt peonage is the force that shattered the Phillips Curve. How would one test this proposition? Obviously a time series wont do, since so many other factors share the same time trend. Nor will a straightforward cross-section work, since an individuals indebtedness is as likely a consequence as a cause of changes in wages, stability of employment, and other labor market characteristics. Perhaps a fixed effects model might do the trick: we could follow a sample of workers over time and distinguish between the accumulation of debt, which is caused by wage and employment outcomes over the same period, and the level of debt, which should be exogenous with respect to other contemporaneous variables. So all we would need is a set of panel data on workers that includes a debt measure. PSID has wealth, but Im not sure about debt. (Incidentally, net wealth is not a valid proxy for debt in this story, since a large portion of wealth is not liquid. Net financial assets might work...) There you have it, a hypothesis and a suggestion for research. I have more than enough to do, so Ill hand this off to anyone who wants to play with it. Do the tests and let us know how it comes out. Just remember to cite my kid. Peter
EU Squeezes China On Foreign Ownership
Newsbytes Thursday, February 24 9:49 PM SGT EU Squeezes China On Foreign Ownership BEIJING, CHINA, 2000 FEB 24 (NB) - By Martin Stone, Newsbytes. European Union (EU) negotiators are reportedly seeking the right to 51 percent foreign ownership of Chinese telecom firms as part of talks centered on China's bid to join the World Trade Organization (WTO). A Reuters report today said the demand exceeds the 49 percent ownership rights negotiated last year by the US on mobile and fixed-line networks, and 50 percent for value-added services, including the Internet. The EU's demand is reported as a sticking point in the negotiations over China's potential WTO membership. European telecoms are seeking management control which would give them greater leverage in what is being called the world's fastest growing telecommunications market, Reuters reported. The report noted that the number of mobile phone users in China nearly doubled to 43 million last year, while Internet users are doubling in number every six months, now totaling about 10 million. Presently, overseas investment in Chinese telecom operators is forbidden by Chinese law, but Washington wrested a six-year timetable from Beijing that pries open the market, Reuters said. In value-added telecom services, China agreed to permit foreign participation of up to 50 percent within two years of China's accession to the WTO, while ownership in mobile networks would be phased in gradually, starting at 25 percent after one year in the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, and rising to 49 percent after five years, according to the report, which added that fixed-line and international long-distance networks would permit 49 percent foreign ownership in six years. The EU negotiators are attempting to raise the barriers to 51 percent across the board, but might accept 50 percent, with a faster phase-in period, Reuters said. The report also noted strong resistance within the Chinese government and telecom industry to foreign ownership, prompting analysts to express doubt the EU would succeed. The EU is also attempting to win more favorable treatment for foreign investors forced to withdraw from joint telecom ventures, Reuters said, adding that Beijing cracked down in 1998 and ordered the ventures to disband. EU negotiators are seeking to recover millions of dollars in back payments owed since China Unicom ceased sharing revenues last October.
