one last message on the war
I don't want any trouble with our govt--I am a loyal citizen--so I am making this public. I shall be offlists for months. Bye, Rakesh Mr Prescod: I want to add one thing: I *do* support the movement to incarcerate members of and freeze the assets of terrorist organizations, and have said so repeatedly. Here I support the Bush team from the VP to the Pentagon chief to the National Security advisor in terms of these objectives. I have said so from the beginning, and say so again. I am over-joyed that they are FINALLY bringing these forces under control, and enthusiastic that Pakistan-supported terrorism in Kashmir may be contained which will make it easier I believe to resolve the question of the status and autonomy of JK. I am utterly repulsed by Osama bin Laden, and feel confident that he would take the head of a socialist like me. But then I am sure the Saudi royal family would be quite unkind to me as well. The Saudi regime is a terrorist one whose twisted and sick offspring Osama bin Laden is. I tremble at the thought of being one of the millions of innocent people who live in the cross fire from that frighteningly arbitrary despotism and that twisted, women hating, repulsive terrorist organization. I am arguing that the US needs to do what it can to allow for the development of democracy within Sa'udi Arabia, and I have been very disappointed that the administration has said so little on this front. Maybe it's doing something behind the scenes--do you know? I say this in hopes that in case you are not what you seem--that is, you are govt intelligence-- you do not question that I am a loyal to my fellow American citizens. It is in terms of our collective safety that I think it urgent the our govt makes use of its latent power to to open up the Gulf states and achieve a rapprochement with the Iraqi regime that allows the easing of the sanctions. But I am afraid as was an army official in the WSJ a few days ago that the Bush's administration links to oil companies will make them too cautious in dealing with the royal family. I mean, aren't half of them (i mean the royal family, not the bush administration!) addicted to hashish? can't we push them around a bit? Rakesh
Re: Re: sinking Argentina
The way of establishing a world money should start with the following principle: Every country may pay its debt in any convertible currency, but its own. This principle ensures that no balance of trade be permanently negative, so that rates of change may steadily fluctuate within a narrow bracket. After what a world currency, through a single symbol or through a basket, becomes a formality. This principle not only aims at the dollar, but at the euro, too, as this currency gets the same position, in relation to the rest of the world, as the USA in relation to the EU. Like the USA with the dollar, every time the EU makes a settlement in euros, it pays a debt with its debt. I'm afraid that in these conditions the problem is first the one of imperialism. Not of two conflicting imperialisms, but of a single one, hierarchically structured: the so-called International Community. In other words, it is not merely a technical matter. The countries willing escape the spiral of crisis must resist globalization, between bombing and IMF, and for the moment without the help of first-world opinion. RK - Original Message - From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 1:04 AM Subject: [PEN-L:21210] Re: sinking Argentina At 07/01/02 13:13 +0100, Romain Kroes wrote: It is now becoming understandable that the way to get out of the spiral is the political decision to marginalize the dollar as international-standard currency, that is to move away from Washington's and IMF's domination. President Saa seemed to be ready to break the unstoppable chain. But the majority of Argentine politicians shrank from the difficulty. If the US dollar is likely to continue to rise while other currencies will tend to fall, it would be slightly more rational for economies like those of Argentina to be linked with the euro. Is there any possibility of a consensus emerging of a basket of currencies including the euro, and perhaps the renminbi, that assumes the dollar is likely to continue to rise for reasons of its unequal position in the world. And could such a basket of currencies be an emergent form of what Marx called world money? Chris Burford
luxury spending
Does anyone know how luxury consumption/spending has been doing recently? Have those who are fairly economically secure been taking advantage of low interest rates, etc, or has the supposed 'wealth effect' been overpowering that, etc? Thanks. leads to data would be appreciated also. Mat
BLS Daily Report
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2002l The unemployment rate increased 0.2 percentage point to 5.8 percent in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced. U.S. payrolls declined by 124,000 in December and have dropped by 1.1 million in the final 4 months of 2001. Manufacturing continued to suffer the heaviest job losses, followed by air transportation, retail trade, and help supply. However, the losses were offset by employment gains in services and government, BLS said. The December job losses follow declines that averaged about 400,000 a month in October and November, suggesting signs that a recovery is in sight. However, payroll employment has fallen 1.4 million since the recession began in March. The manufacturing sector was in recession 6 months prior to the rest of the economy, said National Association of Manufacturers President Jerry Jasinowski. Today's report indicates that the current industrial downturn continued in December, as manufacturing employment declined by 133,000 last month to a little over 17 million. The job losses in manufacturing continue to mirror the investment-led nature of the current downturn: roughly three-quarters of the decline in manufacturing employment last month was in durable goods, mainly industrial equipment, electronics and transportation equipment (Daily Labor Report, page AA-1). The nation's labor markets continued to weaken last month as the jobless rate rose to 5.8 percent, the highest level in nearly 7 years. But there were also signs in the report yesterday from the Labor Department that the economy's decline is slowing and could end soon, says John M. Berry, writing in The Washington Post (page E1). The recession has done plenty of damage. During 2001, the unemployment rate rose 1.8 percentage points, with almost half the increase coming after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The total number of people without jobs who were looking for one increased to 8.3 million from 5.7 million in December 2000. And the jobless rate for blacks was in double-digits last month for the first time in 4 years, at 10.2 percent, almost double the rate for whites. Among industries by far the hardest hit last year was manufacturing. The unemployment rate continued to creep upward last month, though fewer Americans lost their jobs than in any of the previous 3 months. The Labor Department reported yesterday that the economy lost 124,000 jobs in December, the smallest decline since August. The unemployment rate rose two-tenths of a percentage point to 5.8 percent, a level it last reached in April 1995. Economists said the numbers suggested the job market might be stabilizing after severe cutbacks caused by the terrorist attacks and by the recession. The also said they saw other promising signs, like a rise in the number of hours worked per week in manufacturing, and a wave of hiring in education and health care (Daniel Altman, The New York Times, page B1). Today, at a conference at the Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank, two leading experts in the field of productivity will present a research paper arguing that strength in the field of productivity is likely to continue for a while. The work by Dale Jorgenson of Harvard University and Kevin Stiroh of the New York Federal Reserve Bank says that the likely scenario for productivity growth over the next decade remains a robust 2.24 percent annually. That's just a tad lower than the average 2.36 that helped the economy surge from 1995 to 2000. The U.S. productivity revival remains largely intact, the two say in their paper, which was written along with Mun S. Ho of the think-tank Resources for the Future in Washington, D.C. If they're right, there are important consequences for wages, interest rates, and growth. When productivity rises, employers can pay higher wages because they are producing more with less. The Federal Reserve doesn't have to fret about inflation, because output grows without straining resources. Ultimately, that builds a bigger economic pie. The paper puts the long-run noninflationary growth rate of the economy -- the so-called speed limit -- at 3.34 percent over the next decade, about a percentage point higher than what economists believed was possible before the productivity surge. However, the figure represents a sharp reduction from the average annual growth rate of 4.6 percent from 1995 through 2000, with the main difference being a reduction in the growth of hours worked (The Wall Street Journal column The Outlook, page 1). In The Wall Street Journal's feature Tracking the Economy, Import Prices for December, to be released Thursday, are expected to change -0.6 percent according to Consensus Global Forecast, in contrast to the previous actual change of -1.6 percent. The Producer Price Index for December, to be released Friday, is expected to make an -0.2 percent change, in comparison to the -0.6 percent actual change for November. The Producer Price
FW: Re: Re: sinking Argentina
(By mistake, I didn't send the following to the list.) It's useful to get beyond what a world money _should_ be like and talk about what it is. I agree with the implication of Marx's theory of money that unlike with the use of a money such as gold that's naturally scarce (i.e., involves labor to produce), the circulation of fiat money within a country must be forced. That is, governmental power is needed to preserve the value of paper money (relative to its cost of production), so that its supply is limited and it is acceptable in exchange. (States that fall apart due to civil wars, etc., typically suffer from hyperinflation, as the fiat money's value goes to zero.) That implies that a world money requires a world _state_. This in turn implies that the hegemony of the dollar since World War II is based on the US military, economic, and financial hegemony -- and that any future world money will have to be based on some similar hegemony, perhaps of another country. -- Jim Devine -Original Message- From: Romain Kroes To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 1/8/02 2:55 AM Subject: [PEN-L:21220] Re: Re: sinking Argentina The way of establishing a world money should start with the following principle: Every country may pay its debt in any convertible currency, but its own. This principle ensures that no balance of trade be permanently negative, so that rates of change may steadily fluctuate within a narrow bracket. After what a world currency, through a single symbol or through a basket, becomes a formality. This principle not only aims at the dollar, but at the euro, too, as this currency gets the same position, in relation to the rest of the world, as the USA in relation to the EU. Like the USA with the dollar, every time the EU makes a settlement in euros, it pays a debt with its debt. I'm afraid that in these conditions the problem is first the one of imperialism. Not of two conflicting imperialisms, but of a single one, hierarchically structured: the so-called International Community. In other words, it is not merely a technical matter. The countries willing escape the spiral of crisis must resist globalization, between bombing and IMF, and for the moment without the help of first-world opinion. RK - Original Message - From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 1:04 AM Subject: [PEN-L:21210] Re: sinking Argentina At 07/01/02 13:13 +0100, Romain Kroes wrote: It is now becoming understandable that the way to get out of the spiral is the political decision to marginalize the dollar as international-standard currency, that is to move away from Washington's and IMF's domination. President Saa seemed to be ready to break the unstoppable chain. But the majority of Argentine politicians shrank from the difficulty. If the US dollar is likely to continue to rise while other currencies will tend to fall, it would be slightly more rational for economies like those of Argentina to be linked with the euro. Is there any possibility of a consensus emerging of a basket of currencies including the euro, and perhaps the renminbi, that assumes the dollar is likely to continue to rise for reasons of its unequal position in the world. And could such a basket of currencies be an emergent form of what Marx called world money? Chris Burford
RE: two factual corrections
I don't know Rajani Kanth personally, but I really like his recent books, even though I don't agree with him on everything (including some of his interpretations of Marx). But how many economists are willing to bring up the issue of eurocentrism in the discipline? For that alone I think his stuff is important. I am also sympathetic with his related critiques of science and western discourse and the methodological implications. And there is not only Breaking with the Enlightenment, there is also his Against Economics. I was less excited about his earlier work on Ricardo (though even there I think there are some worthwhile contributions, e.g., ideology and ideological context), but I think his development reader is a very good one, a very good supplementary text for development courses that can introduce students not only to some of the classic articles in early development but also to world systems theory, uneven development, dependency, and unequal exchange. There is a! small cadre of economists working on postcolonialism and its relevance for economics and political economy (including Colin Danby, Charusheela, Eiman Zein-Elabdin, Nitasha Kaul), and Kanth is doing work that sort of fits in there. Postcolonialism is very interesting because it combines some of the insights of poststructuralism with a central concern with imperialism, colonialism, racism, feminism. The important theorists they draw on are all very radical, like Cabral, Fanon, Cesaire, Ngugi wa Thiongo. Mat
RE: one last message on the war
Go to http://www.sfgate.com for a column from yesterday's San Francisco Chronicle by Carolyn Lochead (off on the spelling there) on the KSA. Public beheading of homosexuals and other nasty sheeit. Michael Pugliese--- Original Message --- From: Rakesh Bhandari [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 1/8/02 1:46:00 AM I don't want any trouble with our govt--I am a loyal citizen--so I am making this public. I shall be offlists for months. Bye, Rakesh Mr Prescod: I want to add one thing: I *do* support the movement to incarcerate members of and freeze the assets of terrorist organizations, and have said so repeatedly. Here I support the Bush team from the VP to the Pentagon chief to the National Security advisor in terms of these objectives. I have said so from the beginning, and say so again. I am over-joyed that they are FINALLY bringing these forces under control, and enthusiastic that Pakistan-supported terrorism in Kashmir may be contained which will make it easier I believe to resolve the question of the status and autonomy of JK. I am utterly repulsed by Osama bin Laden, and feel confident that he would take the head of a socialist like me. But then I am sure the Saudi royal family would be quite unkind to me as well. The Saudi regime is a terrorist one whose twisted and sick offspring Osama bin Laden is. I tremble at the thought of being one of the millions of innocent people who live in the cross fire from that frighteningly arbitrary despotism and that twisted, women hating, repulsive terrorist organization. I am arguing that the US needs to do what it can to allow for the development of democracy within Sa'udi Arabia, and I have been very disappointed that the administration has said so little on this front. Maybe it's doing something behind the scenes--do you know? I say this in hopes that in case you are not what you seem--that is, you are govt intelligence-- you do not question that I am a loyal to my fellow American citizens. It is in terms of our collective safety that I think it urgent the our govt makes use of its latent power to to open up the Gulf states and achieve a rapprochement with the Iraqi regime that allows the easing of the sanctions. But I am afraid as was an army official in the WSJ a few days ago that the Bush's administration links to oil companies will make them too cautious in dealing with the royal family. I mean, aren't half of them (i mean the royal family, not the bush administration!) addicted to hashish? can't we push them around a bit? Rakesh
schools for sale (Monbiot)
COMMENT: It strikes me that the current education reform pushed by Dubya and Sen. Edward Kennedy -- and now enacted -- is a different version of privatization than discussed below, the creation of an artificial market. At least as advertised, we are supposed to see more decentralized control of schools (a more competitive market) where the product (kids) are priced by a process of standardized testing. Those schools that fail are to be punished, even if that failure is due to inadequate budgets. Just as with markets, this encourages narrow-minded self-interest (teach to the test) which ignores external benefits (kids learning to think, enjoying education, etc.) and costs (ignoring the Americans with Disabilities Act, etc.) --- Schooling up for sale The creeping corporate takeover of education is being fostered to build up exports George Monbiot Tuesday January 8, 2002 The Guardian For many children, a new school term begins with apprehension. But yesterday it wasn't just the children who were worried about what they might encounter. Every term now brings another government scheme to refinance, outsource, subcontract, reclassify, zone or cluster some aspect of the handling of our children. And parents, reasonably enough, are becoming ever more suspicious. What these changes mean, confusing as they are, is privatisation. It won't happen all at once, as Labour is anxious to avoid the confrontations that have taken place between parents and private companies in the US. But we should be foolish to mistake the government's purpose. The general privatisation of schooling in Britain has begun. Several theories have been advanced to account for Labour's strange enthusiasm for disposing of our schools, but the most convincing that I have seen is the one articulated last year by a lecturer at the University of Central England, Richard Hatcher, in the journal Education and Social Justice. Years ago, prompted by the powerful European Roundtable of Industrialists, Tony Blair identified the knowledge economy as the driver of future British growth. The UK would specialise in industries such as information technology, biotech and second generation services. As the export value of manufacturing, farming and even some of the traditional service industries declined, Britain would become a market leader in exporting a new international business: privatisation. This strategy has so far been resoundingly successful. The private finance initiative was pioneered in the UK, then exported by British companies to countries like Finland, Canada and South Africa. Though their sales of hospitals, roads, prisons and waterworks are of dubious value to the recipients, they are massively profitable for our corporations, not least because, having arrived on the scene before anyone else, they are all but free from foreign competition. Now Blair wants to do the same in education. The UK's private education industry, Hatcher argues, has to be fostered and nourished by the state until it is strong enough to compete with US and other competitors. Once they have gathered enough money and experience in the domestic economy, schooling companies can then try to penetrate the markets of other countries. While the UK's schools might one day be worth £25bn a year to potential investors, the US system has been valued at $700bn. Worldwide, education is worth trillions. If the UK can seize an early and substantial share of this market, our economy will become, to all intents and purposes, recession-proof. So our own children are, in this picture, simply the crash dummies with which the UK tests its future export policies. Companies will practise on them until they find the right economic formula and attain sufficient economies of scale. They they will apply that formula worldwide. This theory appears to explain the remarkable variety of privatisation and part-privatisation schemes currently being tested in Britain. Education action zones and city technology colleges have failed to produce the necessary cash, so they have been superseded by a new experiment - the city academies. These schools receive 80% of their money from the state, but are controlled by private companies. Elsewhere, existing comprehensives, like King's Manor in Guildford and Abbeylands in Addlestone (both in Surrey), have been franchised to corporations. Private schools are now considering the purchase of parts of the state sector. The government has also been experimenting with the management of local education authorities, privatising either some of the services they offer, or, in the case of Leeds, the entire outfit. In some places, the government has sold off school inspections; in others, teachers' pay and pensions. It has been market testing several different versions of the private finance initiative, in which companies provide buildings and services to education authorities for a fee. It has developed a private market, already worth some
Argentina: Confusing Tales
Argentina: Confusing Tales Counterpunch, January 7, 2002 From Progressive Economists By Lawrence McGuire I've been trying for years to figure out the world economic system, but it ain't easy. No matter how much I read I always seem to end up even more confused than when I started. For example, lately I've been trying to understand what is happening in Argentina. I know there is a connection between the crowd surrounding the finance minister's house banging pots (he resigned that night), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and people raiding grocery stores because they are hungry, and motorbike couriers being shot and killed by soldiers in Plaza de Mayo, but I don't know how it all fits together. So for help I turn to some progressive economists and political commentators. They're professionals and should be able to explain it to me, right? First I read Marc Cooper (contributing editor to The Nation and a columnist for LA Weekly). In his recent column in the LA Times (12/30/01), Cooper tells me that for the past decade Argentina has been a 'gold mine' for international investors. Ok, I guess that means that big corporations and rich individuals invested their money in Argentina and made golden profits. That's clear. But then Cooper says That experience [the collapse of the Argentine economy] should be enough to throw into question the free-market globalization model. Swoosh! That one flies right by me and I'm confused. If Argentina was a gold mine for international investors, why should the 'free market globalization model' be questioned? Who created and implemented the 'free market globalization model'? It worked for the people who devised it, didn't it? Isn't the IMF controlled by the US Government, which is controlled mainly by rich individuals and big corporations? The IMF employees managed the Argentine economy for the benefit of their bosses in the U.S., and apparently did a damn good job. So why should the model be questioned? I wrinkle my forehead and gird my mental loins. 'Concentrate,' I say to myself. 'Focus and you will understand.' Cooper continues: The United States and other economically powerful nations, and the international financial organizations they finance, should allow for alternative models of development. Now I'm even more confused. Why should they allow alternative models if they are making such huge profits with their current model? Looking for clarity I turn to Mark Weisbrot, (co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research) writing in the International Herald Tribune (12/26/01), and The Nation (12/10/01). Weisbrot says: The IMF's role here was crucial. It arranged large loans, including $40 billion a year ago, to support the peso. This was the IMF's second fatal error. 'Ok,' I say to myself, 'Go slowly. Why was this an error? Where did the $40 billion go?' I continue reading. Weisbrot says: The sacrifice of Argentina's economy for the sake of Washington's imperial interests and the interests of 'emerging market' bondholders fits a pattern at the IMF, Zip zip zip! I've missed something again. First Weisbrot says the IMF made an 'error', then he says that this 'error' was made for the sake of 'imperial interests'. So what is the error? Isn't it the precise job of the IMF to implement 'Washington's imperial interests'? Again, who appoints them and pays their salary? The $40 billion apparently went to pay foreign bondholders, right? And the $40 billion came originally from US taxpayers, right? (Isn't that where IMF money comes from?) So apparently, last year the IMF transferred $40 billion from US taxpayers to private US investors, via Argentinait seems that IMF is doing exactly what they are paid to do. Why does Weisbrot call this an error? Has he not read what he has just written? full: http://www.counterpunch.org/mcguireargentina.html
RE: Argentina: Confusing Tales
Lawrence McGuire writes: If Argentina was a gold mine for international investors, why should the 'free market globalization model' be questioned? Who created and implemented the 'free market globalization model'? It worked for the people who devised it, didn't it? Isn't the IMF controlled by the US Government, which is controlled mainly by rich individuals and big corporations? The IMF employees managed the Argentine economy for the benefit of their bosses in the U.S., and apparently did a damn good job. So why should the model be questioned? well, if there's enough social disorder in Argentina, even the IMF -- which, as McGuire points out, hasn't really made mistakes by its own standards -- will realize that its own standards are too narrow even from the perspective of capital or financial capital. That is, the IMF has done a very good job as the enforcer for financial capital (though of course it's been horrible for the people involved) but movement toward revolution may convince the IMF that being an enforcer isn't enough. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2002 10:16 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:21227] Argentina: Confusing Tales Argentina: Confusing Tales Counterpunch, January 7, 2002 From Progressive Economists By Lawrence McGuire I've been trying for years to figure out the world economic system, but it ain't easy. No matter how much I read I always seem to end up even more confused than when I started. For example, lately I've been trying to understand what is happening in Argentina. I know there is a connection between the crowd surrounding the finance minister's house banging pots (he resigned that night), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and people raiding grocery stores because they are hungry, and motorbike couriers being shot and killed by soldiers in Plaza de Mayo, but I don't know how it all fits together. So for help I turn to some progressive economists and political commentators. They're professionals and should be able to explain it to me, right? First I read Marc Cooper (contributing editor to The Nation and a columnist for LA Weekly). In his recent column in the LA Times (12/30/01), Cooper tells me that for the past decade Argentina has been a 'gold mine' for international investors. Ok, I guess that means that big corporations and rich individuals invested their money in Argentina and made golden profits. That's clear. But then Cooper says That experience [the collapse of the Argentine economy] should be enough to throw into question the free-market globalization model. Swoosh! That one flies right by me and I'm confused. If Argentina was a gold mine for international investors, why should the 'free market globalization model' be questioned? Who created and implemented the 'free market globalization model'? It worked for the people who devised it, didn't it? Isn't the IMF controlled by the US Government, which is controlled mainly by rich individuals and big corporations? The IMF employees managed the Argentine economy for the benefit of their bosses in the U.S., and apparently did a damn good job. So why should the model be questioned? I wrinkle my forehead and gird my mental loins. 'Concentrate,' I say to myself. 'Focus and you will understand.' Cooper continues: The United States and other economically powerful nations, and the international financial organizations they finance, should allow for alternative models of development. Now I'm even more confused. Why should they allow alternative models if they are making such huge profits with their current model? Looking for clarity I turn to Mark Weisbrot, (co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research) writing in the International Herald Tribune (12/26/01), and The Nation (12/10/01). Weisbrot says: The IMF's role here was crucial. It arranged large loans, including $40 billion a year ago, to support the peso. This was the IMF's second fatal error. 'Ok,' I say to myself, 'Go slowly. Why was this an error? Where did the $40 billion go?' I continue reading. Weisbrot says: The sacrifice of Argentina's economy for the sake of Washington's imperial interests and the interests of 'emerging market' bondholders fits a pattern at the IMF, Zip zip zip! I've missed something again. First Weisbrot says the IMF made an 'error', then he says that this 'error' was made for the sake of 'imperial interests'. So what is the error? Isn't it the precise job of the IMF to implement 'Washington's imperial interests'? Again, who appoints them and pays their salary? The $40 billion apparently went to pay foreign bondholders, right? And the $40 billion came originally from US taxpayers, right? (Isn't that where IMF money
Re: Bankruptcies Residential debt in Oz
Rob Schaap wrote: 2001 record year for bankruptcy THE AGE CANBERRA, Jan 8 AAP|Published: Tuesday January 8, 5:55 PM A record number of people declared themselves bankrupt in 2001, figures released today showed. hmm, so what's with this? Doug ASIA-PACIFIC: New data show strong growth in Australia Financial Times; Jan 8, 2002 By REUTERS: AGENCY MATERIAL and STEPHEN WYATT The Australian economy's strong growth was underpinned yesterday by healthy retail sales, strong private sector housing approvals and an encouraging rise in job advertisements. Overall, these figures do not change our view that the economy remains robust and likely to remain so through the first half of 2002, said Paul Brennan, chief economist with Salomon Smith Barney in Sydney. Consensus forecasts are for the Australian economy to grow by 3.3 per cent this calendar year compared with US growth of about 1 per cent. Australia's retail sales rose 0.4 per cent in November after a 1 per cent rise in October. Over the past year, retail sales have risen a massive 9 per cent, although, warns Kieran Davies, ABN Amro economist, year-on-year comparisons are distorted by the negative impact on sales last year by the introduction of Australia's first goods and services tax, the Olympics and a slump in housing. Australian new motor vehicle sales fell 2.4 per cent in December from November and were 10 per cent lower than in December 2000, but vehicle sales over the whole of 2001 were the fourth highest ever, just 1.8 per cent lower than in 2000. While private-sector housing approvals increased by 5.9 per cent in November, overall building approvals fell a sharp 9.1 per cent as the volatile apartments component fell almost 40 per cent. This collapse was because some large projects in Sydney and Melbourne had propped up the total over the past few months. The ANZ Bank's monthly job advertisement index rose 2.2 per cent in December, recording its highest monthly increase since January last year and ending three consecutive monthly declines. * Unexpected heavy rain before dawn yesterday doused bushfires burning around Sydney since Christmas Day but elsewhere along Australia's east coast, weary firefighters continued to battle big blazes, Reuters reports from Sydney. While firefighters in Sydney's western Blue Mountains and the Hawkesbury River to the north-west of the city enjoyed the smell of wet charcoal, others fought 30ft walls of flames on the state's south coast, which has remained dry.
Re: BLS Daily Report
Dave Richardson's daily report notes: BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2002l The unemployment rate increased 0.2 percentage point to 5.8 percent in December, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced. U.S. payrolls declined by 124,000 in December and have dropped by 1.1 million in the final 4 months of 2001. Manufacturing continued to suffer the heaviest job losses, followed by air transportation, retail trade, and help supply. ***However, the losses were offset by employment gains in services and government,*** BLS said. I have noticed that a number of forcasters have noted the less than expected rise in unemployment indicates that the economy is beginning to rebound from the recession. But if one of the reasons that the rise in unemployment was due to the increase in government employment, how much of that is at the state level which, due to requirements for balanced budgets, means that curtailment of employment will occur if the recession cuts into state revenues. In other words, is the recent increase in public employment sustainable, or will subsequent cuts to state revenues reverse the procedure and lead to falling public employment? Anybody got any ideas? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
PK on Greenspan
In the Jan. 8, New York TIMES, Paul Krugman writes: Was this what Mr. Greenspan intended - to raise taxes on the poor and the middle class, so that they could be cut for the rich? If not, why doesn't he say something? After all, a word from him could alter the landscape of economic debate, just as it did a year ago. in answer to PK's first question: yes. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: luxury spending
Forstater, Mathew wrote: Does anyone know how luxury consumption/spending has been doing recently? Have those who are fairly economically secure been taking advantage of low interest rates, etc, or has the supposed 'wealth effect' been overpowering that, etc? Thanks. leads to data would be appreciated also. Mat Here's one fun measure: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TIFd=ck=c1c=wmta=vp=st=6ml=onz=mq=l. Doug
RE: Re: BLS Daily Report
State revenue forecasts came in below expectations last year, so retrenchment has already begun. As state legislatures begin convening I suspect they will take a pessimistic view of revenues (which probably are a lagging indicator anyway) and move accordingly. There is little indication the Feds are going to help them out, so if the forecasts of recovery by summer are wrong, the U.S. could be pretty deep in doo-doo. mbs I have noticed that a number of forcasters have noted the less than expected rise in unemployment indicates that the economy is beginning to rebound from the recession. But if one of the reasons that the rise in unemployment was due to the increase in government employment, how much of that is at the state level which, due to requirements for balanced budgets, means that curtailment of employment will occur if the recession cuts into state revenues. In other words, is the recent increase in public employment sustainable, or will subsequent cuts to state revenues reverse the procedure and lead to falling public employment? Anybody got any ideas? Paul Phillips, Economics, University of Manitoba
FW: [Arg_Solid] Assorted Financial Shorts (Argentina)
--- Original Message --- From: sf_adam.rm [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 1/7/02 9:18:26 PM * Rich Are Hit by Argentina's Crisis * Citigroup Unit Quits Argentine Bank * Argentine Crisis Hits Spanish Firms * French companies' exposure to the Argentinian crisis * Xinhua: Argentina Buenos Aires Stock Exchange closed til Wednesday Editor's Note: Just some short articles of note.--Adam Monday January 7 10:59 PM ET Rich Are Hit by Argentina's Crisis By TONY SMITH, AP Business Writer BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) - After months of bracing for fallout from a default and devaluation in Argentina, Latin nations breathed easier Monday after apparently escaping the brunt of Argentina's ``Tango effect.'' In the throes of an agonizing slump for nearly four years and on its fifth president in two weeks, Argentina on Sunday announced it was cutting the value of the peso by 29 percent. After a decade of one-to- one parity, the dollar now buys 1.4 pesos. Just days earlier, South America's No. 2 economy formally defaulted on its massive $141 billion public debt, missing a $28 million payment on a eurobond for the first time. Just as Mexico's 1994 meltdown toppled the emerging markets of smaller nations like dominos and was labeled the ``Tequila crisis,'' analysts for months now had been predicting similar fallout from Argentina's collapse and dubbed it the ``Tango effect.'' ``Normally it's emerging markets that bear the brunt,'' said Raquel Fleury, analyst at Tendencias, a consultancy in Sao Paulo, Brazil. ``This time, it's the opposite - it's the banks and corporates of the rich world that are the first to be hit.'' Latin American markets from Brazil to Mexico shrugged off the news from Argentina, with stocks and currencies remaining stable. In Peru, the Sol strengthened, as did South Africa's rand. ``The effect is very, very limited. We have a different situation,'' said Peru's finance minister, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. In the boardrooms in rich, industrial markets, there was more concern after some banks and utilities operating in Argentina found themselves staring at balance sheets that lost millions of dollars overnight from the devaluation. Outlining the devaluation Sunday, Economy Minister Jorge Remes Lenicov announced telephone, electricity, water and gas bills would be switched from dollars to pesos at the old, one-to-one rate. The first $100,000 of dollar-denominated bank loans - an estimated 25 percent of bank debt - would also be converted to pesos at parity, he said. That spells trouble for phone companies such as France Telecom, Telecom Italia and Spain's Telefonica, and other utilities such as Ontario-based Azurix, British Gas and Italy's Camuzzi. Merrill Lynch cut medium-term recommendations Monday on Perez Companc, an Argentine energy group, MetroGas, owned by British Gas, and Enron's Transportadora de Gas del Sur on the ``greater uncertainty and the negative effects'' produced by Remes Lenicov's plan. Banks including U.S. giants Citigroup Inc. and FleetBoston Financial Corp., Spain's Santander Centro Hispano and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria and Britain's HSBC are also on the frontline. Dutch banking and insurance group ING announced Monday it was taking a provision of $60 million in the fourth quarter to cover its Argentine exposure, following similar recent steps by Spanish banks. Spain, which accounts for about a quarter of all foreign investment in Argentina - second only to United States' one-third share - is likely to be hardest hit. Spanish-controlled assets equal 20 percent of Argentina's $260 billion gross domestic product and 3 percent of Spain's. Up to 12 percent of Telefonica's global operations are Argentine- based and it makes 11.5 percent of its earnings here. Madrid's stock market index fell another 3.4 percent Monday morning to 8.177 points after dropping 1.1 percent Friday ahead of the devaluation. As the dust settled Monday, there were signs U.S. companies, whose interests are spread more evenly throughout the Argentine economy than Spanish firms', were offloading Argentine assets. Mexico's Banamex bank, a unit of Citigroup Inc., said Monday it sold its majority stake in Argentina's Banco Bansud to local bank, Macro, for $65 million. Banamex spokesman Jose Ortiz Izquierdo said the sale would ``reduce the risk exposure'' in Argentina. Foreign banks here have complained the new measures would cost them as much as $12 billion, while the government claims their losses would be more like $5 billion. It is planning to compensate them with bonds financed by a 20 percent levy on oil exports over the next five years. But Argentina's oil giant, YPF, is itself owned by Spain's Repsol. The recovery of Argentina's banking system will be crucial to the country's revival, said John Welch, chief Latin American economist at Barclays Capital in New York. He predicts Argentina's
BLS Daily Report
BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, DAILY REPORT, TUESDAY, JANUARY 8, 2002: A panel of prominent economists chaired by Charles Schultze of the Brookings Institution has proposed major changes in the way policymakers use the consumer price index, and it is likely the report will become part of the ongoing debate on Social Security reform. Also significantly, but less controversial, the Schultze panel has recommended that the Bureau of Labor Statistics -- the agency that compiles the CPI -- publish more experimental inflation measures and expand the research on key issues such as medical care inflation. Overall, the Schultze panel agreed with recent steps taken by BLS to improve the CPI. Of particular note, the panel said, are agency plans to more frequently update the CPI's marketbasket of goods and services and the related effort to more quickly account for shifts in purchase patterns. Leaving the political issue of how to provide annual increases for Social Security benefits to policymakers, BLS officials said they generally agree with the findings of the Schultze panel. However, it remains to be seen whether the agency has funding to pursue some of the panel's recommendations, said Ken Dalton, BLS associate commissioner for prices and living conditions. Released without fanfare in late November, the Schultze panel's 294-page report is the most comprehensive review of consumer price measurement issues in decades. The 12-member Panel on Conceptual, Measurement, and Other Statistical Issues in Developing Cost-of-Living Indexes conducted its 2-year review under the aegis of the National Research Council at the request of BLS. The bureau asked the National Academy of Sciences to convene a panel of experts to investigate conceptual, measurement, and other statistical issues in the development of cost-of-living indexes. The panel's final report will be published in about 2 months, says an editor at the NRC, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences. Rather than continue to raise Social Security benefits by the annual change in the CPI-W, Congress should switch to what economists call a superlative CPI, the panel recommended. Later this year, BLS will begin to publish a monthly superlative CPI, a measure that comes closer to being a cost-of-living measure because it more frequently updates the marketbasket using data on household purchases. As the Schultze panel explained, a true superlative index requires knowledge of consumer expenditure patterns in real time, and no country's statistical system now produces such data. Because real time expenditure information is not available, the superlative indexes that BLS will publish will apply to the period 2 years earlier: the index published in 2002 will measure price changes only through 2000, the panel said. Dalton of BLS said that in February the agency will announce its plan for releasing superlative index figures on a monthly basis. While BLS does not have funding to begin many of the new research projects proposed by the Schultze panel, Dalton said that agency officials will review the findings and perhaps seek additional money for new research programs (Pam Ginsbach, Daily Labor Report, page A-7. Text of the report's executive summary on page E-7. A pre-publication copy of the report is available on the National Academy Press website at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10131.html). Are job-loss benefits less popular these days? asks the Work Week feature of The Wall Street Journal (page A1). That could be the case for workers at companies with 100 or more employees, according to recent Bureau of Labor Statistics data. In 1999, 31 percent of those workers had access to severance pay. For that year's data, the bureau included part-time workers who make up a smaller portion of the work force, making past comparisons tricky. Still, severance for full-time workers at those establishments became less popular in the 1990s, with access dropping to 36 percent of workers in 1997 from 50 percent in 1988, 41 percent in 1991 and 42 percent in 1993. Severance is less likely as firms get smaller. Only 24 percent of workers at firms with 100 to 499 employees had severance. Meanwhile, 53 percent of workers at companies employing 2,500 or more had access to severance. Offers of employer-provided health coverage increased for workers in all sectors of the economy over a 4-year period, despite rising health insurance costs, according to a study to be published today in the health policy journal Health Affairs. In 2001, the percentage of full-time workers offered health coverage climbed to 84.7 percent, from 83.3 percent in 1997. The health insurance offer rate for part-time workers rose to 50.4 percent in 2001, from 46.9 percent in 1997. Part-time workers were defined as those who worked between 21 and 34 hours per week. Workers of all races experienced some increases in health insurance
comments on Baker reports
To understand what's happening in the U.S., look at Dean Baker's ECONOMIC REPORTING REVIEW [Jan. 7, 2002]: summarizing Recession, Then a Boom? Maybe Not This Time by David Leonhardt (New York Times, December 30, 2001), Dean writes: This article examines the reasons why a recovery from the current recession is likely to be weaker than previous recoveries. Specifically, the fact that car purchases and home sales remained strong through the downturn, as opposed to falling off sharply as they had in prior recessions, is likely to dampen the strength of the upturn. In reference to my dialogue with Fred Moseley yesterday: it's true, as Fred notes, that personal consumption hasn't fallen much (or at all) during the current recession. Nor have purchases of family homes. But, as Dean's summary of Leonhardt's article suggests, this implies that one of the usual sources of economic recovery is unlikely to play a big role in the near future. This is especially true since consumer indebtedness is still pretty high (and rising). According to the Fed's Flow of Funds accounts (http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/Z1/Current/z1r-5.pdf), household [and nonprofit organization] debt as percentage of disposable personal income rose into 2001: In 1996: the debt/income ratio = 0.961 in 1997: .976 in 1998: .995 in 1999: 1.046 in 2000/Q3: 1.041 (average for 2000: 1.035) in 2001/Q3: 1.049 (average for 2001, so far: 1.044) The growth of this ratio slowed in the last part of the period shown (even falling from 1999 to 2000/Q3). This fits with the notion that households are reaching their credit limits, their ability to carry debt. However, the continued rise into 2001 suggests that people are beginning to engage in what Bob Pollin has called necessitous borrowing, i.e., are borrowing because they have to in the face of stagnating incomes and rising unemployment. If so, the U.S. economy has trouble ahead, since necessitous borrowing involves what we professional economists call bad karma. Of course, what really counts for many is the ratio of net worth to incomes. As the Fed calculates it, this ratio looks better: in 1996: 523.4 in 1997: 561.3 in 1998: 581.0 in 1999: 632.3 in 2000/Q3: 600.3 (avg. for 2000: 601.6) in 2001/Q3: 510.8 (avg. for 2001, so far: 536) It looks pretty good for awhile, but it's been falling because of the shrinkage in the stock-market bubble. I believe that this ratio would have fallen even more steeply except for the effects of the Fed's 11 rate cuts last year. Instead of working through the textbook channel (rate cuts encourage real investment) so far, the Fed's anti-contractionary policy has worked by boosting the value of bonds (and thus stocks) and of housing,[*] keeping them from falling further than they actually did, so that the ratios in the second table didn't fall as much as they could. Let's continue with what Dean says: Another New York Times article [December 29, 2001] includes, without comment, a graph showing a very ominous trend in recent data. The graph shows that the median price of a new single family home fell to $155,400 in November, nearly 14 percent below the peak value reached earlier this year, and close to 8 percent below its average of the prior two years. Rising home prices have been one of the factors driving consumption in the last few years, as Alan Greenspan and others have frequently noted. If housing prices are now following the stock market downward, then this could be a significant drag on consumption spending in the coming year. Also, since consumers have borrowed heavily against their homes, pushing the mortgage to value ratio near historic highs, many homeowners may soon find themselves with negative equity in their homes (the mortgage exceeds the value of the house), if this drop in housing prices continues. The flow-of-funds numbers show that owners' equity as a percentage of household real estate has actually risen since 1999 (and is above the 1996, 1997, and 1998 ratios). (The ratio fell from 1997 to 1999.) As Greenspan and others have noted, this has buoyed personal consumption spending. But if house prices are falling, as indicated by the quote above, that's a real bad sign for this ratio. Further, it's likely that (1) house prices could fall steeply, because both demand and supply are inelastic, producing results in the national level of the sort that hit California a few years ago; (2) other asset prices, including stock prices, could fall steeply, given historically high price/earnings ratios; and (3) merely low interest rates aren't enough to buoy asset prices, so that further interest rate cuts are needed, which becomes more difficult as rates approach zero. (The low interest rates may spur a rapid fall in the value of the dollar, redistributing demand from other countries to the U.S., but I'll ignore that.) The possible story initially sounds a lot like a textbook Keynesian one (or perhaps like Fred's). Stage 1 is what the U.S. has
about conspiracy
about conspiracy by Devine, James 07 January 2002 I agree with Jim D's thesis below. Capitalism is a system, not a policy or a conspiracy. However, there are many conspiracies hatched by the bourgeois state and economic administrators as the repressive apparatus which has a primary purpose of perpetuating the rule of the capitalists as a class. I do think that the bourgeoisie have private or secret executive/central committees ( a super-NGO) other than the bourgeois state as its executive committee , as Engels and Marx put it in the Manifesto. I don't think the operations of the bourgeois states just neatly fall into place without much class conscious communication among leading sectors and leading people of the bourgeoisie. Through history ruling classes rule by being more conscious than the classes they rule. The bourgeoisie is no exception. Being bourgeois class conscious means their leaders have committees, meetings, communications, resolutions, email lists in which they discuss the class struggle as consciously and explicitly as we discuss it here or on another radical list, but from the other side of the class line. Myself, I use politically correct as a straight forward compliment or approval, not a sarcastic pejorative. The war on Afghanistan is politically incorrect. %%% Accusations that someone has embraced conspiracy theory may or may not be a form of political correctness (i.e., an illegitimate form of argumentation). There are two general types of conspiracy theories: 1) a conspiracy theory (small c, small t) which helps explain some specific event(s) by reference to covert political forces. For example, there was a conspiracy by the US CIA to overthrow Mossadegh in Iran, Arbenz in Guatemala, Allende in Chile, etc., etc. This kind of conspiracy theory has often been validated by documentary evidence (often revealed long after the event). There are some cases where the evidence isn't in (yet), but it seems likely that conspiracy played a major role, based on historical precedent and other signs. This kind of theory makes sense. In fact, I'd say that the CIA is conspiratorial _by definition_. 2) a Conspiracy Theory (large C, large T), which is a theory of history. There is a small elite of conspirators (the Illuminati, the Bilderbergs, the Trilateral Commission, the CIA, the Big Oil Companies, the clique of Communist Jewish bankers in Zurich, etc.) which is the major force behind a large number of events, in fact behind the general drift of history. All -- or almost all -- world-historical events can be explained by reference to the Conspiracy. Though there may be evidence for some of this elite's actions, a Conspiracy Theory is often unconstrained by the need to provide evidence. Instead, what we see is a net of different facts -- and facts -- that are interpreted (often by stretching logic) to prove the power and influence of the Conspiracy. This method might be called interpretive journalism. One major difference between the two types of theories is that a CT rejects alternative theories of history, including the Marxian emphasis on social structures, the development of the forces of production, and class struggle. If there's any struggle in the CT, it's of the conspiracy theorists trying to convince the ignorant masses that we're all being duped and manipulated. (It has the feeling of being at the end of the movie Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, where our hero vainly tries to convince people that individuals are being replaced by alien pods.) On the other hand, a ct can be seen as just a part of a larger theory of history. The idea that the CIA conspires against democratic or nationalist upsurges that don't fit with the foreign policy needs of the US and the profit needs of US corporations (in general) hardly contradicts the idea that we live in a capitalist exploitative system that's typically riven with conflict and /or crisis. The CIA is clearly on one specific side of the class struggle, but it's not the only force and there's another side. And it can't always get what it wants. In fact, one of its conspiracies can easily blow back, as with the CIA fostering of ObL. One big problem with CT is that it assumes that the Conspirators have tremendous amounts of information about what's going on, even at a local level. It also assumes that it can motivate and control its agents to act totally in the interest of the Conspiracy rather than seeking profits for themselves. It ignores the fact that sometimes resistance to the Conspiracy actually wins, shaping the historical process. It also ignores the competition among conspiratorial elites. (The CIA faced competition from the KGB for quite some time, while the interests of French intelligence are not the same as the CIA's.) It assumes that the elite has a unified interest, ignoring competition within the elite. (Don't different Big Oil Companies have different interests, sometimes conflicting?) In general, a
NAFTA report
Monday, January 7, 2002 - Page A1 The Globe and Mail GDP value must reflect eco-wealth, report says By ALANNA MITCHELL EARTH SCIENCES REPORTER North Americans must radically alter the way they calculate gross domestic product to take into account the use of each country's environmental wealth, says a hard-hitting new report from the international environmental watchdog set up under NAFTA. That's because North America's natural resources -- from soil and forests to water and fish, and even clean air -- are being consumed at a rate that simply cannot be sustained. The watchdog of the North American free-trade agreement is calling for a way to assess how long such use can continue before it's too late. The health of an environment that sustains 394 million people and an economy worth $9-trillion [U.S.] is at risk, concludes the first state-of-the-nations report from the North American Commission for Environmental Co-operation, to be published today. The report adds: North Americans are faced with the paradox that many activities on which the North American economy is based impoverish the environment on which our well-being ultimately depends. As it stands, the internationally accepted system of national accounts fails to predict how long a country's environmental capital can be used, and at what rate, before parts of it collapse, the report says. Unlike human or fabricated capital such as buildings and machines, the depreciation of natural capital is not written off against the value of its production, the 100-page report says. The planet's assets can be likened to a bank account, it says. By 'spending' natural capital without replenishing it, or by damaging processes and living systems that cannot be fixed by technology, we are living off our capital rather than the interest, the report says. That this urging should come from an environmental group set up by the NAFTA partners, Canada, the United States and Mexico, is a measure of how seriously the new economic research on this topic is being taken. Because of the research, we are becoming more fluent and aware of the part that ecosystems play, said Janine Ferretti, the CEC's executive director. They're the backbone of prosperity. Mexico has done a pilot study on calculating an ecological GDP. It showed, for example, that Mexico's GDP calculated the regular way logged an average annual increase of 2.2 per cent from 1985 to 1992. The ecological GDP showed an average of 1.3 per cent because it took into account the depletion of natural assets. Both Canada and the United States have examined integrating measures of economy and environment. The United States studied the costs and savings of the Clean Air Act over 20 years, for example. Implementing the act cost $524-billion (U.S.), but saved the economy more than $6-trillion (U.S.). The fate of the cod fishery on Canada's East Coast is a perfect example of what happens when natural capital is not taken into account. Past governments encouraged the use of large fleets to catch and process fish to build up Newfoundland's economy. Because too many cod were fished out of the ocean, and too little was understood about how that system worked, the fishery collapsed. In 1992, Canada banned cod fishing. Stocks have still not rebounded and many scientists say they never will. It's a similar story with haddock and pollock. Excessive fishing has destroyed a major piece of the environment, the report says. In turn, that has destroyed part of the economy. Not understanding how a natural system worked led to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and a special unemployment program that cost Ottawa $1.9-billion in the first five years. It is expected to cost another $760-million over the next three years. The growing sense of urgency in understanding the continent's economy in this way is borne out by some of the report's other findings. While there is some good news, such as the increase in protected areas to about 15 per cent of North America from about 5 per cent in 1970, there is also bad news. Agricultural practices such as no-till planting are lessening the degree of soil erosion in parts of the agricultural belt, yet soil is still disappearing. Now it's because farmers rely heavily on chemical fertilizers that erode soil structure instead of the compost and manure that build it up, the report says. As well, high use of fossil fuels is polluting the air and helping to damage the planet's climate. In the United States, the number of kilometres travelled by passengers on transit, rail and intercity bus has dropped by half since 1970 even as the appetite for bigger cars and longer trips increased. Old-growth forests in North America continue to disappear, replaced in part by planted trees that are not as resistant to disease. Mexico, for example, has already lost 95 per cent of its tropical humid forests and is losing forests at the fifth-quickest rate of any country in the world.
Budget follies
Budget follies by Rakesh Bhandari 07 January 2002 20:27 UTC --if the spending (and tax cuts) are targeted right, etc. you are assuming that underconsumption is the problem. See Fred M's recent reply to Jim D. %% CB: Does the Rakesh B/Fred M. position ( cuts in investment spending, not reductions in ultimate consumer spending trigger ? recession, as I understand it) imply that there are no reform govt. measures that will lessen recessions ?
Budget follies
Budget follies by Doug Henwood 07 January 2002 20:42 UTC If I were a supply-sider, I'd bellow that my tax cuts aren't demand-stimulating, a la bastard Keynesianism, but promote investment by untaxing capital and promote work by increasing the reward to marginal labor (at the high end). It's a crock, but they believe this stuff passionately. %% CB: Do supply-siders express an aim to lessen recessions' unemployment etc by their tax cuts for capital, or do they say recession is a necessary, good thing ?
RE: Budget follies
They say the recession is somebody else's fault and will be over soon. mbs %% CB: Do supply-siders express an aim to lessen recessions' unemployment etc by their tax cuts for capital, or do they say recession is a necessary, good thing ?
Dan Cahill Ida Strong: The Prison-Industrial Complex in Ohio(Thu., Jan. 10)
Thursday, January 10 Teach-in: The Prison-Industrial Complex in Ohio Speakers: Dan Cahill*, Director of Prisoners' Advocacy Network - Ohio (PAN-Ohio); Ida Strong, Assistant Director of PAN-Ohio Managing Director of Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants - Ohio (CURE-Ohio) * Dan Cahill's articles The Global Economy Behind Ohio Prison Walls and Worked to Death (the latter co-authored with Paul Wright) are published in _The Celling of America: An Inside Look at the U.S. Prison Industry_ (ed., Daniel Burton-Rose with the editors of _Prison Legal News_ Dan Pens and Paul Wright -- for more info on _The Celling of America_, go to http://www.commoncouragepress.com/burton_celling.html). Time: 5:00 p.m. Location: 115 Stillman, Ohio State University, 1947 College Rd., Columbus, OH The current US rate of incarceration (including both prison and jail) of 699 persons per 100,000 population advances the U.S. position as the world leader in imprisonment. The US overtook Russia in 2000 where a continuing amnesty program has reduced the rate to 644 with further reductions planned. Forty six percent of the overall prison population is African American. Young African American males in particular continue to be incarcerated at a shockingly high rate. Nearly 10% of black males ages 25-29 are in prison on any given day. The rich get richer, and the poor get prison, exacerbating racial inequality in the process. Moreover, more than 10% of federal prisoners are now housed in for-profit private prisons. Starbucks, Jansport, and Microsoft all use prison labor to package their products; and Corrections Corporations of America, the nation's largest private jailer, has been dubbed a theme stock for the 1990s. As capitalism locks up the wretched surplus population whom it cannot employ at prevailing wages, it exploits them as slave labor in sweatshops behind bars. As Dan Cahill notes, The unprotected use of prison labor leaves prisoners open to the possibility of extreme abuse[In a trash-burning power plant run by Shaneway in Columbus, Ohio, work-release prisoners] worked in toxic ash which contained arsenic levels of 2 1/2 times those allowed by OSHA standards; cadmium levels at 5 times; lead at 138 times; and dioxin at levels 770 times the ambient air in the community. (Sources: The Sentencing Project at http://www.sentencingproject.org/; Christian Parenti, _Lockdown America: Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis_; and Dan Cahill and Paul Wright, Worked to Death) Appalled? Come and discuss, with Dan Cahill and Ida Strong, what is to be done about the Prison-Industrial Complex! Sponsored by the Student International Forum For an OSU Campus map, visit www.osu.edu/map/linkbuildings/stillmanhall.html. For more info, contact Yoshie Furuhashi at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 614-668-6554; and Keith Kilty at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or 614-292-7181. -- Yoshie * Calendar of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html * Anti-War Activist Resources: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/
Re: Budget follies
Charles Brown wrote: CB: Do supply-siders express an aim to lessen recessions' unemployment etc by their tax cuts for capital, or do they say recession is a necessary, good thing They're mostly optimists, who don't like unemployment or recession. Take a gander at Larry Kudlow some Friday morning on CNBC - he hates the hair-shirt crowd. Doug
Deja vu
jim, i am unsubbing, and wish pen-l well in the development of national populism and keynesianism. rakesh % CB: I'm getting deja vu
