The greatest generation and Iraq war
Title: The greatest generation and Iraq war [I find this to be a pleasant surprise.] WWII Generation Asks What This War Would Be Good for By Johanna Neuman Times Staff Writer Los Angeles TIMES/January 18 2003 WASHINGTON -- They survived the Depression and World War II, lived through Vietnam and Watergate, witnessed the Iranian hostage crisis, the Persian Gulf War and the Internet boom and bust. Shocked by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, they saw terror replayed in the assaults on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Now, members of the World War II generation are worried about a possible war in Iraq. Of all the generations studied by pollsters, these Americans -- now in their 70s, 80s and 90s -- are showing the most resistance to an invasion in Iraq in surveys of American opinion. Members of the World War II generation interviewed for this story do not shrink from war. They almost universally supported the U.S. campaign to rout the Taliban from Afghanistan, and most would endorse further efforts to defend the United States against terrorism. Some wish the United States had been more aggressive earlier with North Korea, and one even suggested going to war against Saudi Arabia. Instead, concerns center on the view of some that Washington has not made its case. Many are unconvinced that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is harnessing weapons of mass destruction, and they are dubious about invading his country before he has attacked the United States. Others are suspicious that President Bush and his war Cabinet are motivated by a desire to avenge the first President Bush's mistakes or to capture a ready supply of oil. Patriotic about their country, however, they await an explanation -- beyond oil or revenge -- that will satisfy their memory of fighting what they view as the Last Great War. Now don't paint me as un-American, said Fred Thomas, 90, a retired telephone executive in Opelika, Ala., who commanded an artillery battery of the 79th Infantry Division in Europe. I'm a solid, hard-rock American. I've been a Republican since 1934. I just don't like fighting the kind of war that I can't put my fingers on. With the Germans, you could depend on what they were going to do, but these people fight different. Gibson Reynolds, a 78-year-old retired aerospace engineer from Tuxedo, N.Y., echoed the point. A Signal Corpsman during World War II, he said he has always been very pro-American, it's part of the history of being at war. But he sees no evidence so far that merits going to war in Iraq. I'm willing to be convinced either way, he said. But if there's some darned good reason for going to war, I haven't seen it yet. There was a reason for going into Afghanistan. I was in favor of that. There was a reason for going into Kuwait. I was in favor of that. In this present situation, I have not been given enough information to know. The Rev. Bill Berglund, 82, was a Marine who served, proudly, in World War II and Korea. He entered the seminary in 1969 at age 49. He is not, however, a pacifist. Berglund said he would have fought in Afghanistan too, if I weren't so old and feeble, and if they had let him on the battlefield in his golf cart. And he has not ruled out going to war with Saudi Arabia. They financed 9/11, and their young men flew the planes, he said. But ask Berglund, who lives in a retirement community in Elizabethtown, Pa., about Iraq, and he all but bristles. I am dead set against it, he said. It is a needless exercise of power by a certain group of people in Washington. In a Los Angeles Times Poll last month, support for sending U.S. ground troops to Iraq was 58% among all 1,305 respondents compared with 35% among the World War II generation. A poll of 4,469 Americans by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press in the fall indicated that 60% of Americans favored taking action in Iraq to end Hussein's regime, but that only 41% of participants 75 and older supported such action. Women in every generation are more opposed to war than men, and in the senior generation, female support was only 35% in the Pew poll. But even among men, many of whom served in World War II, support was sharply lower among the World War II generation. Men in Generation X (ages 26 to 37) registered a whopping 71% support for forcing out Saddam Hussein in the Pew survey. But only 53% of the male participants 75 years old and older said they supported U.S. military action in Iraq. for more, see http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-ww218jan18,0,6472195.story?coll=la%2Dhome%2Dheadlines Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times Jim
Banana workers press demands
NY Times, Jan. 18, 2003 Banana Workers Get Day in Court By DAVID GONZALEZ with SAMUEL LOEWENBERG CHINANDEGA, Nicaragua Manuel Guido Montoya never had the children he once hoped would ease his workload and bring home a few extra dollars. Years ago, he tried to start a family, he said, but the woman left him once she realized he was sterile. Like scores of men and women in this banana-growing region and thousands of field workers throughout Central America, the Caribbean, Africa and the Philippines Mr. Guido blames dibromochloropropane, or DBCP, for his medical problems. The pesticide was banned in much of the United States in 1977 when it was found to cause sterility, but continued to be used for years in the banana plantations that supply American supermarkets. For two decades, the workers say, their efforts to win compensation for the damage done by DBCP including sterility, cancer, and birth defects in children have been frustrated by the legal tactics of American chemical and fruit companies. But now they are getting their day in court. A ruling by a federal judge in New Orleans has opened the way for a lawsuit brought by 3,000 Central American banana workers seeking millions in damages, the first time one of these cases would be tried in the United States. The United States Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether or not to allow other DBCP lawsuits to be tried in state courts. And over the objections of the Bush administration, which has pressed the Nicaraguan government on behalf of the corporate defendants, courts here have begun awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in damages to banana workers. The companies facing lawsuits are giants of the chemical and fruit industries: Shell Oil, Dow Chemical and Occidental Chemical; Dole Food, Del Monte Fresh Produce and Chiquita Brands International. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/business/worldbusiness/18BANA.html Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Artificial economic inefficiency
IBM was accused of requiring its customers of buying its punch cards -- which were the way of entering data into a computer a generation ago. Monsanto requires people who purchase its seeds to use its herbicide, Roundup, which we discussed last week. Why is that not a tie-in? Maybe because the company claims to rent its seeds. Devine, James wrote: all I know is that back in the early 1970s, I was talking to the information technology folks at work (at the Chicago Fed) and they told me that IBM had been accused of anti-trust violation because they'd set up one of their peripheral machines so that it would only work with IBM mainframes. I do not know anything more than that. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Class-conscious bankers
(From the February Harper's Magazine) [Memo] BANKERS OF THE WORLD, UNITE! From a research note circulated in November by Morgan Stanley to its North American clients. At the risk of encouraging the ghost of Joe Hill to come back and haunt us, we suspect investors should avoid heavily unionized industries today more than usual. From a long-term perspective, unionized areas have not been market-leading industries, and today heavily unionized industries stand directly in whatever the opposite of the sweet spot is. Consistent with our buy the 800-pound gorillas theme, nonunionized companies competing in heavily unionized arenas probably stand to accrue large relative gains. What does history suggest about investing in heavily unionized industries? Avoid them. While the recent carnage in stock prices and brouhaha over excessive options issuance has kept investor focus squarely on the incredible shrinking tech sector, folks may be looking in the rearview mirror when it comes to where risks lie today. Yesterday's options problems in technology may be a lesser evil than tomorrow's pension and health-care funding requirements in rust-belt industries. In all kinds of respects we are living in a brave new world, but a decidedly old-world phenomenonunions may weigh on some new-world issues in the year ahead. Look for the union label . . . and run the other way. Louis Proyect, Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
India's dollar glut
India's dollar glut C.P. CHANDRASEKHAR Volume 20 - Issue 02, January 18 - 31, 2003 The bulging foreign exchange reserves and the currency appreciation that India is experiencing and the government's response are reminiscent of the perilous path taken by East Asian and Latin American countries that had relatively healthy economies. INDIA'S external balance of payments appears robust. In the net there is far more foreign exchange flowing into the country than flowing out. As a result, the year 2002 ended with foreign exchange reserves crossing the $70-billion mark. This followed the accretion of as much as $10 billion over the previous four months and another $10 billion in the six months prior to that. As has been noted in the financial media, this trend represents a substantial acceleration of the rate of growth of reserves, which rose from $20 billion to $30 billion over a period of more than four years ending December 1998 and from there to $40 billion over a two-year period ending December 2000. A part of the increase in reserves is the result of a revaluation of the dollar value of non-dollar foreign currency holdings, as a result of the depreciation of the dollar against other currencies, especially the Euro. But even an overgenerous estimate suggests that over the period April-September 2002, only about $2.5 billion of the $9 billion dollar reserve accumulation was the result of such revaluation. The dollar excess is substantially owing to an excess of inflows over outflows. Interestingly the recent acceleration in the pace of reserve accretion occurred despite the fact that in the past the government had issued Resurgent India Bonds (in August 1998) and India Millennium Bonds (November 2000), which together resulted in an inflow of close to $9 billion in foreign exchange. Despite the lack of any such concerted effort in recent times to mobilise foreign exchange through borrowing against bonds and despite indications that both the government and the private sector are retiring and reducing their holding of high-cost foreign debt, the Reserve Bank of India has been forced to mop up foreign exchange inflows to prevent any undue appreciation of the rupee. The RBI's efforts notwithstanding the rupee has indeed been appreciating, nudging its way upwards from above Rs. 49 to the dollar to below Rs. 48 to the dollar. This could be seen as reflective of the strength of the rupee and the growing weakness of the dollar. But appreciation of the currency in a country that has not been able to trigger any major export explosion despite 10 years of neoliberal economic reform is not necessarily a good sign. At given prices, appreciation of a country's currency by definition increases the dollar value of exportables and reduces the local currency value of its imports. Inasmuch as this triggers a decrease in aggregate export earnings and increases the import bill, appreciation can be damaging for the balance of trade. And since this occurs in India at a time when oil prices are hardening internationally, the rupee's appreciation does threaten to widen the balance of trade deficit, or the excess of imports of goods and services over exports of goods and services. There are two reasons why this has as yet not given cause for worry to the government and the central bank. First, the most recent figures on exports point to some recovery in India's export performance. Thus the dollar value of India's exports rose by 15.7 per cent during the first eight months of the current financial year (April-November), which compares well with the performance during the corresponding period of the previous year. However, while this may dampen concerns about the possible damaging effects of exchange rate appreciation, it cannot be held responsible for the improvement in India's reserves position. A sharp 21 per cent increase in the dollar value of oil imports and an unexpected 12 per cent increase in the dollar value of non-oil imports have actually increased the size of the trade deficit recorded during the first eight months of this financial year ($6,247.65 million) as compared with the corresponding figure for the previous year ($5,814.93 million). The second reason why the rupee's appreciation has not given the government and the central bank cause for concern is the fact that as a result of a $1.3 billion increase in Private Transfers (largely remittances) and a $1.5 billion increase in net receipts from Miscellaneous Factor Services (which includes software and business services exports), the current account of the balance of payments recorded a surplus of $1.7 billion during April-September 2002-03 as compared with a deficit of $1.5 billion during the corresponding months of 2001-02. That is, the relatively new tendency for the current account of the balance of payments to record a surplus noted over the whole financial year 2001-02, has persisted and gathered strength during the first six months of 2002-03. But even
Re Law without morals
But I cannot, for the life of me, understand why saying: (1) that if the Supreme Court is going to get rid of affirmative action [AA] for promotion of racial or gender equality and integration, then (by simple logic, i.e., the equal application of ethical principles) they should get rid of AA for alumni children and athletes. (BTW, that doesn't mean that they will do so or have the power to do so. It may mean that we want to replace the current bunch of Supes with a new set.) can be interpreted as saying: (2) judges should be given free rein to make decisions based on their own personal ethics or lack of ethics. (Of course, the people in the Supreme Court already have such free rein, but that's another point.) It has that implication because you are presupposing that the Court is supposed to make decsions by application of logic to ethical principles _regardless of whether they are expressed in the law_. My whole point is that the Court is supposed to interpret the law, including the ethical principles embedded in the law, but not to bring in ethical principles that are not expressed in the law. You assume that what is needed is to get judges who agree with your ethical principles. I on the contrary believe that if the judges are acting lawlessly, we need to get judges who will respect the law, and if the law is immoral, we need to change the law, but not by getting judges to change it by fiat. Is that so hard to understand? Maybe the problem is that as a legal outsider, it's wrong for me to apply non-legal principles to judge the legal system? Only lawyers can do so? Or if outsiders get involved with insider issues, their ideas can only be interpreted in terms of insider debates (e.g., about the lee-way that judges should be allowed), since outsider standards have been forgotten? No, it's quite proper to judge the law as moral or not. In a democratic country that's a duty, not just a right. But you shouldn't wan't to have your ethical principles imposed on the law through the extralegal action of judges who disregard the law and impose their own ethical views. On issue #2, JKS has asserted that (if I may paraphrase) the judicial system should be a tool of the legislature and the executive branch for imposing law rather than acting on its own. This may or may not be a valid argument (I don't know, since JKS really didn't lay out his argument), The argument is not hard to set forth, and I did sketch it. In a democratic society, the law is made by the people. Institutionally judges are delegated with the duty of interpreting the law. If they make law, the are arrogating to themselves the rights reserved to the peiple and their representatives. That's no so hard to understand either. but this point makes most sense under socialism where democracy actually applies, rather than under capitalism where the power of money predominates. (That is, on the face of it, it makes more sense in an ideal world than in the actually-existing world.) OK, you are saying that in a world when democracy is imperfect, it's OK for judges to make it even more imperfect by making law through imposing their personal moral; views/ That's pretty dumb, if you'll pardon my saying that. Please explain why the defects of our democracy mean that the general rule that lawmaking ought to be carried out by elected representatives delegated that job should not apply. In any event, I proposed two good reasons why individual judges should not exploit their power to make moral judgements: 1) practical: such decisions will usually be reversed on appeal. 2) socio-economic: in general such moral statements would express the "petty bourgeois" nature of the judges' position in the overall class structure But not, apprantly, because it would an undemocratic self-arrogation of power. On your reasoning, Jim, if a judge could sneak by a decision tahtw ould not be reversed and would represent a proletarian interest, it would be perfectly OK to impose his personal moral preferences on the law even in defiance of the legislature's plain intent. I don't buy it. all I was saying is that civil disobedience (cf. my Ellsberg example) is sometimes justified, even if it violates other principles. A judge who did what I say I admired would clearly have the decision reversed and would probably be kicked out of office. Civil disobedience always has costs. Probably would not be impeached, unless she made a practice of that sort of thing. Whether judicial CD is justified is a major topic of my paper. I conclude that taht in a semi-democratic country, it's probably not. Judges are in a special position of power, so their use or abuse of that power makes their CD a bit different from yours or mine. You are suggesting that a judge abuse her power to uphold her personal moral position, which is different from a private citizen breaking a trespassing law, for example, to protest govt policy. I was NOT saying that this kind of civil disobedience should be generalized
Re: India's dollar glut
It's nice the way that countries subsidize the dollar this way. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[Fwd: The debt bomb]
Anyone on Pen-L have any comments on this story. Carrol Original Message Subject: The debt bomb Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 13:32:37 -0500 From: Marvin Gandall [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The cover story on this week's Barron's, which came online today, is entitled The Debt Bomb and suggests the US may be moving toward the abyss of a bust -- and then into a depression. If you can't access it directly, the article is posted on www.supportingfacts.com . MG
protection rents in the sports markets
washingtonpost.com Redskins Try End Run to Save Millions Workers' Compensation Wouldn't Apply to Team By Michael D. Shear Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, January 18, 2003; Page A01 RICHMOND, Jan. 17 -- Legislation filed in Virginia today on behalf of the Washington Redskins ownership would virtually exempt the team from paying millions of dollars to its players for injuries suffered on the field. Senior Democrats and Republicans in the General Assembly have lined up behind the measure, introduced just before today's deadline for new legislation. The bill was introduced in the House and Senate a week after the Virginia Supreme Court ruled that the Loudoun-based Redskins must pay a former offensive lineman for an injury to his ankle, a closely watched case that fed the team's interest in legislation. The bill was filed barely two weeks after the Redskins organization made $10,000 and $8,500 contributions to the Republican and Democratic caucuses in the General Assembly. They were the first contributions the team has made to legislators since a computerized system monitoring donations was set up in 1997. The team also gave in-kind contributions of $15,000 on Dec. 8 to Gov. Mark R. Warner (D), which involved use of the owner's box at FedEx Field for a fundraiser. The half-page bill will generate intensive lobbying efforts by the Redskins ownership and by players, who vowed today to descend on Richmond to oppose the team-sponsored bill. At stake is the financial relationship between the National Football League and its players, who have been waging similar battles over workers' compensation in other states. In dispute are such issues as whether a football player -- paid hundreds of thousands of dollars or more to smash and twist his way past opponents in a televised spectacle -- is the type of worker meant to be compensated. It's a dispute between the millionaires and the billionaires, said Del. John A. Jack Rollison III (R-Prince William). Under Virginia's compensation law, employers pay employees a percentage of lost wages and medical treatment for virtually any workplace injury in exchange for capping the total payouts to the employees. Every public and private employee is covered. Redskins players also are covered by disability insurance policies, provided by the team, that supplement the payments required by the state. The court case that the Redskins lost involved Jeff Uhlenhake, who played for the Redskins from 1996 to 1998. The center sprained his left ankle in a game on Sept. 28, 1997, when a player fell on him. After the state workers' compensation commission set a disability rate for Uhlenhake in 2001 that could have entitled him to several hundred thousand dollars, both sides took the issue to the state Court of Appeals. The team said Uhlenhake's ankle injury was not covered by workers' compensation laws because players -- unlike other covered employees -- are almost certain to be injured in their work. Professional football is a unique activity, distinguishable from other employment because it requires continuous, deliberate and repeated violent physical collisions and contact, the team told the Supreme Court. But the justices agreed with the appeals court, which had held that compensation should not be waived for those in high-risk jobs such as coal miners, steel workers, firefighters and police officers. The legislation would allow the Redskins to reduce workers' compensation by the amount of salary paid to the player after an injury. In almost every case, lawyers for both sides said today, workers' compensation payments would be reduced to zero because the salaries of NFL players are so high. Workers' compensation payments are capped at a lifetime maximum of $344,000. The average Redskin makes $520,000 a year. There are provisions made under the player contracts for very significant payments to be made to players, post injury, said Norman D. Chirite, general counsel for the Redskins. He said the collective bargaining agreement with the players union requires teams to continue paying a player's salary even when he is injured. It really comes down to how many times you want to compensate someone for the same injury, Chirite said. Richard Berthelsen, the top lawyer for the NFL Players Association, said the bill attempts to deprive players of benefits to which they are entitled. And he said Virginia's lawmakers should not be wasting time dealing with a matter better settled between the players and the owners. It's not done. It's not permitted. It violates principles of federal labor law, Berthelsen said. We will do everything we can to put a stop to it. More than two dozen House members -- Democrats and Republicans -- have signed on as sponsors of House Bill 2747. Nine of the most senior and influential senators are backing Senate Bill 1323. Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) said football players don't need the extra benefit of workers' compensation.
Re: protection rents in the sports markets
It is not just that they get injured; they are forced to play are seriously injured. I guess it's party time at the cookie store for every special-interest. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: [Fwd: The debt bomb]
Title: RE: [PEN-L:33966] [Fwd: The debt bomb] it's the kind of stuff I've been talking about for a long time (following, among others, Wynn Godley). Jim Devine -Original Message- From: Carrol Cox To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 1/18/2003 6:21 PM Subject: [PEN-L:33966] [Fwd: The debt bomb] Anyone on Pen-L have any comments on this story. Carrol Original Message Subject: The debt bomb Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2003 13:32:37 -0500 From: Marvin Gandall [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The cover story on this week's Barron's, which came online today, is entitled The Debt Bomb and suggests the US may be moving toward the abyss of a bust -- and then into a depression. If you can't access it directly, the article is posted on www.supportingfacts.com . MG
Rpt on SF Demonstration
A chilly and sunny day in San Francisco saw a HUGE turnout to oppose the war on Iraq. The Bart trains were packed, extra ferries were laid on, buses chartered. It was difficult to exit Bart to Market street because the space above was jammed. Once on the surface we walked to meet the contingent of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. The direction of march was west, but as we waited for the start, large throngs walked east, past us down Market street to join the end of the parade. They kept coming. Finally the march began and we merged in to the happy, funny crowd. Yelling, drums, shouts, whistles, drums, cymbals and drums. Creative and funny signs carried, lots of little kids, on foot, on shoulders, and in strollers. I'm not sure when we actually started walking. We'd arrived on Market street about 10:30 am, and probably merged into the march about 11:40. Very, very slow pace. Our group reached the Civic Center Plaza --- the destination -- about 1:25. The plaza was packed with the people ahead of us so we kept our banner high right there on the corner, rather than pushing into the plaza. For the next hour and a half the parade of people behinds us kept arriving, going where we couldn't tell. I guess the crowd kept spreading. The sound system was bad. Very few, I think, could hear the speakers but no one cared as far as I could tell. The spirit, the happiness, the shouts and the drums, and the comradery was strong. A great day. I await the crowd estimates. My estimate of the crowd, based on a statistical sampling of the numbers passing our banner within a timed interval: Very large. Gene Coyle
Re: Re:: Artificial economic inefficiency
I think IBM was actually forced to stop the tie-in of the punch cards, but my memory is hazy. There is a book about it, titled Big Blue or something like that -- pretty good book, but it has been a long while since I looked at it. Aircraft engines -- the big jet engines -- are frequently sold with a tie to a maintenance contract, and also leased by the operating hour, rather than sold. Lots of aircraft sales (and other big ticket items) are sold and financed by the same entity. Gene Coyle Michael Perelman wrote: IBM was accused of requiring its customers of buying its punch cards -- which were the way of entering data into a computer a generation ago. Monsanto requires people who purchase its seeds to use its herbicide, Roundup, which we discussed last week. Why is that not a tie-in? Maybe because the company claims to rent its seeds. Devine, James wrote: all I know is that back in the early 1970s, I was talking to the information technology folks at work (at the Chicago Fed) and they told me that IBM had been accused of anti-trust violation because they'd set up one of their peripheral machines so that it would only work with IBM mainframes. I do not know anything more than that. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Rpt on SF Demonstration
NPR said thousands marched in Washington, gave a brief report, then quoted someone from a counter demo. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re:: Artificial economic inefficiency
Yes they were. DeLamarter, Richard Thomas. 1986. Big Blue: IBM's Use and Abuse of Power (NY: Dodd, Mead). On Sat, Jan 18, 2003 at 08:08:43PM -0800, Eugene Coyle wrote: I think IBM was actually forced to stop the tie-in of the punch cards, but my memory is hazy. There is a book about it, titled Big Blue or something like that -- pretty good book, but it has been a long while since I looked at it. Aircraft engines -- the big jet engines -- are frequently sold with a tie to a maintenance contract, and also leased by the operating hour, rather than sold. Lots of aircraft sales (and other big ticket items) are sold and financed by the same entity. Gene Coyle Michael Perelman wrote: IBM was accused of requiring its customers of buying its punch cards -- which were the way of entering data into a computer a generation ago. Monsanto requires people who purchase its seeds to use its herbicide, Roundup, which we discussed last week. Why is that not a tie-in? Maybe because the company claims to rent its seeds. Devine, James wrote: all I know is that back in the early 1970s, I was talking to the information technology folks at work (at the Chicago Fed) and they told me that IBM had been accused of anti-trust violation because they'd set up one of their peripheral machines so that it would only work with IBM mainframes. I do not know anything more than that. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Artificial economic inefficiency
This article affirms the sort of dual pricing system that I mentioned. Competition on the printers keeps prices down, while IP rights keep cartridges expensive. On Thu, Jan 16, 2003 at 09:04:47PM -0600, Bill Lear wrote: I'm curious what the technical name for this sort of barrier to economic efficiency is. Has anyone ever cataloged this sort of thing? I'd be very interested if so ... Bill Printer industry seeks to keep lock on cartridge profit By Dawn C. Chmielewski Mercury News Your printer and ink cartridges are sharing secrets that keep you shelling out outrageous prices for refills. Lexmark admits it designed its new generation of laser printers to work only with Lexmark toner cartridges, not cheaper no-name refills. And it's making a federal case out of it. Lexmark is suing a maker of generic toner cartridges, claiming it illegally cracked the ``secret handshake'' that links cartridge with printer. Without the secret code, no document will print. Static Control Components, a generic cartridge maker in North Carolina, developed a microchip that speaks the same language. That, according to Lexmark, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which makes it a federal crime to circumvent a technological lock that protects copyrighted works -- like, say, a printer program. This blatant anti-consumer behavior on Lexmark's part helps explain why we continue to pay Tiffany prices for a product that costs about $3 to make. And we don't even get the chic powder-blue box to make us feel special about the purchase. Lexmark is just one of a number of big-name printer companies that uses chip technology as a padlock to keep exclusive hold on the lucrative market for printer supplies, which Gartner Dataquest says accounts for 53 percent of Lexmark's revenue. The nation's leading maker of printers, Hewlett-Packard, and another big printer-maker, Epson, use smart chip technology in their ink cartridges to serve as electronic dipsticks, informing the printer how much ink is left. When the ink is gone, the printer stops working until the consumer replaces it with a new cartridge -- with a new chip. Refills won't work. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
