Re: Binary scheme of democracy and centralism
Why does a large firm like Ford have many different factories which exchange commodities (e.g. car parts) with each other but without using the market? Interestingly enough, Toyota, always rated one of the most 'efficient' and 'profitable' of the Japanese automakers is the least vertically hierchical. It passes risks and distress in the market onto its numerous suppliers and acts as a center for design, marketing and final assembly (with intense quality control processes). It's exact opposite would have to be GM. Besides selling off parts divisions, Ghosn at Nissan is trying to Toyotatize the firm. Actually, the two goals go together. He sells off a parts division and it might get contracts with Nissan, but Nissan and its keiretsu bank are no longer responsible for extending credit and that spun off company will now be placed in direct competition with other possible suppliers. I know that selling off the parts divisions and other holdings have been profitable for Nissan, but I'm not sure about the rest. For example, sharing platforms with Renault might mean more business for Nissan , if Nissan makes the platforms. But it might mean Nissan has to shed even more workers if it neither makes the shared platforms but is expected to pay US levels of dividends to shareholders (the number one being Renault). Charles Jannuzi
Re: Argentina, Australia and Canada
Louis Proyect writes: there are degrees. Japan isn't going to become a neo-colony in the near future, but it's clear that US-based companies use their clout to push for opening the Japanese economy to freer flow of capital, etc., so that US companies can buy Japanese assets, etc., at advantageous terms. The US's strategic advantage in this little war so far has been the value of the equity markets, which places Japan at a distinct disadvantage and makes US and UK firms, at least until they buy high in a bubble, masters of the acquisitions universe. In some ways it's possible to argue the US-Japan relationship is 'neoimperial'. Japan's strategic resource base is tied to US foreign policy, and Japan in most ways has no independent foreign policy--this is why there is so little progress with the Koreas, China or even Russia. Japan's 'defense' is tied into a US-Japan agreement that is more limiting and extraterritorial than NATO is in Europe (though the US military has always appreciated things like Mitsubishi avionics). The new phase (which I correlate with a stalled stock market in the US along with liberalization of capital movements, the phony war against terror notwithstanding) , though, is the US push to get inward direct investment into Japan--especially banks, insurance, finance and real estate (which reflects the 'strengths of the US economy in these areas--FIRE industries). This became so obvious when US representatives were proclaiming in public it was time for US interests to re-capitalize Japan's failed banking system (a claim which seemed ridiculous to everyone but the grasping Americans, since it is Japan with all the savings not going anywhere). However, little has been said about what is regulation for these new forces (US led and owned private equity, which finds its apotheosis perhaps in Carlyle Group using CALPERS money). And the need has become glaring with things like Enron and Andersen and the inherhent conflicts of interests at the investment banks (over analysis, consultation, the banks' own investments, and interests of its private equity clients). Indeed, inter-imperialist rivalry provoked WWI and WWII. For background on the last attempt by US imperialism to push Japan against the wall, see Jonathan Marshall's To Have and Have Not: Southeast Asian Raw Materials and the Origins of the Pacific War. Yes, this is an excellent analysis. Many Americans are still in denial over what led to that disastrous war. Dower's 'War Without Mercy' is an excellent analysis of the ideologies used to justify the conflict. Charles Jannuzi
Money and currency
On 2002.04.17 08:34 AM, Romain Kroes [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Not at all, Chris. Exchange value of currencies does not belong to any Marxist theory, as Marx believed in a gold currency for ever. Actually, exchange value of currencies depends on the sign of the balances of trade, with a reversion of the law when the currency of world system's metropolis has been imposed as the common currency, like today's dollar. And this is completely out of Marxist theories. RK - Original Message - From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 17, 2002 12:50 AM Subject: [PEN-L:25010] The exchange value of currencies The organic composition of capital is the measure of the exchange value of currencies. Is this a correct application of marxism? Chris Burford ON CURREBCY Marx used concept of currency in volume3 of Capital There, He criticized Tookes and Fullarton's account. Marx said The distinction between currency and capital, as Tooke, Wilson, and others draw it, whereby the differences between medium of circulation as money, as money-capital generally, and as interest-bearing capital (moneyed capital in the English sense) are thrown together pell-mell, comes down to two things.[1] and continued Currency circulates on the one hand as coin (money), so far as it promotes the expenditure of revenue, hence the traffic between the individual consumers and the retail merchants, to which category belong all merchants who sell to the consumers -- to the individual consumers as distinct from productive consumers or producers. Here money circulates in the function of coin, although it continually replaces capital. A certain portion of money in a particular country is continually devoted to this function, although this portion consists of perpetually changing individual coins. In so far as money promotes the transfer of capital, however, either as a means of purchase (medium of circulation) or as a means of payment, it is capital. It is, therefore, neither its function as a means of purchase, nor that as a means of payment, which distinguishes it from coin, for it may also act as a means of purchase between one dealer and another so far as they buy from one another in hard cash, and also as a means of payment between dealer and consumer so far as credit is given and the revenue consumed before it is paid. The difference is, therefore, that in the second case this money not only replaces the capital for one side, the seller, but is expended, advanced., by the other side, the buyer, as capital. The difference, then, is in fact that between the money-form of revenue and the money-form of capital, but not that between currency and capital, for a certain quantity of money circulates in the transactions between dealers as well as in the transactions between consumers and dealers.. It is, therefore, equally currency in both functions. Tooke's conception introduces confusion into this question in various ways And He criticized Tookes as follows Confusing the functional distinctions that money in one form is currency, and capital in the other. In so far as money serves in one or another function, be it to realise revenue or transfer capital, it functions in buying and selling, or in paying, as a means of purchase or a means of payment, and, in the wider sense of the word, as currency. and adding To reduce the difference between circulation as circulation of revenue and circulation of capital into a difference between currency and capital is, therefore, altogether wrong. This mode of expression is in Tooke's case due to his simply assuming the standpoint of a banker issuing his own bank-notes Thus currency is used on the level of fictitious capital, and not used in the sphere of simple circulation. In the sphere of simple circulation,He Dealt with functions of money as 1 measure of value 2 The Medium of Circulation and in medium of circulation a. The Metamorphosis of Commodities B. The currency of money c. Coin and symbols of value. Thirdly he dealt with money itself as a. Hoarding b. Means of Payment c. Universal Money In the current international credit system, simple commodity appears as creditified commodityor creditified money so it is difficult to distinguish money and currency. MIYACHI TATSUO Psychiatric Department Komaki municipal hosipital 1-20.JOHBUHSHI KOMAKI CITY AICHI PREF. 486-0044 TEL:0568-76-4131 FAX 0568-76-4145 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: The exchange value of currencies
On 2002.04.18 08:58 AM, Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: At 16/04/02 23:50 +0100, you wrote: The organic composition of capital is the measure of the exchange value of currencies. Is this a correct application of marxism? Chris Burford I appreciate the discussion. But I am wondering if my gentle, wise old communist friend, got it the wrong way round. Perhaps it should be The exchange value of currencies is the measure of the relative organic composition of capital. Chris Burford Comrade Chris Burford What is exchange value of currency? If currency has exchange value,many currencies must exchange in capital market. So do you mean currency as bill .bond, stock? After this mail I will explain concept of currency.
Re: Re: The exchange value of currencies
The exchange value of currencies is the measure of the relative organic composition of capital. Chris Burford I suppose that everybody had understood the sentence this way. There is something true in this sentence, but it does not make a Marxian theorem. In B.3, Ch.35, II, Marx defines the rate of change of currencies as the measure of the moves on the international market of metals. Additionally, from a Marxian point of view, the association of rate of change with relative org. comp. would lead to the conclusion that the higher rate of org. comp. goes hand in hand with the lower currency value, as the relative org. comp. reflects the relative productivity, and as productivity, according to Marx, tends to depreciate goods (and metals). Now, it is more accurately the contrary, as a higher productivity means a faster capital turnover, tending to imbalance the flows of capital coming in and going out, what is daily determining the rates of change in a system of flexible changes. The economic territory whose turnover is the fastest gets a higher flow of imports that the one of its exports, what tends to estimate its exports with repect to its imports, that is its currency with respect to the currencies of its suppliers. Gold standard was made to restore the balance. But when a country gets the opportunity to pay in its own currency, that is to say to pay its debt with its debt, as today's USA with the dollar, and formely Great Britain with the balances-sterling, the balance cannot be restored and the territories which get a positive trade balance are impoverishing. Now, although this reality does not correspond to a Marxist analysis, the notion of relative org. comp., that is of relative productivity, was discovered by Marx first (B.3, 45th ch.). Thanks to that, I have got the idea of an economic chain structured by an unequal distribution of productivity, and it runs. Have a good day, Chris RK
Peter Camejo = Green Party Gubernatorial wild card
Peter Camejo = Green Party Gubernatorial wild card Green Party can't be ignored, pundits Say Carla Marinucci, Chronicle Political Writer Tuesday, April 16, 2002 San Francisco Chronicle http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f= /c/a/2002/04/16/MN163.DTL Peter Miguel Camejo, who wants to be California's next governor, has the kind of endorsement any Green Party candidate would die for: Ronald Reagan once called him one of the 10 most dangerous people in California. Camejo -- now a financial services executive -- doesn't have the hefty campaign war chest of his rivals, Democratic incumbent Gray Davis and Republican Bill Simon. But just as Green Party presidential hopeful Ralph Nader made his own mark on the 2000 presidential race, Camejo could prove dangerous in the 2002 governor's race -- particularly for Davis. A former firebrand student leader alongside Mario Savio during University of California at Berkeley's free speech heyday, Camejo was arrested for unauthorized use of a microphone in an incident 35 years ago that resulted in his suspension just shy of his graduation. These days, the 62-year-old son of Venezuelan immigrants, and grandfather of two, more resembles a rumpled college professor than a campus radical. But his still-fiery oratory -- combining a biting humor and tough rhetoric on issues such as globalization, environmental protection and health care -- can make both his more buttoned-downed rivals look positively anemic at the microphone. Both parties are dominated, especially at the top, by corporate America, which is not putting the interests of the people before their interests, said Camejo last week, alternately punching the air and pounding the podium as he formally disclosed his gubernatorial campaign on the campus of his alma mater. The Green Party believes we really represent the majority point of view in this state. In the nation's most populous state, the Green candidate's stealth campaign cannot be ignored, political analysts say. The progressive party's appeal to burgeoning ranks of independent voters here helped put San Francisco Supervisor Matt Gonzalez into office, along with a growing roster of city officials from Santa Monica to Point Arena in recent years. Camejo could, this November, lure disaffected Democrats, especially those who deserted Davis during the March 5 primary. In the era of moderate Democratic candidates, there is a vulnerability to defection by the progressive left to the Green Party, said Bruce Cain, professor of politics at UC Berkeley. It's a factor which Gray Davis always has to watch. Greens are tapping something among a younger progressive environmental crowd worried about globalization, Cain said. There's a there there. This year, which marks a decade since Greens first appeared on the California ballot, the party has for the first time assembled an entire slate of seven statewide candidates, including an African American woman for lieutenant governor and two other female candidates. The candidacy of Camejo could also hold an attraction for some Latino voters, whom Davis desperately needs to keep in his contest against Simon. Bob Mulholland, campaign adviser to the state Democratic Party, disputes the Greens' claims that they represent the state's fastest-growing party, noting that -- even with 10 years of organizing -- they represent less than 1 percent of the state's registered voters. There's not many of them, but they certainly know how to cause damage to the progressive agenda . . . he said. The Green Party single-handedly deserves the blame for Bush Jr. in the White House. And Joe Wildman, the former Green Party treasurer credited with getting Greens on the California ballot in the first place, said he had become a Democrat, largely because the Greens' promise was never fulfilled. I personally believe there are half a million Californians who would join if the Green Party would directly contact them, and go door-to-door to register voters in the state, said Wildman, now a member of the state Democratic Party central committee from Mendocino. But that involves real work. Although he's a great fan of Camejo, Wildman said, the Green Party has been taken over by people who believe running candidates builds the party. . . . It doesn't. Cain said the extent of the Greens' strong attraction to the far left will be tested by the closeness of the November election. A lot of the progressive left are smart enough to realize there's a time to vote their ideology -- and there's a time not to, he said. Ross Mirkirimi, state spokesman for the Green Party, said Greens would anticipate and strategize any attempt to dissuade progressives on that front. Gray Davis is the poster child of the Democratic Party -- as bland and as moderate as you can possibly be, Mirkirimi said. He does not inspire people to rally around him. Camejo charges that Democrats have abandoned their principles on issues like racial profiling, affordable housing and
RE: Peter Camejo = Green Party Gubernatorial wild card
Cool. Looey for Provost of the UC university system, BDL's boss. a guy can dream. Peter Camejo = Green Party Gubernatorial wild card Green Party can't be ignored, pundits Say There's not many of them, but they certainly know how to cause damage to the progressive agenda . . . he said. The Green Party single-handedly deserves the blame for Bush Jr. in the White House. And Joe Would that the Dems really believed this. If they did, they would change their behavior. mbs
friendly fire
according to SLATE's news summary, The papers all have wire stories on late-breaking news that a U.S. F-16 on a training mission in Afghanistan mistakenly bombed Canadian troops, killing four, and injuring at least eight, including some Afghans. how is it that US bombing raids are so accurate that they never kill Afghan civilians but sometimes kill friendly troops? inquiring minds want to know, JD
Binary scheme of democracy and centralism
Binary scheme of democracy and centralism by bantam 17 April 2002 14:43 Hi again Charles, Weber really is a cracking good read on bureaucracy, and the examples he plucks from his time and place are mostly taken from private enterprise in wholesale manufacture - a heroic whinge about reality getting distorted and edited into quantifiable and surveilled bits and pieces, about particulars having to be lumped into dehumanised categories, about the ascendance of timidity and the worship of order, and about the soulless machine we are making of ourselves. Taylorism strikes me as the ideal-type target of this brilliant assault. 'Bureaucracy' has been framed as a synonym for the state these days, sure, but that's discursively retrievable, I reckon, if we go at it in the sense Weber was on about. And I don't think we can do that with a substitutionist, top-down, central-planning sorta programme. Do the analysis of current dynamics and dream the dream, and do it publicly and charmingly articulately - that's my idea of doing politics in the modern 'north'. ^^ CB: Thanks , Rob. What is your take on the usual usage that a big bureaucracy is a bad thing , implying that making it smaller would improve it ? Seems to me the problem you summarize is the dictatorial or undemocratic structure of socalled bureaucracies. This implies that it is the small number of autocrats, not the large number of people who make up the bureaucracy that would be the problem. I understand your wish to preserve Weber's insights. My concern is that right now, the term bureaucracy is always used to argue for privatization. Weber's examples of private companies is specifically not the widespread meaning in this context, otherwise there would be no argument that privatisation gets rid of the problems of bureaucracy. If the Taylor system is a bureaucracy, is a factory system a bureaucracy ? I think we should use the term dictatorship and bourgeois dictatorship to refer to corporate structures , including factory systems. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/18/education/18EDIS.html April 18, 2002 Private Groups Get 42 Schools in Philadelphia By JACQUES STEINBERG Timothy M. Shaffer for The New York Times Student protesters blocked the Philadelphia school system's administration building yesterday, delaying the meeting of a state commission that was prepared to vote on privatizing some of the schools. For-Profit School Venture Has Yet to Turn a Profit (April 8, 2002) Buying in to the Company School (February 17, 2002) Topics Alerts Edison Schools Incorporated Education and Schools Reading and Writing Skills Reform and Reorganization Create Your Own | Manage Alerts Take a Tour Sign Up for Newsletters Join a Discussion on Ideas on Contemporary Education HILADELPHIA, April 17 In what is believed to be the largest experiment in privatization mounted by an American school district, a state panel charged with improving the Philadelphia public school system voted tonight to transfer control of 42 failing city schools to seven outside managers, including Edison Schools Inc. and two universities. The three members of the School Reform Commission appointed by Gov. Mark Schweiker voted for the plan, while the two members appointed by Mayor John F. Street voted against it. The vote capped a fiery three-hour meeting in which the two sides had split over whether Edison, the nation's largest for-profit operator of public schools, had the capacity and know-how to improve the 20 schools that it was assigned. I want this reform to succeed, Michael Masch, a vice president at the University of Pennsylvania and one of the mayor's two appointees to the panel, said at one point in the debate. I am gravely concerned that the magnitude of the change being proposed is imprudent. Moments later, James P. Gallagher, the president of Philadelphia University and one of the governor's three appointees, said, We should push the envelope and be as aggressive as possible. The panel's vote today represents a milestone in the decade-long growth of the movement to turn troubled public schools over to private operators. There is no better index of the impact of this effort than Edison's own expansion: over the last six years, it has gone from operating a handful of public schools to more than 130 in 22 states, with a combined student population that is larger than all but a few dozen urban districts. All told, the Philadelphia panel voted to assign an outside manager to one of every six schools in the city. In addition to Edison, the other organizations involved include two colleges that are in Philadelphia: Temple University, which was assigned five schools, and the University of Pennsylvania, which received three schools. The panel also tapped four other companies with various degrees of school
Binary scheme of democracy and centralism
Binary scheme of democracy and centralism by Bill Lear 17 April 2002 15:49 UTC -clip- As I said, I think the distinction between the terms hierarchy and totalitarian is important. You can have a democratic hierarchy with those in higher positions, for example, being contact points for information flows, and serving for only a very limited time after which they rotate back below others. This is not so possible in corporate America, aside from perhaps instances that are simply at the level of statistical error. Orders come from above, as they do in totalitarian states. As with any system, there is always a certain amount of principle/agent problem to be dealt with. In a totalitarian society, sometimes people are asked their opinion, sometimes they get to help run things, but they never rule. Same thing in a corporate hierarchy. One other thing worth mentioning is that corporations are not merely separate entities interacting through a market. They are quite typically diverse, with interlocking directorates. Furthermore, they dominate state policy, which has resulted in a profound level of violence (a contradiction if ever there was one). Ditto for totalitarian states. CB: In using your model, I would say that even though there is a partially democratic hierarchy in the U.S. governments, the totalitarian corporate system rules the U.S. governments substantially, such that the U.S. system should be termed totalitarian too. If we use the totalitarian model, we should include the U.S. as totalitarian, otherwise there is too much of an implication of democracy in the U.S.system. Alternatively it might be termed a bourgeois dictatorship.
Binary scheme of democracy and centralism
G'day Charles, CB: Thanks , Rob. What is your take on the usual usage that a big bureaucracy is a bad thing , implying that making it smaller would improve it ? Seems to me the problem you summarize is the dictatorial or undemocratic structure of socalled bureaucracies. This implies that it is the small number of autocrats, not the large number of people who make up the bureaucracy that would be the problem. I understand your wish to preserve Weber's insights. My concern is that right now, the term bureaucracy is always used to argue for privatization. Weber's examples of private companies is specifically not the widespread meaning in this context, otherwise there would be no argument that privatisation gets rid of the problems of bureaucracy. If the Taylor system is a bureaucracy, is a factory system a bureaucracy ? Yep. Bureaucracy, in the Weberian sense, is the rule of the human world by what he calls western rationality (you and I might see this 'western rationality' as a function of capitalism, but I suspect Weber'd have it the other way 'round - a potentially big disagreement, but not on what we're talking about here). Bureaucracy is the top-down imposition of the ensuing principles - that way, we're all enmeshed in what Weber called 'the iron cage of bureaucratic rationality'. Anything that bubbles from the bottom up is anathema to it - potentially fatal to it. A distaste for bureaucracy is a distaste for high capitalism to my mind, but a tendency more to Shliapnikov's or Trotsky's ideas of an economy run by decentralised workers' councils, in concert (for the latter) with limited markets, than to a centralised command economy. Modern computing power might solve a lot of the problems that defeated the SU planning nomenklatura, but it wouldn't solve the one we're on about. I think we should use the term dictatorship and bourgeois dictatorship to refer to corporate structures , including factory systems. I've no problem with that. But I reckon we have explicitly to add a bit of Marx to our Weber here - to highlight that it's not bureaucratic rationality that's producing the system (although it helps reproduce it), but the system that's producing the bureaucratic rationality. Cheers, Rob.
two recessions?
The following article fits with my impression that there were two recessions in 2001 in the U.S.: there was a relatively mild and short recession for capitalists, as measured by GDP numbers, and a deeper one for workers, as measured by employment. (Of course these are linked, since the capitalists control the economy: the likely slow growth of the real GDP in the future implies rising or at least persistently high unemployment rates, following Okun's law.) Of course, as Madrick might say the capitalists aren't out of the woods yet, since profitability continues to be low. Also of interest, Madrick cites Bob Brenner's recent work. - New York Times/April 18, 2002 ECONOMIC SCENE Government Needs to Prime the Pump By JEFF MADRICK The conventional wisdom these days seems to be that if you blinked, you missed this recession. Some even argue there was no recession. They say there is a new economy, in which business now adjusts much faster than it once did, partly because it has better and quicker information on which to base decisions. Others say productivity growth will keep up because of heavy investment in high technology in the late 1990's. Others suggest that the embrace of free markets has simply made the economy more efficient; keep government out. But in fact, a closer look at the data shows that it was a typical recession by most measures, especially in terms of jobs lost. By some measures, it even lasted longer than other recessions. And the greatest irony is that it may well have been worse except for the government's reaction to the events of Sept. 11. Aggressive monetary and fiscal policy restored growth. The government apparently bailed us out. The confusion begins with our overreliance on the gross domestic product - the annual amount of goods, services, business investment and government spending - as the arbiter of recession. Its other side is the nation's income: wages and salaries, profits, interest and rent. But G.D.P. doesn't tell us how many people have jobs or whether they are working longer. It doesn't tell us how much was borrowed to support capital spending or consumption. But if G.D.P., discounted for inflation, falls for two quarters, we are told we are in a recession. This time around, G.D.P. fell only briefly. Over the course of the recession, which began in March 2001 and possibly ended late this winter, G.D.P. after inflation fell only 0.34 percent, according to the Economic Cycle Research Institute. The shallowest recession before this was in 1969 and 1970, when G.D.P. dipped 0.61 percent. The worst, by this measure, was the 1973-75 recession, when G.D.P. fell 3.4 percent. But now let's look at employment. Jobs were lost at a far faster pace than the modest fall in G.D.P. suggests. According to the government's monthly payroll survey, the nation has lost about 1.4 million jobs since March 2001 - more than in three of the six other recessions since 1960. A better way to look at it is in percentage terms because the job market grows. Even so, the number of jobs fell 1.1 percent from March 2001 to last February. In other words, employment fell at three times the rate of the fall in G.D.P. This never happened before. In all recessions since 1973-75, employment fell about as much as G.D.P. In 1981-82, for example, jobs declined by 2.8 million, or about 3 percent, while G.D.P. fell 2.9 percent. No wonder productivity rose this time. Productivity is nothing more than the number of hours worked divided by the output of goods and services. If the nation fires its workers much faster than its sales fall, productivity rises because hours worked for each dollar of revenue falls. What may be newest about this new economy is not information technology or free markets, but the freedom corporations have to fire at will. Capital investment and profits also plunged. Industrial production fell proportionally more than it did in several past recessions, and the decline has lasted longer than ever before. Even the decline in employment has lasted as long as it did in most past recessions, and it has spread across as many industries. Why did G.D.P. alone hold up? It may well have been the government reaction to Sept. 11, says Anirvan Banerji, managing editor at the Economic Cycle Research Institute. The alarming events provoked the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates sharply. As a consequence, Mr. Banerji said, auto companies could offer zero financing, and car sales drove G.D.P. up in the fourth quarter (and consumers borrowed against their homes). At the same time, government spending rose rapidly in the battle against terrorism. Both auto sales and government spending rose enough to account alone for the 1.7 percent gain in G.D.P. in the fourth quarter, offsetting the sharp drop in capital spending. Without the alarm set off by Sept. 11, Mr. Banerji said, it is possible that the economy might have slid into recession without provoking an adequate response from
Re: Binary scheme of democracy and centralism
On Thursday, April 18, 2002 at 11:14:50 (-0400) Charles Brown writes: ... CB: In using your model, I would say that even though there is a partially democratic hierarchy in the U.S. governments, the totalitarian corporate system rules the U.S. governments substantially, such that the U.S. system should be termed totalitarian too. If we use the totalitarian model, we should include the U.S. as totalitarian, otherwise there is too much of an implication of democracy in the U.S.system. Alternatively it might be termed a bourgeois dictatorship. The only problem I have with this is that we have a great deal of substantive freedoms, often won at great cost to those who have fought for them. At a certain point, once you add enough freedoms, I think it would be difficult for the system to be called totalitarian. I'm not sure where that point lies, though. Jim seems to think that the term has too much baggage associated with it, which is fine. But if you consider the dictionary definition, it seems to me that, as Michael Perelman pointed out, and as anyone who has set foot within corporate America knows, the corporate system itself approaches the definition much more closely than does the political system. As Reich points out, workers lose most of the political and civil rights they enjoy as citizens of the state upon entry to corporate America. This seems to me to be evidence of a clear line between two very different realms. However, I can see an argument that what we have is indeed (the dictionary form of) totalitarianism, albeit one that is imperfect because the masters are constrained by those annoying things called the Constitution, public opinion and direct action, and differences among investors --- which often open up significant avenues of popular input. Every totalitarian system has these flaws; even the Soviet Union had limits to what it could or was willing to do to its population, so again, I'm not sure where we draw the line. Perhaps plutocratic dictatorship, or plutocracy is better. I would still like a neat term, though, that would allow us to describe a system of relationships such as slave/master, worker/owner, husband/wife (when women know their place). Though it seems a bit odd to describe the slave/master relationship as a dictatorship or totalitarian, I think the plain term fits. Sabri mentioned object-oriented programming, so here's an OO diagram describing another possible term: Slavery | +---+--+--+ | | | | Chattel Wage Marital ? Well, anyway, at least we know it when we see it. Bill
Re: two recessions?
Devine, James wrote: Of course, as Madrick might say the capitalists aren't out of the woods yet, since profitability continues to be low. Though according to the NIPAs, profitability rose sharply in the fourth quarter of 2001. The big question is whether it continues to rise this year and beyond, because the falloff from 1997 was quite steep. Doug
RE: Re: Binary scheme of democracy and centralism
Perhaps plutocratic dictatorship, or plutocracy is better. when I see the word plutocracy, I am reminded of two things: (1) Years ago, I read an article in the PROCEEDINGS of the U.S. Navy Institute that labeled the U.S. system using this word. Was this a move in the direction of increasing the legitimacy of the idea of replacing the plutocracy with military rule? (2)I think of Disney Dogs. Looking at the current occupant of the Oval Office, I wonder if instead of Plutocracy, we have Goofyocracy. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: Re: two recessions?
I wrote: Of course, as Madrick might say the capitalists aren't out of the woods yet, since profitability continues to be low. Doug writes: Though according to the NIPAs, profitability rose sharply in the fourth quarter of 2001. The big question is whether it continues to rise this year and beyond, because the falloff from 1997 was quite steep. It doesn't surprise me that profitability would rise during one quarter, but I've learned not to pay much attention to a single quarter's data. Jim
Profit Rates -- From Michael Yates
From Michael Yates In the discussion about profit rates, I am confused. Doug Henwood suggests dividing profits by capital stock. Wouldn't this involve dividing a flow (profits) by a stock (capital stock) and therefore making a not very meaningful calculation? And, in any event, why make such gross calculations which don't tell us much? Just as life expectancies and GDP per capita are not good comparison measures in many cases, because they hide all the disparity within countries. In addition, shouldn't comparisons be made between truly comparable things. For example, it would be meaningful to compare profitability between an engine plant in the U.S.and one in Mexico. My guess is the rate would be higher in Mexico than in the U.S. as costs are lower and productivity is probably comparable. Of course, profits are difficult to get good accurate measures on, so it would probably still be hard to make a good comparison. In discussions about imperialism, it is important to see where the money flows. Isn't it the case that more money flows from the poor countries to the rich ones than vice versa? Repatriated profits, interest, etc. are greater than than the inflow of money to the poor countries. Again, a lot of the money flowing to the rich countries may escape measurement. On money flows from poor nations to rich nations, the old work of Keith Griffin is very good. An interesting phenomenon has been the flow of money to the US after financial crises in several poor countries. Surely a type of imperialism, as the labor of the workers in poor countries creates the surplus value that then flows out of the poor countries into the rich ones. Michael Yates -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
frontiers of health care
In a memoir of his friend Rosalyn Yalow, the Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Eugene Straus tells the following sad (and cautionary) tale: When I arrived at the hospital, Rosalyn was gone. The house officer in the emergency room didn't remember her name, but he remembered a rather dirty old lady who had suffered a stroke. They had refused to admit her, or in technical lingo, she had been 'dumped.' Lots of old people stricken by strokes are dumped, since they may not be insured and thus would run up hospital costs to maintain them as they lie in a coma, waiting to expire. So they are transported instead to the municipal hospital, the place of last resort. The tragedy is not that a great icon of medicine had been dumped. It may be ironic that Yalow had often been invited to that hospital's parent university to lecture, to receive an honorary degree, and that the presidents and deans had lined up just to touch her hand, to be remembered, and the professors had hung on her every word. The tragedy is that a desperately ill human being had been turned away as have so many others like her. I had to find her. I would have gone to the nearest municipal hospital, but the house officer had remembered that when she left his emergency room the ambulance driver said they would take her to Montefiore Hospital, a private institution near her home. When I arrived, her cardiologist, Ira Rubin, was at her bedside. 'She's comatose, and bleeding from the stomach,' he told me. 'They dumped her! Gene! Can you believe it!' 'Sure,' I said. 'She's not wearing that Nobel medallion around her neck. They saw a stroked-out senior citizen, no I.D., kind of ragged... a GOMER (Get Out of My Emergency Room).' See http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0738202630/newsscancom/ for Rosalyn Yalow, Her Life and Work in Medicine, by Eugene Straus, M.D. -- or -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Ten million strike in India
India's unions have warned they will step up their protests against plans to make it easier to lay off workers, one day after as many as ten million employees went on a strike that brought much of the urban part of the country to a standstill. Bank workers and employees from more than 220 state-run companies walked off their jobs on Tuesday for a one-day strike, virtually paralyzing the South Asian nation's financial markets, factories and ports. http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/south/04/16/india.strike/index.html
Map of the Palestinian region
[Note that the map shows the situation in the region before Sharon] http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cartes/cisjordaniedpl2000
RE: US foreign investment
Just to suggest that although the numbers are nearly exactly the same, these are returns on capital we're looking at, so they need about two more decimal places. To put it another way, although they're practically the same, there is all the difference in the world between an investment which earns 4.6% return and an investment which earns 7.5% return if you are funding your investment with borrowed money at 6%. In one case, you're making a decent profit; in the other, you're slowly going out of business. dd If there is any meaningful economic interpretation that can be gleaned from all this, I have no idea what it is. Just take a look at: http://www.marxmail.org/foreign_investment.htm and compare Nicaragua to Norway. Nicaragua: (A) Number of Affiliates -- 8 (B) Total Assets -- 147 (C) Sales -- 260 (D) Net Income -- 11 (E) Employee Compensation -- 14 (D) divided by (B) -- 0.07 (E) divided by (B) -- 0.10 Norway: (A) Number of Affiliates -- 182 (B) Total Assets -- 19092 (C) Sales -- 12836 (D) Net Income -- 882 (E) Employee Compensation -- 1855 (D) divided by (B) -- 0.05 (E) divided by (B) -- 0.10 ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___
RE: Profit Rates -- From Michael Yates
From Michael Yates In the discussion about profit rates, I am confused. Doug Henwood suggests dividing profits by capital stock. Wouldn't this involve dividing a flow (profits) by a stock (capital stock) and therefore making a not very meaningful calculation? Dividing flows by stocks is not always bad voodoo. This calculation would give a ratio equivalent at the macro level to Return on Capital Employed, which is always a useful thing to know in the context of companies and I don't see a fallacy-of-composition type argument which would make it not a useful thing to know about whole economies. Or to put it another way, it's a flow divided by a stock in the same way that the rate of interest is a flow divided by a stock; it's a rate of return. And, in any event, why make such gross calculations which don't tell us much? Just as life expectancies and GDP per capita are not good comparison measures in many cases, because they hide all the disparity within countries. I agree much more with this, in that FDI into the Asian countries in particular is going to span all sorts of non-comparable items, but what do you do? The aggregate numbers are all that's available In addition, shouldn't comparisons be made between truly comparable things. For example, it would be meaningful to compare profitability between an engine plant in the U.S.and one in Mexico. My guess is the rate would be higher in Mexico than in the U.S. as costs are lower and productivity is probably comparable. Of course, profits are difficult to get good accurate measures on, so it would probably still be hard to make a good comparison. Isn't it the case that more money flows from the poor countries to the rich ones than vice versa? Repatriated profits, interest, etc. are greater than than the inflow of money to the poor countries. Vastly depends on your definition of a poor country. If you mean non-OECD, then the answer is broadly no on a cash basis but yes on an accounting basis (because poor countries accrue interest liabilities that they don't pay). But this definition would not count Mexico as a poor country because it's OECD. dd ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___
RE: RE: Profit Rates -- From Michael Yates
but according to the Cambridge UK folks, you can't measure capital stock to begin with . . . To me the interest rate(s) is more meaningful, since at least it is observed and is the object of literal transactions, unlike capital. profits are susceptible to what I suspect are flaky inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments, and even a pristine profit rate can mislead in light of the time profile of investment returns. mbs From Michael Yates In the discussion about profit rates, I am confused. Doug Henwood suggests dividing profits by capital stock. Wouldn't this involve dividing a flow (profits) by a stock (capital stock) and therefore making a not very meaningful calculation? Dividing flows by stocks is not always bad voodoo. This calculation would give a ratio equivalent at the macro level to Return on Capital Employed, which is always a useful thing to know in the context of companies and I don't see a fallacy-of-composition type argument which would make it not a useful thing to know about whole economies. Or to put it another way, it's a flow divided by a stock in the same way that the rate of interest is a flow divided by a stock; it's a rate of return.
Re: Re: US foreign investment
Lou wrote I take the question of development and statistics quite seriously. If Henwood wanted to respond to what I wrote, he could have explained why the statistics instead revealed some deeper truths about Nicaragua and Norway. I am curious about the stats you chose. I guessed that you were trying to show something like the rate of exploitation (ie. that wages were a lower fraction of assets than income). But there is no clear reason why income should be a higher fraction of assets than any given expense (like wages) measured in the aggregate. Marx developed the idea of the rate of exploitation on the level of the firm, where the rate of profit was assumed and prices and wages moved accordingly. The yearly national accounts measure total profits rather than firm profits--and some firms could be profitable without their being aggregate nat'l profits. And there are limits to the flexibility of wages and prices. I think it would be more interesting in this context to see the ratio of debt to assets and the proportion of debt held by foreigners. Christian
Re: RE: Profit Rates -- From Michael Yates
Daniel Davies: Isn't it the case that more money flows from the poor countries to the rich ones than vice versa? Repatriated profits, interest, etc. are greater than than the inflow of money to the poor countries. Vastly depends on your definition of a poor country. If you mean non-OECD, then the answer is broadly no on a cash basis but yes on an accounting basis (because poor countries accrue interest liabilities that they don't pay). But this definition would not count Mexico as a poor country because it's OECD. What do you meant that poor countries accrue interest liabilities that they don't pay? I was under the impression that the need to pay off debts to imperialist funding agencies is convulsing the 3rd world right now. Also (although I wouldn't dream of putting words in Michael's mouth) isn't the problem we are dealing with in the Argentina thread is exactly the need to get past surface impressions when discussing societies like Mexico? Of course, Mexico is not Tanzania but what sense does it make to categorize it (or Poland and Turkey) as a non-poor country just because it shares membership in the OECD? Mexico and Turkey are peripheral nations that will never join the front ranks of other OECD nations such as Norway or Austria. One of the indicators that we need to take into account is yearly emigration because of unemployment. There are Turkish (and Polish) streetsweepers, prostitutes, newspaper vendors and non-unionized construction workers in Norway and Austria but few Norwegian or Austrian guest workers in Turkey or Poland. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Create Social Change
Friends and colleagues, please consider the following switch if applicable. This new socially responsible mutual fund within TIAA-CREF is at 6.5 million but needs 25 million to be established. Thanks, Diane === Take Ten Minutes to CREATE SOCIAL CHANGE: SUPPORT NEW TIAA-CREF FUND Dear Friends and Colleagues, TIAA-CREF MAY BE SETTING UP THE NEW SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE FUND FOR WHICH WE HAVE LONG LOBBIED. WE ARE SEEKING YOUR FINANCIAL COMMITMENT TO TRANSFER SOME OF YOUR CURRENT TIAA-CREF ASSETS TO THE NEW FUND SHOULD IT BE ESTABLISHED. In a New York Times article (January 6, 2002), TIAA-CREF's CEO John H. Biggs said he would support the creation of a new retirement fund that would employ not only negative screens (avoiding certain companies), but also positive screens (investing in companies strong on social responsibility). As such, it would be more similar to a state-of-the-art socially responsible mutual fund than TIAA-CREF's current Social Choice Account. (Mr. Biggs has still voiced opposition to other more proactive ways of investing that would make direct social change along with making a profit. However, we will continue to push for those.) Mr. Biggs made this offer in the context of a challenge: to quote the article, He said he would support creating such a fund only 'if you could guarantee the investors would be there to invest.' He explained that TIAA-CREF would need $50 million in seed money, and that the minimum commitment needed from investors to justify developing such a fund would be $25 million. TIAA-CREF would provide the other $25 million, with the expectation that it could be withdrawn as the fund grew. Accordingly, we are gathering financial commitments to the new fund from TIAA-CREF participants. Here is a chance for our retirement savings within the TIAA-CREF Pension System to make a real difference in the world at large, as well as secure our later years. Go to http://www.manchester.edu/academic/programs/departments/peace_studies/fund/ to learn more about the proposed new fund and to submit information we need to present to TIAA-CREF. This includes how much of your current retirement savings you are willing to transfer into the new fund, and what percentage of your future retirement savings you will earmark for it. We ask that you make as large a commitment as you can to ensure the launch of the fund. The Social Choice Account has performed as well over the years as the traditional CREF Stock Account, while the stock portion of the balanced SCA has actually outperformed it. There is no reason to expect better or worse financial returns for the new fund. (Some of those heavily involved in lobbying efforts for the fund have already pledged to put a large percentage of their current investments and future contributions into the new fund. However, we recognize the value of proper diversification and do not expect anyone to put all of their money into this fund unless you feel so inclined.) The information you provide will be kept strictly confidential. The web site data is secure. Other than management at TIAA-CREF, the only person who will see the data is a Vice President at Manchester College who has agreed to help. He administers the school's insurance and TIAA-CREF retirement plans, so he is accustomed to keeping personal financial information confidential. Though we are hoping you will consider transferring assets from several of your TIAA-CREF accounts, only about one percent of the assets in the $4.3 billion Social Choice Account would need to transfer to the new fund to amass $50 million. This would allow TIAA-CREF to withdraw its seed money very quickly. More importantly, it would send a clear message that many TIAA-CREF participants are committed to a more positive approach to investing their retirement dollars. After you visit the web site, please copy and paste this message into a new e-mail message with a personal plug for this effort. Please pass it on to sympathetic friends, colleagues, retirees, and listserves. If you happen to receive a copy of this message but are not a participant in the TIAA-CREF pension system, you can help out by sending this message to those who might be and who would likely be interested in supporting this effort. We thank you in advance for your support. Abigail A. Fuller, Assistant Professor of Sociology Neil Wollman, Senior Fellow of the Peace Studies Institute and Professor of Psychology Co-Chairs, SOCIAL CHOICE FOR SOCIAL CHANGE: Campaign for a New TIAA-CREF MC Box 135 Manchester College North Manchester, IN 46962 (260) 982-5346 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RE: Re: two recessions?
Devine, James wrote: I wrote: Of course, as Madrick might say the capitalists aren't out of the woods yet, since profitability continues to be low. Doug writes: Though according to the NIPAs, profitability rose sharply in the fourth quarter of 2001. The big question is whether it continues to rise this year and beyond, because the falloff from 1997 was quite steep. It doesn't surprise me that profitability would rise during one quarter, but I've learned not to pay much attention to a single quarter's data. Which is why I said the big question is But out of tiny upticks long uptrends occasionally grow. Doug
Re: Re: Re: US foreign investment
I am curious about the stats you chose. I guessed that you were trying to show something like the rate of exploitation (ie. that wages were a lower fraction of assets than income). But there is no clear reason why income should be a higher fraction of assets than any given expense (like wages) measured in the aggregate. Marx developed the idea of the rate of exploitation on the level of the firm, where the rate of profit was assumed and prices and wages moved accordingly. The yearly national accounts measure total profits rather than firm profits--and some firms could be profitable without their being aggregate nat'l profits. And there are limits to the flexibility of wages and prices. I think it would be more interesting in this context to see the ratio of debt to assets and the proportion of debt held by foreigners. Christian === Let me be as clear as I can. There was no way that I could derive any meaningful political or social analysis from the numbers available at: http://www.bea.gov/bea/di/di1usdop.htm. More to the point, to rely on such indicators without doing an in-depth analysis of particular countries is REDUCTIONIST. If people want to put those kinds of figures into a spreadsheet and play pundit with them, they should. Here is my approach: (http://www.mail-archive.com/marxism%40lists.panix.com/msg33040.html) The consumption/investment habits of the Argentine ruling class was typical of those of other Latin American economies dominated by the latifundia. Based mostly in Buenos Aires, the bourgeoisie received as much as 25 percent of Argentina's GDP through land rent. With this revenue, they spent a significant portion on goods manufactured in the USA or Europe. As Johns points out, The elite's ardent desire to prove its cosmopolitan stature translated into a fetishism of foreign goods. No doubt such consumption habits shaped the cultural views of a sector of Argentine artists, who identified more with Europe than their own gaucho realities. With a diminished internal market, local industry had unfavorable conditions for growth. Also contributing to the structural weakness was the low incomes of the urban proletariat that earned about one-half the wages of workers in England and about one-fifth those in the USA. Finally, high urban land rents further reduced the effective demand of urban wages, as did the unsystematic import tariffs, which afforded industry little protection but did finance the government at the cost of increasing the prices of imported goods. (Johns, 194) If class relations in the countryside were typified by sharecropping, seasonal labor and other forms of super-exploitation, the situation in the city was not much better. In fact, the urban proletariat was either unemployed for much of the year or was forced to work at pittance wages on the big estates of the pampas. In a study of the Buenos Aires proletariat, Juan Alsina wrote: the workers in factories and workshops are usually day workers who, without any definite skills or job description, learn a job quickly. These are highly mobile workers earning minimum wages, able to perform several tasks and transfer to other jobs rapidly; they even leave their city jobs for five to six months to work in the countryside shearing wool or harvesting grain. (Johns, 196) Because manufacturers could rely on what amounted to a part-time force, it was under no particular pressure to introduce labor-saving machinery. Hiring or firing workers on a contingency basis ensured profits, but only at the expense of long-term productivity. They also made extensive use of the putting out system, which effectively reduced fixed costs. Enormous retail houses such as Gath y Chaves, which was the Macy's of Argentina, employed five times as many female homeworkers as their permanent staff. (Retailers typically manufactured their own goods.) In total, such retail houses and clothing factories employed 10,000 while at least 50,000 worked out of their homes. With manufacturing in such a primitive state, it is no surprise that Argentine goods were viewed as second-rate. The tanneries, for example, could not produce high-quality goods, which were in great demand overseas. Furniture shops also faced capital shortages and tended to employ artisans who turned out pieces one by one. It is also important to consider the nature of Argentine immigration, which despite being massive, tended to be far less permanent than that found in countries like Canada, the USA or Australia. Since much of the labor was based seasonally around agrarian enterprises, the work force found it necessary to return to Europe when work dried up. This prompted the nickname golondrina, or swallow, after the birds that migrate annually. Because the Argentine economy was based in Buenos Aires and the nearby pampas, the immigrants tended to concentrate near the city and the adjoining coast. As Corradi points out, this led to over-urbanization in an agrarian society, a characteristic
Re: Profit Rates -- From Michael Yates
Michael Perelman wrote: Doug Henwood suggests dividing profits by capital stock. Wouldn't this involve dividing a flow (profits) by a stock (capital stock) and therefore making a not very meaningful calculation? That's the definition of rate of return, no? Interest on a bond is computed as coupon divided by principal. Ditto return on equity, or dividend yield. Doug
Re: RE: US foreign investment
Not to mention that picking two countries out of a hundred or so says absolutely nothing about the data or any analytical technique associated with it. Though the fact that U.S. assets in Norway are 130 times those in Nicaragua, and there are 23 times as many MNC affiliates there, comes closer to proving my point than the contrary. Doug Davies, Daniel wrote: Just to suggest that although the numbers are nearly exactly the same, these are returns on capital we're looking at, so they need about two more decimal places. To put it another way, although they're practically the same, there is all the difference in the world between an investment which earns 4.6% return and an investment which earns 7.5% return if you are funding your investment with borrowed money at 6%. In one case, you're making a decent profit; in the other, you're slowly going out of business. dd If there is any meaningful economic interpretation that can be gleaned from all this, I have no idea what it is. Just take a look at: http://www.marxmail.org/foreign_investment.htm and compare Nicaragua to Norway. Nicaragua: (A) Number of Affiliates -- 8 (B) Total Assets -- 147 (C) Sales -- 260 (D) Net Income -- 11 (E) Employee Compensation -- 14 (D) divided by (B) -- 0.07 (E) divided by (B) -- 0.10 Norway: (A) Number of Affiliates -- 182 (B) Total Assets -- 19092 (C) Sales -- 12836 (D) Net Income -- 882 (E) Employee Compensation -- 1855 (D) divided by (B) -- 0.05 (E) divided by (B) -- 0.10 ___ Email Disclaimer This communication is for the attention of the named recipient only and should not be passed on to any other person. Information relating to any company or security, is for information purposes only and should not be interpreted as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any security. The information on which this communication is based has been obtained from sources we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy or completeness. All expressions of opinion are subject to change without notice. All e-mail messages, and associated attachments, are subject to interception and monitoring for lawful business purposes. ___
Re: Re: RE: US foreign investment
Doug Henwood wrote: Not to mention that picking two countries out of a hundred or so says absolutely nothing about the data or any analytical technique associated with it. Though the fact that U.S. assets in Norway are 130 times those in Nicaragua, and there are 23 times as many MNC affiliates there, comes closer to proving my point than the contrary. I don't see what points (yours or anyone else's) are or are not being proved. I suspect the answers (and the questions to be answered) aren't, to begin with, in these or any other statistics. First there has to be a framework of some sort to define the meaning of any figures. Facts never carry their own meaning. Many decades ago Jalee succeeded in wresting some meaning from a large complex of figures but no one here, it seems to me, has really even tried to define what the goal of the search is. Perhaps Hegel is relevant here. We have to posit a whole first, then explore what figures are relevant to what. Carrol
Re: Re: Re: RE: US foreign investment
Carrol Cox wrote: I don't see what points (yours or anyone else's) are or are not being proved. It's widely believed that foreign investment is largely about chasing low wages. But most FDI is targeted at high-income countries. It's also widely believed that imperial investment is the source of superprofits that power the whole system; that doesn't seem to be borne out by the data either. Following up on Michael Yates's point - of course it's useful to compare profitability at engine plants, etc. But given the fungibility and mobility of capital, it makes plenty of sense to talk about economywide rates of profit too. People seem to think that if you assert A it somehow rules out an interest in B, C, and D. It doesn't. Doug
US foreign investment / tactics in Venezuela
US foreign investment / tactics in Venezuela by Doyle Saylor 18 April 2002 02:01 UTC -clip- Documents that are produced need to be accessible to people via more reliable attention to search engines. I am thinking of an anecdote of Venezuela that the press recently reported. According to press accounts the television stations maintained a blackout and biased reporting against Chavez, but that ordinary people using cell phones were able to get the word out anyway. We need to use the 'interactive' tools that the whole left can use to our advantage. Interactive here meaning collaboration technology. To me then applying the example of cellphones to collaboration here I think important work needs to be done in teamwork for online left lists. The sort of one line irritation of antagonists needs to be replaced by common collective work that takes advantage of principles of computing that serves our brain work best. ^^^ CB: I saw that reported too. The revolution may not be televised, but it may be on the radio and cellphones. Maybe there is a challenge as to whether it will be on email.
What happened at Jenin
What happened at Jenin Under the rubble of the refugee camp Apr 18th 2002 | JENIN REFUGEE CAMP From The Economist print edition MANY facts are known, others are still contested. On April 2nd the Israeli army invaded Jenin as part of its military operations to root out the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure which, in Israel's mind, now includes the Palestinian Authority. The conquest took three days. Then the army laid siege to the refugee camp just outside the town. The camp had been among the prime targets of Israel's assault on the West Bank, along with the casbah in Nablus and the Palestinian gunmen sheltering in churches in Bethlehem's old city. Huddled on a northern mountain-side lush with cypress trees, it has long been a bastion of Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and, recently, of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Of the 100 Palestinian suicide bombers in the 18 months of the intifada, 23 were bred in its warren of poverty, breezeblock shelters, sloping lanes and a militant brew of Palestinian nationalism and radical Islam. The Palestinian Authority doesn't really exist here. It's the fighters who run things, said a camp resident, before the invasion. For five days Israeli helicopters and tanks relentlessly rocketed the square kilometre of the camp to soften the resolve of the 160 Palestinian militiamen holed up within it. Men aged 15 to 45 were ordered by loudspeaker to surrender. Hundreds did so. They were stripped to their underwear, manacled, hooded, beaten and finally dumped in neighbouring villages. Some were used as human shields in front of the army as it pushed its way into people's houses. Women and children were told to flee to Jenin town. By April 8th a UN official estimated that perhaps half of the camp's 13,000 refugees had gone. The army then tried to breach the camp's interior with infantry. We figured it would be a breeze, one reservist told Haaretz newspaper. It wasn't. Instead, 23 Israeli soldiers were killed, including 13 on April 9th from an elaborate ambush involving a suicide bomber, a booby-trapped house and a hail of gunfire. It was then that the army took the decision to crush the resistance once and for all. There was an intensive blitz of shelling into the camp's heart, followed by an invasion of tanks and bulldozers, tearing down everything that stood in their way. The army insists civilians were given fair warning that the thrust was coming. Palestinians say it was a massacre, with anywhere between 100 and 500 Palestinians killed, most of them buried beneath the razed buildings. Neither claim can be proved or refuted. What is beyond doubt is that the camp one week on from the invasion is a scene of devastation that has had no equal throughout Israel's 34-year conquest and occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. There is literally no house without bullet marks. Some have had lower floors sheared away by the blades of bulldozers or tracks of tanks. From one three-storey house all that is left is a stairwell, hanging in the ether, descending into nothing. This is the lesser destruction. The camp's residential corethe last redoubt of the fightersresembles an earthquake. Vast craters have been ploughed, girdled by shored-up mountains of earth, topped by concrete avalanches of houses, offices, a restaurant. It is a massive furrow the size of three football pitches. There is a mass grave beneath it, insist Palestinians. Or, rather, say many, there was before the Israelis collected the corpses and sped them away while keeping the Red Cross, the UN and other independent witnesses firmly at bay. I saw the soldiers dumping the dead in trucks...I saw this with my own eyes, says a woman from the camp. Less disputable acounts of horror are legion. A man describes what happened to his neighbours, the Fayed family. We heard the bulldozers coming. Jamal told the soldiers they couldn't evacuate so quickly because of his disabled son. The soldiers suspected he was a wounded fighter. They pulled down the house with the son inside. That's where he's buried. He points to a mound of earth. Other Palestinians describe how, in the chaos of the assault, they had no idea whether they were supposed to stay in their homes or flee. The orders were confused, says one. Some soldiers told us to get out, others told us there was a curfew. We decided to run and were immediately fired upon by the army. I have a wife, four daughters and three sons. I haven't seen them since that moment. I don't know if they're alive or dead. Whether there was a warning or not, the evidence of the Israeli army's absolute negligence in trying to protect civilian life is everywhere. One man describes how his elderly father was shot in the head while getting water from his kitchen, six metres from the room in which his family was sheltering. The son could not reach his father for six days because of the intensity of the shelling. Nearby is the shell of another family home. Flies hover. There is the sweet, acrid stench
FW: Quote of the day
You can call me anything you like. Call me a monster or a murderer... Better a live Judeo-Nazi than a dead saint... Even if you prove to me that the present war in Lebanon is a dirty immoral war, I don't care... We shall start another war, kill and destroy more and more, until they will have had enough... Let them tremble, let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go crazy if one of our children is murdered, just one! If anyone even raises his hand against us we'll take away half his land and burn the other half, including the oil. We might use nuclear arms... Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us And I don't mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal... What you don't understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it. Ariel Sharon, interview with Amos Oz, Davar 17 December 1982.
Re: FW: Quote of the day
On Thursday, April 18, 2002 at 15:51:57 (-0500) Forstater, Mathew writes: You can call me anything you like. Call me a monster or a murderer... Better a live Judeo-Nazi than a dead saint... Even if you prove to me that the present war in Lebanon is a dirty immoral war, I don't care... We shall start another war, kill and destroy more and more, until they will have had enough... Let them tremble, let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go crazy if one of our children is murdered, just one! If anyone even raises his hand against us we'll take away half his land and burn the other half, including the oil. We might use nuclear arms... Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us And I don't mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal... What you don't understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it. Ariel Sharon, interview with Amos Oz, Davar 17 December 1982. Potent stuff. Did anyone catch the Israeli medical officer make the remark that there are no civilians, just terrorists in the areas they were invading? Bill
RE: RE: RE: Profit Rates -- From Michael Yates
Max writes:but according to the Cambridge UK folks, you can't measure capital stock to begin with . . . you can measure aggregate capital stocks (K), simply by multiplying price times quantity of each type and then adding up, but the question is what that measurement means. The Cambridge UK folks said that you could measure K, but that you couldn't use it as an independent variable as part of a theory of distribution, where the marginal product of K was somehow related to the rate of profit received (or the interest rate). The value of the rate of profit or of the interest rate has an effect on the value of K, so it's not the one-way causation that the neoclassicals assume. Of course, there are all sorts of _other_ measurement problems. The hardest is that of measuring depreciation in order to figure out the K net of depreciation. To me the interest rate(s) is more meaningful, since at least it is observed and is the object of literal transactions, unlike capital. but it's quite important to have some idea of the benefit to a industrial-capitalist borrower (the rate of return) in addition to understanding the cost to that borrower (the rate of interest). Estimated rates of return are always going to be approximations, but it's better than nothing. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
RE: US foreign investment
People seem to think that if you assert A it somehow rules out an interest in B, C, and D. It doesn't. Doug I agree with this observation. It happens everywhere, not just on PEN-L. On the other hand, if you keep asserting A repeatedly without trying to show your interest in B, C and D, then some people may conclude that you lost your interest B, C and D. This was just another observation of mine. Sabri
Re: FW: Quote of the day
From: Forstater, Mathew [EMAIL PROTECTED] Hang me if you want as a war criminal. Ariel Sharon, interview with Amos Oz, Davar 17 December 1982. Damn decent of the man to make the offer. It's high time we take him up on it. Carl _ Join the worlds largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
Re: FW: Quote of the day
Sharon did not say these words. Go to http://www.nandotimes.com/opinions/story/362271p-2936404c.html for the correction. On Thu, 18 Apr 2002 15:51:57 -0500, Forstater, Mathew wrote: You can call me anything you like. Call me a monster or a murderer... Better a live Judeo-Nazi than a dead saint... Even if you prove to me that the present war in Lebanon is a dirty immoral war, I don't care... We shall start another war, kill and destroy more and more, until they will have had enough... Let them tremble, let them call us a mad state. Let them understand that we are a wild country, dangerous to our surroundings, not normal, that we might go crazy if one of our children is murdered, just one! If anyone even raises his hand against us we'll take away half his land and burn the other half, including the oil. We might use nuclear arms... Even today I am willing to volunteer to do the dirty work for Israel, to kill as many Arabs as necessary, to deport them, to expel and burn them, to have everyone hate us And I don't mind if after the job is done you put me in front of a Nuremberg Trial and then jail me for life. Hang me if you want, as a war criminal... What you don't understand is that the dirty work of Zionism is not finished yet, far from it. Ariel Sharon, interview with Amos Oz, Davar 17 December 1982. -- Louis Proyect, [EMAIL PROTECTED] on 04/18/2002 Marxism list: http://www.marxmail.org
RE: Re: RE: Re: two recessions?
I wrote: It doesn't surprise me that profitability would rise during one quarter, but I've learned not to pay much attention to a single quarter's data. Doug answers:Which is why I said the big question is But out of tiny upticks long uptrends occasionally grow. At this point, it looks like the rising rate of profit was due to greater profit realization, due to expansionary monetary fiscal policy. The big question is when the various other factors depressing the profit rate since 1997 -- such as the high dollar exchange rate -- or so will be changed in a way that helps our friends the capitalists. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: FW: Quote of the day
From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sharon did not say these words. Hmm, I thought it was too good to be true. What the hell, though, I say hang Arik anyway. Carl _ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
Taiwan plans to restrict high-tech engineers from working in China
HindustanTimes.com Taiwan plans to restrict high-tech engineers from working in China AP Taipei, Taiwan, April 18 Taiwanese engineers who design semiconductors, missiles, jet fighters and submarines may be barred from working in rival China, the government said on Thursday. The restrictions are part of a comprehensive plan to prevent China from gaining access to technologies developed in Taiwan, the National Science Council said in a statement. Taiwan has been particularly concerned about losing engineers from its leading semiconductor industry, a sector that China hopes to take over. Under the plan drafted by the science council, engineers involved in computer chip design or in lithography _ a key process in the development of silicon wafer technogies - could be barred from working in China, the statement said. People involved in the development of anesthetics might also be barred, it said. The Council will send the plan to the Cabinet next week for approval, the statement said. Taiwanese have poured an estimated U.S. dlrs 60 billion of investment in China in the past decade. Taiwan fears the investment rush could weaken the local economy while giving a boost to its rival's economy. Bowing to business pressure, Taiwan eased a ban last month to allow Taiwanese chipmakers to make less advanced silicon wafers in China. However, the firms must first invest in making the cutting-edge 12-inch wafers in Taiwan before they will be allowed to move their older equipment to make less advanced chips in China. Send your feedback at [EMAIL PROTECTED] ©Hindustan Times Ltd. 1997. Reproduction in any form is prohibited without prior permission.
Re: RE: RE: Profit Rates -- From Michael Yates
How do you adjust for the change in capital in telecom companies, before and after the melt-down? What's the denominator? World Com Global Crossing etc. I vote with the Cambridge UK folks. Max Sawicky wrote: but according to the Cambridge UK folks, you can't measure capital stock to begin with . . . To me the interest rate(s) is more meaningful, since at least it is observed and is the object of literal transactions, unlike capital. profits are susceptible to what I suspect are flaky inventory valuation and capital consumption adjustments, and even a pristine profit rate can mislead in light of the time profile of investment returns. mbs From Michael Yates In the discussion about profit rates, I am confused. Doug Henwood suggests dividing profits by capital stock. Wouldn't this involve dividing a flow (profits) by a stock (capital stock) and therefore making a not very meaningful calculation? Dividing flows by stocks is not always bad voodoo. This calculation would give a ratio equivalent at the macro level to Return on Capital Employed, which is always a useful thing to know in the context of companies and I don't see a fallacy-of-composition type argument which would make it not a useful thing to know about whole economies. Or to put it another way, it's a flow divided by a stock in the same way that the rate of interest is a flow divided by a stock; it's a rate of return.
Re: US foreign investment
Doug Henwood: It's widely believed that foreign investment is largely about chasing low wages. You are right to address these beliefs. If you asked at a company, it would be to get a good rate of return on the investment. If I want to sell labor-intensive goods in an affluent market, then I try to set up manufacturing in a low wage country with weak unions, weak environmental laws (and little liability), and an adequate infrastructure to get my goods to their ultimate markets. But most FDI is targeted at high-income countries. Because these countries offer affluent consumer markets if you are selling goods and services. Nike doesn't make sneakers in Indonesia because it wants to sell them in Indonesia. It wants Walmart to sell them in North America and Carrefour to sell them in Europe. So Nike benefits from Carrefour's investment in retail all over Europe, but it's Nike chasing cheap wages. I'm just using Nike as an example, but I think one of Nike's biggest investments in the past 5 years is to set up retail stores exclusively for marketing Nike in the affluent markets. This is as important to Nike than its cheap factories in Indonesia, if not more so. They could quickly substitute Vietnam for Indonesia, but the affluent markets are still the same, though competition in them might well have increased (resurgent Adidas, new brands with more cachet with younger consumers, like Skechers, etc.). High income countries also offer juicy takeover targets. A private equity group like Carlyle finds the defense contractors or telecoms or software companies it wants in affluent, developed countries (though software includes India, too). It's also widely believed that imperial investment is the source of superprofits that power the whole system; that doesn't seem to be borne out by the data either. I always thought how MNCs got profits was always pretty dodgy, but Enron (and Tyco) puts the whole concept in doubt for even the least skeptical people. But consider a company like Coca Cola. It went after (and got) a high stock valuation by reporting higher profits, but the 'profits' really came from selling small bottling companies to bigger ones and by passing on price hikes in materials to the bottlers. Nevertheless these were 'profits' in the scheme of things. Following up on Michael Yates's point - of course it's useful to compare profitability at engine plants, etc. But given the fungibility and mobility of capital, it makes plenty of sense to talk about economywide rates of profit too. People seem to think that if you assert A it somehow rules out an interest in B, C, and D. It doesn't. Japan kept investing in the US, including to build new factories, even though, overall, the rate of return for Japanese companies in the US has been rather awful, actually. It's the politics and the rush not to be locked out of the US market and NAFTA that led to this. If you were a Japanese automaker, for example, if you wanted to sell cars in the US unfettered, you had to make a show of making them there, too. They also underestimated just how much things like law suits over discrimination can cost. It was American companies who mastered the idea of manufacturing in China and then selling the goods in Japan (so US companies made profits in Japan but did nothing to create trade surplus between US and Japan). Uniqlo, a Japanese clothing retailer, has copied the model and is looking to try clothing retail in the UK--though probably wary of the US, what with the Gap bust. OTOH, US equity groups--not manufacturers, though they might hold manufacturers because they act as holding companies--are now moving into Japan and buying up banks, insurance companies, consumer finance and leasing, and real estate. I suppose if a company like Ripplewood Holdings can turn around the failed resort complex on Kyushu, they will have added some value. Other than that, most of these interests strike me as parasites seeking quick returns or the chance to hold and squeeze profits from capacity they themselves didn't create. I know they are not here to build new manufacturing to lead Japan into the next big thing that everyone is talking about, and the only turnaround plans they have is how to talk up the value of the assets so they can be sold for profits. Charles Jannuzi
RE: Profit Rates -- From Michael Yates
Gene writes:
How do you adjust for the change in capital
in telecom companies, before and after the
melt-down? What's the denominator?
World Com
Global Crossing
etc.
Hey, it is easy.
Look, let there be two times (Did I sound God-like
here?), and label them as t(1) and t(2). Obviously,
t(1) is when the observation period begins whereas
t(2) is when the observation period ends. Define P(1),
P(2) and CF(1,2) as usual. Then your rate of return
over this observation period is:
{P(2) + CF(1,2) - P(1)}/P(1).
It is evident that the denominator is P(1), is it not?
And forget about these mortal things such as World Com,
Global Crossing and the like.
Also, assume that there does not exists a Middle East,
September 11 did not happen and we live happily forever.
Sabri
Re: Re: RE: RE: Profit Rates -- From Michael Yates
Gene, this is one of the great secrets of economics. Of course, everyone knows, as Jim mentioned, that we have no theory of depreciation, but we go on pretending that out data is of good quality. Eugene Coyle wrote: How do you adjust for the change in capital in telecom companies, before and after the melt-down? What's the denominator? World Com Global Crossing -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
urpe summer conference
Dear Colleague, Attached is a letter inviting Political Economy Graduate Students to the URPE summer conference. If you have any graduate students that might be interested in attending the summer conference could you foward the letter to them. Fred Lee April 12, 2002 Dear Political Economy Graduate Student: On behalf of the Steering Committee of the Union for Radical Political Economics (URPE), I am writing to invite you to attend our summer conference, taking place this year from Saturday August 17 through Tuesday, August 20 in Bantam, Connecticut, about 90 miles outside of New York City (and about 70 miles from Amherst). I'm e-mailing this invitation directly to you and your fellow students in the major graduate programs in political economy because one of our key aims in designing this year's conference is to elicit and address your concerns as part of the rising generation of political economists on the left. In case you're not already a member, I'll note that URPE, founded in 1968 and having about 400 current members, is the chief U.S. professional organization of leftist economists, and the major such association sponsoring research sessions at the annual Allied Social Sciences Association convention. We publish the Review of Radical Political Economics (RRPE), one of the leading journals of leftist economic scholarship. In addition to publishing RRPE, sponsoring sessions at the ASSA meetings, and holding an annual summer conference, we put out occasional books of readings on topics in political economy, oversee a speaker's and informational outreach bureau called the Economy Connection, publish a quarterly newsletter to promote networking and report on matters of political economic interest, and generally work to promote the cause of workers and the disenfranchised the world over. In keeping with that mission, the theme of this year's summer conference is Challenging Global Capitalism: An Invitation to Develop Strategies of Opposition. The invitation mentioned in the theme is to everyone working toward fundamental social change to promote equality and empowerment for the world's peoples. We are structuring this year's conference differently than in the past so as to encourage an active dialogue among the individuals and groups devoted to this cause. In addition to current URPE members and political economy graduate students, we are inviting a number of activist organizations and leftist think tanks working on the front lines against the destructive forces of globalizing capitalism. The conference itinerary will be set up to maximize the opportunities for sharing views and ideas. Why you, and why now? There are several reasons why you should consider attending this year's summer conference and becoming an URPE member if you have not already done so. First, the conference will provide you with an opportunity to meet and forge connections with other like-minded graduate students and with people addressing real-world concerns that will provide the substance for your future work. Second, the conference generally attracts many current URPE members who belong to the academic departments and political organizations that may be your future employers and professional contacts. It's not too early to start establishing these relations. Third, if you are currently working on your dissertation, we invite you to present your work in an evening plenary session devoted specifically to this purpose. Students who've presented their work in past conferences have gotten useful suggestions from colleagues working on similar topics. Finally, as a studen -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Argentina, Australia and Canada
Louis: Basically, I advocate anti-imperialist slogans in places like Argentina and Venezuela, in combination with demands against the local comprador bourgeoisie. The most powerful revolutions in this hemisphere over the past 50 years have identified with the historical colonial revolution, even though the countries were nominally independent: Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia and El Salvador. This means identifying and fighting against all attempts to control the country from outside, starting with the US Embassy to the oil companies that are bleeding Colombia dry. We have quite different understandings of what constitutes a powerful revolution. In short, I think Marx was right in the first place: a _proletarian_ revolution has a much greater chance of success and longevity if it takes place (or begins) in a society with an advanced economy. BTW, do you know why there has never been a coup in the USA? Because there is no US Embassy here. Well you might be interested to know that Australia probably has among the highest numbers of US diplomats per capita, at four US govt missions (Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth) in a country of 19 million. There is some evidence to support allegations of CIA involvement in the dismissal of Gough Whitlam as PM in 1975. I am talking about maquiladoras, mines and plantations owned by the bourgeoisie of the 3rd world employing white Canadians and Australians at sub-minimum wage while goons beat up or kill trade union organizers. There are large companies owned by third world (however you want to define that) proprietors in both Australia and Canada. I think history shows that capital (whether national, comprador or global) will do anything necessary and/or possible, including slavery and murder, wherever it operates. I don't know about Canada but in Australia capital has been constrained by unusual historical factors: e.g. long term shortages of skilled/experienced labour, immigration dominated by an aristocracy of labour, workers familiar with organisation (i.e. in Britain and Ireland) and who --- thanks to all of these factors --- were relatively militant. (This also led to the world's first ever governments by an avowed party of the working class [but as Lenin himself noted, not really _for_ the working class]: in the Colony of Queensland in 1899 and at the federal level in 1904.] Nevertheless, for many years now union membership has been declining, the deregulation of labour has increased and so has the rolling back of the welfare system. You are describing capitalism as it involves the two major classes in society. I am describing imperialism, which involves one nation subjugating another. It combines class and national oppression. If it hasn't been clear yet, I don't think that the oppression of one _whole_ society by another _whole_ society exists. There is no real universal in this case. To me imperialism is (1) a question of degree and (2) only meaningful when it refers to a particular class or classes from one national society exploiting labour in another national society. (In fact Marx _never_ used the word imperialism and did not distinguish between the logic of capital in metropolitan countries and in their empires, which is not to say the activities of capital in both were identical. cf Charles Barone, 1985, _Marxist_Thought_on_Imperialism:_Survey_and_Critique_) As I said above, what capital needs to do, it will do, to the greatest possible degree, to the nearest available workers in the weakest position. When a single African country begins to play this role, then maybe we can revisit the question. South Africa has attributes of both the third world and first world. Including multinational corporations. (If it matters --- and I'm not sure it does --- I would expect to see an increasing number of black shareholders and executives within these companies. Perhaps someone else has facts on this.) Regards, Grant.
Re: Argentina, Australia and Canada (Comparative FDI)
Bill Burgess [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: country inward FDI stock/GDPoutward FDI stock/GDP Canada 23.9% 26.9% Australia 28.117.1 UK 23.335.9 France 11.715.9 Singapore 85.856.1 Malaysia67.022.7 Indonesia 73.32.4 Argentina 13.95.4 Brazil 17.11.4 Interesting figures. I haven't had time to look at the comparable figures for other countries. In any case they don't prove a permanent/structural exclusion from imperial activity. For example, what about Hong Kong (pre-1997, not that it is yet a homogenous part of China)? The last I heard there was hardly any manufacturing left in Hong Kong because proprietors had shifted operations to the mainland. South Africa? Saudi Arabia? Note the obvious difference in rates of outward FDI, plus the fact that most FDI by Canada, France, etc. is in other imperialist countries while most FDI by Indonesia, Argentina, etc. is in fellow semi-colonies. Every bourgeoisie has to start somewhere. For example --- and I'm not going to revisit the complexities and vitriol of the Kenya Debate --- but I just came across this on the web: Andrea Goldstein and Njuguna S. Ndung'u, OECD Development Centre Technical Paper No. 171: New Forms Of Co-Operation And Integration In Emerging Africa Regional Integration Experience, March 2001. quote: (p. 16) Table 5. Import Sources (1997)* (From)Kenya Tanzania Uganda (To)Kenya-0**0** Tanzania 10.4 -0 Uganda 25.90**- * These are percentages of total imports for the respective country. **The percentages are very small. Source:Report of the permanent Tripartite Commission for East African Co-operation: 1996-98. Obviously exports are not investment but the above suggests one reason why (p. 24) ... there are also restrictions on Kenyan investment in Uganda and Tanzania... (24) Singapore's inward and outward rates are both high, but note that inward FDI is still well above outward FDI in this city-state where annual trade is also 160% !!! of GDP. That trend is not unusual for countries with small populations and highly developed economies. What are the comparative figures for Belgium and Switzerland? Regards, Grant.
Re: US foreign investment / tactics in Venezuela
SEE [EMAIL PROTECTED] Year 7, Nº 15 / Monday, April 15, 2002 International trade missions, trade shows and forums on promoting business opportunities and investment, continue to be viable official policy options for conveying relevant data to economic players, with a view to trying business schemes in any country. Such activities facilitate the decision making process in connection with the development of private efforts, as they bring investors and policymakers, trade financing entities and country experts, closer together. These efforts basically reflect the features of the investor targeting technique as pertains to the investment promotion element. This technique follows a classification of specific actions for promoting investment, together with support services for the establishment and post-establishment of investments, which are highly valued among investors. In practice, it is a highly effective policy for attracting investments to specific industries with a competitive potential, or to address specific development needs in every country. Recently CONAPRI gave its support to and took part in a trade mission to San José (Costa Rica), in an effort organized jointly by the Foreign Ministry and BANCOEX. Several Venezuelan entrepreneurs exchanged views with their Costa Rican colleagues and explored business opportunities, joint-investments and direct foreign investment schemes in each country. This is a highly specific effort that evidences our strong interaction with public sector entities. The NA to investigate the April 11 Events Federal Legislative Council to be created Armed Forces to see Changes Chávez is back after Thursday Events CTV to analyze upcoming Union Moves OAS: Events in Venezuela not to be repeated OPEC advised to increase Production Venezuelan Crisis drives Oil Prices up Oil Supply guaranteed PDVSA Board resigns en Masse The VP and PDVSA Senior Managers meet Trends in Foreign Direct Investment Accepting an invitation from the Export and Investment Promotion Corporation of Ecuador (CORPEI), CONAPRI took part in a regional workshop on Management of Events for the Tourism Sector on April 9, 10, and 11 in Guayaquil-Ecuador. This report presents some of the trends in foreign direct investment, along with the comments on how to attract investments by one of the key speakers, Arvind Mayaram, director-general of tourism, art and culture of the Indian state of Rajasthan and member of the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies (WAIPA). If not interested in this e-publication anymore, please click on cancel delivery. --- Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: US foreign investment / tactics in Venezuela by Doyle Saylor 18 April 2002 02:01 UTC -clip- Documents that are produced need to be accessible to people via more reliable attention to search engines. I am thinking of an anecdote of Venezuela that the press recently reported. According to press accounts the television stations maintained a blackout and biased reporting against Chavez, but that ordinary people using cell phones were able to get the word out anyway. We need to use the 'interactive' tools that the whole left can use to our advantage. Interactive here meaning collaboration technology. To me then applying the example of cellphones to collaboration here I think important work needs to be done in teamwork for online left lists. The sort of one line irritation of antagonists needs to be replaced by common collective work that takes advantage of principles of computing that serves our brain work best. ^^^ CB: I saw that reported too. The revolution may not be televised, but it may be on the radio and cellphones. Maybe there is a challenge as to whether it will be on email. __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Tax Center - online filing with TurboTax http://taxes.yahoo.com/
