date:20030616


At 2003-06-16 15:34 -0700, you quoted:

> An economic system is dynamically complex
if its deterministic
> endogenous processes do not lead it asymptotically to a fixed
> point, a limit cycle, or an explosion.
This sounds like a classic statement based on well established chaos
theory but trying to embrace the concept of complexity. 

But being dynamically complex, which chaotic dynamics can produce under
certain conditions, is an adjective and is by no means necessarily the
same as "complexity theory", although IMHO chaos theory 
probably also applies in economics.

Both theories explain on the basis of western rationality how under
certain conditions, quantitative changes can lead to qualitative change.


These are theoretical approaches which do not historically relate to
dialectical materialism, but suggest to my mind one reason why previous
generations found it useful to look at phenomena from the competing
contrasting viewpoints that are inherent in a dialectical approach, but
which are not necessarily in mechanical logical contradiction with one
another.

On the basis of one hundred years of western mathematics chaos theory has
produced something as mystical as the Mandelbrot set. It also produces
that heart stopping moment for all of us, when we learn that the cardiac
rhythm is not actually mechanically totally regular, but is in a pattern
which conforms to chaos theory.

Chaotic dynamical systems can sometimes flip into phenomically chaotic
states.

Ironically, complexity theory models how the interaction of numerous
smaller units can create a higher level order. 

Barkely Rosser is a hero expert on this area in economics, and manages to
negotiate the interface between conventional academic scholarship, and
progressive interpretation, with subtle good natured humour. (Just to
stifle him with praise.) I cannot keep up with the detail of the argument
and would not attempt to, but it is clear to me it is making a
contribution in an area of economics that conventional economists cannot
afford totally to dismiss.



I appreciate the serendipity of this email, which took me back to
Barkley's web site, with the aid of a Google search. The URL for the
actual article is

http://cob.jmu.edu/rosserjb/GENERIC.CPX.doc

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1999,
vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 169-192

On the Complexities of Complex Economic Dynamics
 From this it is possible to see that Barkley is actually citing a
particular writer giving a
"broad tent"
definition, with which he does not necessarily agree. 

Just before, he says amiably,

 Unsurprisingly, there is no agreed upon
definition of such a complex term as "complexity." 
Indeed, MIT's Seth Lloyd has gathered over 45 such definitions, most of
these listed in Horgan (1997, Chapter 8, footnote 11, p. 303), with many
of these definitions emphasizing computational or informational
measures.  This plethora leads Horgan (1995) to complain that
"we have gone from complexity to perplexity."  Without
doubt, this is a serious problem.

WTO--hypocrisy, yada yada yada

[speaking of methodological nationalism...]



The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
Europe's trade hypocrisy: The West pays to keep the rest poor
Philip Bowring IHT
Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Europe's trade hypocrisy

GENEVA The Doha round of trade negotiations is rapidly approaching a
crisis. The behavior of some European countries is proving so selfish and
shortsighted that key developing countries may soon come to the conclusion
that it would be better to walk away from the table than carry on with
wrangling over secondary issues while progress on the crucial one of
agriculture is sabotaged.

Last week France and Germany cut a side deal that appears to rule out the
fundamental reform of European agriculture, without which progress at the
World Trade Organization is impossible. The deal aims to stop some subsidy
cuts and perpetuate the absence of links between overproduction and the
level of subsidies. In return for helping French farmers, Germany will get
support on nonfarm issues dear to it.

So much for President Jacques Chirac's oft-touted concern for the poor
world. Having missed an opportunity as host of the Group of Eight summit
meeting in Evian to lead Europe away from its annual agricultural
subsidies of $50 billion - the biggest single contributor to Third World
poverty - France is now stitching up the European Union's reform plans. In
the process, the Europeans are throwing away gains in influence that they
expected from the global unpopularity of U.S. policies of preemption and
military intervention.

The reform plans devised by the EU farm commissioner, Franz Fischler, did
not go very far toward meeting the demands of the developing world that
the free trade touted by the rich should apply to sugar and cotton as much
as to cars and computers. But they would have given the EU trade
commissioner, Pascal Lamy, something to work with in negotiations with the
United States, whose farm lobby is second only to the EU as a global
poverty generator.

The deal is a sure way to sink prospects for the September ministerial
meeting of world trade ministers in Cancun, Mexico, supposedly the
half-way point of the Doha round. That meeting was in enough trouble
already, as deadlines had been missed at the end of May for agreements by
the Trade Negotiations Committee in Geneva on proposals to be put to the
ministers in Cancun. If many issues are left hanging, the ministers will
have scant time for the crucial ones that require ministerial input.

To underscore African anger, President Blaise Compaore Burkina Faso went
to the WTO in Geneva last week to plead the case of African cotton
farmers. He noted that many African countries opened their markets and
ended farm subsidies in response to advice and pressure from the World
Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Now the poor but efficient
farmers of Benin, Mali and Chad, as well as Burkina Faso, for whom cotton
was a key crop, are being ruined by U.S. cotton subsidies.

Cotton subsidies in rich countries are 60 percent higher than the gross
domestic product of Burkina Faso, and total farm subsidies six times
greater than development aid. And there will be no farm subsidy reform in
the United States unless there is also reform in the EU.

Burkina Faso does not need charity, President Compaore said. It just wants
WTO members to live up to the organization's principles. His eloquent plea
for free trade unfortunately received very much less publicity than
President Chirac's hypocritical and condescending recent statements about
help for Africa.

Further evidence of the damage done by farm subsidies has also come from
an unlikely place - a study published recently by the International Labor
Organization. It found that globalization had not set in motion any "race
to the bottom" by developing countries in terms of quality and income
levels of industrial employment. Freer trade in manufactured goods had
helped development. It was the producers of primary agricultural products
who were the global losers, through their exclusion from free,
unsubsidized trade.

Western political leaders need to stop treating trade issues as boring
technicalities and recognize how threats to the WTO system threaten their
own prosperity. Failure to achieve farm trade reform is a greater threat
to world harmony and prosperity than any single disease or weapon of mass
destruction.

US/Mexico: what's the beef?

June 16, 2003, 9:54PM
Border trade ties coming undone
U.S. seeks decision in beef, rice dispute
By JENALIA MORENO and DAVID IVANOVICH
Houston Chronicle

Trade ties between the United States and Mexico grew more tense Monday as
the Bush administration turned to the World Trade Organization to settle a
dispute over rice and beef exports to Mexico.

Agriculture has proved to be a sensitive part of the North American Free
Trade Agreement, with U.S. farmers complaining about Mexican imports of
tomatoes, sugar and avocados since the accord went into effect in 1994.

This latest quarrel results from two anti-dumping actions taken by the
Mexican government.

Last June, Mexico ruled American farmers were selling long-grain milled
rice cheaper in Mexico than they did in the United States, a practice
called dumping. And in April 2000, Mexico imposed anti-dumping duties on
U.S. beef.

Pressured by farmers who complain they cannot compete with efficient
American operations after many tariffs were eliminated this year, the
Mexican government in recent years has slapped dumping duties on several
U.S. agricultural exports, including beef, rice and apples.

This issue is important to the U.S. agricultural industry because Mexico
is the largest export market for both rice and beef in terms of quantity.

In these cases, U.S. trade officials question Mexico's methods for
determining whether its beef and rice producers were injured by American
exports. Mexico, for instance, was supposed to collect data from three
years but provided information from only parts of three years.

Washington also complained about the age of the trade data in question,
noting the information was collected more than a year before the actual
dumping investigation was launched. And U.S. trade officials questioned
whether the information collected really supports the conclusions Mexico
has reached.

U.S. beef producers shipped 350,000 metric tons or $829 million worth of
beef products to Mexico last year. Mexico imports about 20 percent of its
beef consumption, according to the Mexican government.

When investigating the dumping charges, Mexican officials required
American producers to provide pricing data. Those that did not respond,
typically the smaller producers, were deemed guilty of dumping.

"Just because they didn't have the wherewithal to supply the price data to
Mexico, they were essentially guilty by association," said Gregg Doud,
chief economist for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.

In what Doud called a "preposterous" finding, companies that weren't even
in business at the time of the investigation are deemed guilty of dumping,
because they didn't demonstrate during the probe that they had not been
dumping onto the Mexican market.

Re: Fwd: FW: Sad News about NICHD/NIH: The Deconstruction of America's Sci entific

- Original Message -
From: "Michael Perelman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 9:33 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Fwd: FW: Sad News about NICHD/NIH: The Deconstruction
of America's Sci entific


> I am sorry that nobody has picked up on Martin's post, which just
arrived
> tonight.  I doesn't matter if the second coming is going to occur in a
> year or so, but it if does not... Is this happening with all government
> supported science?

==

Nah, they still spend lots of cash funding astronomy-cosmology, looking
for god in quantum foams/plasmas etc.

Re: Fwd: FW: Sad News about NICHD/NIH: The Deconstruction of America's Sci entific

I am sorry that nobody has picked up on Martin's post, which just arrived
tonight.  I doesn't matter if the second coming is going to occur in a
year or so, but it if does not... Is this happening with all government
supported science?
 --
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

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

Re: Falsifiability and the law of value

I have not been online for several days -- my server has been down.  I am
now wading through a flood of e-mails in random order, so forgive me if
this has been said before.

I agree with Andrew.  What happened in the late 19th C. was that tech.
changed devalued existing capital before costs could be recouped.  You had
rising productivity and widespread bankruptcy.

On Fri, Jun 13, 2003 at 05:32:40PM -0400, Drewk wrote:
> Jim Devine wrote:
>
> "But if labor productivity rises (or wages fall) before prices
> fall, the first thing to happen would be a rise in the rate of
> profit (likely temporary)."
>
> I don't think so.  Greenspan, Brenner, and others tell this story,
> but it is based either on a fallacy of composition (the
> innovator's profit rate rises, therefore the general rate rises)
> or on the Okishio theorem, which is false.  If you do not
> retroactively revalue inputs, as the theorem does, then the
> decline in price will tend to offset the increase in physical
> productivity, and it can more than offset it.
>
> The profit rate can't tell "good deflation" from "bad deflation."
> Whatever the cause of falling prices is, the fall itself reduces
> profitability, cet. par.
>
> Andrew Kliman
>

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

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

neuroeconomics redux

[NYTimes]
June 17, 2003
Brain Experts Now Follow the Money
By SANDRA BLAKESLEE

People are efficient, rational beings who tirelessly act in their own
self-interest. They make financial decisions based on reason, not emotion.
And naturally, most save money for that proverbial rainy day.

Right?

Well, no. In making financial decisions, people are regularly influenced
by gut feelings and intuitions. They cooperate with total strangers,
gamble away the family paycheck and squander their savings on investments
touted by known liars.

Such human frailties may seem far too complicated and unpredictable to
fold into economic equations. But now many neuroscientists are beginning
to argue that it is time to create a new field of study, called
neuroeconomics.

These researchers are busy scanning the brains of people as they make
economic decisions, barter, compete, cooperate, defect, punish, engage in
auctions, gamble and calculate their next economic moves. Based on their
understanding of how fluctuations in neurons and brain chemicals drive
those behaviors, the neuroscientists are expressing their findings in
differential equations and other mathematical language beloved by
economists.

"This new approach, which I consider a revolution, should provide a theory
of how people decide in economic and strategic situations," said Dr. Aldo
Rustichini, an economics professor at the University of Minnesota. "So
far, the decision process has been for economists a black box."

Dr. Jonathan D. Cohen, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at Princeton,
agreed. "Most economists don't base their theories on people's actual
behavior," he said. "They study idealized versions of human behavior,
which they assume is optimal in achieving gains."

To explore economic decision making, researchers are scanning the brains
of people as they engage in a variety of games designed by experimental
economists. The exercises are intended to make people anticipate what
others will do or what others will infer from the person's own actions.

The games also reveal some fundamental facts about the brain that
economists are just beginning to learn and appreciate:

¶In making short-term predictions, neural systems tap into gut feelings
and emotions, comparing what we know from the past with what is happening
right now.

¶The brain needs a way to compare and evaluate objects, people, events,
memories, internal states and the perceived needs of others so that it can
make choices. It does so by assigning relative value to everything that
happens. But instead of dollars and cents, the brain relies on the firing
rates of a number of neurotransmitters - the chemicals, like dopamine,
that transmit nerve impulses. Novelty, money, cocaine, a delicious meal
and a beautiful face all activate dopamine circuits to varying degrees;
exactly how much dopamine an individual generates in response to a
particular reward is calibrated by past experience and by one's own
biological makeup.

¶Specific brain circuits monitor how people weigh different sources of
rewards or punishments and how they allocate their attention. A region
called the anterior cingulate reacts when people make mistakes or perform
poorly; some neuroscientists say it also registers gains and losses,
financial and otherwise. A small structure called the insula detects
sensations in the body. It is also involved in assessing whether to trust
someone offering to sell us the Brooklyn Bridge.

These structures and neurotransmitter systems are activated before a
person is conscious of having made a decision, Dr. Cohen said.

In a study published the current issue of the journal Science, Dr. Cohen
and his colleagues, including Dr. Alan G. Sanfey of Princeton, took images
of people's brains as they played the ultimatum game, a test of fairness
between two people.

In the ultimatum game, the first player is given, say, $10 in cash. He
must then decide how much to give to a second player. It could be $5, the
fairest offer, or a lesser amount depending on what he thinks he can get
away with. If Player 2 accepts the offer, the money is shared accordingly.
But if he rejects it, both players go away empty-handed. It is a one-shot
game, and the players never meet again.

Most people in the shoes of Player 2 refuse to take amounts under $2 or
$3, Dr. Cohen said. They would rather punish the first player than feel
cheated. "But this makes no economic sense," he said. "You're better off
with something than nothing."

Brain images showed that when players accepted an offer they viewed as
fair enough, a circuit in the front of their brains that supports
deliberative thinking was activated.

But when they rejected an offer, the insula - which monitors bodily
states, including disgust - overrode the frontal circuit. The more
strongly the insula fired, the more rapidly the person rejected the offer,
Dr. Cohen said. Moreover, the insula fired well before the person pushed
the button to refuse an offer.

Economists can use t

Re: US auto industry to die?

I thought that the US auto industry could not survive on its own.  The
truck/suv industry is doing ok, but as offshore companies jump into that
market.
Also, the auto companies could look into their ad costs as well.

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

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

conflicts of interests

[who wudda thunk it?]

Dividend Tax Cut Will Benefit Many Members Of House, Reports Show
Some Representatives May Save Thousands

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 17, 2003; Page A03


Dozens of House members stand to save thousands of dollars thanks to the
dividend tax cut that Congress passed last month, according to annual
disclosure records released yesterday.

While many lawmakers reported little or no dividend income in 2002, others
reported dividends ranging from tens of thousands to millions of dollars.
If they conduct similar transactions this year, they will enjoy
substantial tax savings under the measure that President Bush initiated
and the GOP-led Congress enacted. Retroactive to Jan. 1, the top tax rate
for dividends, now 38.6 percent, will drop to 15 percent.

While many Democratic and GOP lawmakers alike will personally benefit from
the tax cut, it was the nearly unanimous Republican support that made it
law; 224 House Republicans voted for the bill, along with seven Democrats.

In the annual financial disclosures, lawmakers declare their income,
assets and liabilities in broad ranges, making it impossible to assess
their financial situations with precision. Members don't have to list the
value of their primary residence or savings below $5,000. Senators'
reports were released Friday.

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who has expressed interest in running for
governor of California -- and whose money has helped finance the effort to
recall Gov. Gray Davis (D) -- reported dividends last year of $100,000 to
$1 million from his Pioneer High Yield Mutual Fund account, and a similar
amount from his Vanguard 500 Index Fund. That same performance this year
would net federal tax savings of $47,200 to $472,000.

Rep. Paul E. Gillmor (R-Ohio) could be another big winner. Last year he
received dividends of $100,000 to $1 million from stock in Gillmor
Financial Services. That would translate into tax savings of between
$23,600 and $236,000 under the new law.

Some GOP House members are considerably less well off. Rep. J.D. Hayworth
(R-Ariz.) reported no financial holdings. "So much for the myth of country
club Republicans, huh?" Hayworth said yesterday.

The architect of the House version of the dividend tax cut, Ways and Means
Committee Chairman Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), reported no dividends last
year, along with no investments or other assets.

John Feehery, spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), said such
reports demonstrate that Republicans were motivated by ideology, not
self-interest, when it came to cutting taxes on dividends. "Probably a lot
more Democrats than Republicans get it," Feehery said. "They have a lot
more money than Republicans, especially [House Minority Leader] Nancy
Pelosi [D-Calif.]."

Pelosi called that analysis simplistic. "The Republican tax cut is a
windfall to many of us in the Congress, but it is so wrong," she said in
an interview. "It is so shortsighted and not in the enlightened
self-interest of the country."

Pelosi reported no dividends in 2002 but did list sizable California real
estate holdings. These include a vineyard in St. Helena, worth $5 million
to $25 million; a vineyard in Rutherford, worth $1 million to $5 million;
a townhouse in Norden, worth $1 million to $5 million; an option on San
Francisco commercial property, valued at $1 million to $5 million; and a
condominium in Alpine Meadows, worth $500,000 to$1 million.

Not all House Democrats are so affluent, of course, including the two
running for president. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich (D-Ohio) reported having as
much as $16,000 in the bank, and a personal loan worth $15,001 to $50,000.
Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) reported a net worth of $153,000
to$545,000. He owed between $50,000 and $100,000 on loans to help finance
his children's education.

The reports indicate that at least three House members struggled with
credit card debt last year. Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) owed between $15,000
and $50,000; Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) reported a $30,000 to
$100,000 balance on First USA Mastercard and Visa, plus a boat loan of
$15,000 to $50,000 and a personal line of credit for $10,000 to $15,000;
and Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.) reported owing $50,000 to $100,000 on
various credit cards.

First-term Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) had no such worries. He received
nearly $9.7 million in deferred compensation from Wasserstein Perella &
Co., an investment banking firm.

And Rep. Mary Bono (R-Calif.) is remarried but still collecting royalties
from pop music hits that her late husband, Sonny, wrote and recorded years
ago, totaling between $105,000 and $1,015,000 in 2002.

The White House also released disclosure reports for senior officials. The
president's chief economic adviser, Stephen Friedman, a former chairman of
Goldman Sachs & Co., had a brokerage account worth more than $55 million,
according to his 90-page report. An administration official said Friedman,
who was named to

the scramble for Africa[n] oil

[fear of corruption? please.]


Scramble for Africa

Fear of corruption and chaos in oil rush

Charlotte Denny, economics correspondent
Tuesday June 17, 2003
The Guardian

Washington's determination to find an alternative energy source to the
Middle East is leading to a new oil rush in sub-Saharan Africa which
threatens to launch a fresh cycle of conflict, corruption and
environmental degradation in the region, campaigners warn today.

The new scramble for Africa risks bringing more misery to the continent's
impoverished citizens as western oil companies pour billions of dollars in
secret payments into government coffers throughout the continent. Much of
the money ends up in the hands of ruling elites or is squandered on
grandiose projects and the military.

Tony Blair will today urge the oil industry to be more transparent in its
dealings with Africa. Openness and accountability are essentials for
stability and prosperity in the developing world, he will tell oil company
executives and oil exporting countries at a meeting in Lancaster House in
central London.

African countries own 8% of world oil reserves. An estimated $200bn
(£125bn) in revenues will flow into African government treasuries over the
next 10 years as new oilfields open up throughout the Gulf of Guinea. Oil
will bring the largest influx of revenue in the continent's history, and
more than 10 times the amount western donors give each year in aid.

But Ian Gary, author of a new report, Bottom of the Barrel, from the US
aid agency Catholic Relief Services (CRS), warned yesterday:
"Petro-dollars have not helped developing countries to reduce poverty; in
many cases they have actually exacerbated it. In Nigeria, for example,
which has received over $300bn in oil revenues over the last 25 years, per
capita income is less than a $1 a day."

Despite the prime minister's backing for the extractive industries
transparency initiative (EITI), aid agencies and MEPs say Britain has let
oil companies off the hook by watering down plans to make publication of
payments to third world governments mandatory.

"The purely voluntary approach will not work in the countries where it is
most needed because many political and business elites have major vested
interests in avoiding transparency," said Simon Taylor, director of Global
Witness, which works to expose links between natural resource exploitation
and human rights abuses.

British oil firms, including Shell and BP, have privately backed calls for
publication of payments to be compulsory because they believe otherwise
honest companies will be undercut by less scrupulous competitors.

BP was nearly kicked out of Angola for disclosing that it had paid a $111m
signature bonus to the government in 2001.

But with the US administration under pressure from American oil companies
to resist new regulations, Britain has abandoned the mandatory approach in
favour of a statement of principles which industry and government
representative can agree on.

"As the initiative is increasingly watered down, the ability of the EITI
to deliver on the promise of increased transparency in African countries
remains seriously in doubt," Mr Gary said.

Campaigners believe that without stronger enforcement, the British-led
initiative will make little difference to helping African countries
benefit from their oil reserves.

The discovery of high-quality offshore fields has attracted interest at
the highest levels of the Bush administration, which is determined to
lessen America's dependence on imports from the Middle East.

A taskforce headed by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, predicted two
years ago that West Africa would become the fastest growing source of oil
and gas for the American market.

"The US geostrategic view is that all crude oil is good, and all non-Opec
oil is especially good. The goal is to take the Saudi hand off the spare
oil capacity spigot," said Duncan Clarke, chairman and chief executive
officer of Global Pacific and Partners International, an independent
energy advisory group.

Next month President Bush is planning to visit Senegal, Nigeria and South
Africa, while the Pentagon is reportedly considering redeploying American
troops to protect key oil reserves in Africa, particularly Nigeria.

Washington is preparing to reopen its embassy in Equatorial Guinea, where
oil revenues have boosted GDP by 60% over the last two years, despite
state department reservations over the country's appalling human rights
record.

"The US has identified increasing African oil imports as an issue of
'national security' and has used diplomacy to court African producers
regardless of their record on transparency, democracy or human rights,"
said Mr Gary.

The drive for African oil is taking on a much more American character, the
report says. "New fields are being aggressively pursued by ExxonMobil,
ChevronTexaco and by smaller firms such as Amerada Hess, Ocean and
Marathon."

"The flag is following commerce but the compan

Re: Weapons hunters watch films

Of course, the US will not let anybody check out its mass graves in
Afghan.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

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

Re: Weapons hunters watch films

2003-06-16 Thread Fred B. Moseley

Hi Barkley,

Your question about "mass graves" is a very good one.
I hope someone has some more information.

Fred


On Mon, 16 Jun 2003, Barkley Rosser wrote:

> Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2003 15:02:05 -0400
> From: Barkley Rosser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Reply-To: PEN-L list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Weapons hunters watch films
>
>  Actually rather than comment on this issue directly,
> now that it is becoming increasingly clear to anyone
> paying attention (and here in the US Fox TV is trying
> very hard to focus peoples' attention on important
> stuff like the Laci Peterson murder), that both the WMD
> and al Qaeda-link arguments for the war in Iraq were
> completely bogus.  So, the arguments that are being
> handed out to keep the wolves at bay are "liberation
> of Iraqis" (replay tapes of that small group hitting Saddam's
> statue with their shoes), "torture chambers" (yes, those
> were bad, they were also not news), and "mass graves."
>   I am wondering about these latter.  It is my impression
> that the overwhelming majority of these are linked to the
> putting down of armed uprisings, especially in the immediate
> aftermath of the first Gulf war, rather than being dumping
> grounds for political prisoners coming out of the torture
> chambers.  These are very different kettles of fish, needless
> to say, as the US has its own mass graves of the first sort,
> in such places as Gettysburg, to mention a well known one.
>   Is there anybody on the list who has more information
> regarding what is what on this matter?  "Mass graves" has
> increasingly become the new two word answer being used
> by war proponents to silence anyone daring to criticize it.
> Barkley Rosser
> - Original Message -
> From: "Chris Burford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 2:12 AM
> Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Weapons hunters watch films
>
>
> > At 2003-06-16 00:01 +0100, I wrote:
> > >On page 2 of Sunday Times, London
> > >
> > >"Weapons hunters watch films as trail goes cold.
> > >
> > >by Christina Lamb, Baghdad.
> >
> >
> > >It looks as if some of it is an off the record leak by the senior UK
> > >representative in Iraq, to defuse little by little the growing problem
> for
> > >the UK  (less so for the USA) if no WMD are found, and to explain the
> > >difficulties for the poor Brits in having to work with these Americans
> (who
> > >can't even fix the air-conditioning).
> >
> > On re-reading, I think Alastair Campbell's name at the beginning suggests
> > the sequence. Campbell deliberately gave a low key background briefing in
> > London. We do not know whether it was specifically to a Sunday Times
> > reporter, or thrown away as an aside in a briefing to the press in
> general.
> > Either way, the Sunday Times got their reporter in Baghdad to follow it up
> > with a few direct interviews with the UK representative in Iraq, and with
> > Brits in a weapons inspections team in an overheated bombed out palace,
> > whose location had been kindly mad eavailable to the ST reporter.
> >
> > The London desk of the ST then checks for an official statement from the
> > Pentagon and from the Prime Ministers official spokesperson, which ends
> the
> > story off with a repetition of the official line.
> >
> > But Campbell is ever so discretely managing the news against Rumsfeld,
> just
> > as Rumsfeld is callously ignoring the public embarrassment of the UK
> > government. Campbell probably has Blair's consent in managing the
> explosive
> > issues of the non-existent WMD in this way. The fingerprints are hardly
> > detectable.
> >
> > Chris Burford
> >
> >
> > PS I would be grateful if people do not cut and paste this article outside
> > this list. It is not available on the ST website except through a specific
> > search, presumably as part of the ST trying to build up e-business. It
> > cannot be copied from the website and it includes a typo by me. My
> > fingerprints are therefore also detectable. (Perhaps we should invite
> > Campbell onto this list and have a discussion about 'processology'.)
> >
> >
> > Of course it is all free advertising, so since the Sunday Times is
> probably
> > the best of the Murdoch empire, I will add the URL
> >
> > www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,2086,00.html
> >
>

Re: frontline: home | PBS

2003-06-16 Thread Yoshie Furuhashi

Michael Hoover wrote:

pbs apparently has policy prohibiting persons being interviewed for
broadcast from using terms 'capitalist' and 'capitalism', reference to
'business elite' is ok, info comes from michael zweig who was recently
subjected to said policy...  michael hoover
That's an outrageous policy, of course, but if I were on mainstream
TV, I wouldn't use "capitalist" or "capitalism" either - I'd opt for
more acceptable euphemisms. I've found over the years that lots of
ordinary people are susceptible to Marxist analyses as long as they
don't know that's what they're hearing.
Doug
Capitalism isn't exclusively a Marxist term, though.
--
Yoshie
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
,
, & 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: 
* Al-Awda-Ohio: 
* Solidarity:

Re: Complexity

> Sabri Oncu wrote:
>
>> Being an old-fashioned thermodynamist trained in the Truesdell
>> school and specialized in the partial integro-differential
>> equations of the hyperbolic kind,
>
> And you have a problem with Western rationality?
>
> Doug

Hey!

This was exactly my problem.

I have been an active participant of this publication business
with about a dozen papers from 1989 to 1992 and just checked my
citation record a few months ago to discover that I had more than
forty for those I wrote in those three years.

But, as I was writing those papers, I had always kept asking
myself, why the hell am I writing these papers? What is the
objective?

Why?

This is the most dangerous question that I can think of,
irrespective of what you do, and try to teach my son not to ask
that dangerous question as best as I can, but to no avail.

The problem must be in his genes that I inherited from my parents
and, who knows, maybe the genes his mother inherited from her
parents play some role, too.

Best,

Sabri

Re: Runaway help desks

2003-06-16 Thread Devine, James




Gene writes:
>  But if laying off checkers
and baggers counts as productivity improvement, shouldn't the nominal prices at
the market be adjusted upward to take into account that the customer is now
doing the work?<
 
FWIW, I had
an article on this in CHALLENGE magazine, March-April 2001. The CPI and the like
give only an indication of the inflation of market costs (prices). My article
attempts to give an idea of the inflation of total costs (market + non-market).
Obviously, my presentation is weakened by the data I was forced to use, but the
"cost of living" inflation rate has been significantly higher than the
CPI inflation rate in recent decades. Thus, the fall in "real" wages using my
measure of the cost of living is larger. 
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine 

  -Original Message-From: Eugene Coyle
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 12:49
  PMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Runaway
  help desksJim Devine, in a post "Hope springs eternal"
  quoted Everett Ehrlich, a former
  undersecretary of Commerce in the Clinton
  administrationpointing out the wonders of
  productivity:
  But what about
productivity? Doesn't it force prices to fall? Sure, productivity allows
firms to sell for less, but if higher productivity led to deflation, prices
would have fallen for all of human history. Productivity growth isn't a
problem - it's a miracle. If it weren't for productivity growth, we'd all
have the standard of living of mule drivers and wood cutters.A more
productive worker earns more in the marketplace and in turn spends more. And
spending more keeps prices stable, if not rising.Kenneth
  Campbell wonders what happens to the checkers and baggers when self-scanning
  takes hold.  Ehrlich, the esteemed undersecretary assumes full
  employment.    But if laying off checkers and baggers
  counts as productivity improvement, shouldn't the nominal prices at the market
  be adjusted upward to take into account that the customer is now doing the
  work?    A very large amount of what used to be paid labor
  has been shifted onto the customer, pumping your own gas being the easiest
  example.  And there have been studies showing that prices do NOT go down
  when the work is shifted onto the customer as "productivity" cuts the vendor's
  costs.  (I recall a study comparing gasoline prices in NJ and Penna, the
  former outlawing self-pumping.)    And the assumption
  that a drop in costs equals a drop in prices is buried deep in our textbooks
  but is fatuous.Gene CoyleKenneth Campbell wrote:
  Sabri wrote:

  

  Today, I went to Home Depot to buy some halogen lamps. After
I picked up the lamps, I proceeded to the check out area and
came across this automated cashier there: You scan your own
items, swipe your credit card and all.

What will happen to the human cashiers if one of these days
these automated ones replace them?
  
Seth wrote in reply:

  
The Home Depot example you mention is striking.  I noticed it
a month or so ago in Sacramento.  We are seeing the rise of
dead labor (machinery) and the demise of living labor
(people).

I first saw this last Yule season, at the Loblaws (Ontario grocery
chain) at a downtown Toronto "superstore."

Big open area to scan. The store designers placed it in full view of the
main entrance/exit.

My kids (under 10) were with me -- they gave it a thumbs up. They got to
scan and bag the items.

As we were doing it, there were many perplexed folks arriving/exiting --
and looking on. I would hear them whispering to each other, trying to
figure it out. Then, inevitably, realizing it was "self scanning."

In terms of what will happen to the human element of ringing in and
bagging... I suppose it will replicate what bank machines did to bank
tellers. Reduce their number.

I don't see that as bad, of itself. But, in the context of a world in
which that saving of mundane human labor is usually squandered into
unemployment insurance stints, desperation, and other wastes of life and
energy... it won't help anybody in this lifetime.

But nothing wrong with losing the cashiers and bagboys of the nation.
They can't be relocated to Indonesia.

Ken.

--
It is a principle that shines impartially on the just and the unjust
that once you have a point of view all history will back you up.
  -- Van Wyck Brooks
 "America's Coming of Age," 1915

EU sanctions against Iran and Burma

While we watch the hegemonic lead taken by the US, it is worth noting that
the EU has chimed in to say that Iran should comply with a more vigorous
atomic impection regime to prent it transfering from civilian to military
use of nuclear material. And that sanctions are a possibility.
Further that the EU will strengthen sanctions on Burma for the treatment of
Aung San Suu Kyi. Asean will also take measures.
The point is that even though this is not the hegmonism of the USA under
Bush, it is nevetheless also a feature of the emerging politics of Empire.
Chris Burford
London

Re: Hobsbawn on the American Empire




    I was referring to the gold that gilded 
churches in Spain.
That in Holland largely went into the banks.
Barkley Rosser

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  andie nachgeborenen 
  To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 4:45 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Hobsbawn on the 
  American Empire
  
  Of course, in the Dutch Reformation, they just paintedor or stripped off 
  all that gold leaf. Being Dutch, they probablys tripped it and recycled it. 
  jksBarkley Rosser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
  Ah 
yes, but then much of the gold that flowedinto Spain flowed back out to 
another of itsunderlings, Holland, who eventually went forits 
independence, all the gold that did not endup gilding churches that 
is.Barkley Rosser- Original Message -From: 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Sent: Monday, 
June 16, 2003 1:49 PMSubject: Re: [PEN-L] Hobsbawn on the American 
Empire> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 06:51:10 -0400, Michael 
Pollak> wrote:> > I thought Spain was the very model of an 
empire that> > sucked in so much> > gold that it 
deindustrialized itself. (In early> modern> > sense 
of> > industry.)>> H yes and this was the one 
that worried me too.> But I think that from an (utterly 
anachronistic)> national income accounting poi! nt of view, digging 
up> gold overseas and returning it home would count as a> 
credit item on the current account balance; by doing> so, Spain in 
principle reduced its net debtor position> with respect to the rest 
of the world. It's> complicated because there is no counterpart on 
the> capital account because they are literally digging up> 
the gold, but I'd still be tempted to call Imperial> Spain a net 
exporter of capital because it was a net> importer of 
treasure.>> dd>
  
  
  Do you Yahoo!?SBC 
  Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

Re: Kids and Uncle Karl

2003-06-16 Thread Drewk




Imagine, a 4-year-old who could invert an A 
matrix.  

  -Original Message-From: PEN-L list 
  [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of andie 
  nachgeborenenSent: Monday, June 16, 2003 3:44 PMTo: 
  [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: Re: Kids and Uncle 
  Karl
  
  
The globe spinning and pointing out Iraq didn't really register, 
nortalk of oil reserves, nor power and influence... But oppression did. 
(Ididn't use that word, but she grasped it.)* * * 
Years ago I was stuck in traffic due to roadwork with my 
daughter, then aged about 4 (now 13), and to pass the time, and to 
explain that roads are made and not grown, I asked her, "Hannah, what are 
those workers doing?" I expected an answer like, Digging, or Dumping gunk in 
the street, or Making a road, or some such. ? Without missing a beat, 
and with no prompting whatsoever, she said, "They're being exploited." After 
I got my breath back, I gasped, "Yes, they are producing surplus value, but 
what, physically, are they doing with their hands?" She looked at me with 
scorn and pity. "Digging the road, Daddy." (Anyone could see that!) 
  jks
  
  
  Do you Yahoo!?SBC 
  Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

More serious Iraq resistance

BBC" Newsnight, Monday night had two items from Iraq.

1) Interview with Fedayeen in Baghdad where attacks on US military have
spread from the Sunni triangle to the north west of the city. Man appearing
on camera with face pixilated out, holding a grenade. Plus report of a
fedayeen document which appears recent because it names Bremer, predicts a
surprise for the occupiers in July. The document also refers to the need to
undermine divisions that the occupiers may sow between different groups,
and to help Iraqi people see the need to support resistance despite some
actions by Fedayeen.
2) A document attributed to the head of Iraqi intelligence, which Iraqi
sources say looks authentic, dated in January advises on methods of
resistance and seems to predict a number of things that have happened.
Systematic looting, including setting fire.  Fires at broken oil pipe
lines. Attacks on power and water supplies. There were allegedly 220
thousand Iraqis in the security services before occupation, and some of
them must have kept arms and been prepared to consider carrying out
plans.  One of the plans is to enter religious groups.
3) The Newsnight report notes that the coalition forces have been taking
almost one death per day in the last fortnight. At this rate there will be
400 US troops dead by the time of the presidential election.
Chris Burford

London

- 12 K art in Britain

Archaeologists have discovered the earliest known example of prehistoric
cave art in Britain.
It consists of 12,000-year-old engravings of birds and an ibex carved into
the stone walls at Creswell Crags, Derbyshire.


In the 19th Century a 12,000-year-old bone needle was found there.

Bahn, Pettitt and Ripoll say the engravings are of a style similar to the
cave art of France and Spain.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2994130.stm

Re: Runaway help desks

Hi Sabri --

>I have nothing against the "emancipation" of humans from mundane
>tasks Ken but the fact that the cashiers and bagboys of the
>nation can't be relocated to Indonesia is a problem, is it not?

Yes it is a problem. A "good" problem.

"So what now?" should be the slogan of every non-Yanqui party. But there
is really nothing. Not an offer of anything... The Yanquis could be the
richest nation on the planet. But it is the stupidest... in median.

>How will they survive in a society which is not willing to offer
>them an alternative?

They can't. I think that was my point... without retraining... and that
is not going to happen without control of what?

Funny as it seems, self-interest is at the heart of labor...

Ken.

--
The truth is this: the march of Providence is so slow and our desires so
impatient; the work of progress is so immense and our means of aiding it
so feeble; the life of humanity is so long, that of the individual so
brief, that we often see only the ebb of the advancing wave and are thus
discouraged. It is history that teaches us to hope.
  -- Robert E. Lee
 Letter to son

Re: Complexity

2003-06-16 Thread Doug Henwood

Sabri Oncu wrote:

Being an old-fashioned thermodynamist trained in the Truesdell
school and specialized in the partial integro-differential
equations of the hyperbolic kind,
And you have a problem with Western rationality?

Doug

Complexity

Dear Barkley,

Being an old-fashioned thermodynamist trained in the Truesdell
school and specialized in the partial integro-differential
equations of the hyperbolic kind, I never had a chance to learn
about complexity theories.

Would you kindly enlighten me what this from your paper
"Complexity in Economics" means?

> An economic system is dynamically complex if its deterministic
> endogenous processes do not lead it asymptotically to a fixed
> point, a limit cycle, or an explosion.

Best regards,

Sabri

Re: Shleifer

2003-06-16 Thread Max B. Sawicky

too bad bush blew the surplus, so there's
no money for transition.  I don't see how
they can do it now.

mbs


-Original Message-
From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Barkley
Rosser
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 4:45 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Shleifer


Mat,
  Don't know whether to thank you or not, although
I doubt the committee will take the nomination very
seriously.  I note that this JEP also has an article
by people on Bush's social security commission who
are pushing the two-tier, de facto privatization scenario.
The fiscal balance for social security will get better after
2029, according to them.  Wowee.
Barkley Rosser
- Original Message -
From: "Forstater, Mathew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Shleifer


I nominate Barkley to edit the JEL. Btw, Heilbroner use to say that the
only thing the Journal of Economic Perspectives lacks is...perspectives.
mf

-Original Message-
From: Barkley Rosser [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 3:21 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L] Shleifer

I just got my latest copy of the Journal of Economic
Perspectives (JEP).  That is what Andrei Shleifer is
editor of, not the JEL.  Guess they are still looking for
an editor of the JEL.
Barkley Rosser

Re: Runaway help desks

> But nothing wrong with losing the cashiers and bagboys
> of the nation. They can't be relocated to Indonesia.
>
> Ken.

I have nothing against the "emancipation" of humans from mundane
tasks Ken but the fact that the cashiers and bagboys of the
nation can't be relocated to Indonesia is a problem, is it not?
How will they survive in a society which is not willing to offer
them an alternative? It would have been a perfect solution if
they somehow found employment in biochemistry or solid state
physics or suddenly start working as brain surgeons but what will
they do if this does not happen?

Maybe they will become the members of the communist class Melvin
is talking about.

Who knows?

Sabri

Re: frontline: home | PBS

Good to know that it's still a bad word. jksDoug Henwood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Michael Hoover wrote:>pbs apparently has policy prohibiting persons being interviewed for>broadcast from using terms 'capitalist' and 'capitalism', reference to>'business elite' is ok, info comes from michael zweig who was recently>subjected to said policy... michael hooverThat's an outrageous policy, of course, but if I were on mainstreamTV, I wouldn't use "capitalist" or "capitalism" either - I'd opt formore acceptable euphemisms. I've found over the years that lots ofordinary people are susceptible to Marxist analyses as long as theydon't know that's what they're hearing.Doug
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

Re: Kids and Uncle Karl

Now that we are at kids' stories, we were driving from San
Francisco to Berkeley one evening. The traffic was too slow and
we were bored, so we staretd playing some verbal games and
somehow my then six year old son started to ask questions about
the Bush family.

Berkeley is an interesting place as you know: two of the female
teachers of my son had wives, the schoolmaster was gay man
"married" to another man and several of his teachers vote Green.
So he is exposed to all that "bad" stuff as you can imagine.

And apparently they talk about politics at school too and
apparently environment is one of the major issues that they
discuss.

As we were driving back home in that heavy traffic, at some point
he asked me whether Bush cared about the environment. I said, I
don't think so. He then asked me whether his father did. I again
said, I don't think so.  He then asked me whether his mother did.
I again said, I don't think so.

He then said:

One nasty family.

Sabri

Re: frontline: home | PBS

Michael writes:

>pbs apparently has policy prohibiting persons being
>interviewed for broadcast from using terms 'capitalist'
>and 'capitalism', reference to 'business elite' is ok,
>info comes from michael zweig who was recently
>subjected to said policy...

Assuming that is true (and I have no experiential reason to doubt the
policy, I have seen it before), THAT is a far better reason to
understand the lacklustre response of the North American working class
in "late capitalism" than some postmodern internalizing about "changing
your mind sets" or if you can just find "the right way to 'view' Pooh."

I can see just fine.

Right now, media are the same thing as machines. Production from people.
And there is an overseer, in most cases, telling you what to say. It
ain't psychology, just control.

Ken.

--
In the Beginning, there was Nothing;
Then God said, Let Their Be Light.
And there was still Nothing,
Only you's could see It.
  -- Dave Thomas,
 Sermonette

Re: frontline: home | PBS

2003-06-16 Thread Doug Henwood

Michael Hoover wrote:

pbs apparently has policy prohibiting persons being interviewed for
broadcast from using terms 'capitalist' and 'capitalism', reference to
'business elite' is ok, info comes from michael zweig who was recently
subjected to said policy...  michael hoover
That's an outrageous policy, of course, but if I were on mainstream
TV, I wouldn't use "capitalist" or "capitalism" either - I'd opt for
more acceptable euphemisms. I've found over the years that lots of
ordinary people are susceptible to Marxist analyses as long as they
don't know that's what they're hearing.
Doug

Re: 'Straussians' in the news; the world trembles

2003-06-16 Thread Devine, James

Title: RE: [PEN-L] 'Straussians' in the news; the world trembles





what crap! but what else can we expect from a Straussian? He attributes a conspiracy theory to an undefined "left" without any quotations from anyone. As far as I know, no-one says that the Straussians are running the Bush administration. It's more a matter of some Straussians providing an ideological cover...

He never mentions the essence of Strauss: finding arcane meanings in Plato, Machiavelli, etc. that most non-Straussians can't find. The arcane meanings typically involve the need for secret or semi-secret teaching by the Straussians (a la Plato or Socrates) of the rich and powerful (Alciabiades). 

It's amazing that this fellow throws around a lot of terms like "liberal" or "conservative" without defining them. He's supposed to be a political philosopher, no?

JD


Jim



-Original Message-
From: Kenneth Campbell
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 6/16/2003 12:04 PM
Subject: [PEN-L] 'Straussians' in the news; the world trembles


'Straussians' in the news; the world trembles (I)
Why not blame the war on a sinister clique which
has duped the public and even the President?


Clifford Orwin
National Post
Monday, June 16, 2003



Hardly a day passes now when I don't wake up to read about myself in the
papers. I've become one of the hottest topics in journalism. In
European, American and even Canadian newspapers, the articles
proliferate. The world continues prostrate in awe or rage toward the
"Straussian" legions who allegedly control American foreign policy and
brought us the war against Saddam.


...
Yet if you believe what you've been reading lately, my friends in the
administration and I are all part of the same vast conspiracy. We're out
to subvert American democracy (and, by implication, Canadian). According
to this scenario, the division of labour is as follows: I teach
subversion and they practise it. While their roles in government are
nominally advisory, in fact they're in charge, having hoodwinked their
superiors including Mr. Bush himself. It's got to be the most successful
conspiracy going today. With the possible exception of the Elders of
Zion -- but there's an overlap, since many "Straussians" are Jews.


"Straussians" haven't entirely escaped the attention of journalists in
the past. But the current obsession with them is novel. It reflects
exasperation on the left over the Bush administration's continued
popularity following the war in Iraq. And it takes advantage of the
failure so far to find the anticipated weapons of mass destruction. Hey,
why not blame the war on a sinister clique, who have duped the American
public and maybe even the President himself? Why not cast the war as a
defeat for democracy rather than a victory for it?
...

Re: frontline: home | PBS

2003-06-16 Thread Michael Hoover

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 06/11/03 03:16PM >>>
What they have done to Frontline is a fucking disgrace. During the
1980s
they had hard-hitting investigative pieces on the contra war, etc.
Since
9/11 it has basically functioned as an outlet of the Pentagon with one
hysterical report after another on "terrorist threats" to the USA.
>>>

pbs apparently has policy prohibiting persons being interviewed for
broadcast from using terms 'capitalist' and 'capitalism', reference to
'business elite' is ok, info comes from michael zweig who was recently
subjected to said policy...  michael hoover

Re: Hobsbawn on the American Empire

Ah. Thanks for the clarification. jksBarkley Rosser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:




    I was referring to the gold that gilded churches in Spain.
That in Holland largely went into the banks.
Barkley Rosser

- Original Message - 
From: andie nachgeborenen 
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 4:45 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Hobsbawn on the American Empire

Of course, in the Dutch Reformation, they just paintedor or stripped off all that gold leaf. Being Dutch, they probablys tripped it and recycled it. jksBarkley Rosser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ah yes, but then much of the gold that flowedinto Spain flowed back out to another of itsunderlings, Holland, who eventually went forits independence, all the gold that did not endup gilding churches that is.Barkley Rosser- Original Message -From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 1:49 PMSubject: Re: [PEN-L] Hobsbawn on the American Empire> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 06:51:10 -0400, Michael Pollak> wrote:> > I thought Spain was the very model of an empire that> > sucked in so much> > gold that it deindustrialized itself. (In early> modern> > sense of> > industry.)>> H yes and this was the one that worried me too.> But I think that from an (utterly anachronistic)> national income accounting poi! nt of
 view, digging up> gold overseas and returning it home would count as a> credit item on the current account balance; by doing> so, Spain in principle reduced its net debtor position> with respect to the rest of the world. It's> complicated because there is no counterpart on the> capital account because they are literally digging up> the gold, but I'd still be tempted to call Imperial> Spain a net exporter of capital because it was a net> importer of treasure.>> dd>


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Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

Re: Shleifer



this JEP also has an articleby people on Bush's social security commission whoare pushing the two-tier, de facto privatization scenario.The fiscal balance for social security will get better after2029, according to them. Wowee.* * * 
Gee, can I have their crystal ball? Mine tells me that by that time the GOPsters will have hollowed out the country, stripped it down to skin and bones, and will have decamped to Costa Rica, leaving the carcase to the Democrats -- who, at that point, will be reluctantly advocating Milton Friedman's policies as liberal alternatives to the GOPster's decision to privative the entire govt, while 95% of the country sinks below the poverty line, and US troops patrol the streets of Ottowa, Marsailles, Frankfurt, and Athens. 
jks
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Re: Hobsbawn on the American Empire




    I was referring to the gold that gilded 
churches in Spain.
That in Holland largely went into the banks.
Barkley Rosser

  - Original Message - 
  From: 
  andie nachgeborenen 
  To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 
  Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 4:45 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Hobsbawn on the 
  American Empire
  
  Of course, in the Dutch Reformation, they just paintedor or stripped off 
  all that gold leaf. Being Dutch, they probablys tripped it and recycled it. 
  jksBarkley Rosser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: 
  Ah 
yes, but then much of the gold that flowedinto Spain flowed back out to 
another of itsunderlings, Holland, who eventually went forits 
independence, all the gold that did not endup gilding churches that 
is.Barkley Rosser- Original Message -From: 
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Sent: Monday, 
June 16, 2003 1:49 PMSubject: Re: [PEN-L] Hobsbawn on the American 
Empire> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 06:51:10 -0400, Michael 
Pollak> wrote:> > I thought Spain was the very model of an 
empire that> > sucked in so much> > gold that it 
deindustrialized itself. (In early> modern> > sense 
of> > industry.)>> H yes and this was the one 
that worried me too.> But I think that from an (utterly 
anachronistic)> national income accounting poi! nt of view, digging 
up> gold overseas and returning it home would count as a> 
credit item on the current account balance; by doing> so, Spain in 
principle reduced its net debtor position> with respect to the rest 
of the world. It's> complicated because there is no counterpart on 
the> capital account because they are literally digging up> 
the gold, but I'd still be tempted to call Imperial> Spain a net 
exporter of capital because it was a net> importer of 
treasure.>> dd>
  
  
  Do you Yahoo!?SBC 
  Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

Re: Hobsbawn on the American Empire

Of course, in the Dutch Reformation, they just paintedor or stripped off all that gold leaf. Being Dutch, they probablys tripped it and recycled it. jksBarkley Rosser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Ah yes, but then much of the gold that flowedinto Spain flowed back out to another of itsunderlings, Holland, who eventually went forits independence, all the gold that did not endup gilding churches that is.Barkley Rosser- Original Message -From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 1:49 PMSubject: Re: [PEN-L] Hobsbawn on the American Empire> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 06:51:10 -0400, Michael Pollak> wrote:> > I thought Spain was the very model of an empire that> > sucked in so much> > gold that it deindustrialized itself. (In early> modern> > sense of> > industry.)>> H yes and this was the one that worried me too.> But I think that from an (utterly anachronistic)> national income accounting point of
 view, digging up> gold overseas and returning it home would count as a> credit item on the current account balance; by doing> so, Spain in principle reduced its net debtor position> with respect to the rest of the world. It's> complicated because there is no counterpart on the> capital account because they are literally digging up> the gold, but I'd still be tempted to call Imperial> Spain a net exporter of capital because it was a net> importer of treasure.>> dd>
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Re: Shleifer

Mat,
  Don't know whether to thank you or not, although
I doubt the committee will take the nomination very
seriously.  I note that this JEP also has an article
by people on Bush's social security commission who
are pushing the two-tier, de facto privatization scenario.
The fiscal balance for social security will get better after
2029, according to them.  Wowee.
Barkley Rosser
- Original Message -
From: "Forstater, Mathew" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 4:37 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Shleifer


I nominate Barkley to edit the JEL. Btw, Heilbroner use to say that the
only thing the Journal of Economic Perspectives lacks is...perspectives.
mf

-Original Message-
From: Barkley Rosser [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 3:21 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L] Shleifer

I just got my latest copy of the Journal of Economic
Perspectives (JEP).  That is what Andrei Shleifer is
editor of, not the JEL.  Guess they are still looking for
an editor of the JEL.
Barkley Rosser

Re: Shleifer

2003-06-16 Thread Forstater, Mathew

I nominate Barkley to edit the JEL. Btw, Heilbroner use to say that the
only thing the Journal of Economic Perspectives lacks is...perspectives.
mf

-Original Message-
From: Barkley Rosser [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 3:21 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L] Shleifer

I just got my latest copy of the Journal of Economic
Perspectives (JEP).  That is what Andrei Shleifer is
editor of, not the JEL.  Guess they are still looking for
an editor of the JEL.
Barkley Rosser

Shleifer

I just got my latest copy of the Journal of Economic
Perspectives (JEP).  That is what Andrei Shleifer is
editor of, not the JEL.  Guess they are still looking for
an editor of the JEL.
Barkley Rosser

Re: Hobsbawn on the American Empire

2003-06-16 Thread Peter Dorman

This is a difficult question.  The global justice movement has, in
general, been willing to align itself with old-fashioned protectionist
interests in the US.  They have more money than we do and more access to
media and politicians.  Activists recognize that the interests involved
are fundamentally opposed, but they have taken this route anyway.  We
saw this around NAFTA, China/WTO, etc.  I have been arguing (to those
who will listen to my harangue) that this strategy is a mistake.  The
political costs outweigh the benefits, IMO.  We alienate "soft"
supporters of justice-oriented initiatives who are worried about
protectionism; they think that, if liberalization is defeated, the most
reactionary business interests will be the ones who pick up the pieces.
My view is that every alliance risks a corresponding alienation.  You
have to decide who you want to reach out to, and who you are willing to
write off.  As a political matter, I would rather extend myself to
hesitant left-liberals than cozy up to a North Carolina textile baron.
(And I am very willing to piss off liberals in other contexts...)
Peter

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

June 11, 2003

After Winning the War
The Empire Expands Wider and Still Wider
By ERIC HOBSBAWM


But the global empire of Britain, the first industrial nation,
worked with the grain of the globalisation that the development of
the British economy did so much to advance. The British empire was a
system of international trade in which, as industry developed in
Britain, it essentially rested on the export of manufactures to less
developed countries. In return, Britain became the major market for
the world's primary products (2). After it ceased to be the workshop
of the world, it became the centre of the globe's financial system.
Not so the US economy. That rested on the protection of native
industries, in a potentially gigantic market, against outside
competition, and this remains a powerful element in US politics.
When US industry became globally dominant, free trade suited it as
it had suited the British. But one of the weaknesses of the 21st
century US empire is that in the industrialised world of today the
US economy is no longer as dominant as it was (3). What the US
imports in vast quantities are manufactures from the rest of the
world, and against this the reaction of both business interests and
voters remains protectionist. There is a contradiction between the
ideology of a world dominated by US-controlled free trade, and the
political interests of important elements inside the US who find
themselves weakened by it.


What should US leftists do about this contradiction -- the
contradiction that has been ignored by the US branch of the so-called
"global justice movement"?
--
Yoshie
* Calendars of Events in Columbus:
,
, & 
* Student International Forum: 
* Committee for Justice in Palestine: 
* Al-Awda-Ohio: 
* Solidarity:

Re: Kids and Uncle Karl

JKS wrote:

>Years ago I was stuck in traffic due to roadwork
>with my daughter, then aged about 4

I am going to report you for child exploitation... doing roadwork with
your daughter.

No wonder you are a rightwingsexistbigotoppressordupe.

Ken.

--
>From the contagion of the world's slow stain he is secure.
  -- Shelley

Re: Runaway help desks

2003-06-16 Thread Eugene Coyle

Jim Devine, in a post "Hope springs eternal" quoted Everett Ehrlich, a former undersecretary of Commerce
in the Clinton administration
pointing out the wonders of productivity:

But what about productivity?
Doesn't it force prices to fall? Sure, productivity allows firms to sell
for less, but if higher productivity led to deflation, prices would have
fallen for all of human history. Productivity growth isn't a problem - it's
a miracle. If it weren't for productivity growth, we'd all have the standard
of living of mule drivers and wood cutters.

A more productive worker earns more in the marketplace and in turn spends
more. And spending more keeps prices stable, if not rising.
Kenneth Campbell wonders what happens to the checkers and baggers when self-scanning
takes hold. Ehrlich, the esteemed undersecretary assumes full employment.
But if laying off checkers and baggers counts as productivity improvement,
shouldn't the nominal prices at the market be adjusted upward to take into
account that the customer is now doing the work?
A very large amount of what used to be paid labor has been shifted onto
the customer, pumping your own gas being the easiest example. And there
have been studies showing that prices do NOT go down when the work is shifted
onto the customer as "productivity" cuts the vendor's costs. (I recall a
study comparing gasoline prices in NJ and Penna, the former outlawing self-pumping.)

And the assumption that a drop in costs equals a drop in prices is buried
deep in our textbooks but is fatuous.

Gene Coyle

Kenneth Campbell wrote:

Sabri wrote:

Today, I went to Home Depot to buy some halogen lamps. After
I picked up the lamps, I proceeded to the check out area and
came across this automated cashier there: You scan your own
items, swipe your credit card and all.

What will happen to the human cashiers if one of these days
these automated ones replace them?

Seth wrote in reply:

The Home Depot example you mention is striking. I noticed it
a month or so ago in Sacramento. We are seeing the rise of
dead labor (machinery) and the demise of living labor
(people).

I first saw this last Yule season, at the Loblaws (Ontario grocery
chain) at a downtown Toronto "superstore."

Big open area to scan. The store designers placed it in full view of the
main entrance/exit.

My kids (under 10) were with me -- they gave it a thumbs up. They got to
scan and bag the items.

As we were doing it, there were many perplexed folks arriving/exiting --
and looking on. I would hear them whispering to each other, trying to
figure it out. Then, inevitably, realizing it was "self scanning."

In terms of what will happen to the human element of ringing in and
bagging... I suppose it will replicate what bank machines did to bank
tellers. Reduce their number.

I don't see that as bad, of itself. But, in the context of a world in
which that saving of mundane human labor is usually squandered into
unemployment insurance stints, desperation, and other wastes of life and
energy... it won't help anybody in this lifetime.

But nothing wrong with losing the cashiers and bagboys of the nation.
They can't be relocated to Indonesia.

Ken.

--
It is a principle that shines impartially on the just and the unjust
that once you have a point of view all history will back you up.
-- Van Wyck Brooks
"America's Coming of Age," 1915

Re: Kids and Uncle Karl



The globe spinning and pointing out Iraq didn't really register, nortalk of oil reserves, nor power and influence... But oppression did. (Ididn't use that word, but she grasped it.)* * * 
Years ago I was stuck in traffic due to roadwork with my daughter, then aged about 4 (now 13), and to pass the time, and to explain that roads are made and not grown, I asked her, "Hannah, what are those workers doing?" I expected an answer like, Digging, or Dumping gunk in the street, or Making a road, or some such. ? Without missing a beat, and with no prompting whatsoever, she said, "They're being exploited." After I got my breath back, I gasped, "Yes, they are producing surplus value, but what, physically, are they doing with their hands?" She looked at me with scorn and pity. "Digging the road, Daddy." (Anyone could see that!) jks
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Kids and Uncle Karl

In thread "[PEN-L] economics and sociology" JKS wrote:

> My 10 yr old son asked me yesterday, What kind of scientist
> was Karl Marx? We had been talking about Galileo, Newton,
> etc. And German idealism ("They sort of believe the world
> is like the Matrix, right, Dad?") (He made me insert the
> word "like" into that sentence just now.) I toild him the
> question about Marx was a good hard question, and after
> some reflection the best approximate answer was that he was
> a social scientist whose interests ranged across all the
> disciplines in social science as wel call them today, and
> some. We have a strange household.

My 9-year-old girl has been gently introduced to Marx through her own
developing idea of "fairness." (I don't particularly care what label
Marx is given, "scientist" or "not." As to children, labels are tools to
a direct goal.)

"Fair" is transformed continually with each age... but, as she is
defining it for herself at the moment. I'll stick with a positivist spin
on what fair means.

In terms of the actual explanation of Marx as a person (or influence),
the first real explanation I offered involved a globe and the bombing of
a place that a few of her friends in her class that happened to be from
the country bombed.

The globe spinning and pointing out Iraq didn't really register, nor
talk of oil reserves, nor power and influence... But oppression did. (I
didn't use that word, but she grasped it.)

My fave story about Karl's personal life involve his attempts to explain
to his girls what he was writing about all the time for newspapers.
Politics. Eleanor talked about "dad talks" about Poland and Ireland --
and her own understanding of the "unfairness" of it. ("The poor Poles.")

In the end, that is really what it comes down to: Why do some children
grow up with privilege and others do not? I could tell she thought about
it.

We are all born into a world not of our own making... so who made it
this way? And who keeps it this way?

I hope she keeps thinking about it.

Economists help answer the latter. Marx dealt with the former. Answering
the latter without the former is a real desolate place to be for a
kid... (you end up with something like postmodernism -- endless nervous
chatter, signifying nothing.)

Ken.

--
Psychoanalysis, under the guise of curing people of mental
ailments, has been essentially a movement that replicates
itself and whose central purpose is to replicate itself.
Or as I once put it, it produces more converts than cures.
  -- Frederick Crews
 UCB Globetrotter, 1999

Re: Hobsbawn on the American Empire

Ah yes, but then much of the gold that flowed
into Spain flowed back out to another of its
underlings, Holland, who eventually went for
its independence, all the gold that did not end
up gilding churches that is.
Barkley Rosser
- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 1:49 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Hobsbawn on the American Empire


> On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 06:51:10 -0400, Michael Pollak
> wrote:
> > I thought Spain was the very model of an empire that
> > sucked in so much
> > gold that it deindustrialized itself.  (In early
> modern
> > sense of
> > industry.)
>
> H yes and this was the one that worried me too.
> But I think that from an (utterly anachronistic)
> national income accounting point of view, digging up
> gold overseas and returning it home would count as a
> credit item on the current account balance; by doing
> so, Spain in principle reduced its net debtor position
> with respect to the rest of the world.  It's
> complicated because there is no counterpart on the
> capital account because they are literally digging up
> the gold, but I'd still be tempted to call Imperial
> Spain a net exporter of capital because it was a net
> importer of treasure.
>
> dd
>

Re: Empire and Current Account

2003-06-16 Thread Forstater, Mathew

Ellen, I asked someone who does stuff in this area and he said that
trade with the colonies was counted as foreign trade in all the cases he
knows of, but some of the European countries in their statistical
yearbooks that he has seen divided foreign trade into intra-empire trade
and other trade.
Mat
-Original Message-
From: Ellen Frank [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 9:15 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PEN-L] Empire and Current Account

This reminds me of a question I have long had to
which one of you out there may have an answer.
How did imperial Europe account for trade with
colonies in the 1800s?  Was Congolese rubber
sent to Belgium counted as a Belgian import or was
it treated as internal trade within Belgium?

I would think the whole point of an empire is to extract
resources and labor from one's colonies, not the
other way round.

Ellen

PEN-L list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>John Gray (not the author of "Men are from Mars")
>thinks that the really strange thing about the current
>situation is that the USA is the first empire to be
>running a structural current account deficit rather
>than a surplus.  I rather think that I agree with him,
>although I have not checked his assertion that Britain,
>Spain, Rome etc all exported capital.
>
>dd
>

'Straussians' in the news; the world trembles

'Straussians' in the news; the world trembles (I)
Why not blame the war on a sinister clique which
has duped the public and even the President?

Clifford Orwin
National Post
Monday, June 16, 2003


Hardly a day passes now when I don't wake up to read about myself in the
papers. I've become one of the hottest topics in journalism. In
European, American and even Canadian newspapers, the articles
proliferate. The world continues prostrate in awe or rage toward the
"Straussian" legions who allegedly control American foreign policy and
brought us the war against Saddam.

The "Straussians," c'est moi. True, unlike my friends in the Bush
administration, I just belong to the academic wing of our outfit. My
idea of wielding power is to force my classes at the university to meet
for more hours than are listed in the calendar. We spend those hours
poring over old works of political philosophy, often ones written in
ancient Greek. No women throw themselves at me, seduced by the scent of
power. (A few might find it cute that I'm so earnest about teaching the
classics.) As for the ambitious, whether male or female, they're off
studying commerce and finance.

Yet if you believe what you've been reading lately, my friends in the
administration and I are all part of the same vast conspiracy. We're out
to subvert American democracy (and, by implication, Canadian). According
to this scenario, the division of labour is as follows: I teach
subversion and they practise it. While their roles in government are
nominally advisory, in fact they're in charge, having hoodwinked their
superiors including Mr. Bush himself. It's got to be the most successful
conspiracy going today. With the possible exception of the Elders of
Zion -- but there's an overlap, since many "Straussians" are Jews.

"Straussians" haven't entirely escaped the attention of journalists in
the past. But the current obsession with them is novel. It reflects
exasperation on the left over the Bush administration's continued
popularity following the war in Iraq. And it takes advantage of the
failure so far to find the anticipated weapons of mass destruction. Hey,
why not blame the war on a sinister clique, who have duped the American
public and maybe even the President himself? Why not cast the war as a
defeat for democracy rather than a victory for it?

But how do "Straussians" come in? Who are they and what's the basis for
pinning such stuff on them?

"Straussians" are admirers of Leo Strauss (1899-1973). A German Jew,
Strauss emigrated in 1932 and taught in the United States from 1938
until his death. He deeply impressed many of his students, who went on
to impress many of theirs, and so on through the intellectual
generations of which we have now reached the fifth. This enterprise just
keeps going and growing. But it doesn't dominate the world, or even the
universities. From day one, Strauss attracted not only admiration but
intense antagonism, which has persisted until the present day. Much of
this hostility arises from the fact that Straussians are reputed
"conservatives." Indeed, according to their enemies, "Straussians" are
"anti-liberal," which is to say they may just as well be fascists.

"Straussians," following Strauss himself, are indeed conservative in a
certain sense, but what they're trying to conserve is liberal democracy,
on the one hand, and a Socratic approach to philosophy, on the other. As
a young Jew in Weimar Germany, Strauss foresaw the disaster looming over
Germany and its Jews. In his youth he was an active Zionist, and
remained a lifelong supporter of Israel. He was personally acquainted
with Martin Heidegger, whom he admired as the greatest philosopher of
the 20th century. But Heidegger was a Nazi, and Strauss understood his
thought too well to dismiss his Nazism as accidental. To him,
Heidegger's uncanny combination of theoretical greatness and moral evil
confirmed the fundamental immoderation that lay at the core of modern
thought.

Modernity, Strauss went on to argue, had always combined a political
project with an intellectual one. Indeed it had redefined theory itself
as something practical. Modern thinkers had aspired from the beginning
to transform the conditions of human life so radically as to bring into
being a whole new world. The premise of this project was that a vast
increase of human power would lead to a proportionate increase in
happiness. In politics, as in every realm of human life, this project
was by definition boundless. This fostered excessive hopefulness, and
with it moral fanaticism culminating in tyranny (and worse than
tyranny). Marxism and fascism were thus typical in their very extremism.

Heidegger's "new thinking" not only swept pre-war Germany but has
remained the dominant mode of Western thought ever since. It underlies
all forms of what calls itself "postmodernity." In response to it
Strauss offered an amazing suggestion. He raised the possibility that
premodern thinkers, whether of the classical or biblic

Re: Weapons hunters watch films

 Actually rather than comment on this issue directly,
now that it is becoming increasingly clear to anyone
paying attention (and here in the US Fox TV is trying
very hard to focus peoples' attention on important
stuff like the Laci Peterson murder), that both the WMD
and al Qaeda-link arguments for the war in Iraq were
completely bogus.  So, the arguments that are being
handed out to keep the wolves at bay are "liberation
of Iraqis" (replay tapes of that small group hitting Saddam's
statue with their shoes), "torture chambers" (yes, those
were bad, they were also not news), and "mass graves."
  I am wondering about these latter.  It is my impression
that the overwhelming majority of these are linked to the
putting down of armed uprisings, especially in the immediate
aftermath of the first Gulf war, rather than being dumping
grounds for political prisoners coming out of the torture
chambers.  These are very different kettles of fish, needless
to say, as the US has its own mass graves of the first sort,
in such places as Gettysburg, to mention a well known one.
  Is there anybody on the list who has more information
regarding what is what on this matter?  "Mass graves" has
increasingly become the new two word answer being used
by war proponents to silence anyone daring to criticize it.
Barkley Rosser
- Original Message -
From: "Chris Burford" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 2:12 AM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Weapons hunters watch films


> At 2003-06-16 00:01 +0100, I wrote:
> >On page 2 of Sunday Times, London
> >
> >"Weapons hunters watch films as trail goes cold.
> >
> >by Christina Lamb, Baghdad.
>
>
> >It looks as if some of it is an off the record leak by the senior UK
> >representative in Iraq, to defuse little by little the growing problem
for
> >the UK  (less so for the USA) if no WMD are found, and to explain the
> >difficulties for the poor Brits in having to work with these Americans
(who
> >can't even fix the air-conditioning).
>
> On re-reading, I think Alastair Campbell's name at the beginning suggests
> the sequence. Campbell deliberately gave a low key background briefing in
> London. We do not know whether it was specifically to a Sunday Times
> reporter, or thrown away as an aside in a briefing to the press in
general.
> Either way, the Sunday Times got their reporter in Baghdad to follow it up
> with a few direct interviews with the UK representative in Iraq, and with
> Brits in a weapons inspections team in an overheated bombed out palace,
> whose location had been kindly mad eavailable to the ST reporter.
>
> The London desk of the ST then checks for an official statement from the
> Pentagon and from the Prime Ministers official spokesperson, which ends
the
> story off with a repetition of the official line.
>
> But Campbell is ever so discretely managing the news against Rumsfeld,
just
> as Rumsfeld is callously ignoring the public embarrassment of the UK
> government. Campbell probably has Blair's consent in managing the
explosive
> issues of the non-existent WMD in this way. The fingerprints are hardly
> detectable.
>
> Chris Burford
>
>
> PS I would be grateful if people do not cut and paste this article outside
> this list. It is not available on the ST website except through a specific
> search, presumably as part of the ST trying to build up e-business. It
> cannot be copied from the website and it includes a typo by me. My
> fingerprints are therefore also detectable. (Perhaps we should invite
> Campbell onto this list and have a discussion about 'processology'.)
>
>
> Of course it is all free advertising, so since the Sunday Times is
probably
> the best of the Murdoch empire, I will add the URL
>
> www.timesonline.co.uk/section/0,,2086,00.html
>

Slicing off the top

Walking thru the Art Gallery of Ontario with a friend, she commented on
the wall of contributors as we were leaving. I said, off-handedly, it
was a "wall of people with too much money." She said it was _because_ of
these people that we had just enjoyed a couple hours. I said that was
technically true, but, if we just took all that wealth off them, we
could give it to ourselves and use that wall for something else.

She laughed, and we headed for lunch.

It was just an impromptu aside as we left.

But, through lunch, I was wondering what the flow of funds would mean in
straight fiscal terms, both in terms of squandered excess and
misdirected investment.

(A tiny group, they would not be missed in any social sense -- they
prefer invisibility anyway.)

If that toppermost wealthy elite were packed off on an ice-floe
(Canadian tradition with elders) and the economic "function" they had
previously provided were simply thrown into some (for immediate email
purposes) vaguely-defined pool that was equally-vaguely controlled by
some lever of elected body...

Would life be any better?


Ken.

--
An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous.
  -- Henry Ford

Re: Runaway help desks

Sabri wrote:

>>Today, I went to Home Depot to buy some halogen lamps. After
>>I picked up the lamps, I proceeded to the check out area and
>>came across this automated cashier there: You scan your own
>>items, swipe your credit card and all.
>>
>>What will happen to the human cashiers if one of these days
>>these automated ones replace them?

Seth wrote in reply:

>The Home Depot example you mention is striking.  I noticed it
>a month or so ago in Sacramento.  We are seeing the rise of
>dead labor (machinery) and the demise of living labor
>(people).

I first saw this last Yule season, at the Loblaws (Ontario grocery
chain) at a downtown Toronto "superstore."

Big open area to scan. The store designers placed it in full view of the
main entrance/exit.

My kids (under 10) were with me -- they gave it a thumbs up. They got to
scan and bag the items.

As we were doing it, there were many perplexed folks arriving/exiting --
and looking on. I would hear them whispering to each other, trying to
figure it out. Then, inevitably, realizing it was "self scanning."

In terms of what will happen to the human element of ringing in and
bagging... I suppose it will replicate what bank machines did to bank
tellers. Reduce their number.

I don't see that as bad, of itself. But, in the context of a world in
which that saving of mundane human labor is usually squandered into
unemployment insurance stints, desperation, and other wastes of life and
energy... it won't help anybody in this lifetime.

But nothing wrong with losing the cashiers and bagboys of the nation.
They can't be relocated to Indonesia.

Ken.

--
It is a principle that shines impartially on the just and the unjust
that once you have a point of view all history will back you up.
  -- Van Wyck Brooks
 "America's Coming of Age," 1915

Sex.com and monopoly

The biggest legal defence to the legendary ineptitude of VeriSign (nee
NSI) has been this notion that there is no intellectual property in a
domain name. It's a license.

I guess that is a way of saying it is a monopoly and not liable for
damages for incompetence on the part of the license granter. That is an
interesting legal theory.

I have followed this case closely from the ground level. I can't believe
it went to the US Supreme Court.

The implications of the decision would perhaps hurt VeriSign, but, as
someone else noted about Boeing, right now, you can't cripple the
institution because it carries such a load. Slap wrists but don't whack
knee caps. The .com registry is a bit like that.

As to the actual damages Kremen was awarded... I doubt they would be
that large had Cohen actually showed up. Since he didn't, the judge took
whatever accounting hyperbole was at hand to hit back.

Ken.

--
Most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad.
  -- Diogenes the Cynic
 (perhaps aptly so-called)


--- cut here ---


Sex.com finds owner at last
Sex.com has proved very lucrative for cyber-squatter

 BBC News
 Friday, 13 June, 2003


The long and steamy legal battle over who owns the internet address
sex.com has finally come to an end.

The US Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from cyber-squatter Stephen
Cohen, who was claiming ownership of the domain name.

The ruling is expected to set a precedent about the ownership of website
addresses.

The court heard that Mr Cohen had obtained the lucrative sex.com
address - thought to be worth over $500,000 a month in advertising space
alone - illegally from Gary Kremen.

Mr Kremen had originally registered the domain name with Verisign, known
at the time as Network Solutions.

But Mr Cohen allegedly sent a forged letter to Verisign, asking the
address to be handed over to him.

Online landlords

Verisign complied without checking the letter or contacting Mr Kremen.

Mr Cohen proceeded to create a multi-million online porn empire using
the name.

The rejection of Mr Cohen's appeal against a $65m damage award puts an
end to six years of legal wrangling.

It is seen by legal experts as a landmark case because it holds the .com
registry Verisign accountable for allowing the erroneous transfer of
ownership to take place.

It is also a test case of whether an internet address can be treated as
property, with domain owners given legal rights in a similar way to
offline landlords.

Huge bill

Now Mr Kremen faces an uphill struggle to recover his costs because Mr
Cohen is a fugitive from justice in Mexico.

Forcing Verisign to accept blame for transferring the domain name in the
first place could prove equally difficult.

Verisign maintains that domain names are not legal property and as such
it cannot be held accountable for giving it away.

If it loses, as legal experts expect, Verisign would face a huge legal
bill and fines of up to £100m.

Re: Hobsbawn on the American Empire

2003-06-16 Thread dsquared

On Mon, 16 Jun 2003 06:51:10 -0400, Michael Pollak
wrote:
> I thought Spain was the very model of an empire that
> sucked in so much
> gold that it deindustrialized itself.  (In early
modern
> sense of
> industry.)

H yes and this was the one that worried me too.
But I think that from an (utterly anachronistic)
national income accounting point of view, digging up
gold overseas and returning it home would count as a
credit item on the current account balance; by doing
so, Spain in principle reduced its net debtor position
with respect to the rest of the world.  It's
complicated because there is no counterpart on the
capital account because they are literally digging up
the gold, but I'd still be tempted to call Imperial
Spain a net exporter of capital because it was a net
importer of treasure.

dd

Re: Empire and Current Account

2003-06-16 Thread Peter Dorman

But I think the idea is not to pay very much for them -- certainly less
than they pay for what they get from you.  And in capitalist empires
there is also the issue of the Keynesian demand constraint.
The other question is interesting.  Throws a new light on the GNP v GDP
business...
Peter

Ellen Frank wrote:

This reminds me of a question I have long had to
which one of you out there may have an answer.
How did imperial Europe account for trade with
colonies in the 1800s?  Was Congolese rubber
sent to Belgium counted as a Belgian import or was
it treated as internal trade within Belgium?
I would think the whole point of an empire is to extract
resources and labor from one's colonies, not the
other way round.
Ellen

PEN-L list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:


John Gray (not the author of "Men are from Mars")
thinks that the really strange thing about the current
situation is that the USA is the first empire to be
running a structural current account deficit rather
than a surplus.  I rather think that I agree with him,
although I have not checked his assertion that Britain,
Spain, Rome etc all exported capital.
dd

From Maoism to Paris Match

2003-06-16 Thread Louis Proyect

Je suis un superstar

With his movie-star lifestyle, celebrity friends and best-selling books, 
writer-philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy is the darling of the French 
chattering classes. But can 'BHL' be serious?

Gaby Wood
Sunday June 15, 2003
The Observer
When I arrive at Bernard-Henri Lévy's sumptuous apartment in the centre 
of Paris, a film crew is just packing up. There could hardly be a more 
fitting introduction: Lévy has, as his fellow intellectual Pierre 
Bourdieu once put it, an 'immoderate taste' for television studios, and 
his ubiquity has become something of a joke. Lévy is a bestselling 
writer, philosopher, political campaigner, pundit and luscious-locked 
superstud in France; but perhaps his greatest facility is for fame itself.

At any given moment, he might be seen on the cover of Paris Match 
magazine, in the windows of numerous bookshops, and on several chat 
shows simultaneously. He and his glamorous wife, the indomitably pouty 
actress Arielle Dombasle, are the gossip columns' favourite couple. His 
clothes (open-necked white shirts and designer suits), his friends (Yves 
Saint Laurent, Alain Delon, Salman Rushdie), his homes (the flat in 
Saint Germain, a hideaway in the South of France, an eighteenth-century 
palace in Marrakech that used to belong to John Paul Getty) are 
endlessly commented on. He is rarely referred to by his full name, and 
is known instead as a brand: BHL. He is like an unfathomably French 
combination of Melvyn Bragg, J.K. Rowling and David Beckham. If 
Bernard-Henri Lévy didn't exist, you couldn't possibly invent him.

(clip)

Bernard-Henri Lévy was born in Algeria in 1948. His mother was the 
daughter of a rabbi, and his father had fought in the Spanish Civil War. 
During the Second World War, Lévy père joined the Free French, and 
afterwards founded a lumber company that made him a millionaire. 
Bernard-Henri has a sister, Véronique, and a brother, Philippe, who was 
run over by a car in 1968 and about whom he will not speak except to 
confirm that he is still in a coma.

He studied at the École Normale Supérieure under the tutelage of the 
great Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, who was later committed to an 
insane asylum after murdering his wife. The news about the murder came 
to Lévy as a terrible shock, but he still considers the man his mentor: 
'Afterwards,' he says, 'I came to reinterpret the silences I had taken 
to be philosophical and the gaze I had thought meditative as expressions 
of his mental disarray. It's one of the great mysteries of the French 
intellectual scene how this man of unbridled insanity could have taught 
us rigour and rationality.'

There is some debate over what exactly Lévy did in May 1968. Many assume 
he was leading demos, like other student radicals. Others have suggested 
that he watched the entire revolt on television, thereby learning an 
important lesson about the power of the media. He himself wrote 30 years 
later that he was not on the barricades, but with a girlfriend who was 
in hospital (or might this be a veiled reference to his brother?). When 
I ask him about the period, he offers the BHL version of solidarity: 'I 
was ideologically quite aligned with the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist 
movement of the time, but in my own way,' he says, 'my own very 
individualistic and not very team-spirited way.'

At the age of 28 he published Barbarism with a Human Face, and became 
the most famous member of a group called the nouveaux philosophes who 
turned against Marxism. He was hailed as the new Camus, mistaken for the 
new Rimbaud. Lévy became such an overnight success he was dubbed a 
'publicity philosopher', and the group was suspected of being, in one TV 
commentator's words, 'an intellectual marketing coup'. An article in the 
New York Review of Books reported that metaphysics had been 'resurrected 
as media hype'.

Soon after that, he met Arielle Dombasle, who has said that when she 
first saw him she thought Lévy was Jesus Christ. He was on his second 
marriage by then, and had two children. Lévy and Dombasle embarked on a 
seven-year secret affair before he made her his third wife in 1993. 
Dombasle is regularly voted one of the most beautiful women in the world 
by her countrymen, is rumoured to have the smallest waist in Paris, and 
has recently found success with an album on which she sings techno 
versions of Fauré and Handel. In public, she still addresses Lévy, 
formally, as 'vous'.

Five years ago, Lévy directed his wife in his first feature film. She 
starred opposite Alain Delon, who played a writer clearly based on Lévy 
himself. The film was universally panned, not least for the final scene 
in which the writer dies in a ballooning accident, exploding, as it 
were, in his own hot air. Lévy is still proud of the film, which he says 
is 'a lot like me'.

Since he thinks no one knows anything about his life, would Lévy say 
that BHL is a character, a construction?

'Yes,' he admits, 'but a character constr

hope springs eternal

2003-06-16 Thread Devine, James

Title: hope springs eternal

This former leading singer of "Red Shadow," the economics rock'n'roll band, may turn out to be right that deflation won't happen, but he totally ignores the fact that low interest rates encourages not only spending but increased private-sector indebtedness, which not only creates increasing barriers to expansion in the near future but is what makes deflation (when it occurs) such a disaster.

COMMENTARY/L.A. TIMES.
Expectations of Economic Deflation Are Highly Inflated
The folks worried about falling prices are helping to spur growth.
By Everett Ehrlich

June 16, 2003

Every so often some economists decide that everything they ever learned was wrong and, from that moment on, everything is going to be completely different.

Twenty years ago it was the idea that cutting taxes radically would pay for itself. Predictably, the nation's largest peacetime deficits resulted. Five years ago it was the idea that the Internet made companies valuable even if they produced no profit and very little product. Unsurprisingly, the stock market nose-dived soon thereafter.

Now, the idea is deflation - that prices are going to fall steadily just as they've risen steadily for all of our lives.

Want to bet how this turns out?

Everyone agrees that sustained deflation would be a very bad thing. If people expect prices to fall every year, then why buy anything now, why invest in anything now and why not keep your money stuffed in a mattress as it continually grows in value?

But the fact that deflation is bad doesn't mean it is imminent.

The proponents of impending deflation have their reasons. The first is that Iraqi oil supplies will trigger a global glut. Another is that productivity is so strong throughout the economy. And then there's the global deflationary monster, China, whose 1.3 billion people work for beans and will soon make all the world's cars, computers and cat litter.

How can global prices do anything but fall in the face of these unrelenting pressures?

Hold on. Let's say oil prices fall from their current level of about $27 to, say, $5 a barrel. Fine - what do they do next year, fall another 20 bucks? Lower oil prices aren't sustained deflation; they're a one-shot deal. And dollars to doughnuts you'll take the money you saved at the gas pump and buy something else, and the price of whatever it is will go up.

But what about productivity? Doesn't it force prices to fall? Sure, productivity allows firms to sell for less, but if higher productivity led to deflation, prices would have fallen for all of human history. Productivity growth isn't a problem - it's a miracle. If it weren't for productivity growth, we'd all have the standard of living of mule drivers and wood cutters.

A more productive worker earns more in the marketplace and in turn spends more. And spending more keeps prices stable, if not rising.

Which leaves the idea that China will export its own poverty to us through lower prices for everything.

China has certainly been a prodigious exporter, but most of its success has come at the expense of low-wage Asian and Latin American nations that make similar products. So China's products are not lowering world prices so much as out-competing the products of other low-wage producers. The stuff China makes is already cheap. Moreover, at some point, China won't be a low-wage producer. China's currency is officially pegged to the dollar, but the pressure to allow it to appreciate is substantial. When it inevitably does, China's products will become less cheap. It's all part of the Chinese economy growing up.

Today, deflation is the economy's biggest worry. Even Alan Greenspan acknowledges that it would be a bear. But the best argument against deflation is that the U.S. economy is about to grow, and, ironically, the deflationists have all but assured that growth.

In response to their worries, the Fed has made money cheap, because everyone knows that's the way to fight deflation. So now financial markets, caught in the thrall of the deflationary and "slow growth" crowd, are confident that the Fed is going to keep money cheap to fight deflation not only this quarter and this year but this entire decade.

Already, the rate of return on 10-year Treasury bonds is 3.11% - 3.11%, that's all you get. Somebody must think that's an acceptable interest rate, because somebody is lending the government their money at that rate.

But I'll tell you who thinks that's cheap - everybody who's refinancing his or her house, often for the second time. People are running to borrow at these rates. And the corporations refinancing their debts think it's cheap too.

Those very low interest rates mean that households and corporations will have low borrowing costs for years to come, setting the stage for more rapid - non-deflationary - growth. The deflationists who lent their money to them at these interest

Empire and Current Account

2003-06-16 Thread Ellen Frank

This reminds me of a question I have long had to
which one of you out there may have an answer.
How did imperial Europe account for trade with
colonies in the 1800s?  Was Congolese rubber
sent to Belgium counted as a Belgian import or was
it treated as internal trade within Belgium?

I would think the whole point of an empire is to extract
resources and labor from one's colonies, not the
other way round.

Ellen

PEN-L list <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>John Gray (not the author of "Men are from Mars")
>thinks that the really strange thing about the current
>situation is that the USA is the first empire to be
>running a structural current account deficit rather
>than a surplus.  I rather think that I agree with him,
>although I have not checked his assertion that Britain,
>Spain, Rome etc all exported capital.
>
>dd
>

Re: Hobsbawn on the American Empire