The stiletto and the Empire
The imperial countries seem to think they are having a good war. The Bonn talks appear to be going more successfully than expected. International diplomacy is experienced at conflict management techniques once there is a certain willingness to take part in talks with an appropriate mixture of coercion and financial inducements. Besides, it is clear that the different Afghan groups are used to pragmatic bargaining and probably have been for centuries. This will not be the first time they have adjusted their power relations in response to subventions from imperial powers. Bush has probably deliberately gone ahead of other Coalition-against-Terror opinion, and announced there will very possibly be raids on other countries, with the softener that this will take place after they have finished in Afghanistan. This puts pressure on certain other countries but more importantly creates public opinion about the expectations of international law and practice in a world in which individual states are losing their sovereignty. Meanwhile the British Defence secretary, Hoon, has announced that a higher proportion of the British forces will be trained to be ready for interventions at short notice, reported by the BBC as stiletto raids. This is an opportunity to keep Britain relevant in the 21st century. Interesting that the stiletto metaphor is reminiscent of the Italian renaissance where models of state power, legitimacy, and covert evil deeds were tested out prior to the rise of the capitalist nation state. It implies too the semi-secrecy of such raids both known about by the media and public opinion, but done behind a veil so hopefully we do not see too much detail of the evil deeds. Empire seems to have discovered that high level bombing alone is too weak and embarrassing an intervention if it is going to violate state sovereignty. High level bombing plus working in alliance with local indigenous ground forces, even though politically imperfect, is a more effective and therefore a better solution in terms of the just war. The addition of small groups of specially trained troops from the imperial countries who can conduct guerrilla raids against the outlawed state power, is another useful ingredient. This is appearing relatively easy and the perception of international law is moving rapidly past the Westphalian concept of alliances of sovereign independent states. What is much more difficult for the emerging Empire is how to stabilise the atrocities in Israel-Palestine, which understandably fuel terrorism throughout the islamic world. Bush and the US government is not ready to say that Israel is clearly a failed state, unable to ensure internal peace and basic bourgeois democratic rights for all its inhabitants. Unfortunately the stiletto will not be used against the terrorists of this regime, but Israel is a failed state nonetheless. Chris Burford London
Re: RE: Re: Project for Pen-l
On 30-11-01, James Devine wrote: Peter Dorman writes: ... Forget about Ricardo. This stuff is interesting from a history of thought point of view, but modern trade theory differs from Ricardian theory in important ways. Some of the criticisms lefties have hurled at Ricardo bounce off the modern folks... however, Ricardo may be relevant to pedagogy. For example, it is really easy to explain the standard 2x2 Ricardian matrix and then say: what happens if Portugal decides to _change_ its comparative advantage? It is also possible to use the Ricardian matrix (or a partitioned Sraffa matrix) to show that: 1) there is not a single exchange rate but a range of exchange rates over which trade is profitable to both sides 2) therefore gains can be assymetric 3) if placed in a dynamic context with accumulation this produces differential growth, and if we add some investment in RD, the comparative advantage changes exponentially. On 4 Dec Peter Dorman wrote: The case for comparative advantage is potential pareto improvement relative to autarchy. Gains may be assymetric because in manufactured goods there is much more chance of manufacturers controlling prices down the chain, certainly to the cif level and maybe even retail, whereas farmers do not succeed in doing that. I did a survey on import price determination in Tanzania once in this very framework. In such a situation there is no possibility of free trade based on comparative advantage. The choice is between what I might call hegemonic free trade and intervention in the sectors concerned. What Peter has in mind is really a special case. Michael Yaffey
St. Luke the Commie?
And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. ---Acts 4:32-35, St. Luke (?) Bill
Re: St. Luke the Commie?
YOU ARE PREACHING TO THE CONVERTED? --- William S. Lear [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all. Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need. ---Acts 4:32-35, St. Luke (?) Bill __ Do You Yahoo!? Buy the perfect holiday gifts at Yahoo! Shopping. http://shopping.yahoo.com
Is there anyone here who can make sense of what the Bushadministration
Is there anyone here who can make sense of what the Bush administration is hoping to achieve by all of this? Markist: Enron's collapse is obviously symptomatic and characteristic feature of Wall St's bursting bubble; in the end, Enron was just another Ponzi scheme, albeit one that grew like a cancer until Enron was brokering up to 35% of energy supplies not only in the US but in Britain and other countries too. But there is much more to Enron than just another derivatives scam, or just another skeleton in the Bush cupboard for that matter. Enron's collapse is indicative of a deep crisis within the energy industry, which many both in the industry and in the markets are obviously very reluctant to admit to. It is part and parcel of the unravelling which did the California utilities in and exposed the unworkability of total deregulation. Underlying the collapse of Enron is the collapse of deregulation itself, and that is much more significant in its implications for the future even than this $100bn bankruptcy. The roots of the controversy about deregulation are as old as the oil industry. From its Pennsylvania beginning in the 1860s, oil was an anarchic free-for-all of uncontrolled markets: until the 'big hand' of John D. Rockefeller swept all the little guys away and brought in the monopolisation and cartelisation which became not just one's method but a whole management style which came to characterise an era. Ever since, oil has been an ideological and political battleground between the free-marketeers and those who saw logic in monopoly and vertical integration. These battles were surface reflection of a deeper process: the rise from humble beginnings to social hegemony, and then the eventual decline of the petroleum business and with it, the rise and decline of the whole petroleum economy on which it was based. The re-emergence of deregulation as a policy theme in the 1980s, was symptomatic of the growing signs decay and that Big Oil had passed its peak. In The Prize: the epic quest for oil, money and power(Simon Schuster 1993), Daniel Yergin describes how NYMEX (the NY Mercantile Exchange), transformed itself from a sleepy market in egg and potato futures into the frenzied centre of the oil futures market in 1983, just at the time when OPEC was launching major price hikes. The contest was between traders selling futures and OPEC's political will: 'the crude oil futures contract would resolutely undermine OPEC's price-setting powers... the rights to a single barrel of oil could now be bought and sold many times over, with the profits, sometimes immense, going to the traders and speculators elbowing themselves into the seething crowd on the floor of the Nymex... traders were also pushing and elbowing their way into the oil industry, which hardly took kindly to them. The initial reaction to the futures market on the part of established oil companies was one of scepticism and outright hostility. What did these shouting, wildly gesticulating young people, for whom the long term was perhaps two hours, have to do with an industry in which investment decisions were made today that would not begin to pay off until a decade hence? But ...[w]ithin a few years , most of the major oil companies and some of the exporting countries, as well as many other players, including large financial houses, were participating in crude futures on the Nymex ... none of them could afford to stay out ... the volume of transaction built up astronomically [and] Maine potatoes became a distant, quaint and embarrassing memory.' [The Prize p725 ] The history of the oil industry, despite its twists and turns, has followed an internal logic from its early buccaneering times to Rockefeller's Standard Oil trustisation, to the phase of settled midlife maturity, with integrated operations from expro [exploration and production] to marketing, with states taking a strategic interest and nationalising oil companies: to eventual privatisation, commoditisation and now even the ending of 'reserves' in favour of 'just-in-time' production. Why? What is underlying? We have had laisser-fair capitalism, monopoly capitalism (finance capitalism/imperialism mirrored by Soviet state monopolies) and now we are in a final stage of deregulation, unbundling, chaos etc. Something fundamental is at work. George Keller, chairman of Chevron said: The concept I was taught was that you moved your own crude through your own refining and downstream system. It was so obvious that it was a truism. [Yerginp723]. Yergin added: 'The move to the commodity style of trading would be resisted in many companies by traditionalists who saw this direction as an uncouth, immoral, and inappropriate way to conduct the oil business - almost against the laws of nature... but in due course they were persuaded.' The rapid ascent of Opec was following the 1967 6-Day Arab-Israeli war broke established
I. The Theory of Land Value Taxation
I. The Theory of Land Value Taxation The Single Tax is the governmental collection of the full annual income of land (hereinafter referred to as rent) in place of taxes on things produced by labor. Some Single Taxers would gradually increase the tax on rent until nearly all the annual land rent were collected in taxation and settle for replacing as many other taxes as possible on things produced by labor. In brief, either way the proposal is to tax locations, not production. These are the advantages claimed for the Single Tax: 1. Land is not a product of human laborit was produced by God equally for us alland hence it is not justifiably private property. It is an economic opportunity that should be equally accessible to all. But practically speaking, land must be privately owned as now, so let land continue to be privately owned so long as its rent is collected for the use of all residents by the government in place of taxes on production. Then both justice and practicality can be satisfied (the owner will have a special privilege (i.e., more than equal access) but he'll be paying others for it and then the government needn't violate the private property rights of labor and business via taxation. 2. Rent is created when society creates jobs, shopping and other amenities and the government creates roads, schools, protection, social services, etc. near a land-site. It would seem logical and moral for society and government to collect through taxation what they themselves create rather than what individuals create. These two advantages are moral in nature. Let us now turn to the four main economic advantages of taxing rent (within rational zoning limits). 1. All land sites would have to be efficiently used, for it would be too expensive to keep land out of full use, which is the highest-and-best or the most appropriate use. For instance, if the site were fully taxed, it would be uneconomic for a rundown inadequate building to be located on a valuable downtown site because the land value tax on the site would be greater than the income from the building; landowners would therefore construct a more desirable building or sell to someone who would. The result would be new construction and new jobs. Here, then, is a governmental revenue source that actually would create economic growth. The more rent that is taxed, the more economic growth would result. In the early 21st century, this can become of pressing importance because it can be the only way for the U.S. federal government to avoid bankruptcy; soon it will have to meet the quickly mounting obligations of Social Security, Medicare-Medicaid, various entitlements, other new governmental programs, and interest on the federal debt. This re-payment would be greatly exacerbated if a recession or costly foreign entanglement occurred (nothing but sheer desperation is likely to drive the voters and politicians to adopt the Single Tax). 2. Unwanted urban sprawl into farming areas and open-space land would be contained. If urban land is developed more intensively, as it likely would be with the Single Tax, homeowners and businesses wouldn't sprawl needlessly into farming or open-space areas. For example, a home would be built on a quarter acre in a city instead of on five-or-so acres in a farming or open-space area (putting a large office building on land best suited to growing corn would not be appropriate and would be a sure money-loser under any tax system). 3. Developers needn't invest any money in prospective land-sites because the selling price of land would be zerowhatever rent the landowner might collect from the land would be turned over to the government in taxation at the end of the year; no net annual rental income means a zero selling price (the selling price being equal to the net annual rental income multiplied by the current mortgage rate). Current landowners would be compensated by the down-taxing of the improvements they own. 4. Taxes on productionon buildings, incomes, sales, payroll, imports, etc.would be much reduced or abolished altogether. This by itself could lead to unprecedented economic growth. As of this writing, fully 18 jurisdictions in the United States have already shifted some of their local property tax on buildings to land. Numerous studies by competent authorities (available upon request) show that all the above advantages have actually occurred in land value taxing jurisdictions. If the Single Tax is so provably good, how come it has not been widely adopted or become well known in the United States? There are many reasons for this, but the principal reasons are these: 1. Its immediate full adoption would cause tremendous economic disruption. Some property owners who are holding land-sites out of their full use, although they're certainly in a minority, would find themselves suddenly confronted with a huge tax increase. They could face bankruptcy and
Terrorism is an illegal category: What's a war ?
Terror or War? http://www.detroitnews.com/nation/index.htm IN THE U.S.: Most Americans probably gave little thought to terror vs. war before the Sept. 11 attacks, when the issue became much more personal. IN JERUSALEM: Palestinian militants attacked Israel last weekend to avenge what they consider acts of terrorism against Palestinians. 12/05/01 Essay As suicide bombings and reprisals enflame the Middle East, Israelis, Palestinians and Americans grapple with the morality of violence DETROIT--Victor Begg knows a terrorist when he sees one. So does David Gad-Harf. But if Begg, an Oakland County businessman and Muslim activist, and Gad-Harf, leader of a branch of one of the nation's largest Jewish organizations, each handed you their most-wanted list, the names wouldn't be the same. One man's heroes could well be the other's criminals. -clip-
Re: I. The Theory of Land Value Taxation
As far as I read, this stuff is pure Henry George. George, a 19th century US political economist, treated land rent as if it were original sin. Some of this followers are progressive, but most if not all are anti-Marxist. In simple terms, where as Marx thought that profits+interest+rent could and should be abolished with workers' socialism, George thought that rent could and should be (largely) abolished within capitalism. Whereas Marx saw land-rent as redistributed surplus-value (which arises in production), George saw it as coming from distortions in a free market society. BTW, George's PROGRESS POVERTY is fun to read, much easier than CAPITAL. One of his better points is that no land ownership is legitimate because all land was originally stolen and no society accepts stolen property as legal. If I remember correctly, George was very anti-Indian, even though all US land was originally stolen from the Indians. At 11:01 AM 12/5/01 -0500, you wrote: I. The Theory of Land Value Taxation The Single Tax is the governmental collection of the full annual income of land (hereinafter referred to as rent) in place of taxes on things produced by labor. Some Single Taxers would gradually increase the tax on rent until nearly all the annual land rent were collected in taxation and settle for replacing as many other taxes as possible on things produced by labor. In brief, either way the proposal is to tax locations, not production. These are the advantages claimed for the Single Tax: 1. Land is not a product of human labor¯it was produced by God equally for us all¯and hence it is not justifiably private property. It is an economic opportunity that should be equally accessible to all. But practically speaking, land must be privately owned as now, so let land continue to be privately owned so long as its rent is collected for the use of all residents by the government in place of taxes on production. Then both justice and practicality can be satisfied (the owner will have a special privilege (i.e., more than equal access) but he'll be paying others for it and then the government needn't violate the private property rights of labor and business via taxation. 2. Rent is created when society creates jobs, shopping and other amenities and the government creates roads, schools, protection, social services, etc. near a land-site. It would seem logical and moral for society and government to collect through taxation what they themselves create rather than what individuals create. These two advantages are moral in nature. Let us now turn to the four main economic advantages of taxing rent (within rational zoning limits). 1. All land sites would have to be efficiently used, for it would be too expensive to keep land out of full use, which is the highest-and-best or the most appropriate use. For instance, if the site were fully taxed, it would be uneconomic for a rundown inadequate building to be located on a valuable downtown site because the land value tax on the site would be greater than the income from the building; landowners would therefore construct a more desirable building or sell to someone who would. The result would be new construction and new jobs. Here, then, is a governmental revenue source that actually would create economic growth. The more rent that is taxed, the more economic growth would result. In the early 21st century, this can become of pressing importance because it can be the only way for the U.S. federal government to avoid bankruptcy; soon it will have to meet the quickly mounting obligations of Social Security, Medicare-Medicaid, various entitlements, other new governmental programs, and interest on the federal debt. This re-payment would be greatly exacerbated if a recession or costly foreign entanglement occurred (nothing but sheer desperation is likely to drive the voters and politicians to adopt the Single Tax). 2. Unwanted urban sprawl into farming areas and open-space land would be contained. If urban land is developed more intensively, as it likely would be with the Single Tax, homeowners and businesses wouldn't sprawl needlessly into farming or open-space areas. For example, a home would be built on a quarter acre in a city instead of on five-or-so acres in a farming or open-space area (putting a large office building on land best suited to growing corn would not be appropriate and would be a sure money-loser under any tax system). 3. Developers needn't invest any money in prospective land-sites because the selling price of land would be zero¯whatever rent the landowner might collect from the land would be turned over to the government in taxation at the end of the year; no net annual rental income means a zero selling price (the selling price being equal to the net annual rental income multiplied by the current mortgage rate). Current landowners would be compensated by the down-taxing of the improvements they own. 4.
Re: Imperialism and Empire (by John Bellamy Foster)
--- Message Received --- From: ALI KADRI [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 4 Dec 2001 23:34:50 -0800 (PST) Subject: [PEN-L:20365] Re: Re: Re: Imperialism and Empire (by John Bellamy Foster) Snip The end of the cold war represents such a rift insofar as it leaves an unfettered room for the extension of capitalist accumulation abroad. More opportunities, so to speak. Hakki this process uncouples capital from a particular nation state, and aspect which was part and parcel and the distinguishing characteristic of Imperialism. Once uncoupled (a process which has been going on well before the end of the Cold-war) capital has two choices each represented by powerful contradictions. The first is that because of its historical growth it sticks with what it knows and operates its will through the last surviving superpower. Second it creates an internationally civility through which to operate and pushes as much as possible all states into a secondary managerial position (which of course has also gone on). What has disappeared is the close internal state hegemony where-by the imperial homelands by investing productively back into themselves used this as a basis to firmly hold its working class to its imperial agenda. Capital goes free and once free why sacrifice itself to a national homeland more than it has to in order to secure even more for itself. But here is the rub, capital no-longer enjoys an intimate relationship with the members of any state, hence it relies on an alien state (alien to it) and increasingly a state whose actions become more and more self-motivated. The US is pursueing an expression of state power, capital no-doubt scrambles for what it can get, but in a sense the state is no longer its board of directors, but its own corporate enterporise which must be bribed, flattered and bullied - a process which favours section interests above any generality of interest. Where is this different , especially in the history of the US where sectional capital interests have played such a decisive role, the process looks the same but many of the limits have withered away - hence we get not the US as an Imperial power, but as a rogue state. This is not Imperialism, nor is it super-imperialism - it is a monstrocity. The theoretical question is how long can it last and at what cost - our political question is how to kill the beast. So that is simply more of the same on a larger and accelerated scale. if you agree with that then that is too simple to merit credit. I agree. Competeting imperial powers offered a constraint within which capital, class hegemony and the state had a necessary reliance on one another. Remove the constraints and the elements fly a part. In short the essence of the imperialist enterprise dissapates - it is not just greater opportunities but entirely new conditions where the old rules do not hold (and the new rules have not emerged). But, what should be said is that the people that were responsible in the past for the blunders of history, and I underline responsibility, are simply more culpable now. Policy blunders (and needlessly bloody ones) is the common history of all imperial powers - but so is having definite objectives (even checking the USSR had this virtue even if it did not deliver Indo-China and was based on an illusion - it nevertheless had real purpose and was vital in capital investments in the rest of Asia). I don't think we are looking at blunders in this sense, as I said the US has been pugnacious from Bush's first days and the only object seems to be to rip down international treaties and make force the first and final arbitrator - this I believe is qualitatively different and has to be expected as one aspect of Imperialism being overshot. There should not be any dilution of fact and cause. there are criminals and victims in history, anyone that says there are only differences of degrees between the two, will get a lot of coverage in the press that supports the criminals. I suppose I would take this a point further, a real imperialist is a criminal in world affairs, the intent often read directly from the actions. However, the criminality we are now seeing emerged is somthing more like a serial killer, it would be easy to see this as some deft ploy for oil and in all of this oil plays a part, just as a serial killer might rape his victim, but is rape the objective for this type of criminal. I will use this nasty analogy, for once it is a fitting image. It is the difference between a rapist who kills his victim to silence her, and a killer who rapes his victim as part of degarding and killing her. Both end up with raped bodies, both are driven, but what serves to catch one will not catch the other - for that we need to understand the specifics of the crime. In terms of politics, we cannot get ahead of the game if we stick to the familar trail, the fact is our own history shows that we have been
Re: Imperialism and Empire (by John Bellamy Foster)
--- Message Received --- From: Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 05 Dec 2001 04:31:10 + Subject: [PEN-L:20361] Imperialism and Empire (by John Bellamy Foster) Rob, good to hear from you, unfortunately for us your perception rings all-too-true (there is of course a flip side): My difficult-to-articulate feeling is that we are falling from a never-quite-realised functionalist-integrationist Kautsky world (which may have needed contending expansionist blocs to provide what glue there was) into something with much in it that concerned the likes of Lenin and Orwell. There is a strong tendency towards the Kautskian world of more user firendly super-imperialism. Negri and Hardt's Empire leans much in that direction. Recent realities show that a more Orwellian vision seems to be being realisied. Barabarianism, seems well and truely before us. 'US Global Hegemonic Imperialism' is so essentially contradicted/self-defeating a notion, I reckon we're at the historical point where stability is not to be gained by the making of omelettes but can be maintained only by the continual breaking of eggs. One giant military power, a couple of hundred desperate nations, scarce essential resources and a concomitant zero-sum dynamic (with uneven development and incipient underconsumption written all over it), and all this in the context of a set of organising principles that confront a legitimacy crisis at the level of its basic system-legitimating premises (the nation state, the citizen, and 'economic reality'). Fragmentation, polarisation, politics as the war of all against all (between and within nations), and all under the auspices of a hegemon that can prevail only where politics and economics come from the barrel of a gun. This is spot-on. If things are allowed to go-on the way they are developing our kids inheret a battlefield. What the US is doing is Hitler's war as a permananent condition (an idea that gripped his mind after Stalingrad) and we know what that gave Germany let alone the rest of Europe. It is inherently unstable and violent but we should not draw the conclusion that it is thereby short-lived and will quitely be replaced by something better. Left to its own devices it may well be a sucidal trajectory for the world (such things have happened in the past). Lenin's voioce comes back to haunt us, Kautsky's vision was wrong tendentially, but because class struggle was absent it was wrong practically. We have at the moment Kautsky's vision as criticisied by Lenin - it is the absence of class struggle which has hatched a devil's egg. We need to remember that the working class has a historic role in this, a role to lead the WHOLE of society - the WHOLE of society - national bourgeoisie and super-multi-national-bourgeosie as well as other classes. Rob, I do not mean to direct this at you but at all of us - social leadership based on working class interest is at such times a question of social survival, the left never seems to get this through its dogmatically thickened skull. We cannot lead the whole of society by raising socialism as our battle cry and disposession of the bourgeoisie as our platform. We can lead by raising international civil law as an immediate demand, of democraticising the state and bringing the economy under control - even the bourgeoisie have an interest in this (perhaps not a predominant interest, but that is where tendencies play such a crucial part). The pressure which brought about moves to international civility also brings about the opposite and disruptive tendency of the last surviving imperial power. It cannot re-invent Imperialism, it has no-where to go - it can only exercise its power to exercise power - Bush is not an exception but a pure expression of this reaction. If at any time we needed a Popular Front against Barbarianism it is now. If at any time a multi-class front against reaction was called for it is now. If at anytime the workers needed to make what gains they can economically and politically it is now. And what is the left content with - Peace movements, vacant opposition to war, and slogans - abstractions prentending to be real. I would normally make apologies at this point, as so many comrades expire so much well meant energy, but for once I won't. Unless we can raise rafts of practical and implementable changes at every level of society, unless we can make a clear division between social progress and disintergration then war becomes the norm, peace evoporates into periods where death squads do their dirty work, and slogans become liabilities for arrest or worse. The only thing that could shift the course, for this is a war without end, is some decisive US defeats - that is the only passive option - that someone else will counter this madness in blood - it appears less and less likely. US Global Hegemony is not an option, a world ruled by a rogue state is not the world I want to give
RE: Land Value Taxation: The Basics
It's been discussed quite a bit, though not lately. I'm a fan, in general. One problem is that it implies a new pattern of location that could disrupt the lives of people. If you rent in an area that should be high- density, LVT would create pressure to turn your home into something that generated higher profits. In other words, it's a machine for urban renewal. The reason is that a zero tax on 'improvements' (buildings, equipment fixed in place) enhances the incentive to maximize improvements where they create maximum after-tax profit. Sort of like an 'enterprise zone.' mbs Land Value Taxation: The Basics Does anyone have critics of land value taxation ? Charles Brown
can friendly fire be confirmed?
Hold on here folks, why are we taking for granted that the attack can be confirmed? hasn't Rumsfeld been telling us that it's hard to confirm reports from Afghanistan? Maybe it was an Afghani Taliban Islamic Fascist fighter plan in disguise? Steve Stephen Philion Lecturer/PhD Candidate Department of Sociology 2424 Maile Way Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 Honolulu, HI 96822
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: free trade CORRECTED YETAGAIN
Rakesh, Could the Portuguese workers' collectives agree to exchange their wine for slightly labor hour equivalence in British cloth? This would still enable them to procure their goods at slightly less labor cost. And would the British owners of cloth agree to this, seeing that they would come out slightly ahead? But, Peter, say there is just one British capitalist, facing a maximization problem. The Portuguese workers are offering him a trade. One bottle of wine for one unit of cloth. But the British capitalist realizes that shifting to the production of two units of cloth wouldn't save him a dime; he's not concerned that it would save his labor force 20 hours. What I am trying to get across is that the rational labor saving that an international division of labor allows can only be realized after there has been an international workers' revolution. Then workers' collectives can share labor time data and make decisions. Ricardo's capitalists would never go for a trade just because it allowed workers in each nation and as a whole to save labor time; they would only go for trade if it allowed them to reduce costs and/or make greater profits. And this is not the same thing, or could interfere, with the reduction in labor time that is ultimately the source of true wealth. Maybe this point is not compelling or more likely I haven't devised a compelling example or general demonstration. But just as there can be perverse results with reswitching, I want to suggest that there can be perverse results in international trade in terms of rational labor time saving as a result of exploitation. By the way, the point about trading companies was simply to emphasize that the Ricardian moment is one of pure exchange; profit in production is not at issue. (Note: this is Ricardian trade theory only. There is some allowance for production in the 20th century version.) Peter yes the 20th and 21st century is a long way away in both theory and reality from Ricardo's quaint example, but I must say that his analysis of the use of bills of exchange (leading to mutual cancellations so that no bullion need be exported) is unbelievably intricate. Rakesh
Asset seizures
[So how come the Feds can't seem to use the same resolve when it comes to drug $ ?] U.S. Seizes Assets of 3 Islamic Groups U.S. Charity Among Institutions Accused Of Funding Hamas By Mike Allen and Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, December 5, 2001; Page A01 President Bush announced the seizure yesterday of assets and records of one of the nation's largest Islamic charities and accused it of funding the Palestinian extremist group Hamas, which claimed responsibility for last weekend's suicide bombings in Israel. Expressing solidarity with Israel for the fourth day in a row, administration officials said they would target Hamas's finances as aggressively as they have squeezed funding for Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Bush said the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development raised $13 million from U.S. residents last year and used the money partly to fund Hamas's efforts to recruit suicide bombers and to support their families. Bush also blocked the accounts of a bank and holding company that the administration described as affiliates of Hamas. Those who do business with terror will do no business with the United States -- or anywhere else the United States can reach, the president said during a Rose Garden ceremony. The net is closing. Today it just got tighter. The announcement was the first time since the Sept. 11 attacks that the administration has prominently targeted a group other than al Qaeda as part of its war on terrorism. Previously, Bush officials had sought to keep the focus on bin Laden and had worried about losing the support of Arab allies for the military campaign in Afghanistan. But the suicide bombings over the weekend, which took 26 lives, have prompted a series of strong public statements in support of Israel. Administration officials said that during an Oval Office meeting on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon asked Bush to move against the Holy Land Foundation, and the president speedily obliged. We -- bam -- did it, a senior official said. U.S. authorities have investigated the foundation since about 1992. But the Texas-based organization, which has 35 full-time employees and describes itself as the largest Islamic charity in the United States, strenuously denies that it provides financial support to terrorists. John Janney, a spokesman, said yesterday the Holy Land Foundation has been fighting the war on terrorism by giving Palestinians the choice of bread instead of bullets and books instead of bombs. Islamic groups reacted with outrage to the White House announcement, which came during Ramadan, the peak season for Muslim charitable giving. The Council on American-Islamic Relations and seven other North American Muslim groups called Bush's action an unjust and counterproductive move that can only damage America's credibility with Muslims in this country and around the world, and could create the impression that there has been a shift from a war on terrorism to an attack on Islam. The administration's position is complicated because Hamas, in addition to being a militant group that has challenged Yasser Arafat's leadership of the Palestinians and used terrorism against Israel, is also a social service organization that provides medical care and poverty relief in the West Bank and Gaza. Treasury Department officials said Bush's order immediately froze $1.9 million in foundation funds in at least five U.S. banks. The foundation's offices in California, Illinois and New Jersey also were raided. The U.S. government simultaneously moved against Al-Aqsa Islamic Bank and Beit el-Mal Holdings, an investment group, both based in the West Bank. Treasury Secretary Paul H. O'Neill, appearing with Bush, said those institutions aren't just banks that unknowingly administer accounts for terrorists -- they are direct arms of Hamas established and used to do Hamas business. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said the seizures signal that the United States will not be used as a staging ground for the financing of those groups that violently oppose peace as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. We won't tolerate it any more than we will tolerate the financing of groups that on September 11th attacked our homeland, Ashcroft said. Hamas, whose name comes from the Arabic initials for Islamic Resistance Movement, was a conspicuous omission from an administration order, issued Sept. 24, freezing the assets of 27 individuals and groups suspected of funding terrorists. But it was among 22 groups added to the list on Nov. 2. In June 2000, the U.S. Agency for International Development approved the Holy Land Foundation to receive grants. But two months later, the foundation was removed from the list of certified Private Voluntary Organizations after the State Department notified USAID that the relationship was contrary to the national defense and foreign policy interests of the United States. No grants had been made, an agency official said.
Re: Re: RE: Re: Project for Pen-l
More generally, pricing to market is an important aspect of the critique of trade theory. There is plenty of empirical evidence for it, although the theory is underdeveloped. Assuming that this is a tool that can be used by global oligopolists, its effects are likely to be asymmetric, as Michael says. Peter Michael Yaffey wrote:Gains may be assymetric because in manufactured goods there is much more chance of manufacturers controlling prices down the chain, certainly to the cif level and maybe even retail, whereas farmers do not succeed in doing that. I did a survey on import price determination in Tanzania once in this very framework. In such a situation there is no possibility of free trade based on comparative advantage. The choice is between what I might call hegemonic free trade and intervention in the sectors concerned. What Peter has in mind is really a special case. Michael Yaffey
Re: Re: free trade CORRECTED YET AGAIN
- Original Message - From: Rakesh Bhandari [EMAIL PROTECTED] What you need to show is that, at an exchange rate that permits balanced trade, there is not a set of voluntary trades (willingly entered into by the owners of the respective commodities) that would produce a potential pareto improvement in at least one country with no potential pareto loss in the other. What I want to show, Peter, is that the national specialization and the concommitant international trade that would reduce social labor time not only in each nation but in that giant ant colony as a whole may not be undertaken as a result of exploitation. = Reification. Where/what are the firms-enterprises-technologies-ecologies? Too Westphalian, Rakesh. Play with the institutional boundaries, don't accept them. My accepting them for the point of argument does mean that I recognize the existence of long ago dissolved boundaries. Exploitation --all too real-- aside, while firms want to reduce labor-time vis a vis competitors, nation states don't--in the aggregate. Yes you missed my point. While the reduction of labor time may be the consequence of cost reduction/profit maximization, it's not the same thing. Firms do not want first and foremost to reduce labor time; it's an easy matter to show how they may choose against mechanization that would reduce labor time overall due to exploitation. Since they are not paying labor for its time in full, they have less incentive to replace a given quantity of direct labor with a lesser quantity of indirect labor. State non-interference is an impossibility in a Ricardian or any other model with regards to current conditions of PE. don't get what you are saying. state interference being possible in a model does not mean it's possible in the real world. what are you getting at? While each *firm* wants to reduce unit labor costs, national polities want to minimize the social unrest from unemployment and the slippery slope towards immiseration. what national polities (and there's your reification) want to do and what they do do are two different matters. Moreover, national polities may want to minimize unrest by neo mercantilist trade policy. Which could work in the short term. Thus net labor-time per worker must remain constant or increase under present conditions while total labor-time cum productivity must increase [more workers, even greater output per worker] under current conditions of international capital accumulation constrained by commodity portfolios/technological choice and Kaleckian constraints on possibilities for sustained national-global full employment and final demand. doesn't matter. labor time needed to produce a given output (one bottle of wine, one piece of cloth) is what intl trade can be mechanism for the reduction of. To substantially reduce net labor-time per worker while increasing output per worker ratios would entail not only social, but technological revolution[s]. :-). Ecological well being another issue to seriously consider. Counterfactually, imagine the North at 20-30% unemployment in 2019 and the South at the same level of unemployment *as now* due to population increase, with the global top 3% half again as rich as they are now, due to free trade, financial crises/technological unemployment and weird weather. See why people danced-marched in Seattle etc.? Ian I have a lot trouble following you. Rakesh
Front line and Afghan
There is an almost complete blackout on the situation in the Kandahar area. No longer are we even getting the coverage we got before the fall of Kabul and Mazar e Sharif. This is no accident. No tv images with the on the front journalists. No more are our journalists on the fron line. Mainstream journalism has revealed its bankrupt hack like nature. Few journalists have shown any flare for the war in terms of investigation and analysis. Why is it that we are not being told what is going on. Why is it that journalists refuse to raise issues and ask questions? Why dont they tell us why they are not reporting from the front line etc. Karl Carlile Be free to visit the web site of the Communist Global Group at http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/
Re: I. The Theory of Land Value Taxation
Points about Henry George: 1) There are modern Georgists out there; most of them suggestion taxing not just land but natural resources in general -- in effect Green taxes. 2) Georgists wanted to tax not only land, but monopoly -- meaning profit and interest. 3) I have not been able to track this down, so perhaps my memory is playing tricks on me. I seem to remember Marx critizing Georgism , but in a quite sympathetic way. Charles Brown wrote: I. The Theory of Land Value Taxation The Single Tax is the governmental collection of the full annual income of land (hereinafter referred to as rent) in place of taxes on things produced by labor. Some Single Taxers would gradually increase the tax on rent until nearly all the annual land rent were collected in taxation and settle for replacing as many other taxes as possible on things produced by labor. In brief, either way the proposal is to tax locations, not production. These are the advantages claimed for the Single Tax: 1. Land is not a product of human laborit was produced by God equally for us alland hence it is not justifiably private property. It is an economic opportunity that should be equally accessible to all. But practically speaking, land must be privately owned as now, so let land continue to be privately owned so long as its rent is collected for the use of all residents by the government in place of taxes on production. Then both justice and practicality can be satisfied (the owner will have a special privilege (i.e., more than equal access) but he'll be paying others for it and then the government needn't violate the private property rights of labor and business via taxation. 2. Rent is created when society creates jobs, shopping and other amenities and the government creates roads, schools, protection, social services, etc. near a land-site. It would seem logical and moral for society and government to collect through taxation what they themselves create rather than what individuals create. These two advantages are moral in nature. Let us now turn to the four main economic advantages of taxing rent (within rational zoning limits). 1. All land sites would have to be efficiently used, for it would be too expensive to keep land out of full use, which is the highest-and-best or the most appropriate use. For instance, if the site were fully taxed, it would be uneconomic for a rundown inadequate building to be located on a valuable downtown site because the land value tax on the site would be greater than the income from the building; landowners would therefore construct a more desirable building or sell to someone who would. The result would be new construction and new jobs. Here, then, is a governmental revenue source that actually would create economic growth. The more rent that is taxed, the more economic growth would result. In the early 21st century, this can become of pressing importance because it can be the only way for the U.S. federal government to avoid bankruptcy; soon it will have to meet the quickly mounting obligations of Social Security, Medicare-Medicaid, various entitlements, other new governmental programs, and interest on the federal debt. This re-payment would be greatly exacerbated if a recession or costly foreign entanglement occurred (nothing but sheer desperation is likely to drive the voters and politicians to adopt the Single Tax). 2. Unwanted urban sprawl into farming areas and open-space land would be contained. If urban land is developed more intensively, as it likely would be with the Single Tax, homeowners and businesses wouldn't sprawl needlessly into farming or open-space areas. For example, a home would be built on a quarter acre in a city instead of on five-or-so acres in a farming or open-space area (putting a large office building on land best suited to growing corn would not be appropriate and would be a sure money-loser under any tax system). 3. Developers needn't invest any money in prospective land-sites because the selling price of land would be zerowhatever rent the landowner might collect from the land would be turned over to the government in taxation at the end of the year; no net annual rental income means a zero selling price (the selling price being equal to the net annual rental income multiplied by the current mortgage rate). Current landowners would be compensated by the down-taxing of the improvements they own. 4. Taxes on productionon buildings, incomes, sales, payroll, imports, etc.would be much reduced or abolished altogether. This by itself could lead to unprecedented economic growth. As of this writing, fully 18 jurisdictions in the United States have already shifted some of their local property tax on buildings to land. Numerous studies by competent authorities (available upon request) show that all the above advantages have actually occurred in land value taxing jurisdictions. If the
Re: Front line and Afghan
At 07:23 PM 12/5/01 +, you wrote: There is an almost complete blackout on the situation in the Kandahar area. No longer are we even getting the coverage we got before the fall of Kabul and Mazar e Sharif. This is no accident. No tv images with the on the front journalists. No more are our journalists on the fron line. Mainstream journalism has revealed its bankrupt hack like nature. Few journalists have shown any flare for the war in terms of investigation and analysis. Why is it that we are not being told what is going on. Why is it that journalists refuse to raise issues and ask questions? Why dont they tell us why they are not reporting from the front line etc. They _are_ hacks, but the US government is also making a big effort to keep them that way, by keeping them away from the front line. NTMail K12 - the Mail Server for Education
Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Physics and economics
At 11:53 PM 12/4/01 -0800, you wrote: Then the laws of probability should correspond to human behaviour in as much as they do to the behaviour of inanimate matter, and they do not. some human behavior is predictable, though much of it is not. The big problem with statistics as applied to human behavior is that we're inside the system being studied... Econometricians call that time incoherence. this is not only a question of degree, it is of a fundamental difference in substance between social and natural science, hence, the failure of math and spastics to afford an adequate explanation of human processes. I like that typo! JD NTMail K12 - the Mail Server for Education
Independent Turkey - I
Turkish Daily News - Dec 5, 2001 'We don't want an American operation concerning Iraq,' President Sezer says. 'But, I don't know what Mr. Powell will say.' Powell in Ankara to seek firm support in expanded anti-terror campaign U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell came to Ankara yesterday evening to rally support for the U.S.-led counter-terrorism alliance after the campaign in Afghanistan. Hours before Powell's visit, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit urged prompt U.S. intervention to prevent a war in the Middle East, following Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets. The United States is pressuring Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to crackdown on Palestinian terrorist groups. But Ecevit described the latest Israeli strikes following suicide bombings this weekend as unjust actions against the Palestinian Authority's territory. Turkey, the first Muslim country to commit combat troops to Afghanistan, opposes spreading the U.S.-led campaign to Iraq. We don't want an American operation concerning Iraq, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said on Tuesday. But, I don't know what Mr. Powell will say. Last week, Turkey appeared to be relaxing its opposition, when Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said that new conditions could bring new evaluations. U.S., officials have accused Iraq of developing a germ warfare program, and President George W. Bush suggested last Monday that once the Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network is routed out in Afghanistan, he may shift the campaign to Iraq. Turkey served as a launching pad for attacks against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and its support is seen as key for any military action against Iraq. Some 50 U.S. warplanes monitoring a no-fly zone over northern Iraq are based in southern Turkey. Ankara fears that if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is overthrown, Iraqi Kurds who control a de facto autonomous zone in northern Iraq would take advantage of a power vacuum to establish a Kurdish state, which may boost the aspirations of autonomy-seeking Turkey`s Kurdish terrorist (PKK). A war could also deepen a massive economic crisis in Turkey. Powell has said he would try to speed efforts for a settlement to the 27-year-old division of Cyprus, which has marred relations between Turkey and Greece and weakened NATO's southeastern wing. On Tuesday, the leaders of Greek and Turkish Cypriots held direct talks for the first time in more than four years and decided to continue them in January. Also on the agenda in Ankara are discussions for the formation of a new European Union defense force. Turkey announced Sunday, after months of negotiations, that it would agree to the force's use of NATO's military facilities. Washington prefers that the new EU force use NATO resources rather than create a separate military unit. Reports said Ankara gave the green light after accepting assurances that non-EU member Turkey would be consulted on a case-by-case basis for operations in its sphere of interest such as Iraq, the Caucasus or the Balkans, and that the force would not interfere in Turkey's territorial conflicts with EU-member Greece over Cyprus and Aegean sea and air space rights. Ankara - Turkish Daily News with wire dispatches
Ankara supports strike on Iraq
Turkish Daily News - Dec 5, 2001 Ankara pledges support for a strike on Iraq SAADET ORUC As Ankara welcomes U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, signs of Turkish support for a possible U.S. strike on Iraq are strengthening. Top military officials, speaking to the Turkish Daily News on Tuesday, confirmed a policy change on Iraq, the clues of which were given by the Turkish Ambassador in Washington Faruk Logoglu in earlier remarks to the Defense News and Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu. As we have given support to the United States during the Gulf War and the war on terrorism, we will probably continue to support the United States. But, of course, we will be looking for a United Nations resolution on terrorism and the enhancement of the majority of the coalition for such a strike, a senior official said. Stating that the U.S. military deployment, which was made recently in Afghanistan, will not remain solely for the continuation of the strikes on Afghanistan, the official predicted that within two months, an operation would be launched. The words of the official showed that a resolution to be decided by the Security Council of the U.N. on arms inspection will not be considered sufficient for Turkish support of a possible strike on Iraq, however, the official has ruled out any strong Turkish opposition regarding fresh strikes on Iraq. Kurds cannot be a determining factor Comparing the ongoing operation in Afghanistan with the one strongly expected to be held in Iraq, the official said that the opposition factions in Afghanistan and Iraq differ from each other. The Northern Alliance was provided support by Russia and Turkey, while it is impossible to reach any result with the separatist Kurds in Iraq, namely the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), he stated. Without softening a land with air bombardment, it is impossible to reach any result strategically, said the official, in an aim to characterize the framework of the Turkish support for an operation in Iraq. We can open air bases for such operations, just like the support for the war in Afghanistan, he said. Referring to the anti-democratic regime in Baghdad, both governmental and military officials, in a careful tone, commented that the confrontation between Saddam Hussein and the Western world gives the Iraqi leader a chance to strengthen his image inside the country. The evaluations being made among the top figures in Ankara have resulted in the conclusion that the United States was not against the people of Iraq, but against the regime in Baghdad. Naturally, both military and political circles are very well aware of the fact that the raising of the debate on U.N. inspections in Iraq will result in the necessity of a regime change in Iraq. The losses caused during the Gulf War are still on the minds of Ankara, and the rhetoric of putting in one and gaining three, which was the slogan of former President Turgut Ozal during the Gulf War, is accepted as one of the biggest mistakes in Turkish history. This time, in a cautious and realistic way, Ankara is seen to be going to provide the best approach for its interests and also the interests of the region. Ankara - Turkish Daily News
What will Mr. Powell say?
Turkish Daily News - Dec 5, 2001 'We don't want an American operation concerning Iraq,' President Sezer says. 'But, I don't know what Mr. Powell will say.' Powell in Ankara to seek firm support in expanded anti-terror campaign U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell came to Ankara yesterday evening to rally support for the U.S.-led counter-terrorism alliance after the campaign in Afghanistan. Hours before Powell's visit, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit urged prompt U.S. intervention to prevent a war in the Middle East, following Israeli attacks on Palestinian targets. The United States is pressuring Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to crackdown on Palestinian terrorist groups. But Ecevit described the latest Israeli strikes following suicide bombings this weekend as unjust actions against the Palestinian Authority's territory. Turkey, the first Muslim country to commit combat troops to Afghanistan, opposes spreading the U.S.-led campaign to Iraq. We don't want an American operation concerning Iraq, President Ahmet Necdet Sezer said on Tuesday. But, I don't know what Mr. Powell will say. Last week, Turkey appeared to be relaxing its opposition, when Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu said that new conditions could bring new evaluations. U.S., officials have accused Iraq of developing a germ warfare program, and President George W. Bush suggested last Monday that once the Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network is routed out in Afghanistan, he may shift the campaign to Iraq. Turkey served as a launching pad for attacks against Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War and its support is seen as key for any military action against Iraq. Some 50 U.S. warplanes monitoring a no-fly zone over northern Iraq are based in southern Turkey. Ankara fears that if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is overthrown, Iraqi Kurds who control a de facto autonomous zone in northern Iraq would take advantage of a power vacuum to establish a Kurdish state, which may boost the aspirations of autonomy-seeking Turkey`s Kurdish terrorist (PKK). A war could also deepen a massive economic crisis in Turkey. Powell has said he would try to speed efforts for a settlement to the 27-year-old division of Cyprus, which has marred relations between Turkey and Greece and weakened NATO's southeastern wing. On Tuesday, the leaders of Greek and Turkish Cypriots held direct talks for the first time in more than four years and decided to continue them in January. Also on the agenda in Ankara are discussions for the formation of a new European Union defense force. Turkey announced Sunday, after months of negotiations, that it would agree to the force's use of NATO's military facilities. Washington prefers that the new EU force use NATO resources rather than create a separate military unit. Reports said Ankara gave the green light after accepting assurances that non-EU member Turkey would be consulted on a case-by-case basis for operations in its sphere of interest such as Iraq, the Caucasus or the Balkans, and that the force would not interfere in Turkey's territorial conflicts with EU-member Greece over Cyprus and Aegean sea and air space rights. Ankara - Turkish Daily News with wire dispatches
BLS Daily Report
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, Wednesday, DECEMBER 5, 2001: The Bureau of Labor Statistics says it expects total employment to increase by 15 percent by 2010, slightly less than the 17 percent employment growth experienced a decade earlier, BLS says in updating its labor force and employment projections. The median age of the workforce will continue to rise during the first decade of the 2000s, with workers ages 46 to 64 accounting for most of the labor force. However, BLS says, the youth labor force between the ages of 16 and 24 will continue to grow more rapidly than the overall labor force for the first time in 25 years. BLS says the projections were completed prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks and it remains unclear what, if any, effect it would have on the report (Daily Labor Report, December 4, page D-7; reprint of Industry Output and Employment Projections to 2010 by Jay M. Berman, an economist in the Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections, published in the November Monthly Labor Review, on page E-8). Deferred wage increases payable in 2002 under collective bargaining agreements currently in effect produce a weighted average wage increase of 3.2 percent, compared with 3 percent in 2001. The deferred median increase for 2002 is 3 percent, the same increase reported for 2001 (Daily Labor Report, page D-1). Pressed by employers, some of the nation's biggest insurers are introducing a new kind of health plan that would significantly change the way employees are reimbursed for ordinary medical expenses, according to The New York Times (page A1). Most working families, who have relatively low medical bills, could save money under the plans. But those with several thousand dollars in medical expenses could wind up paying much more. Few experts on health care are familiar with the plans. But some health benefits experts who do know of them warn that they could be more unfair than current plans to people who are sick and that they could discourage people who need care from getting it. Construction starts fell 1 percent in October, but the industry continued to show more strength than the overall economy. The value of new construction contracts dipped to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $490.1 million, spurred by a steep drop in the building of public works and utilities, according to the latest report from F.W. Dodge, a building research division of publisher McGraw Hill Cos. Nonresidential building, especially hotels, rose substantially, the report said (The Wall Street Journal, page A4). Layoffs continued to depress consumer confidence in all regions in November compared with a year earlier, as the Conference Board's index recorded its 5th straight monthly decline. Nationally, a deteriorating labor market will damp confidence until at least next spring, predicts Conference Board economist Ken Goldstein. Confidence in Pacific states slipped most sharply because of cutbacks in technology and aircraft manufacturing, says Economy.com chief economist Mark Zandi (The Wall Street Journal, page B8). Demand has always been strong for environmental technicians, who are needed at Superfund sites and oil spills, among other places. But the need is greater now, with post offices needing help dealing with anthrax-tainted letters and companies wanting their mail rooms checked for contamination. An army of technicians has been working on anthrax decontamination in Washington and cleaning up toxic substances created by burning plastic and chemicals at the World Trade Center site in New York. For that reason, some unemployed workers are training for careers as environmental technicians, says Joann Loviglio, Associated Press (http://www.nandotimes.com/business/story/187547p-1816172c.html). Sales at major retail stores dropped last week, as typically happens after the promotion-filled Thanksgiving week, but they were 3.1 percent higher than in the same week of last year ( The Washington Post, page E3). DUE OUT TOMORROW: Productivity and Costs, Third Quarter 2001(Revised). application/ms-tnef
E-Day
Preparing for Jan. 1: E-Day 12 Euro Zone Nations Will Retire Currencies By William Drozdiak Washington Post Foreign Service Wednesday, December 5, 2001; Page E01 BRUSSELS -- The giant Carrefour SA supermarket chain has enlisted its executives to help bag groceries in its European stores on New Year's Day. The extra baggers hope to help speed shoppers through the checkout lines on the first day they will pay with their familiar currencies and get change in euros. That is one of the many ways banks, retailers and public transportation systems are bracing for E-Day, Jan. 1, when the 12 nations that have adopted the euro will start retiring their francs, lira, marks, drachmas and other national currencies, and the shared European currency will start circulating as cash. The continent's monetary masters, who are orchestrating the transition, say it will proceed seamlessly. But privately, some officials confess anxiety over the potential for chaos, confusion and frustration that could sap public confidence in the euro and depress consumer demand just as Europe is trying to stave off recession. We're expecting a lot of angry customers if the lines start to back up, said Guy Huybrechts, Carrefour's manager of euro operations. A lot of conversations about the euro will take place between customers and cashiers, and if you are the 10th one in line, you will start to become aggressive. If all goes according to plan, European Union officials say, the switch will sweep most of the obsolete currencies out of circulation within two weeks and allow most cash transactions to take place entirely in euros. Countries are allowing transition periods of varying lengths up to two months, during which both old currency and the euro will be legal tender. By March 1, when the transition phase is over in all 12 countries, all cash transactions will be conducted in euros. But a wild card, officials say, is the unpredictability of human nature, particularly the question of how people will react if banks, stores and others have trouble handling two currencies. Surveys show that a lot of Europeans intend to shun shops and malls until the confusion subsides, which would be a serious blow to retail sales at a critical time of the year. There is very possibly a serious problem looming on the horizon, said Gerhard Westerhof, the euro supervisor for Dutch Railways. Not too many people know about the explosive character of waiting lines, and our studies show that it will soon take twice as long to pay for tickets. A recent trial run, he said, showed that morning rush-hour lines could stretch 10 times as long as normal when the euro is first circulated. Because European Central Bank officials are not allowing people to exchange their money before E-Day, banks and retail stores are preparing for an onslaught on New Year's Day. Many complain that they are being forced to shoulder too much of the financial and logistical burdens of the currency swap. At every McDonald's in the euro zone, for example, staffing will be doubled starting Jan. 1 so one worker can assemble orders while another takes payment in old currencies and gives change in euros. In France, the threat of chaos is compounded by the specter of a national banking strike scheduled for Jan. 2 in protest of difficult conditions imposed by the currency shift. Security guards who transport money said they might join the strike because of what they feel is inadequate protection against robbery. Just last week, an armed gang escaped after stealing 100,000 euros (about $90,000) being delivered to a bank in Alencon in western France. Right now there is a complete blockage in the negotiations and we are heading for a strike as of January 2, said Pierre Gendre, general secretary of the Force Ouvriere union, which represents the banking sector. He said a union of discontent growing among security guards could disrupt supplies of euro notes and coins across the country. Two weeks ago, the French government sent police to seal off the government mint in Pessac, near the southwestern city of Bordeaux, which is the only place in France where euro coins are made. About 900 workers went on strike there after rejecting proposals to restructure their work hours to cope with the task of minting 8 billion coins before Jan. 1. And French newspapers reported last week that deliveries of the euro money to major stores could be delayed by at least two weeks because some batches were found to be defective. But French Finance MinisterLaurent Fabius said that enough euro coins and bills have been printed and prepared for distribution to meet demand. The introduction of a common European currency is a historic act, and I am sure the euro will arrive on time, Fabius said. European Union officials acknowledge the psychological need for public confidence in the euro at an early stage of the transition. Any hiccups, they say, could damage trust in the new currency among the 300 million people in
Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Physics and economics
I read that again, it does sound doctrinaire like. Oops. I would have thought that the problem was in math altogether, statistics included, whether we be in it or outside of it. The thing is the random component is simply an added variable like when we add time, it does not take us away from determinism. but i need to think about this a little. I did a some work on this long ago. A very good article was written by Oscar Lange on the topic, I still have it. He argued along side physicists that economics was a science, he did a good job, but his infatuation with neoclassical economics killed it. For a Marxist, I think the whole notion of science follows a different route. but anyways, since the kids are in bed, the question boils down to this: -the subject matter of social science thinks for itself and that of physics does not. -developments in physics are fast, in economics short. -laws in physics more precise and they tend to approach a universal; in economics, laws are murky, and bound by the human convention of time etc. the differences are many. Yes, they are different and they have to be, one is social and the other is natural. but do these conditions make one a science and the other a fiction? that depends on the definition of science. if it is about being more accurate, then why should physics be more accurate given that the subject matter of economics is more elusive; if it is about speed of development, then the same argument holds, plus some others, I am sure. So why not argue that economics is more science than physics, and by this I do not mean neo classical economics but Marxian economics or that which is born in opposition to the ideological rubbish eschewed by the mouthpieces of capital. the argument can be made simple: if science develops under the yoke of dominant ideology, then that which is subjected to scrutiny from the opposing ideology should be developing more knowledge. In physics the production of knowledge is so tightly controlled and nearly all physicists enjoy some hum drum paid middle class position. that is not true of economics. since it instantly affects daily lives; and when the practice of ideologically produced rubbish is queried by down and out intellectuals, ergo, economics is the better and faster science. Now that is too plain and maybe not too convincing, because we do not have a definition of science yet; so let us say that science is what allows us to go beyond the surface appearance of things to explain how they are. maybe Marx's definition in caricature form, it is to avoid the jargon, it does get heavy sometimes. so now which is allowing us to see more clearly into things as established by practice and interpersonal experience, recall the nature of the subject matter in question is e.g. quarks and or capitalism. to begin with the obvious none can be explained fully, more accurately, there is no standard benchmark to say that we know more about economics than we do about physics. so which is the science? the fact that the nomenclatura does not accept that there is exploitation and social classes and imperialism, in economic science, these concepts remain nonetheless part and parcel of that discipline. In the same way that nearby CERN physicists do not like inflation theory (physical inflation), does not make the latter devoid of reason. in either instances, the impact of a rising idea is indelible and sooner or later an additional layer beneath the surface will come uncovered. That either is science has to be traced back to the end of the thing in itself thesis, that there are no a priori logical concepts. Then the question was asked is the universe knowable, not can it be fully known, if the answer is yes, then both are science. Then it was said what we know is true relative what we will know or to what we will never know. I guess practice makes perfect. Maybe I need to practice too, this an awfully difficult subject. --- Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 11:53 PM 12/4/01 -0800, you wrote: Then the laws of probability should correspond to human behaviour in as much as they do to the behaviour of inanimate matter, and they do not. some human behavior is predictable, though much of it is not. The big problem with statistics as applied to human behavior is that we're inside the system being studied... Econometricians call that time incoherence. this is not only a question of degree, it is of a fundamental difference in substance between social and natural science, hence, the failure of math and spastics to afford an adequate explanation of human processes. I like that typo! JD NTMail K12 - the Mail Server for Education __ Do You Yahoo!? Send your FREE holiday greetings online! http://greetings.yahoo.com
New Scientist on Pound-Euro union
Physics analysis of financial data by researchers in Liege and Pennsylvania argue that the pound is already aligned to the euro - and the continental currencies before it. http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns1651 Full article not copyable for one week, but worth looking at for application of physics systems theory to financial data. AND because it appears to answer positively the last remaining economic test of the Labour government before considering whether to recommend Britain's entry to euroland in a referendum. He believes their findings show the emergence of the euro as a major trading currency. Chris Burford London
Red-red coalition in Berlin?
After waiting patiently despite its striking election success in the recent election, the PDS has been invited to systematic talks leading to an SPD-PDS coalition government in Berlin. Coalitions in German politics are usually disadvantageous for the smaller parties. One wonders how much Woworeit waited and watched while the Greens and the FDP skirmished fruitlessly to agree on how to set up a local version of Schroeder's favoured traffic light coalition (red yellow green). Now by a vote of 24 to 1 the local SPD executive has agreed to talks which will involve 8 working committees to resolve policy compromises by mid January. Of course from one point of view the PDS is only being brought in to legitimize massive budgetary cuts. But it is not impossible that it will use it as a platform for its more radical Gramscian style of politics. Already, with its stand against the war, it has inched in national opinion points slightly ahead of the Greens and the FDP. Can Gysi behave himself in government? Probably not. But Woworeit as a fellow lawyer probably knows how to handle him.Besides one gets the impression that the PDS really wants this to work. In terms of basic democratic theory what will be very good is that the East, which gave almost 50% of its votes to the PDS will be a full stakeholder in the government of Berlin. Whatever crimes and misdemeanours, some of what was good about socialism in the former GDR is being carried forward, even in mythical form. Chris Burford London extracts from The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Former Communists Invited to Join Coalition in Berlin Compiled by Our Staff From Dispatches AP, Reuters Wednesday, December 5, 2001 More than six weeks after elections here, representatives of the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Free Democrats said that they had abandoned efforts to form a coalition. ... We've wasted far too much time already, Mayor Klaus Wowereit said, insisting that his Social Democrats were not to blame. He said the two other parties got so entangled that we could only stand by speechless. ... A poll Oct. 21 gave the Social Democrats a strong boost over their conservative rivals, the Christian Democratic Union, which received its worst postwar result in the capital due largely to a banking scandal that has cost the region millions and led to the election. The Christian Democrats have shared power with the Social Democrats for most of the time since reunification, but Mr. Wowereit has ruled out the possibility of reviving that coalition. ... Although a capital coalition of the Social Democrats and the former Communists could be embarrassing for Mr. Schroeder less than one year before the general election, Mr. Wowereit said Tuesday that he now would consider negotiating with the party. From the beginning there were options that we did not rule out, Mr. Wowereit said, calling the Democratic Socialists one of those options. The Democratic Socialists' charismatic candidate for mayor, Gregor Gysi, told the television channel NTV that he was not offended by being the Social Democrats' second choice and that he was ready to start talks immediately. But he set conditions, including a flat refusal to eliminate 1,500 teaching jobs in the city-state, one cost-cutting proposal mentioned during the first round of coalition talks. Mr. Wowereit blamed the Free Democrats for the collapse of negotiations. The party adamantly resisted proposals by the Social Democrats and the Greens to raise taxes on property, alcohol and motor boats to get Berlin's finances back on track. Berlin is nearly E40 billion ($36 billion) in debt. (AFP, AP)
RE: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Physics and economics
If physics is more of a science than economics, it's probably because the latter has a more difficult subject matter. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: ALI KADRI [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, December 05, 2001 1:47 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20394] Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Re: Physics and economics I read that again, it does sound doctrinaire like. Oops. I would have thought that the problem was in math altogether, statistics included, whether we be in it or outside of it. The thing is the random component is simply an added variable like when we add time, it does not take us away from determinism. but i need to think about this a little. I did a some work on this long ago. A very good article was written by Oscar Lange on the topic, I still have it. He argued along side physicists that economics was a science, he did a good job, but his infatuation with neoclassical economics killed it. For a Marxist, I think the whole notion of science follows a different route. but anyways, since the kids are in bed, the question boils down to this: -the subject matter of social science thinks for itself and that of physics does not. -developments in physics are fast, in economics short. -laws in physics more precise and they tend to approach a universal; in economics, laws are murky, and bound by the human convention of time etc. the differences are many. Yes, they are different and they have to be, one is social and the other is natural. but do these conditions make one a science and the other a fiction? that depends on the definition of science. if it is about being more accurate, then why should physics be more accurate given that the subject matter of economics is more elusive; if it is about speed of development, then the same argument holds, plus some others, I am sure. So why not argue that economics is more science than physics, and by this I do not mean neo classical economics but Marxian economics or that which is born in opposition to the ideological rubbish eschewed by the mouthpieces of capital. the argument can be made simple: if science develops under the yoke of dominant ideology, then that which is subjected to scrutiny from the opposing ideology should be developing more knowledge. In physics the production of knowledge is so tightly controlled and nearly all physicists enjoy some hum drum paid middle class position. that is not true of economics. since it instantly affects daily lives; and when the practice of ideologically produced rubbish is queried by down and out intellectuals, ergo, economics is the better and faster science. Now that is too plain and maybe not too convincing, because we do not have a definition of science yet; so let us say that science is what allows us to go beyond the surface appearance of things to explain how they are. maybe Marx's definition in caricature form, it is to avoid the jargon, it does get heavy sometimes. so now which is allowing us to see more clearly into things as established by practice and interpersonal experience, recall the nature of the subject matter in question is e.g. quarks and or capitalism. to begin with the obvious none can be explained fully, more accurately, there is no standard benchmark to say that we know more about economics than we do about physics. so which is the science? the fact that the nomenclatura does not accept that there is exploitation and social classes and imperialism, in economic science, these concepts remain nonetheless part and parcel of that discipline. In the same way that nearby CERN physicists do not like inflation theory (physical inflation), does not make the latter devoid of reason. in either instances, the impact of a rising idea is indelible and sooner or later an additional layer beneath the surface will come uncovered. That either is science has to be traced back to the end of the thing in itself thesis, that there are no a priori logical concepts. Then the question was asked is the universe knowable, not can it be fully known, if the answer is yes, then both are science. Then it was said what we know is true relative what we will know or to what we will never know. I guess practice makes perfect. Maybe I need to practice too, this an awfully difficult subject. --- Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 11:53 PM 12/4/01 -0800, you wrote: Then the laws of probability should correspond to human behaviour in as much as they do to the behaviour of inanimate matter, and they do not. some human behavior is predictable, though much of it is not. The big problem with statistics as applied to human behavior is that we're inside the system being studied... Econometricians call that time incoherence. this is not only a question of degree, it is of a fundamental
PK speaks
here's a quote from a recent Paul Krugman column in the NY TIMES: Indeed, current events bear an almost eerie resemblance to the period just after World War I. John Ashcroft is re-enacting the Palmer raids, which swept up thousands of immigrants suspected of radicalism; the vast majority turned out to be innocent of any wrongdoing, and some turned out to be U.S. citizens. Executives at Enron seem to have been channeling the spirit of Charles Ponzi. And the push to open public lands to private exploitation sounds like Teapot Dome, which also involved oil drilling on public land. Presumably this time there have been no outright bribes, but the giveaways to corporations are actually much larger. Some other things that happened just after WW I: a serious series of strikes, a serious recession. The strikes seem absent. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Front line and Afghan
Karl, rest assured, out troops are performing magnificently and never miss their target and hit civilians -- although they do bomb their own. On Wed, Dec 05, 2001 at 07:23:49PM -, Karl Carlile wrote: There is an almost complete blackout on the situation in the Kandahar area. No longer are we even getting the coverage we got before the fall of Kabul and Mazar e Sharif. This is no accident. No tv images with the on the front journalists. No more are our journalists on the fron line. Mainstream journalism has revealed its bankrupt hack like nature. Few journalists have shown any flare for the war in terms of investigation and analysis. Why is it that we are not being told what is going on. Why is it that journalists refuse to raise issues and ask questions? Why dont they tell us why they are not reporting from the front line etc. Karl Carlile Be free to visit the web site of the Communist Global Group at http://homepage.eircom.net/~beprepared/ -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: New Scientist on Pound-Euro union
Well Chris, Take a look at the article below. http://www.rice.edu/projects/baker/Pubs/studies/caspian/iedcom/iedcom.html It is entitled: The Impact of Energy Derivatives on the Crude Oil Market In their conclusion, the authors claim: Our findings regarding the relation between futures trading activity and spot market volatility indicate that deep and liquid futures markets have a mitigating effect on volatility in the underlying market. We find a positive relation between futures volume and volatility, but we cannot determine the marginal impact of futures versus spot market volume because reliable spot volume data are unavailable. The relation between open interest and volatility, on the other hand, is large and negative. We find that the impact of volume on volatility is inversely related to both the unexpected change and long-term predictable component of open interest. Our estimates indicate that the volatility increase associated with an unexpected increase in volume is approximately 40% lower when accompanied by an unexpected increase in open interest than when the unexpected change in open interest is zero. These findings suggest that futures trading improves depth and liquidity in the underlying market, and they contradict the idea that derivatives destabilize the market. If you read the article, you will see that they have all the good statistical results to support this conclusion. Does this make us agree with them? I looked at the New Scientist article you sent and there was not even a single result there, apart from an obscure graph. On what basis can I now accept that pound and euro behave as if they are the same currency? Not that I disagree with that Euro is a major trading currency and that many major European currencies and term structures have coverged to Euro and the Euro term structure, respectively, except possibly from those of Italy, when I looked at them the last time. Don't know about the UK though. It has been a few years. Best, Sabri
time to cry for Argentina?
December 5, 2001 IMF Dashes Argentina's Cash Hopes By REUTERS Filed at 8:05 p.m. ET BUENOS AIRES/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday dashed Argentina's hopes for a much-needed $1.3 billion loan, taking the South American nation closer to committing the biggest sovereign debt default in history. Adding to the country's woes, credit agencies warned that new government banking controls had effectively violated its decade-long policy pegging the peso currency on a par with the U.S. dollar. The country's bonds tumbled on fears of a financial collapse of Latin America's third biggest economy, the darling of international investors in the early 1990s. But local equities traders were encouraged by the possibility Argentina might ``dollarize,'' or scrap the peso completely and replace it with the U.S. currency. Economy Minister Domingo Cavallo, who denied the IMF was seeking a devaluation in the peso currency, announced some loosening of capital controls on Wednesday, including relaxing of cash withdrawals and foreign fund transfers. The restrictive new bank rules have so far slowed a recent run on banks but sparked widespread confusion and outrage in a nation exhausted by decades of financial turmoil. In a spartan statement, the international lender confirmed what IMF board sources had told Reuters on Tuesday when they said that any cash for Argentina was unlikely soon given an increasingly strained relationship with Buenos Aires. ``The IMF executive board met this afternoon for an informal briefing on Argentina. Based on the findings of the mission that has been in Buenos Aires, fund management is unable at this stage to recommend completion of the review of the IMF-supported program,'' the IMF said. Recession-mired Argentina was hoping that the IMF could complete an ongoing review of its economy to release the loan. Cavallo was quoted on Wednesday as saying he expected the aid later this month. Argentina owes $132 billion in public debt, the equivalent of $3,666 for every man, woman and child in the country. A failure to honor the debts would dent the already weak global economy, stumbling in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. A key interest payment is due on Dec. 19 but cash is running short, making the IMF disbursement all the more important, analysts say. After the IMF poured cold water on Argentina's hopes for quick payment, the U.S. Treasury limited itself to saying on Wednesday that it was ``supportive'' of continued contact between Argentina and the IMF. To hold on to the cash currently in the country, the government over the weekend slapped strict limits on withdrawals to prevent a run on the banks after savers with little confidence in the financial system last Friday withdrew more than $1 billion in a 24-hour span. CURRENCY OPTIONS But the government may have dug itself into a deeper hole by instituting the cash controls. Credit agency Moody's (news/quote) said the restrictions amounted to a de facto abandonment of Argentina's one-to-one currency peg to the U.S. dollar. ``There are not enough 'real dollars' -- with real claims on New York bank accounts or the Federal Reserve -- in the formal system to make good on the one-to-one parity embedded in the Argentina law,'' Moody's said in a release. Standard Poor's made similar comments, saying that the measures breaches the peg since the country needs free movement of capital in order to have a currency board. To protest the banking rules, Argentina's largest unions called on Wednesday for a 24-hour general strike to be held on Dec. 13. Argentina has been bound by a ``Convertibility law'' pegging its currency at parity with the dollar since 1991, adopted to tame hyperinflation. Analysts say using the U.S. currency in Argentina for all financial transactions, from buying groceries to paying the mortgage, would at least restore some lender and consumer confidence, battered by decades of hyperinflation, recession and corruption. They added, however, that the move would not directly solve the debt problem. The government is firmly against devaluating the peso, which would cause widespread bankruptcies. ``Devaluation or dollarization? The most important thing is they do one or the other,'' said Lacey Gallagher, head of Latin American Economic Research at Credit Suisse First Boston. ``I'd say their strategy today is incredibly costly.'' Markets were mixed amid the maelstrom. The blue-chip MerVal (.MERV) stock exchange index ended up 8 percent amid hopes that ''dollarization'' would take place. Argentina's benchmark bond, the Global 2008, (ARGGLB08-RR), which was issued six months ago at 78 cents on the dollar, tumbled this week to fresh lows in the high 20s and traded Wednesday at around 31 cents. Argentina's country risk, or the premium it must pay to entice investors away from safe-haven U.S. Treasuries, dropped slightly to 40.17 percentage points on Wednesday -- well above
Re: Physics and economics
Didn't Keynes say that Bohr told him that he did not study econ. because it was too difficult? Devine, James wrote: If physics is more of a science than economics, it's probably because the latter has a more difficult subject matter. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Ankara supports strike on Iraq
On Wed, 5 Dec 2001, Sabri Oncu wrote: The losses caused during the Gulf War are still on the minds of Ankara, and the rhetoric of putting in one and gaining three, which was the slogan of former President Turgut Ozal during the Gulf War, is accepted as one of the biggest mistakes in Turkish history. Sabri, what did one and three refer to in Ozal's slogan? Was one Allow use of Turkish airbases where three was supposed to be gain in military strength vs. Iraq; and same vs. the Kurds; and gain international funds and support? Michael __ Michael PollakNew York [EMAIL PROTECTED]
1929 stock market
in SLATE MAGAZINE (http://slate.msn.com/?id=2059181entry=2059356), I found the following discussion of the 1929 stock market crash (refering to a book by Maury Klein, _Rainbow's End_, a history of the crash of 1929). Nell Minow: I just got my regular list of new research papers issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research and was intrigued by one of the newest titles, one so exciting that even practitioners of the aptly named dismal science felt it deserved an exclamation point: The Stock Market Crash of 1929: Irving Fisher Was Right! (http://minneapolisfed.org/research/sr/sr294.pdf) Irving Fisher was an economist who said in September of 1929, Stock prices have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau, landing him forever in the lists of people with famously bad judgment, like the guy at Decca who rejected the Beatles because guitar music was on the way out and Thomas Watson for his comment that there was a world market for only five computers. Fisher did say there would be no crash, and then there was, but then so did John Maynard Keynes, and his reputation is still pretty good. The authors of the NBER study, Ellen R. McGrattan and Edward C. Prescott, looked at the stock prices in 1929 and concluded that the stock market did not crash because the market was overvalued. In fact, they say the evidence they found strongly suggests that stocks were undervalued, even at their 1929 peakone more exhibit for the prosecution from the extraordinary popular delusions and the madness of crowds. If Fisher's heirs held on to whatever was in his portfolio, they've done pretty well, but that requires a longer investment horizon than most people are willing to undertake. This is not as silly as it sounds. The fact is that in 1929, the profit rate had attained its cyclical peak (before a very steep cyclical decline). High earnings allow high stock market valuation. The problem was that the profit rate -- and thus the stock market -- rested on a house of cards. The US and world economies were extremely unstable. There probably was a stock market bubble going on, too. But even if there wasn't, the stock market was going to fall as earnings plummeted in the recession. Jim Devine _ The simple way to read all your emails at ThatWeb http://www.thatweb.com
