date:20021202

[claim the need for more analysis while you choke off the funds needed to
do so..typical..]

[New York Times]
Can Global Warming Be Studied Too Much?
By ANDREW C. REVKIN


WASHINGTON, Dec. 2 - On Tuesday, the Bush administration convenes a
three-day meeting here to set its new agenda for research on climate
change. But many climate experts who will attend say talking about more
research will simply delay decisions that need to be made now to avert
serious harm from global warming.

President Bush has called for a decade of research before anything beyond
voluntary measures is used to stem tailpipe and smokestack emissions of
heat-trapping gases that scientists say are contributing to global
warming.

"When you're speeding down the road in your car, if you've got to turn
around and go the other direction, the first thing is to slow down, then
stop, then turn," said David K. Garman, the assistant secretary of energy
for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

But many climate experts say the perennial need for more study can no
longer justify further delays in emission cuts.

"Waiting 10 years to decide is itself a decision which may remove from the
table certain options for stabilizing concentrations later," said Dr.
Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geosciences at Princeton.

For example, under today's rate of emissions growth, he and other experts
say that certain losses are already probable, including dwindling of
snow-dependent water supplies and global die-offs of vulnerable ecosystems
like coral reefs, alpine meadows and certain coastal marshes.

Nevertheless, administration officials say further research is still
necessary because scientists cannot say exactly what effects human
activity will have on global climate and how dangerous they will be. It is
worth taking the time to conduct more analysis at least to clarify the
balance of environmental and economic risks, they say.

"Science rarely gives enough information to narrow policy choices to a
single option, but it can clear away some of the underbrush," said Dr.
John H. Marburger III, assistant to the president for science and
technology.

Some energy and climate experts have run new kinds of analyses showing
that there is still time to avoid the worst effects of climate change
while also limiting economic costs involved with an abrupt shift from
fossil fuels, the main source of the warming gases.

The meeting, involving hundreds of experts, will be the biggest public
airing of arguments in many years.

Most scientists concur on the basics. Atmospheric levels of the
heat-trapping gases, mainly carbon dioxide from burning coal and oil, have
increased by more than a third since the start of the Industrial
Revolution, and there is wide agreement that they will probably double
from preindustrial concentrations by the end of the century, driven by
energy demands of developing countries.

International and American panels of experts have concluded that these
gases have caused most of the warming trend over the last 50 years. But
there is still a wide range of projections indicating how much warmer
things may get, how storm and drought patterns may respond and what the
effects will be on ecosystems, agriculture and health. These uncertainties
are unlikely to be dispelled soon. But many climate experts say that some
effects can reasonably be predicted and that prudence calls for more
action now.

Dr. Warren M. Washington, a senior scientist at the National Center for
Atmospheric Research, likened the situation to the debate over smoking's
link to cancer.

"Even with smoking, it's still basically a statistical thing," said Dr.
Washington, who is chairman of the National Science Board, a panel that
advises the White House and Congress. "But vested interests do not want to
take action based on early indications, and with climate early indications
is what we have."

If greenhouse gas concentrations double, climate experts expect
substantial disruptions of ecosystems and water supplies, coastal damage
as sea levels rise and intensified drought and downpour cycles. Even more
calamitous surprises could lie in store, including disruptions in the
Atlantic Ocean currents that help warm Europe.

The experts concede that they cannot say exactly what may happen, or when.
Also, changes will probably occur slowly - sea levels rising by
millimeters a year, say - so there will be no one event to prompt people
to choose a fuel-saving hybrid car over a gas-guzzling S.U.V.

But the warming will have enormous momentum, they say. Unlike soot or
sulfur pollution, which falls out of the atmosphere within days or weeks,
molecules of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases can circulate for a
century or more.

As a result, scientists say, allowing things to go on as they are is like
making minimum payments on a credit card while still using it: the balance
grows and grows.

In the long run, almost all experts agree, stabilizing carbon dioxide
concentrations in th

Turkey

[speaking of protection rents...]

US hawk wants Turkey in EU

Richard Norton-Taylor
Tuesday December 3, 2002
The Guardian

A leading hawk in the Bush administration hailed Turkey yesterday as a
democracy which could be a model for other Muslim countries - including a
post-Saddam Iraq - and said the continued exclusion of the country from
the European Union was "unthinkable".

Paul Wolfowitz, America's deputy defence secretary, said it was
"impossible to overstate how decisive" the next two weeks would be for
relations between Turkey, a key US ally, and the west. They were of "huge
strategic importance", he said.

Mr Wolfowitz, who delivered a keynote speech at the International
Institute of Strategic Studies in London, was referring to the recent
election victory of Turkey's AK party which has a strong Islamist
identity, and next week's European summit in Copenhagen where the US
insists the EU must open the way to Turkish membership.

Turkey was facing "a defining moment in its relationship with Europe and
the west", he said. An EU which welcomed Turkey would be "stronger, safer,
even more richly diverse than it is today", said Mr Wolfowitz. "The
alternative, exclusionary, choice is surely unthinkable", he added.

Turkey demonstrated that a democratic system was "indeed compatible with
Islam" and it could "also serve as an inspiration to Iraq", he said.

Mr Wolfowitz, who met the exiled group the Iraqi National Congress in
London, is meeting officials in the Turkish capital, Ankara, today on the
heels of the foreign secretary, Jack Straw. He made it clear that Turkey
would provide a base in any US-led military invasion of Iraq.

Re: Maquiladoras not beneficial

2002-12-02 Thread Sabri Oncu

Michael wrote:

> I don't think that Brad DeLong is a right winger
> or a troll.  Among economists, he would rank as a
> left liberal.

I don't know what troll means but I happen to have some ideas
about right wingers. I hold that a necessary, but not sufficient,
condition for being a leftist is the recognition that the US is
an imperialist state screwing most of the rest of the world.

As far as I can see, Brad Delong does not satisfy my necessary
condition. And, hence, I will have to agree with Lou that,
unfortunately, Brad Delong is a right winger, at least, no less
right winger than Tony Blair.

Jim, how do you like my political football playing?

Sabri

Re: eternal war for eternal peace update

2002-12-02 Thread Eugene Coyle

Well, Cheney is either an ignorant fool or willing to have eternal war 
at whatever cost.

Gene Coyle

Ian Murray wrote:
[momentarily escaped from his double super secret bunker]

"In the terrorists, however, we have enemies who have nothing to defend. A
group like the al Qaeda cannot be deterred or placated or reasoned with at
a conference table. For this reason the war against terror will not end in
a treaty. There will be no summit meeting or negotiations with terrorists.
The conflict can only end with their complete and utter destruction and a
victory for the United States and the cause of freedom." [Dick Cheney]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64522-2002Dec2.html

Re: Re: eternal war for eternal peace update


- Original Message -
From: "Michael Perelman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



> Of course, since we will never know if we have exterminated the final
> terrorist, the war must continue forever.
>


=


"If protection rackets represent organized crime at its smoothest, then
war making and state making - quintessential protection rackets with the
advantage of legitimacy - qualify as our largest examples of organized
crime...[C]onsider the definition of a racketeer as someone who creates a
threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments' provision of
protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering. To the
extent that the threats against which a given government protects its
citizens are imaginary or are consequences of its own activities, the
government has organized a protection racket. Since governments themselves
commonly simulate, stimulate, or even fabricate threats of external war
and since the repressive or extractive activities of governments often
constitute the largest current threats to the livelihood of their own
citizens, many governments operate in essentially the same way as
racketeers." [Charles Tilly]

Re: eternal war for eternal peace update

Of course, since we will never know if we have exterminated the final
terrorist, the war must continue forever.

On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 06:21:13PM -0800, Ian Murray wrote:
> [momentarily escaped from his double super secret bunker]
> 
> "In the terrorists, however, we have enemies who have nothing to defend. A
> group like the al Qaeda cannot be deterred or placated or reasoned with at
> a conference table. For this reason the war against terror will not end in
> a treaty. There will be no summit meeting or negotiations with terrorists.
> The conflict can only end with their complete and utter destruction and a
> victory for the United States and the cause of freedom." [Dick Cheney]
> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64522-2002Dec2.html
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

eternal war for eternal peace update

[momentarily escaped from his double super secret bunker]

"In the terrorists, however, we have enemies who have nothing to defend. A
group like the al Qaeda cannot be deterred or placated or reasoned with at
a conference table. For this reason the war against terror will not end in
a treaty. There will be no summit meeting or negotiations with terrorists.
The conflict can only end with their complete and utter destruction and a
victory for the United States and the cause of freedom." [Dick Cheney]
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64522-2002Dec2.html

Mexico and the World Bank

2002-12-02 Thread Martin Hart-Landsberg

Thanks to Lou for posting an excerpt from my new MR article on Mexico.
Thought I would share three quotes from a 2001 World Bank volume [Mexico:
A Comprehensive Development Agenda for the New Era] that was put together
to offer Fox some advice on how to promote Mexican development.  Helps to
highlight the usefulness of World Bank advice. 

The first quote deals with what the World Bank thinks is a terrible
infrastructure problem.  The Bank report says: 

"Bringing Mexicos infrastructure to an adequate level will also require a
major change in the way infrastructure-related sectors are owned and
regulated.  Over the past two decades, the country rightly sought to
substitute private for pubic infrastructure investment.  This suited well
the fiscal austerity needs of the time, especially since the 1990s.
However the private sectors response did not materialize as fully as had
been expected, and Mexico effectively began to accelerate the rate of
depreciation of its capital stock (and total public investment fell from
over 10 percent of GDP in the early 1980s tp about 2 percent today; in the
same period, total investment fell from about 25 percent to below 20
percent).  Even if it (mistakenly wished to, the government can no longer
afford to fill that rapidly growing infrastructure gap . . . Instead, the
solution lies in private funding and better regulation." [p. 10]

The World Bank report also addresses the fact that almost half of workers
are now employed in the informal sector.  The report offers the following
suggestions for dealing with this problem: 


"What needs to be done? The current system of severance payments;
collective bargaining and industry-binding contracts; obligatory union
memberships; compulsory profit sharing; restrictions to temporary,
fixed-term and apprenticeship contracts; requirements for seniority-based
promotions; registration of firm-provided training programs; and liability
for subcontractors employees should all be phased out." [p. 16]

Significantly, the World Bank also recognizes that there are group
specific problems that cannot simply be solved by making labor markets
more efficient.  More specifically they are worried about women and even
more the indigenous population.  According to the bank: 

". . . about 1 in 10 Mexicans defines himself or herself as indigenous and
holds and responds to, essentially, a different set of economic values,
whereby assets (especially land) are nontradeable sources of group
identify, community benefit is held in higher regard than individual
profit maximization, traditional social governance bodies are trusted over
those dictated by the countrys laws, social organization is based on
prestige and civic duty, and the language of preference (and frequently
the only language) is not Spanish." [pp. 16-17]

The World Bank goes on to suggest that it is these values that must be
changed to ensure Mexican development.  

With analysis and advice like this, no wonder the standard of living of
Mexican working people is continually being forced downward.

Marty Hart-Landsberg

Re: Housing Bubble?

Ellen, some areas of the housing market are defaulting.  For example,

Hallinan, Joseph T. and Mitchell Pacelle. 2002. "Conseco's Mobile-Home
Mess Has Tenant: Lehman Brothers." Wall Street Journal (25 November): p. C
1. Conseco as 19,000 repossessed mobile homes from bad loans.

What percentage of these home loans are variable interest?

On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 01:42:22PM -0500, Ellen Frank wrote:
> Here in Boston, where prices have nearly tripled over the past 5 
> years, my impression is that housing demand is coming 
> mostly from owner- occupiers. This is in contrast to the bubble 
> of the late 1980s, when absentee-investors were buying, renting, 
> then flipping condos like crazy.  Owner-occupiers are far less likely 
> than absentee-investors to walk away  from a property if they have 
> financial difficulties.  
> 
> Also, this boom  -- again at least in Boston, often cited as the city most 
> likely to be in a real estate  bubble -- hasn't been accompanied by the 
> massive condo developments that forced banks, in 1990 -1992, to dump 
> tons of foreclosed properties onto an  already weak market.  So I'm not 
> convinced the bubble will burst.  On the other hand, I can't figure
> out where the incomes are coming from to support these $500,000 
> mortgages.
> 
> Ellen 
> 
> 
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
> >Sabri Oncu wrote:
> >
> >>Do you have any hard data supporting or refuting the bursting of
> >>a housing bubble in the area? Or do you thiink this is just a
> >>normal drop in a period of economic hardship?
> >
> >Most U.S. housing indicators have been strong. New house sales fell 
> >in Oct, but they'd been rising since February, and are still over 1m 
> >units at an annual rate. Existing house sales rose strongly in Oct, 
> >and are well above June levels. Builder indexes are strong, and so is 
> >mortgage demand. There's talk of saggy prices, like what you recount, 
> >but the normally cyclical housing market held up very well during the 
> >recession. This will either be vindicated by a broader recovery soon, 
> >or it could be a remaining unpopped bubble (like the dollar).
> >
> >Doug
> >
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Americans score low on knowledge of Canada

2002-12-02 Thread ken hanly



POSTED AT 9:04 PM ESTSunday, December 1


In the shadow of the elephant





Canadian Press

Montreal - Canadians are much more informed than Americans when it comes to
knowing the identity of their neighbours' political leader, national capital
and largest city, an opinion poll suggests.
The Léger Marketing survey found that only 8 per cent of 1,500 adult
Americans named Jean Chrétien when they were asked to identify Canada's
Prime Minister.
Five per cent gave other answers, including Pierre Trudeau, who died two
years ago after last being in power in 1984.
A whopping 86 per cent said they didn't know or refused to answer.
The Americans were polled Oct. 7-13, long before Mr. Chrétien's
communications director, Françoise Ducros, created a stir in the United
States and elsewhere when she called U.S. President George W. Bush a
"moron."
Conversely, 90 per cent of the 1,502 adult Canadians who were polled Nov.
6-10 (also before the Ducros brouhaha, which led to her resignation) knew
Mr. Bush was U.S. President, compared with 3 per cent who gave other
answers.
When asked to name the capital of the other country, 88 per cent of the
Canadians said Washington and 21 per cent of the Americans got Ottawa right.
Such numbers didn't surprise Colin Campbell, a professor of political
science at the University of British Columbia who spent 19 years in
Washington, D.C.
"I think Canadians are much more citizens of the globe than Americans are
and I think they're much more attuned to their own nation than Americans
are," Mr. Campbell said in an interview.
"Canadians are really intrigued by the world around them in a way that
Americans aren't."
But Mr. Campbell wasn't about to let all Canadians off the hook.
"That 12 per cent [who couldn't name Washington] must be incredibly ignorant
people. It just shows that in any population, there are some people who
probably couldn't even give you the name of their grandfather."
Stephen Clarkson, a professor of political economy at the University of
Toronto, said the lack of knowledge about Canada south of the border
shouldn't surprise people.
"Americans are much more insular," said Mr. Clarkson, who has recently
written a book entitled Uncle Sam and Us.
"It's not particularly Canada they don't know a lot about. They might have
trouble with England. ...
"The Americans are ignorant about us. We're not important to them. We're not
ignorant about the United States because they are important to us."
That sentiment was also reflected when the two sets of respondents were
asked to name the other country's largest city.
Twenty-seven per cent of the Americans named Toronto, followed by Montreal
at 22 per cent.
Vancouver got 3 per cent and Calgary had 1 per cent.
Other cities garnered 13 per cent, while the remaining 34 per cent either
said they didn't know or refused to answer.
Meanwhile, 72 per cent of Canadians knew New York was the largest city in
the United States.
Both Dr. Campbell and Mr. Clarkson said reports in the United States about
Canada's professional sports teams might have had an influence on the U.S.
answers.
Mr. Campbell almost seemed to find 27 per cent a reasonable level of
knowledge.
"I'm not saying that Americans are geography geniuses," he said. "Virtually
every survey that's ever been taken has shown that they're numbskulls when
it comes to geography, even their own geography.
"But, still, that [27 per cent] is a surprisingly robust number from my sort
of jaundiced perspective of what the general public would know."
Meanwhile, both professors reacted similarly when asked whether the number
of Americans who knew Mr. Chrétien was Prime Minister would have been higher
had the poll been conducted after Ms. Ducros's "moron" comment.
Mr. Clarkson: "Oh sure, for five minutes it would be ... but they probably
would have thought the prime minister was called Ducros."
Mr. Campbell: "No, they'd say she [Ms. Ducros] was prime minister."
The poll is considered accurate within 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out
of 20.

Re: Maquiladoras not beneficial

Also, many of the maq's are shutting down as contractors flee to China and
other low cost labor.
-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

you'll eat it and you'll like it!

Monday, 2 December, 2002, 11:24 GMT
New US-EU trade war looms
Steve Schifferes
BBC News Online economics reporter


The United States is considering a fresh trade war with Europe over the issue of 
genetically
modified (GM) foods.
The move would increase tension with Europe at a delicate time for the world trade 
talks, which were
launched one year ago.


US has more GM crops than any other country

US trade officials are urging the Bush administration to begin proceedings against the 
EU in the
World Trade Organisation for blocking imports of GM food.

The EU has maintained a ban for the last four years on approving any US biotech foods, 
which it says
is based on the "precautionary principle" but which the US says has no scientific 
basis.

Already, the US and the EU are at loggerheads over several trade issues.

The EU objects to new US "anti-dumping" tariffs on its steel products and US tax 
breaks for foreign
sales of its big multinationals, while the US has taken the EU to task for its ban on 
imports of
bananas and beef.

Restraint

Previously, the US has refrained from any formal complaint on GM foods, mindful of the 
strength of
anti-biotech feeling in Europe, and concerned that the EU could argue for compulsory 
labelling of US
grain exports - which would force US farmers to implement separate storage facilities 
for GM and
non-GM crops.


The EU has banned US hormone-treated beef

But now US officials fear that other parts of the world, and especially Africa, are 
rejecting US
agricultural exports because of fears that they may contain genetically modified crops.

In October, Zambia rejected 26,000 tonnes of US food aid, despite its famine, on the 
grounds that it
contained GM crops which would pollute its seed stock and hurt exports.

US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who visited Africa with rock star Bono in the 
autumn, is
believed to back tough action against Europe.

But US state department officials have reportedly warned that it would be unwise to 
alienate
European public opinion while trying to gain support for a possible war in Iraq.

Safety fears

The EU has long maintained that GM foods are unsafe until proven otherwise.

In 2000, the US and the EU signed an agreement, the Montreal bio-safety protocol, 
which agreed that
this "precautionary principle" should apply to the export of GM foods.

It also agreed to the voluntary labelling of GM foods in order to give consumers a 
choice.

However, talks over how to implement a voluntary labelling agreement have stalled, 
despite a
deadline of 31 December 2002.

Even in the UK, the government has been under pressure to stop field trials of GM 
crops from
environmentalists.

The politics of trade

The US would be likely to win any case it took to the World Trade Organisation.

Several years ago, the US fought and won a similar action when EU officials banned US 
beef exports
on the grounds that they contained unsafe growth hormones.

However, it will take several years before the US obtains a final ruling under the 
laborious WTO
disputes settlement procedure. And that would not necessarily be the end of the matter.

In the beef hormone dispute, the EU has chosen to pay a $100m fine each year rather 
than admit US
beef products.

Even environmentalists believe that it would be unlikely that European consumers would 
be persuaded
to buy GM foods as a result of a WTO ruling that says they are safe.

But US farmers - who export 30% of their crops - would be pleased.

They are a key constituency for the Bush administration, which recently passed a farm 
bill giving
them an additional $180bn in aid.

However, this aid package could be under threat if the world trade talks reach 
agreement on limiting
agricultural subsidies - something they are scheduled to do by 31 March 2003.

And those same trade talks could hold a trump card for the EU.

That is because in principle, trade ministers have agreed that in future, 
environmental agreements
like the Montreal protocol should have equal legal weight in trade law treaties.

Re: Re: Jacoby versus Chomsky

Jacoby has written very interesting material, but it seems to have some
left, some right threads.  He came to Chico last year.  We had a very nice
talk until I questioned something about his work.  He has been associated
with Telos -- at least he participated in the Telos conference held here.

Right now, to agree with Chomsky in public is tantamont to voluntary
ostracism.  Somehow, the right has succeeded in morphing him into the
voice of ObL.  In the face of such distortions, he continues to display
great
integrety.

On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 11:30:40AM -0800, Ian Murray wrote:
> 
> - Original Message -
> From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> 
> 
> 
> Russell Jacoby is a history professor at UCLA who has joined the ranks
> of the Chomsky bashers in the bourgeois press, alongside Michael Berube
> and other scoundrels. I suspect that he is now polishing up a piece on
> Ramsey Clark and the Workers World Party for the Wall Street Journal
> editorial page. That's how you launch a career path as a professional
> red-baiter in the Year of our Lord 2002.
> 
> ==
> 
> Chalk it up as part and parcel of the positional goods problem of
> intellectual competition in an anti-intellectual culture.
> 
> Ian
> 
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: Re: Maquiladoras not beneficial

I don't think that Brad DeLong is a right winger or a troll.  Among
economists, he would rank as a left liberal.

I did not appreciate the way he went of on anti-Stalinist/Maoist rants.
His posts on such subjects were more emotional than rational.  I have seen
recent posts of a similar vein regarding the middle east.

With those exceptions, I thought that he added to the list, even though I
rarely agreed with him.

On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 04:03:43PM -0500, Louis Proyect wrote:
> Brad DeLong
> 
> COMMENT: Just because bourgeois economists like DeLong take NAFTA 
> seriously, there's no reason to take them seriously. Thank god this 
> rightwing troll is no longer on PEN-L.
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Re: Maquiladoras not beneficial

What Louis quoted is true.  What you may have seen is that the maq. wages
are higher than the prevailing wage, since manufacturing jobs are scarce
relative to the total job market.

On Mon, Dec 02, 2002 at 10:22:17AM -0800, Bill Burgess wrote:
> At 01:04 PM 12/2/2002 -0500, Louis quoted:
> 
> >Maquiladora workers receive wages considerably below those paid to 
> >non-maquiladora manufacturing workers.
> 
> What is it about the stats I've seen quoted by bourgeois economists that 
> makes it possible for them to represent the opposite as true?
> 
> Bill
> 

-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Conversation with a visitor

A while back, after my last fiasco with a submission to a scholarly 
print journal, I resolved never to go that route again. Not only does it 
save me and my victim unpleasantries, it also allows me to concentrate 
on writing for email lists, especially Marxmail. Not only don't I have 
to feel strait-jacketed by the standards of scholarly journals (I can 
never remember how to do a footnote properly), it allows me to roam all 
over the map intellectually. This either qualifies me as a Gramscian 
organic intellectual or the world's biggest dilettante. Take your pick.

Visits to the Marxmail archives have increased by about 400 percent over 
the past two years or so. So have visits to my own collection of 
articles at my Columbia University website. Last week there were 3,570 
visits to my articles--of that, 1,026 were to the culture section. I 
guess everybody loves film reviews.

Sometimes I wonder who all those people are.  About 15 minutes ago, I 
found out. I got a call out of the blue from a graduate student at a 
Fine Arts School in Mississippi. He wanted to confirm some sources that 
I used in a piece on Jackson Pollock, which is being cited in a paper he 
is working on. He asked me if I was a professor. Nope, I replied. Just a 
computer programmer. But, he said, you refer to yourself occasionally as 
Head of the Hydrophonics Department. Just I joke, I confessed. It sounds 
impressive, but all it means is water-talk.


--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: Maquiladoras not beneficial

Bill Burgess wrote:

At 01:04 PM 12/2/2002 -0500, Louis quoted:

Maquiladora workers receive wages considerably below those paid to 
non-maquiladora manufacturing workers.

What is it about the stats I've seen quoted by bourgeois economists that 
makes it possible for them to represent the opposite as true?

Well, here's how one such bourgeois economist defended NAFTA and 
maquildoras on lbo-talk after somebody posted an EPI report on the 
impact of NAFTA on workers in the USA and Mexico. (This link came up 
when I did a google search on "delong" and "maquiladoras"--lbo-talk was 
not entered.) My comments are interspersed.

>In the United States, NAFTA eliminated over 766,000 job opportunities
>between 1994 and 2000, as the trade deficit between the U.S. and its
>northern and southern neighbors ballooned, according to U.S. author 
Robert
>Scott.

And with Mexican labor productivity in tradeables about 1/3 that of
the U.S., has created 2,298,000 job opportunities in Mexico?

COMMENT: The real question is *net* job growth. For example, Enron might 
have had 250 million dollars in sales in its final year of doing 
business. So what? These figures are meaningless unless you factor in 
what the corporation owed. By the same token, unless you address the 
loss of self-employment in the farming sector. According to The Rural 
Migration News at U.C. Davis, up to 2 million jobs *per year* were lost 
between 1985 and 1995. With the changes introduced by NAFTA, it 
predicted that the number would double over the next ten years. Anybody 
who has seen the demographics behind dishwashing in NYC can probably 
confirm this.

>
>In Mexico, large trade surpluses with the United States have not been 
enough
>to overcome even larger trade deficits with the rest of the world. 
Wages and
>incomes in Mexico fell between 1991 and 1998; and with NAFTA, 
inequality has
>grown and job quality has deteriorated for most workers, according to
>Mexican author Carlos Salas.

Naughty naughty!

Keep your counterfactuals straight! You can't say that NAFTA was bad
for the U.S. because demand for labor would have boomed even more
without it and also say that NAFTA was bad for Mexico because demand
for labor didn't keep up with the rapidly-growing labor force.

COMMENT: Of course you can say that NAFTA was bad. NAFTA ruins the rural 
population, just as happened in 16th century Great Britain but it cannot 
replace them with manufacturing jobs. That's unless Mexico invades the 
USA, enslaves half of the US population and forces them to pick cotton 
in Puebla. Or something like that.

>- Since NAFTA took effect on January 1, 1994, exports to Mexico have 
grown
>by 147 percent and exports to Canada have grown by 66 percent. But 
imports
>from Mexico have grown much faster, by 248 percent; and imports from 
Canada
>have grown by 79 percent.

How horrible that those Mexicans have to work to make all those
products that they export to the United States! How much better off
all those Mexicans would be if imports from Mexico had not grown at
all!

May I make one more fruitless plea for somebody, somewhere to raise
the level of the debate?

Brad DeLong

COMMENT: Just because bourgeois economists like DeLong take NAFTA 
seriously, there's no reason to take them seriously. Thank god this 
rightwing troll is no longer on PEN-L.

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

a poem stolen from a NYT article about IKEA

2002-12-02 Thread Tom Walker

the nicked veneers and wobbly joints of Ikea regret
self-assembled furniture
requires retightening over time
"We sold screwdrivers like you can't believe."


Tom Walker
604 255 4812

crime stats

2002-12-02 Thread Nomiprins

Hi, 

Does anyone have a good source for petty crime stats?

I'm specifically looking for breakdowns by type and amount stolen:
i.e. total or average value stolen per year from liquor stores, 7-11s, homes, etc.

Thanks,
Nomi

Globalization, center and periphery

International Viewpoint, Nov. 2002'

Imperialism in the 21st century
Claudio Katz

(Claudio Katz teaches at the University of Buenos Aires and is involved 
in the Argentine network 'Economistas de Izquierda' (EDI, 'Left Economists')

(clip)

In arguing that globalisation dilutes the frontiers between the First 
and Third World, Toni Negri and Michael Hardt mount a serious challenge 
to the theory of imperialism. They believe that a new global capital 
acting through the UN, the G8, the IMF and the WTO (World Trade 
Organization) has created an imperial sovereignty, linking the dominant 
fractions of the centre and the periphery in one system of world 
oppression.

This characterization supposes the existence of a certain homogenisation 
of capitalist development, which seems very difficult to verify. All the 
data concerning investment, saving or consumption confirms on the 
contrary the amplification of differences between the central and 
peripheral economies and shows that the processes of accumulation and 
crisis are also polarizing. The US prosperity of the last decade 
contrasts with the generalized crisis of the underdeveloped nations, 
while the social crisis of the periphery has for the moment no 
equivalent in Europe. In the same way there is no sign of a convergence 
in the status of the US and Venezuelan bourgeoisie, nor of a similarity 
between the Argentine and Japanese crisis. Far from uniformising the 
reproduction of capital around a common horizon, globalisation deepens 
the duality of this process on the planetary scale.

It is clear that the association between the dominant classes of the 
periphery and the big companies is a closer one, as it is clear that 
poverty is spreading at the heart of advanced capitalism. But these 
processes have not transformed any dependent country into a central one, 
nor have they brought about the Third Worldisation of any central power. 
The greater interlinking between the dominant classes coexists with the 
consolidation of the historic gap that separates the developed from the 
underdeveloped countries. Capitalism does not level out differences, nor 
does it fracture around a new trans-national axis; it rather strengthens 
the growing polarization which appeared in the preceding century.

The power held by the capitalists of about 20 nations over the other 200 
is the main evidence of the persistence of the hierarchical organization 
of the world market. Through the UN Security Council, they exercise a 
military domination, through the WTO they impose their trade hegemony 
and through the IMF they ensure the financial control of the planet.

In analysing the predominant links between the dominant classes, the 
trans-nationalist thesis confuses 'association' and 'sharing of power'. 
The fact that a sector of the capitalist groups of the periphery is 
increasing its integration with its allies in the centre does not mean 
it is sharing in world domination and does not suppress its structural 
weakness. While US companies exploit Latin American workers, the 
Ecuadorian or Brazilian bourgeoisie does not participate in the 
expropriation of the US proletariat. Although the leap recorded in the 
internationalisation of the economy is very significant, capital 
continues to operate within the framework of the imperialist order that 
establishes a fracture between centre and periphery.

full: http://www.3bh.org.uk/IV/

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

econo-physics redux

Statistical physics predicts stock market gloom
11:59 02 December 02
NewScientist.com news service

A statistical physics model is predicting that the US stock market recovery
suggested by recent rises will only last until spring next year, before
tumbling yet further.

Physicists Didier Sornette and Wei-Xing Zhou at the University of California
in Los Angeles claim to have identified an "anti-bubble" in the Standard and
Poor's 500 stock market index. Their model also describes a similar
anti-bubble in the Japanese Nikkei index in the early 1990s, which preceded
a decade of decline.

However, Neil Shephard, an economist at the University of Oxford, UK, is
sceptical. "Firstly, the track record of empirical prediction isn't very
good and secondly, economic theory says it shouldn't work," he told New
Scientist. This is because traders act on new information about the market
by buying or selling shares, making it impossible to make a prediction
without it affecting the outcome.

But the physicists' predictions are in line with those of some others. Haydn
Carrington, a dealer at spread betting firm City Index in London, also
believes the US market is in a long decline, but that a short term rally is
likely: "The Americans are optimistic about recovery, so that will probably
happen."


Herding behaviour


Bubbles and anti-bubbles are traits of herding and imitative behaviour,
Sornette says. Investors and traders constantly exchange opinions and
information, generating a feedback loop that can drive the performance of
the market.

A bubble, or bull market, occurs when optimism spreads, pushing the market
value artificially high. The bubble may then burst in a dramatic crash, but
if not, a slow period of downwards adjustment will follow - a bear market,
which Sornette calls the anti-bubble phase.

An anti-bubble market has two key characteristics. The value slides
inevitably downwards, but oscillates as it does so. The value of the S&P 500
has been riding this rollercoaster since August 2000.

Sornette says that the "up" seen now is just one of the oscillations, and
that hopes of a recovery will be dashed by a "down" in mid 2003. And the
trough that it sinks into may be deeper than this year's low, he says.


Failure mechanisms

The model used to make this prediction describes "crowd" behaviour of the
type Sornette expects from traders and investors. It consists of a set of
three equations that describe feedback processes.

He developed the equations when studying failure mechanisms in materials -
the way that cracks develop and cause damage is similar to the way that
information seeps through the market and changes opinion, he believes.

The model requires the input of two constants: one quantifies the overall
trend (down in an anti-bubble), the other the frequency of oscillation. He
chose constants such that the model matched the S&P data from the past few
years - and then extended the model to 2004.

Journal reference: Quantitative Finance (Vol 2, issue 6)


Jenny Hogan

Re: Jacoby versus Chomsky


- Original Message -
From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>



Russell Jacoby is a history professor at UCLA who has joined the ranks
of the Chomsky bashers in the bourgeois press, alongside Michael Berube
and other scoundrels. I suspect that he is now polishing up a piece on
Ramsey Clark and the Workers World Party for the Wall Street Journal
editorial page. That's how you launch a career path as a professional
red-baiter in the Year of our Lord 2002.

==

Chalk it up as part and parcel of the positional goods problem of
intellectual competition in an anti-intellectual culture.

Ian

Re: the SEC and the eclipse of regulation

2002-12-02 Thread Nomiprins

In a message dated 12/1/2002 2:02:03 AM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Although the agency has managed to file a record number of cases this year
and has adopted a series of tough rules, officials say the commission's
divisions have lost ground in their efforts to keep up with the growth of
business and the expansion of stock ownership to a new investor class.

Seems like these officials are inferring that as stock is distributed across a wider range of investors, their job somehow becomes harder. The SEC's primary mission is "to protect investors and maintain the integrity of the securities markets." As such, they're supposed to regulate the corporations that finance through these markets, not the investors themselves.

And a new accounting board that is supposed to fall into place early next
year is beset by budget and staffing difficulties that threaten to undermine
its effectiveness.

It was a dumb idea to begin with, more marquee value than content. Sarbanes-Oxley added another layer of bureaucracy. It'd be more efficient to link up the FASB (financial accounting standards board) and the SEC. That way, you'd have the people who make up and understand accounting rules (hampered though they are by banking and accounting interests) working in tandem with the agency that's supposed to enforce them.

Many of the problems facing the agency, experts say, are traceable to
powerful corporate interests on Wall Street and in the accounting profession
that continue, both directly and through the help of well-placed allies in
Congress, to exert enormous influence on the rulemaking process.

Recently, in addition to Pitt's lack of disclosure about Webster, he was pretty tight lipped about the visit Goldman's CEO Hank Paulson made to the SEC two months ago. Insiders at the SEC neither knew why the meeting occurred nor that it had been scheduled. (Goldman has lead political donations from the securities sector in 6 of the last 7 election cycles)

Mr. Pitt, who has suggested he will remain chairman until the administration
finds a replacement, declined requests to discuss his 15-month tenure at the
head of the commission. In public appearances, he and senior administration
officials portray an agency that has responded strongly to the corporate
debacles of the last year by adopting a series of tough regulations and
bringing more enforcement cases - against executives of companies ranging
from Enron to WorldCom and Sunbeam.

Pitt's still around to make sure settlements happen fast. Perfect for the Bush administration - have him resign, then use his resignation period to sweep as much under the rug as possible.

Ex-Enron CEO Ken Lay and ex-WorldCom CEO Bernie Ebbers have sidestepped charges. Ex-Sunbeam CEO Al Dunlap had to pay a $500,000 fine, a fraction of his net wealth, yet admitted no guilt in cooking Sunbeam's books in 1996 and 1997. These boys retained their assets, including palatial homes and millions of dollars.

But commission officials and securities experts describe a host of problems
that have grown over the last decade. They trace many of the agency's
shortcomings to the tenure of Arthur Levitt, the chairman of the agency
under President Clinton, who faced significant challenges in the
deregulatory climate of that era.

True. The most deregulated industries - telecoms and energy - fostered the most fraud, fired the most workers and provided execs the largest cash-outs. Arthur Levitt's biggest failing was not to examine these particular areas more closely. Enron's filings were untouched since 1997. But, hey - why would the SEC subject the fastest growing corporations to heightened scrutiny?

Making matters worse, many corporate defendants are becoming more reluctant
to settle their cases because the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and other new
regulations substantially increased penalties for violations.

Actually, it's the opposite, they're all settling cases more quickly. Williams Co for $400mln two weeks ago, Dynegy for $3mln before that. Salomon brothers for $5mln. WorldCom's getting their $9 billion fraud experiment pardoned (helps that the head of WorldCom's technology division is buddies with Cheney and Colin Powell)

At the top of the S.E.C. are five commissioners - nominated by the president
and confirmed by the Senate - who are given staggered five year terms. No
more than three can be from the same political party. President Bush has
appointed all of the current commissioners.

Who in turn pardoned Halliburton and Harken. We need a truly independent SEC, and for that matter FCC and FERC. Twice (in July and Oct) Bush publicly offered additional financial support for the SEC than reneged. Also, No one has brought up distributing some of those fees back to the people that were swindled.

Nomi

Jacoby versus Chomsky

(Russell Jacoby is a history professor at UCLA who has joined the ranks 
of the Chomsky bashers in the bourgeois press, alongside Michael Berube 
and other scoundrels. I suspect that he is now polishing up a piece on 
Ramsey Clark and the Workers World Party for the Wall Street Journal 
editorial page. That's how you launch a career path as a professional 
red-baiter in the Year of our Lord 2002. Jacoby is best known as the 
author of "The Last Intellectuals", a not-bad book about the decline of 
American civilization, although I suppose one needn't read a book to 
find this out. His most recent tome is titled "The End of Utopia: 
Politics and Culture in an Age of Apathy", which puts forward some 
rather boneheaded ideas about the need for the left to think in utopian 
terms, as if we needed more philosophical idealism rather than less from 
the leftwing academy.

Here are excerpts from Jacoby's attack on Chomsky ("The Dissident We 
Deserve") that appeared in the Dec. 1 Long Island Newsday. My comments 
are interspersed.

JACOBY: Over the next decades, however, the Zeitgeist zigged and Chomsky 
did not zig with it. While other critics moved on, Chomsky kept tracking 
American misdeeds, but he lost favor on a series of issues. He believed 
that the U.S.-led NATO intervention in Kosovo, nominally protecting its 
residents from Serbian genocide, simply signaled bloodletting by the 
West. He both doubted the human toll of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia 
and attributed it to the United States; and he wrote a preface defending 
freedom of speech for a book by Robert Faurisson, a French 
Holocaust-denier. Even sympathizers saw Chomsky as too inflexible or too 
anti-American. The mainstream press withdrew the welcome mat.

COMMENT: The mainstream press withdrew the welcome mat? What on earth is 
Jacoby talking about? Chomsky was never sought out by the NY Times, nor 
McNeil-Lehrer. It is also too bad that Jacoby takes no position on the 
questions which ostensibly turned Chomsky into some kind of outcast. 
While it is beyond the scope of this rebuttal to fully examine these 
questions in their proper context, suffice it to say that the charge on 
Cambodia is a disgusting canard.

Chomsky's sin was to compare the relative indifference to the slaughter 
in East Timor to that in Cambodia, just as it was more recently in 
comparing the September 11th attacks to the Khartoum bombing. A 
statement such as this, contained in "The Political Economy of Human 
Rights," was unacceptable to mainstream critics, whom Jacoby seems to 
take seriously:

"In the case of Cambodia reported atrocities have not only been eagerly 
seized upon by the Western media but also embellished by substantial 
fabrications--which, interestingly, persist even long after they are 
exposed. The case of Timor is radically different. The media have shown 
no interest in examining the atrocities of the Indonesian invaders, 
though even in absolute numbers these are on the same scale as those 
reported by sources of comparable credibility concerning Cambodia, and 
relative to population, are many times as great."

Furthermore, Chomsky (and writing partner) Herman had the temerity to 
question the casualty statistics in Francois Ponchaud's "Année Zéro," a 
book that had a major impact on the Western intelligentsia in the 
mid-1970s, particularly through a review of it by Jean Lacouture that 
appeared in the New York Review of Books, a journal that has been 
responsible for demonizing one enemy of US imperialism after another for 
over three decades. While not questioning the cruelty of the Khmer 
Rouge, Chomsky observed that Lacouture had inflated Ponchaud's estimates 
of civilian casualties to the tune of two million. In a correction 
published subsequently in the NY Review, Lacouture withdrew his claim 
and confessed that he "should have checked more accurately the figures 
on victims, figures deriving from sources that are, moreover, 
questionable." In "Chomsky's Politics," Milan Rai observes that the two 
million figure--despite the correction--became part of official history.

JACOBY: But, alas, Chomsky often sounds like George W. Bush in reverse. 
For Bush, the United States can do no wrong. For Chomsky, it can do no 
right. Chomsky is a charter member of the "told-you-so" school of 
leftism. The United States had the September attacks coming. The 
violence is "new" only in that the guns are directed at and from the 
United States, which throughout its history has used them against other 
nations and peoples.

COMMENT: Well, another member of the "told-you-so" club was Malcolm X, 
who described the JFK assassination as "chickens coming home to roost". 
Makes sense to me. One has to wonder how Jacoby concluded that Chomsky 
believed "The United States had the September attacks coming." By and 
large, critics of Chomsky like Jacoby, Marc Cooper and Michael Berube 
take great relish in characterizing Chomsky in this fashion but feel no 
obligation to a

Housing Bubble?

2002-12-02 Thread Ellen Frank

Here in Boston, where prices have nearly tripled over the past 5 
years, my impression is that housing demand is coming 
mostly from owner- occupiers. This is in contrast to the bubble 
of the late 1980s, when absentee-investors were buying, renting, 
then flipping condos like crazy.  Owner-occupiers are far less likely 
than absentee-investors to walk away  from a property if they have 
financial difficulties.  

Also, this boom  -- again at least in Boston, often cited as the city most 
likely to be in a real estate  bubble -- hasn't been accompanied by the 
massive condo developments that forced banks, in 1990 -1992, to dump 
tons of foreclosed properties onto an  already weak market.  So I'm not 
convinced the bubble will burst.  On the other hand, I can't figure
out where the incomes are coming from to support these $500,000 
mortgages.

Ellen 

[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>Sabri Oncu wrote:
>
>>Do you have any hard data supporting or refuting the bursting of
>>a housing bubble in the area? Or do you thiink this is just a
>>normal drop in a period of economic hardship?
>
>Most U.S. housing indicators have been strong. New house sales fell 
>in Oct, but they'd been rising since February, and are still over 1m 
>units at an annual rate. Existing house sales rose strongly in Oct, 
>and are well above June levels. Builder indexes are strong, and so is 
>mortgage demand. There's talk of saggy prices, like what you recount, 
>but the normally cyclical housing market held up very well during the 
>recession. This will either be vindicated by a broader recovery soon, 
>or it could be a remaining unpopped bubble (like the dollar).
>
>Doug
>

Re: Maquiladoras not beneficial

2002-12-02 Thread Bill Burgess

At 01:04 PM 12/2/2002 -0500, Louis quoted:


Maquiladora workers receive wages considerably below those paid to 
non-maquiladora manufacturing workers.

What is it about the stats I've seen quoted by bourgeois economists that 
makes it possible for them to represent the opposite as true?

Bill

Maquiladoras not beneficial

Monthly Review, December 2002

Challenging Neoliberal Myths: A Critical Look at the Mexican Experience
by Martin Hart-Landsberg

(clip)

The best way to understand why Mexicos working people have not 
benefited from their countrys recent growth is to study the operation 
of the countrys most dynamic exporters. These include the maquiladoras, 
foreign export platforms, and large private national exporters.

Maquiladoras: Maquiladoras are registered foreign-owned manufacturing 
firms (most of which operate along the U.S.-Mexican border) that are 
allowed to import inputs duty free because they export their entire 
output. In line with Mexicos changing economic strategy, maquiladoras 
became increasingly central to the Mexican economy. Their exports grew 
by 1720 percent a year from 1990 to 1997, with their share of total 
exports rising from 33.1 percent to 40.9 percent. Their share of total 
foreign direct investment rose from 6 percent in 1994 to 26 percent in 
1999. By 2000, they were producing 47 percent of all exports and 54 
percent of all manufactured exports.

This increase in economic activity was accompanied by a rapid increase 
in maquiladora employment, from 420,000 in 1990 to 1.3 million in 2000. 
This growth has taken place in the context of an overall decline in 
non-maquiladora manufacturing employment. Reflecting the austerity and 
market openings of the 1980s and mid-1990s, non-maquiladora 
manufacturing employment fell from 2.6 million in 1981 to 2.2 million in 
1997.

While the maquiladoras have been celebrated by mainstream economists for 
anchoring Mexicos economic transformation, Mexican workers have not 
benefited from the accompanying shift away from non-maquiladora 
production. Maquiladora workers receive wages considerably below those 
paid to non-maquiladora manufacturing workers. In 1994, average 
maquiladora wages were only 47 percent of non-maquiladora manufacturing 
wages. While the gap narrowed over the remainder of the decade, closing 
to approximately 80 percent, this trend did not represent an improvement 
for maquiladora workers. Rather, it was caused by non-maquiladora 
manufacturing wages falling at a faster rate than maquila wages.

Maquiladora working conditions also remain poor. Turnover rates average 
between 15 percent and 25 percent of the labor force per month. The 
average work-life of a maquila worker is only ten years because of 
injuries, health problems, and the firing of women workers who become 
pregnant.

The problems with the maquiladora-based development process extend 
beyond wages and working conditions. As the New York Times explained:

"All along the border, the land, the water, and the air are thick with 
industrial and human waste. The National Water Commission reports that 
the towns and cities, strapped for funds, can adequately treat less than 
35 percent of the sewage generated daily. About 12 percent of the people 
living on the border have no reliable access to clean water. Nearly a 
third live in homes that are not connected to sewage systems. Only about 
half the streets are paved."

Moreover, the maquiladoras continue to function as an enclave with few 
connections to the broader Mexican economy. Over 97 percent of their 
nonlabor inputs are imported from outside Mexico.

full: http://www.monthlyreview.org/1202hartlandsberg.htm

--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: Re: exploiting the intelligentsia

2002-12-02 Thread Eugene Coyle

Further on Johan Soderberg:

	I think the student loans have a pernicious effect that may be implied 
in what Johan writes but I want to make explicit.  The loans make the 
borrower as desperate for growth in the economy as are the  capitalists.

Further on Chris Burford:

	 He mentions a "charitable scheme" at Harvard.  What looks like charity 
-- i. e. lower prices for some students -- is simply price 
discrimination required by the cost structure of a university. 
Universities extract the maximum each student is willing to pay -- very 
high tuition for some, to get all their money, then fill the seats with 
discounted prices.  And "all their money" includes requiring the 
customer to max out on the student loans.

	

Gene Coyle


johan soderberg wrote:
When will the vast armies of 
the working intelligentsia see the bigger picture on
a world scale?


Having recently left the academic sanctum - with
astronomic debts and tiny prospects of finding work, I
have some thoughts on the subject. 
Tutition fees and student debt is necessary. Not to
pay for education, but to keep the pecunary mindset in
place in an expanding population that - for most of
their lifes - are redundent to production and 
labourmarket relations. Student revolts in the 60's
was possible thanks to stundents not beeing mindlocked
by debt and insecurity in future employment. Had the
financial security remained with todays increase om
proportion of students, social stability would have
been in trouble. Instead students are disciplined by
fear of indebted unemployment and promises of entering
the middle class. When those hopes are finally
frustrated, things will start to happen. From what I
know, radicals in muslim third world countries (where
the false promises have been proved wrong much
quicker) are often disappointed and redundant
ex-students. Question is, how can frustration be
channeled into a positive force against capitalism,
and not destructively into fascism or religious
fanatism?

/Johan

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RE: Re: A question to FMC: Housing Bubble?

2002-12-02 Thread Devine, James

Title: RE: [PEN-L:32674] Re: A question to FMC: Housing Bubble?

> Sabri Oncu wrote:
> 
> >Do you have any hard data supporting or refuting the bursting of
> >a housing bubble in the area? Or do you thiink this is just a
> >normal drop in a period of economic hardship?

Doug writes: 
> Most U.S. housing indicators have been strong. New house sales fell 
> in Oct, but they'd been rising since February, and are still over 1m 
> units at an annual rate. Existing house sales rose strongly in Oct, 
> and are well above June levels. Builder indexes are strong, and so is 
> mortgage demand. There's talk of saggy prices, like what you recount, 
> but the normally cyclical housing market held up very well during the 
> recession. This will either be vindicated by a broader recovery soon, 
> or it could be a remaining unpopped bubble (like the dollar).

it shouldn't be a surprise: the Fed cut rates aggressively in 2001 and one time (in a big way) in 2002, while housing is the part of investment that is most responsive to rate cuts. (Business fixed investment has fared poorly, of course.)

The question is about what will happen if and when overbuilding is seen and interest rates cuts no longer work. Further, nominal rates may attend their absolute minimum (zero).

Jim

Re: A question to FMC: Housing Bubble?

2002-12-02 Thread Doug Henwood

Sabri Oncu wrote:


Do you have any hard data supporting or refuting the bursting of
a housing bubble in the area? Or do you thiink this is just a
normal drop in a period of economic hardship?


Most U.S. housing indicators have been strong. New house sales fell 
in Oct, but they'd been rising since February, and are still over 1m 
units at an annual rate. Existing house sales rose strongly in Oct, 
and are well above June levels. Builder indexes are strong, and so is 
mortgage demand. There's talk of saggy prices, like what you recount, 
but the normally cyclical housing market held up very well during the 
recession. This will either be vindicated by a broader recovery soon, 
or it could be a remaining unpopped bubble (like the dollar).

Doug

RE: Re: hunger amid plenty -- in India

2002-12-02 Thread Devine, James

Title: RE: [PEN-L:32672] Re: hunger amid plenty -- in India





I quoted:
> > More than two decades after a "green" revolution made India, the world's 
> > second-most-populous country, self-sufficient in grain production, half 
> > of India's children are malnourished. About 350 million Indians go to 
> > bed hungry every night. Pockets of starvation deaths, like those in the 
> > Baran district of Rajasthan, have surfaced regularly in recent years.


Louis writes:
> Must be those pesky neanderthal Marxist reporters at the NY Times 
> stirring up trouble again. Don't they know that half of Bombay is using 
> cell phones and that a new airport opened up just yesterday in Uttar 
> Pradesh?


Maybe, but there's a conservative interpretation, too: if we could simply get rid of politically-motivated interferences with the natural forces of the market, agricultural prices would gravitate downward, so that even the poor could eat. 

Jim

Re: hunger amid plenty -- in India

Devine, James wrote:


More than two decades after a "green" revolution made India, the world's 
second-most-populous country, self-sufficient in grain production, half 
of India's children are malnourished. About 350 million Indians go to 
bed hungry every night. Pockets of starvation deaths, like those in the 
Baran district of Rajasthan, have surfaced regularly in recent years.


Must be those pesky neanderthal Marxist reporters at the NY Times 
stirring up trouble again. Don't they know that half of Bombay is using 
cell phones and that a new airport opened up just yesterday in Uttar 
Pradesh?



--

The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org

Re: exploiting the intelligentsia

2002-12-02 Thread johan soderberg


>When will the vast armies of 
>the working intelligentsia see the bigger picture on
>a world scale?

Having recently left the academic sanctum - with
astronomic debts and tiny prospects of finding work, I
have some thoughts on the subject. 
Tutition fees and student debt is necessary. Not to
pay for education, but to keep the pecunary mindset in
place in an expanding population that - for most of
their lifes - are redundent to production and 
labourmarket relations. Student revolts in the 60's
was possible thanks to stundents not beeing mindlocked
by debt and insecurity in future employment. Had the
financial security remained with todays increase om
proportion of students, social stability would have
been in trouble. Instead students are disciplined by
fear of indebted unemployment and promises of entering
the middle class. When those hopes are finally
frustrated, things will start to happen. From what I
know, radicals in muslim third world countries (where
the false promises have been proved wrong much
quicker) are often disappointed and redundant
ex-students. Question is, how can frustration be
channeled into a positive force against capitalism,
and not destructively into fascism or religious
fanatism?

/Johan

__
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Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
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hunger amid plenty -- in India

2002-12-02 Thread Devine, James

Title: hunger amid plenty -- in India

New York TIMES/December 2, 2002
Poor in India Starve as Surplus Wheat Rots
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/02/international/asia/02FARM.html?tntemail0
By AMY WALDMAN

KHANNA, India - Surplus from this year's wheat harvest, bought by the government from farmers, sits moldering in muddy fields here in Punjab State. Some of the previous year's wheat surplus sits untouched, too, and the year's before that, and the year's before that.

To the south, in the neighboring state of Rajasthan, villagers ate boiled leaves or discs of bread made from grass seeds in late summer and autumn because they could not afford to buy wheat. One by one, children and adults - as many as 47 in all - wilted away from hunger-related causes, often clutching pained stomachs.

"Sometimes, we ate half a bread," said Phoolchand, a laborer whose 2-year-old daughter died during that period. "Sometimes, a whole bread."

More than two decades after a "green" revolution made India, the world's second-most-populous country, self-sufficient in grain production, half of India's children are malnourished. About 350 million Indians go to bed hungry every night. Pockets of starvation deaths, like those in the Baran district of Rajasthan, have surfaced regularly in recent years.

Yet the government is sitting on wheat surpluses - now at about 53 million metric tons - that would stretch to the moon and back at least twice if all the bags were lined up. Persistent scarcity surrounded by such bounty has become a source of shame for a nation that has taken pride in feeding itself.

Advocates for the poor and those pushing for economic reforms ask how a country can justify hoarding so much excess when so many of its people regularly go hungry.

"It's scandalous," said Jean Drèze, an economist who has been helping to document starvation deaths for a Supreme Court case brought by the People's Union for Civil Liberties, an advocacy group, to compel the government to use the surplus to relieve hunger.

The reason, experts and officials agree, is the economics - and particularly the politics - of food in India, a country that has modernized on many fronts but that remains desperately poor.

Critics say the central government, led for the last four years by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, has catered to political allies and powerful farm lobbies in a few key states by buying more and more grain from farmers at higher and higher prices. At the same time, it has been responding to pressure from international lenders by curbing food subsidies to consumers.

One result has been huge stockpiles going to waste, while higher prices for food and inefficient distribution leave basic items like bread, a staple of the rural poor diet, out of reach for many. Even though the surplus is supposed to be distributed to the poor, politics and corruption often limit their access.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: Rawls redux

2002-12-02 Thread Waistline2

In a message dated 12/1/02 6:24:52 PM Pacific Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

The sort of inequalities that the difference principle would endorse was
illustrated in Alec Nove's The Economics of Feasible Socialism. In 1979,
Pravda admitted that the "complexity of the central plan", which was
designed to share goods and services according to need rather than
distribute them on the basis of demand as exercised through the unrequited
market, had resulted in a net shortage of "toothbrushes, detergents, babies'
diapers, needles and thread". There were times between the wars when
attempts were made to ensure that every comrade had two pairs of shoes.
Unfortunately, few were waterproof and all were ugly. Muscovites made it
clear that they would prefer an unequal distribution of footwear if it
resulted in everyone being guaranteed something to keep their feet dry.

The more obvious example of the difference principle in action is the need
to provide incentives to extra effort and the increased output it would
produce. But that, according to Rawls's initial definition, is only
tolerable if the "representative man" himself - making his judgment of
society from the bottom of the heap - actually chooses the increased
inequality. It is not a question of Margaret Thatcher saying that reduction
in top-rate taxes benefit us all. The family on income support has to agree
that extra pay is necessary to attract more consultants into the health
service.

The theory is simultaneously so comprehensive and so reasonable that, for
democratic socialists, it amounts to a philosopher's stone that turns dross
into gold. For a hundred years the question "but how much equality do you
want?" had been met with bluster. "Society," I used to reply, "is so unequal
that we can go on removing the grossest inequalities, generation by
generation, and still not be in a position to define our ultimate
objective." Rawls replaced evasion with precision.

Comments:

The following is directed towards the content of the above article and not the person who so generously forwarded the article.

>"Pravda admitted that the "complexity of the central plan", which was
designed to share goods and services according to need rather than
distribute them on the basis of demand as exercised through the unrequited
market, had resulted in a net shortage of "toothbrushes, detergents, babies'
diapers, needles and thread". <

Above is stated the theoretical, ideological and political divide concerning socialism in the USSR. The divide is not between those who support capitalism and those who do not, or those who supported socialism and those who did not. Rather a complex of divisions exist that cross all political boundaries within the industrial capitalist sector and the industrial socialist sector and includes the unity of various groups within each sector.

The above statement is so incredulous as to be absurd. That such a statement would come from Pravda in 1979 indicates the most intense - sharp, class struggle within the Soviet Union as it manifested itself in the theoretical, ideological and political sphere.

The "central plan" was never designed to share goods and services according to need rather than distribute them on the basis of demand. This is bourgeois ideological confusion of the highest waters and an outright lie.

The goal of the "central plan" was to build an industrial economy - an industrial infrastructure, to support the industrial production of everything. The stated ultimate goal of the Leninist was to build an industrial economy; wage the practical political struggle to secure the material wherewithal to bring forth a society of associated producers where the distribution of the social product no longer occurs as a mode of exchange - based on ones contribution of labor power; but rather on the basis of need/demand.

In other words on the level of theory the conflict is not between "need" and "demand" but between the state of development of the productive forces and need/demand. Is it not obvious that "demand" is the material face - just another word for/of, need in the last instance?

Counterpoising need to demand is not simply incredulous, but the ideological mode of thinking of the bourgeois philistine and democratic ideologist whose concepts are devoid of any form of economic theory. Even the most conservative bourgeois economist recognizes what is called "supply and demand." Is not "supply" the specific state of development of the productive forces as the ability to produce a given quantity of goods in relationship to "demand" - need?

The reasoning of the bourgeois ideologist justifies class inequality based on ownership of property and income, which has everything to do with the sell and value of labor power. This crap about "incentives" just drives me up the wall. Now incentives are exactly what, if not a category inexplicably fused with a certain stage in the development of the productive forces and ownership of pr

Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: George Soros, Imperial Wizard

2002-12-02 Thread Doug Henwood

Michael Perelman wrote:


The article came from Sid Shniad, who sent it to me.  I assumed that it
was several years old.


Loooked scanned. The author isn't Heather "Coffin," which is a pretty 
funny misreading, but Cottin. She's the widow of Sean Gervasi, who 
now seems to be writing for Workers World.

Doug

Globalization reconsidered at US universities

WSJ, Dec. 2002

Globalization Gets Mixed
Grades in U.S. Universities

Columbia Spat Isn't Academic: Students
Often Go On to Top Posts Back Home
By JON E. HILSENRATH
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

NEW YORK -- Santiago Pardo remembers listening to an inspiring pro-trade 
speech in 1995 when he was at the University of the Andes in Bogota, 
Colombia. The speaker, Colombia's Harvard-trained trade minister, 
convinced the student of the country's need to open more to foreign 
trade and investment. Before long, Mr. Pardo was working at the trade 
ministry himself and pushing that agenda.

This year Mr. Pardo is doing postgraduate work in international affairs 
at New York's Columbia University, where two of the world's leading 
economists offer sharply different views of globalization. It's a 
high-stakes debate being repeated at universities across the country, 
and it affects hundreds of avid foreign students who will return home 
and preach the gospel of economic development according to their 
American mentors.

One of the Columbia luminaries is Joseph Stiglitz, the 59-year-old 
winner of last year's Nobel Prize in economics and chairman of the 
Council of Economic Advisers during the Clinton administration. He 
argues that 1990s-style globalization -- broadly defined as the freer 
movement of money, goods, services and people across borders -- has put 
many developing countries through a decade of financial and economic 
turmoil. His "Globalization and Its Discontents" is among the most 
talked-about books in the field today.

The other is Jagdish Bhagwati, 68, a leading adherent of free trade, who 
is working on a book to be called "In Defense of Globalization." He 
describes Mr. Stiglitz's argument as "Jurassic Park" economics, "trying 
to revive dinosaurs which we hoped we had slain."

Mr. Pardo, a stocky 29-year-old with dark, short-cropped hair, has 
classes with both. "It makes you think twice about the things that you 
believe," he says.

For the past three decades, U.S. economics departments have been 
schooling an ever-growing proportion of foreign students, many of whom 
go on to become business leaders, government ministers and even 
presidents back home. The earlier generation embraced the globalization 
that came to characterize the 1990s, believing it would lead to 
widespread prosperity. After the economic and financial distress that 
has hit Mexico, Asia, Russia, Argentina and Brazil in the past decade, 
the current generation is absorbing a sobering new message about 
globalization and the tradeoffs and turmoil that can come with it.

The shifting intellectual landscape is playing out at universities 
around the country. At Harvard University, Dani Rodrik, an economist at 
the Kennedy School of Government, is examining the limits of free trade 
in promoting economic growth. At Princeton University, economist Helene 
Rey is developing theories on how emerging markets are prone to crash 
when they open their financial markets. At the Massachusetts Institute 
of Technology, economist Daron Acemoglu is exploring how weak bankruptcy 
rules or toothless regulators could wreck an economy newly opened to the 
world economy.

Columbia has been an especially aggressive recruiter of high-profile 
professors focused on globalization. After luring Mr. Stiglitz from 
Stanford University last year, it hired Jeffrey Sachs, 48, from Harvard 
in April. Mr. Sachs is running Columbia's Earth Institute, which 
explores how the global economy is linked to issues such as poverty, 
disease and environmental degradation. The professors receive 
top-of-the-scale compensation packages in the neighborhood of $300,000 a 
year including benefits, according to people familiar with the packages.

Breeding Ground

For the past several decades, economics departments have been an 
important breeding ground for free-market boosters. Chile's "Chicago 
Boys," a group of economists who trained at the University of Chicago, 
set their country on a path of privatizing state-owned enterprises in 
the 1970s. Over the next two decades, U.S.-trained economists came to 
dominate policy positions throughout Latin America. Among other things, 
they helped roll back barriers to certain imports -- which their 
government had previously imposed in an effort to stimulate local 
industries. Mexico's former President Ernesto Zedillo, Argentina's 
former Finance Minister Domingo Cavallo and Peru's current President 
Alejandro Toledo, to name a few, all were trained in economics in the U.S.

Mr. Zedillo, 50, who is now running a center on globalization at Yale 
University, says he returned to Mexico from his student days at Yale 
during the 1970s convinced that the trade-barrier model "was fully 
exhausted for Mexico and all of Latin America." Mr. Cavallo, 56, who 
studied at Harvard during the 1970s and is now a visiting professor at 
New York University's Stern School of Business, says that by the 1980s, 
"there was agreement among

Antiwar movement grows