moral issue is a distraction - Monbiot
George Monbiot, Tues Nov 25 in a thoughtful and cogent criticism of David Aaronovitch's position in debating the war, those of us who opposed it find ourselves drawn into this fairytale. We are obliged to argue about the relative moral merits of leaving Saddam in place or deposing him, while we know, though we are seldom brave enough to say it, that the moral issue is a distraction. The genius of the hawks has been to oblige us to accept a fiction as the reference point for debate. http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1092487,00.html My only reservation is that after all the realpolitik, Bush (and Blair) still have to appeal to some sort of higher ideology because they are trying not just to maintain dominance in a traditional balance of power: the logic is for integrated global empire. And state bodies, whether national or global need both bodies of armed men able to act at the direction of the ruling classes, but also an ideology to appear to stand above classes, and minimise the cost of unnecessary frequent use of overt force. Chris Burford London
Re: $/Euro dynamics
That article by Stephen Roach is really superb I think, thanks for posting it, although I think the investigation should go further and look at the position of social classes in China. The essential issue is put very well: By putting pressure on the Chinese to change their currency regime, the industrial world is working at cross-purposes -- in effect, squandering the fruits of its own efforts. Fear of the so-called China threat completely misses this critical point. The power of the Chinese export machine is more traceable to us than it is to them. A psychotherapist would no doubt identify this as a blaming strategy - in this case, the yellow peril is to blame (a science which bases itself on the notion of rational economic actors exercising preferences in the market place must, when these actors do not actually display the rationality expected of them in response to price signals, end up on the therapist's couch). This blaming strategy results from the incapacity to analyse correctly the causal concatenation of events, and, consequently, the inability to place responsibility where it belongs. Needless to say, there exists a powerful potential within the world market to accentuate this irresponsibility, simply because it allows market actors to appropriate what they haven't created and play around with resources that don't really belong to them anyway, justified to the nth degree with reference to an enormous complexity of human motives. Once one begins to think through the implications of this seriously, one realises with a shock what a disaster the theoretical basis of neoclassical economics really is for the world, what a disaster it is, that at least three generations of economists have been trained to look at economic life on the basis of these wrong or arbitrary assumptions. That is why I think myself, that heterodox economics is of gigantic importance - it is not that neoclassical economics is entirely wrong, it is rather that we must tear out its valid content from the ideological framework in which it is contained, which prevents the correct application of its insights. Wassily Leontief remarked once, how Marx was the great character reader of the capitalist system, but not really a true economist, in the sense of being able to formulate good solutions for the optimal allocation of scarce resources. For his part, Ernest Mandel talked about the economic theory of Marxism, basically rejecting the idea of Marx-as-economist, since economics cannot be separated from class morality and class politics. And Ernesto Che Guevara remarked once (if I remember correctly) that although neoclassical economics was mainly a managerial ideology in capitalist society, its technical insights could often find valid application within a socialist-type economy (I do not remember the exact source of that quote). So personally, I think there is a gigantic task for heterodox economics, once we surmount the infantile diseases of Marxist dogmatic orthodoxy. The task of economics is indeed the optimal allocation of scarce resources, a concept of economising which can be traced at least as far back as Aristotle, but this task should be tackled on the foundation of classical political economy and Marx's critique of it. J.
Re: Amnesty International
Dave: Thanks very much indeed - you got the one I had fleetingly seen. Lou: Thanks for the review on AI on Palestine. Cheers thanks again, H Not to myself: must not lose URLS's, must not lose usLrp's. must not.. Re: Amnesty International by dave dorkin 26 November 2003 01:09 UTC Thread Index I would be grateful for assistance: Recently there
Forwarded from Michael Yates
This follows up some things Louis has been saying. First, let me quote myself (please note that the long quote reflects what mainstream economists think and what some progressive support in part, but not what I think): Why are there rich countries and poor countries? This question implies a more fundamental one: Why are some countries poor? What is missing in them that is present in the rich countries? The neoclassical answer to this question has various strands.Since neoclassical economists see capitalist economies as much more productive than any prior economic system, they contend that one reason why some countries are poor is that they are as yet insufficiently capitalist. Forty percent of the world's workforce is still in agriculture. In the poorest nations, much of this agriculture is relatively primitive, labor-intensive farming. This agriculture is inherently inefficient; a large outlay of hard labor is necessary just to feed rural families. There is little surplus to feed urban dwellers, much less trade with other countries. What is true for agriculture is true of much of the rest of the poor economies. The main problem is low productivity. What makes an economy productive, capable of raising its output with fewer inputs, is capital. Poor countries are poor, the neoclassical economist tells us, because they lack capital. Without capital, the cannot use modern capitalist techniques of production and must resort instead to highly labor intensive work processes. Capital is not just machinery and modern technology, however. It is also a trained and skilled workforce. Poor countries lack what the neoclassical economist calls human capital. Poorly educated and trained workers are bound to be relatively unproductive. The poverty of a nation, deriving from the lack of capital, in turn impoverishes the government, which cannot perform certain vital functions, such as maintaining the law and order necessary for smoothly operating markets. People unable to support themselves adequately otherwise will try to use the government for their own advancement. Thus poor countries show a marked proclivity for public corruption, and this makes the economy still less productive, as valuable resources are stolen or used to support a swollen state bureaucracy. A look at the rich countries reinforces the neoclassical arguments. In all of the rich countries, almost all economic activity goes through markets and is subject to competitive market discipline. Only the efficient survive in such markets. Agriculture takes up a tiny fraction of the labor force, and farming is ultra modern, with the ubiquitous use of sophisticated machinery and equipment. As a consequence, agriculture is extremely productive, producing a large surplus over basic consumption needs, both for rural communities and the nation as a whole. The labor displaced from agriculture provides workers for industry, and capitalist competition soon develops industry, providing a surplus of labor for work in the service sectors now dominant in all rich capitalist countries. The states of rich countries have sufficient resources, because incomes are high, to finance infrastructure and the institutions necessary to make the economic system still more efficient. Workers are highly educated and trained to be ever more productive. The chance to move up the economic ladderabsent in poor countrieskeeps workers on their toes, working hard, and making their economies productive. In the rich countries, fully developed markets create an environment in which prosperity feeds on itself. Wealth creates opportunities, the seizing of which creates more wealth: a virtuous circle of growth, opportunities (realizable through market competition), growth. What does the neoclassical economic advisor recommend to the poor nations? First and foremost, a poor nation must attract the requisite capital. Since the rich countries have the capital, the poor countries must obtain capital from them. This means opening up domestic economies to foreign capital. Any barriers to foreign capital, such as rules which limit foreign ownership or access to domestic currency, must be eliminated. Strong government structures must be put in place to guarantee the safety of foreign (and domestic) capital. Capital must be assured that it will not be nationalized or otherwise expropriated, and it must be certain that it will get to keep whatever profits it makes, minus a fair share for domestic taxes. Capitalists must not be forced to pay bribes to operate. Tariffs on foreign products must be speedily eliminated, so that cheaper foreign goods can get into the country and benefit domestic consumers. To make economic progress, a country must be willing to specialize in those goods for which it has a relative cost advantage. In poor countries, labor is cheap, so specialization can begin in those areas
Re: Amnesty International
Hari Kumar wrote: Dave: Thanks very much indeed - you got the one I had fleetingly seen. Lou: Thanks for the review on AI on Palestine. Cheers thanks again, H Not to myself: must not lose URLS's, must not lose usLrp's. must not.. Here is something brand-new: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles9/DeRooij_AI.htm -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Bush trumps royalty
the Bushes prefer long-dead plants, i.e., oil. BTW, in the lite-comedy movie LOVE ACTUALLY, the Prime Minister of England -- played by Hugh Grant, who would be an improvement over the poodle currently in that position -- gives a great speech against the over-bearing Americans, led by the President. The latter is played by Billy Bob Thornton, who combines the wolfishness of Clinton with the bullying of Bush. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine Another film that serves as a sign of the times: * FILM REVIEW; Master Of the Sea (And the French) By A. O. SCOTT ''DO you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly? Do you want your children to grow up singing the 'Marseillaise'?'' This is Jack Aubrey, commander of H.M.S. Surprise, rousing the patriotism of his men as they prepare to engage a faster, larger French vessel somewhere off the coast of South America. This ship is England, he proclaims, and ''Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World,'' which opens nationwide today, makes his point with magnificent vigor and precision. This stupendously entertaining movie, directed by Peter Weir and adapted from two of the novels in Patrick O'Brian's 20-volume series on Aubrey's naval exploits, celebrates an idea of England that might have seemed a bit corny even in 1805, when the action takes place. The Surprise is a stiffly hierarchal place of pomp and ritual that is nonetheless consecrated to ideals of fair play, decency and honor and ruled by a man whose claim on the words in the film's title comes, if not by divine right, then at least by demi-godlike force of character. Of course, life on the Surprise is not all high-minded talk and principled action. Winston Churchill once said that the foundations of British naval tradition consisted of rum, sodomy and the lash. ''Master and Commander,'' which is rated PG-13, settles for two out of three. It is tempting to read some contemporary geopolitical relevance into this film, which appears at a moment when some of the major English-speaking nations are joined in a military alliance against foes we sometimes need to be reminded do not actually include France. The Surprise may be England, but ''Master and Commander'' is something of an all-Anglosphere collaboration. Both the director and the star, Russell Crowe, are Australian (Mr. Crowe by way of New Zealand), and no fewer than three American studios (Universal, Miramax and 20th Century Fox, which is the United States distributor) paid for the production. The spectacle of British imperial self-defense has been made more palatable for American audiences by a discreet emendation of the literary source: the story has been moved back seven years from the War of 1812, when the British were fighting . . . but never mind. Bygones are bygones. . . . Aubrey (Mr. Crowe) is an ideal personification of modern executive authority -- the Harry Potter of the managerial class. His adventures are salted with arcane technical lore and administrative wisdom that resonate deeply with even the most landlubberly middle managers and office workers. ''Master and Commander,'' were it not a movie, could be a Powerpoint seminar advertised in an airline magazine: Leadership Secrets of the Royal Navy. . . . The Napoleonic wars that followed the French Revolution gave birth, among other things, to British conservatism, and ''Master and Commander,'' making no concessions to modern, egalitarian sensibilities, is among the most thoroughly and proudly conservative movies ever made. It imagines the Surprise as a coherent society in which stability is underwritten by custom and every man knows his duty and his place. I would not have been surprised to see Edmund Burke's name in the credits. . . . Published: 11 - 14 - 2003 , Late Edition - Final , Section E , Column 6 , Page 1 http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E6D81438F937A25752C1A9659C8B63 * -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Re: Bush trumps royalty
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: Another film that serves as a sign of the times: * FILM REVIEW; Master Of the Sea (And the French) By A. O. SCOTT I was thinking of reviewing this flick, but the reviews make it sound too tedious to sit through. About 8 years ago I visited old friends from my Trotskyist past who were living in Portland. Neither had bothered to inform me that they had made peace with the capitalist system. Both had been working in basic industry when in the party, but had switched to high-tech jobs. One of them was totally bonkers for the Patrick O'Brian novels. Looking back in retrospect, that made perfect sense. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: Bush trumps royalty
At 8:50 AM -0500 11/26/03, Louis Proyect wrote: Another film that serves as a sign of the times: * FILM REVIEW; Master Of the Sea (And the French) By A. O. SCOTT I was thinking of reviewing this flick, but the reviews make it sound too tedious to sit through. About 8 years ago I visited old friends from my Trotskyist past who were living in Portland. Neither had bothered to inform me that they had made peace with the capitalist system. Both had been working in basic industry when in the party, but had switched to high-tech jobs. One of them was totally bonkers for the Patrick O'Brian novels. Looking back in retrospect, that made perfect sense. Among the few mainstream movies that I have watched at multiplexes this year, I think that _28 Days Later_ was the best so far: * June 27, 2003, Friday MOVIES, PERFORMING ARTS/WEEKEND DESK FILM REVIEW; Spared by a Virus But Not by Mankind By A. O. SCOTT When ''28 Days Later'' is not scaring you silly, it invites you to reflect seriously on the fragility of modern civilization, which has been swept away by a gruesome and highly contagious virus while the hero lies peacefully in a coma. Four weeks after a laboratory full of rage-infected monkeys has been liberated by some tragically misguided animal rights militants, the whole of London -- and possibly every place else -- has been substantially depopulated. The churches and alleyways are littered with corpses, and fast-moving, red-eyed ''infecteds'' roam the streets looking for prey. Even the rats flee from them, and the few healthy humans face a Hobbesian battle for survival. But what is most striking, and most chilling, about the early scenes of this post-apocalyptic horror show, directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland, is the eerie, echoing emptiness. Stumbling out of his hospital bed, Jim (Cillian Murphy), a former bike messenger, encounters a familiar metropolis that has been almost entirely stripped of life. Postcard images of the Thames, London Bridge and the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral take on a lurid, funereal glow. After centuries of bustle and enterprise, what remain are vacant buildings, overturned double-decker buses, looted vending machines and cheap souvenir replicas of Big Ben scattered across the sidewalk. . . . Jim, it turns out, is not entirely alone. Before long, he and some other survivors -- a prickly loner named Selena (Naomie Harris); an affable dad, Frank (Brendan Gleeson); and Frank's adolescent daughter, Hannah (Megan Burns) -- have formed a tiny band of nomads, traveling the English countryside in a big, black taxi and discovering that caring for one another is not just a residue of extinct social norms, but also an expression of the survival instinct. Other expressions, as you might expect, are not so inspiring. Through the silence comes a radio signal, a voice promising that salvation and the answer to the virus lie with a group of soldiers just north of Manchester. They are led by Maj. Henry West (Christopher Eccleston), who seems to have graduated from a ''Lord of the Flies'' military academy. He and his men are on hand to demonstrate that those who offer protection and security can be even more dangerous than the virus-crazed zombies they keep at bay. . . . http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE6D8113BF934A15755C0A9659C8B63 * A very topical plot in the age of fear obsessed with genetic engineering, bioterror, and homeland security. -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Too many humans?
1,000 Times Too Many Humans? Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20031124/humans.html Humans Are Unsustainable Nov. 25, 2003 A study that compared humans with other species concluded there are 1,000 times too many humans to be sustainable. The study, published in the current Proceedings B (Biological Sciences) by the Royal Society, used a statistical device known as confidence limits to measure what the sustainable norm should be for species populations. Other factors, such as carbon dioxide production, energy use, biomass consumption, and geographical range were taken into consideration. Our study found that when we compare ourselves to otherwise similar species, usually other mammals of our same body size, for example, we are abnormal and the situation is unsustainable, said Charles Fowler, co-author of the paper and a lead researcher at the National Marine Mammal Laboratory, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Fowler likened the concept of normality to body temperature, where measurements can fall above or below the accepted average. A temperature of 105 degrees F, for example, is considered abnormal and unsustainable. In his paper, Fowler and colleague Larry Hobbs argue that the human population, now measured at approximately 6 billion, falls outside the range of sustainability, which puts us at risk. Collectively the risks reflect the complexity of biotic systems, but specifically (they) include things like the risk of extinction, starvation, and disease, Fowler told Discovery News. Such pathologies can be alleviated, according to the paper, but changes would have to be profound and widespread. It is probably not unrealistic to say that nothing less than a full paradigm shift is required to get there from here, Fowler explained. It requires changes in our thinking, belief systems and understanding of ourselves. William Rees, professor of community and regional planning at the University of British Columbia, disagrees that humans are abnormal and said, I would use the term 'unusual' instead. Rees explained that humanity has been inordinately successful. Unlike other species, humans can eat almost anything, adapt to any environment and develop technologies based on knowledge shared through written and spoken language. Rees, however, said that we may be fatally successful. He agrees that industrial society as presently configured is unsustainable. In the past 25 years we have adopted a near-universal myth of 'sustainable development' based on continuous economic growth through globalization and freer trade, Rees wrote in a recent Bulletin of Science, Technology, and Society paper. Because the assumptions hidden in the globalization myth are incompatible with biophysical reality the myth reinforces humanity's already dysfunctional ecological behavior. Rees believes unsustainability is, in part, driven by a natural predisposition to expand, in the same way that bacteria or any other species will multiply. He claims that it is an old problem, reflected in the collapses of numerous civilizations, such as the early human population at Easter Island. Rees told Discovery News that there is a way out, but he wonders if we will take it. Rees added, It would be a tragic irony if, in the 21st century, this most technologically sophisticated of human societies finally succumbs to the unconscious urgings of fatally self-interested primitive tribalism. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Strings attached, or, the financial world offers new initiatives in debt bargaining
The United States will deduct $289.5 million from loan guarantees to Israel over disagreements regarding Israeli activity in Palestinian territories. The Israeli Embassy in Washington announced late on Tuesday that the amount was suggested by Israel. Israel accepts that the United States does not view some of the Israeli activities to date in parts of Judea, Samaria and Gaza as being consistent with US policy, the statement reads. Israel understands that the US should not finance directly, or indirectly, activities with which it does not agree. Israel therefore suggested that the US deduct the agreed sum of $289.5 million from the $3 billion in loan guarantees currently available. An Israeli diplomat told AFP the decision was taken on Tuesday following a meeting in Washington between US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Dov Weisglass, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's chief of staff. Whole text at http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7DCEBB15-296E-4CFE-8ED3-F67E0ECCACF3. htm Bit of humour: Moses and Job are discussing about the latest news at in the school playground. Says Job: do you know what the American economy is ?. Says Moses: I think it's a sort of bank, a financial trust. Says Job: Then why do they make such a big thing of terrorism ?. Moses thinks, points his finger to his head, and says I think it's a projection. Says Job: projection of what ?. Moses shrugs, says, asking that, is like asking how did we end up here, being born in Eretz Israel ?.
America's Culture of Terrorism
* America's Culture of Terrorism: Violence, Capitalism, and the Written Word by Jeffory A. Clymer University of North Carolina Press 296 pp., 61/8 x 91/4, 5 illus., notes, bibl., index $45.00 cloth ISBN 0-8078-2792-4 $16.95 paper ISBN 0-8078-5460-3 Published: Fall 2003 Description Although the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 shocked the world, America has confronted terrorism at home for well over a century. With the invention of dynamite in 1866, Americans began to worry about anonymous acts of mass violence in a way that differed from previous generations' fears of urban riots, slave uprisings, and mob violence. Focusing on the volatile period between the 1886 Haymarket bombing and the 1920 bombing outside J. P. Morgan's Wall Street office, Jeffory Clymer argues that economic and cultural displacements caused by the expansion of industrial capitalism directly influenced evolving ideas about terrorism. In America's Culture of Terrorism, Clymer uncovers the roots of American terrorism and its impact on American identity by exploring the literary works of Henry James, Ida B. Wells, Jack London, Thomas Dixon, and Covington Hall, as well as trial transcripts, media reports, and the cultural rhetoric surrounding terrorist acts of the day. He demonstrates that the rise of mass media and the pressures of the industrial wage-labor economy both fueled the development of terrorism and shaped society's response to it. His analysis not only sheds new light on American literature and culture a century ago but also offers insights into the contemporary understanding of terrorism. About the author Jeffory A. Clymer is assistant professor of English at Saint Louis University. http://uncpress.unc.edu/books/T-6881.html * Jeffory A. Clymer: http://www.slu.edu/colleges/AS/ENG/faculty/clymer.html * Introduction Terrorism in the American Cultural Imagination In the penultimate draft of The Rise of Silas Lapham's famous dinner party scene, William Dean Howells's patrician character Bromfield Corey gives vent to a shocking idea. In some of my walks on the Hill and down on the Back Bay, Corey informs his startled guests, nothing but the surveillance of the local policeman prevents me from applying dynamite to those long rows of close-shuttered, handsome, brutally insensible houses.[1] Reading these words in 1885, Howells's editor, Richard Watson Gilder of the Century, quickly issued a panicked response to his renowned author. He warned Howells that it is the very word, dynamite, that is now so dangerous, for any of us to use, except in condemnation. Gilder then worried that Howells's fiction might yoke Howells himself to the crank who does the deed,[2] as if writing about dynamite and throwing dynamite are two versions of the same action. Howells ultimately acquiesced to Gilder's anxieties and substituted offering personal violence for the much more sinister applying dynamite in the American and English book versions of his novel.[3] Gilder's apprehensions about dynamite suddenly seemed prophetic the next year when a bomb exploded at an anarchist rally in Haymarket Square in America's volatile western metropolis of Chicago. The interpretation of the Haymarket bombing as a terrorist conspiracy is my subject in Chapter 1, but I should also note here that Howells's name was indeed closely tied to the political violence at Haymarket, albeit in a way that Gilder certainly did not anticipate. Howells emerged after the bombing as the only major American literary figure to publicly condemn the sham legal proceedings accorded the Haymarket anarchists.[4] However, Gilder and Howells's interaction in Lapham's editing bears significance for reasons far beyond its implications for Howells's biography. Gilder's case of editorial nerves offers one important barometer of American culture in the 1880s, which the famous editor apparently could imagine only as a besieged society subject to cataclysmic terrorist assaults at any moment. His almost visceral response to the massive power and indiscriminating slaughter made possible by dynamite prompted Howells to reach for the seemingly more manageable and smaller-scale notion of personal violence. Gilder's surprising concern that Howells's mere fictional pondering of a dynamite attack (let alone the depiction of a bombing itself) could somehow tie the author to a terrorist crank who actually throws a bomb also exemplifies the frequent disappearance of the boundary between fact and fiction in discussions of terrorism. Additionally, Howells's otherwise inconsequential revision in his most famous novel holds substantial import because the vast difference between his revisionary and original words -- offering personal violence and applying dynamite -- is also a key measure of modern terrorism itself. And lastly, in coupling the then-new fear of dynamite with the development of modern capitalism, personified here in the form of industrial magnate and stock speculator Lapham's
Greenspan's Ponzi Scheme
The Bear's Lair: Greenspan's Ponzi Scheme By Martin Hutchinson UPI Business and Economics Editor Published 11/24/2003 5:36 PM WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- A Ponzi scheme requires three things in order to be (temporarily) successful: a massive source of outside money, a sophisticated PR campaign, bloviating about its glories, and a magic mushroom to make people believe in it. U.S. monetary policy currently has all three. For those not around in 1920, Charles Ponzi ran a scam in which money was supposed to be invested in international postal coupons (the exchange rate disruptions of World War I had made it at least theoretically profitable to buy Spanish coupons and use them to pay U.S. postage.) The postal coupons were the magic mushroom -- providing the hallucinogenic ingredient that people didn't really understand, but that appeared to make it possible to make fantastic returns. By publicizing the success of early investors, paying back investors who demanded their money, and even agreeing to be audited, Ponzi created a PR campaign that attracted new money. By operating in the major money center of Boston, he maximized the access to new investors, whose money could be used to pay off old ones -- he was taking in $1 million per week at the peak, real money in 1920. Needless to say, Ponzi was imprisoned -- one of three prison terms he was to serve -- after which he emigrated to Mussolini's Italy, followed by post-war Brazil, scamming as he went. The equation of Greenspan to Ponzi does not suggest criminal intent -- just that many features of current U.S. monetary policy strangely resemble Ponzi's empire, and are likely to lead to similar painful results for all of us. With the exception of what seems now like a brief halcyon period in 1945-73, the last couple of centuries have been full of British financiers prognosticating gloomily about the unsoundness of the U.S. economy. In the 19th century, this gloom stemmed from experience -- more good British money was lost down the rat-holes of U.S. state finance in the late 1830s and U.S. railroad finance in the early 1890s than I care to think about. From a British viewpoint, there is indeed a good case for regretting that the City of London was so quick to finance transatlantic boondoggles (Argentina in 1826 and 1890 were also cases in point), and so slow, throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to finance sound industrial projects at home. With a more domestically-oriented and more industrially-oriented City of London, Britain today might have large and successful electrical equipment and automobile industries, in both of which sectors she led initially. As an English banker by training, I am therefore conscious of a certain lack of credibility, particularly in a year when the U.S. stock market has risen nearly 20 percent, in warning of unsoundness in the U.S. economy. Nevertheless, British financiers, while generally in the last 200 years wrong about the U.S., were on a few occasions right; notably in 1837 (when state defaults and the lack of a banking system retarded U.S. growth for nearly a decade,) 1893 (when only masterly intervention in early 1895 by J. Pierpont Morgan prevented a U.S. default) and, most notoriously, in 1929-32. The period since 1996 has been one in which British-style complaints about unsoundness have reached a new crescendo, only to be met with mockery by the permabull analysts of Wall Street. In 2001-2002, of course, bears appeared to be right, as the excesses of the dot-com era wore off, and the bulls admitted that yes, in 1999-2000 they did go a little overboard. Nevertheless, since March 2003, the stock market has rallied, on the back of a loose monetary policy pursued by the Fed, and grudging respect for the bears has once again been replaced by mockery. Currently, the United States is running a $500 billion trade deficit, and a budget deficit that may well see that level only in passing, as Medicare, homeland security and election-year spending propel it ever upward. Hence the need for financing; like Ponzi, the U.S. economy needs huge supplies of new money to finance the twin deficits, since domestic savings have shown no signs whatever of stepping up to do so. The new investors are Asian central banks, who appear to be motivated by domestic economic considerations (they want to keep their currencies weak, to maintain exports) rather than by rate of return calculations, and thus to be prepared to invest 80-90 percent of their payments surpluses in U.S. Treasury obligations. This is a change from the late 1990s; during that period the somewhat smaller U.S. payments deficit was financed by inflows of private capital, the investors of which may have been misguided, but were unquestionably profit-seeking via investment in dot-coms and other U.S. technology. European portfolio investors have so far been notably absent in the stock price run-up of 2003. With political and domestic economic motivations, Asian
Re: Greenspan's Ponzi Scheme
he shouldn't be worrying about productivity growth. Rather, what's important is profitability trends... Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine The Bear's Lair: Greenspan's Ponzi Scheme By Martin Hutchinson UPI Business and Economics Editor Published 11/24/2003 5:36 PM WASHINGTON, Nov. 24 (UPI) -- A Ponzi scheme requires three things in order to be (temporarily) successful: a massive source of outside money, a sophisticated PR campaign, bloviating about its glories, and a magic mushroom to make people believe in it. U.S. monetary policy currently has all three. For those not around in 1920, Charles Ponzi ran a scam in which money was supposed to be invested in international postal coupons (the exchange rate disruptions of World War I had made it at least theoretically profitable to buy Spanish coupons and use them to pay U.S. postage.) The postal coupons were the magic mushroom -- providing the hallucinogenic ingredient that people didn't really understand, but that appeared to make it possible to make fantastic returns. By publicizing the success of early investors, paying back investors who demanded their money, and even agreeing to be audited, Ponzi created a PR campaign that attracted new money. By operating in the major money center of Boston, he maximized the access to new investors, whose money could be used to pay off old ones -- he was taking in $1 million per week at the peak, real money in 1920. Needless to say, Ponzi was imprisoned -- one of three prison terms he was to serve -- after which he emigrated to Mussolini's Italy, followed by post-war Brazil, scamming as he went. The equation of Greenspan to Ponzi does not suggest criminal intent -- just that many features of current U.S. monetary policy strangely resemble Ponzi's empire, and are likely to lead to similar painful results for all of us. With the exception of what seems now like a brief halcyon period in 1945-73, the last couple of centuries have been full of British financiers prognosticating gloomily about the unsoundness of the U.S. economy. In the 19th century, this gloom stemmed from experience -- more good British money was lost down the rat-holes of U.S. state finance in the late 1830s and U.S. railroad finance in the early 1890s than I care to think about.
Venezuela report on workers-- 26 November 2003
This is the second of two notes on current developments in Venezuela; it is being sent to a larger distribution list because of its content. Please circulate widely. There have been rumours that in private industry (largely unorganised) workers would be taken to the signature tables by their supervisors to sign up in the 'Reafirmazo' to generate a recall of Chavez. (It is called the RE-signing because of the opposition claim that their unsupervised and constitutionally premature sign-up last February was the first firmazo.) There is some rather concrete evidence, though, that the pressures upon private sector workers will be intense. I have just been shown a card by a leader of UNT (the National Union of Workers, the new trade union federation formed in August). This nicely embossed a card for the reafirmazo' has a place for the bearer's name and signature and a place where this card is to be stamped. It is being given by private sector employers to their workers. The card reads (roughly translated): 'Today I have left my signature and my hello for history, as demonstration of my desire and will to look for a peaceful, democratic and electoral exit to the crisis of the country.' What will happen to workers whose card is NOT stamped is anyone's guess. The real point is that the pressure being placed upon workers in the private sector is clear. We can say with certainty that no such pressure was placed upon public sector workers this last week because we definitely would have heard about it. This is news that needs to be spread--- especially to trade unionists who will recognise what such a card represents. Also, it is essential to ensure that international observers watch for this. in solidarity, michael - Michael A. Lebowitz Professor Emeritus Economics Department Simon Fraser University Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6 Office Fax: (604) 291-5944 Home: Phone (604) 689-9510
Protestor killed in Miami....
From another list. From: earthsongwalker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2003 9:24 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [LivRiv] protestor murdered by miami police i just spoke with lisa (Fithian) who confirmed the death of one of the protestor's who was beaten by miami police last thur or fri. i don't have all the details.i understand this is our brother who was beaten badly, refused medical care and finally hospitalized with a brain hemorage. and now i understand he is dead. please post more info if you have it especially name. may the breaking of my heart be a force for strengthening the webs regeneration and healing of this living earth. more love, lynn xox = * My other piece of advice, Copperfield, said Mr. Micawber, you know. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery. The blossom is blighted, the leaf is withered, the god of day goes down upon the dreary scene, and and in short you are for ever floored. As I am! Charles Dickens' DAVID COPPERFIELD http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/
The Looting of Asia: Gold Warriors
* Chalmers Johnson, The Looting of Asia LRB 25.22 (20 November 2003) Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave | Verso, 332 pp, £17.00 It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers - and, in the case of the Japanese, as prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4 per cent chance of not surviving the war; the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30 per cent. The real differences between the two nations, however, developed in the years and decades after 1945. Survivors and relatives of victims of the Holocaust have worked for almost six decades to win compensation from German corporations for slave labour and to regain possession of works of art stolen from their homes and offices. Litigation continues against Swiss banks that hid much of the Nazi loot. As recently as July 2001, the Austrian Government began to disburse some $300 million out of an endowment of almost $500 million to more than 100,000 former slave labourers. The German Government has long recognised that, in order to re-establish relations of mutual respect with the countries it pillaged, serious gestures towards restitution are necessary. It has so far paid more than $45 billion in compensation and reparations. Japan, on the other hand, has given its victims a mere $3 billion, while giving its own nationals around $400 billion in compensation for war losses. One reason for these differences is that victims of the Nazis have been politically influential in the US and Britain, forcing their Governments to put pressure on Germany, whereas Japan's victims live in countries that for most of the postwar period were torn by revolution, anticolonial movements and civil wars. This has begun to change with the rise of Sino-American activists. The success of Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking (1997), a book the Japanese establishment did everything in its power to impugn, heralded the emergence of this group. More significant, however, are differences in US Government policies towards the two countries. From the moment of Germany's defeat, the United States was active in apprehending war criminals, denazifying German society, and collecting and protecting archives of the Nazi regime, all of which have by now been declassified. By contrast, from the moment of Japan's defeat, the US Government sought to exonerate the Emperor and his relatives from any responsibility for the war. By 1948, it was seeking to restore the wartime ruling class to positions of power (Japan's wartime minister of munitions, Nobusuke Kishi, for example, was prime minister from 1957 to 1960). The US keeps many of its archives concerned with postwar Japan highly classified, in violation of its own laws. Most important, John Foster Dulles, President Truman's special envoy to Japan charged with ending the occupation, wrote the peace treaty of 1951 in such a way that most former POWs and civilian victims of Japan are prevented from obtaining any form of compensation from either the Japanese Government or private Japanese corporations who profited from their slave labour. He did so in perfect secrecy and forced the other Allies to accept his draft (except for China and Russia, which did not sign). Article 14(b) of the treaty, signed at San Francisco on 8 September 1951, specifies: 'Except as otherwise provided in the present Treaty, the Allied Powers waive all reparations claims of the Allied Powers, other claims of the Allied Powers and their nationals arising out of any actions taken by Japan and its nationals in the course of the prosecution of the war, and claims of the Allied Powers for direct military costs of occupation.' As recently as 25 September 2001, three former American Ambassadors to Japan - Thomas Foley, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Michael Armacost, the president of the Brookings Institution, and Walter Mondale, Carter's Vice-President - wrote a joint letter to the Washington Post denouncing Congress for its willingness even to think about helping former American slave labourers get around the treaty. Why do these attitudes protecting and excusing Japan persist? Why has the US pursued such divergent policies towards postwar Germany and Japan? Why was the peace treaty written in the way it was? Many reasons have been offered over the
Re: The Looting of Asia: Gold Warriors
- Original Message - From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Chalmers Johnson, The Looting of Asia LRB 25.22 (20 November 2003) Gold Warriors: America's Secret Recovery of Yamashita's Gold by Sterling Seagrave and Peggy Seagrave | Verso, 332 pp, £17.00 This was posted almost 2 weeks ago. You're too young to be having a senior moment, heh? :-) Ian
Dr. Doom and EU fiscal policy
Good riddance to the instability pact We should all be grateful to France and Germany for giving us a chance to restore some sanity to European fiscal policy Larry Elliott Thursday November 27, 2003 The Guardian Nobody does smug quite like the British, and the Treasury's smugometer had a high reading this week when Germany and France thumbed their noses at the European Commission over the failure of Berlin and Paris to abide by the terms of the stability and growth pact. Put simply, Brussels wanted to see tough action against the eurozone's two biggest members for refusing to bring their budget deficits under control. Germany and France told the commission to get lost, and had the power to block the disciplinary action. Cue one hissy fit from the eurozone's smaller countries, a perhaps terminal crisis for the pact and a murmur of don't say we didn't warn you from London. It's not the Whitehall way to rejoice openly at the pact's travails, but the message came across loud and clear all the same. It seems, one official said sweetly, that the pact now lacks credibility. With borrowing set to reach £30bn-plus in the UK this year, some reputable forecasters think Gordon Brown is in danger of breaking his own fiscal rules. If that happens, there will be lashings of schadenfreude in Brussels. However, Brown's criticisms of the pact are valid. Even on its own terms the pact has been a failure, since it has always lacked credibility and is now a laughing stock. It was an ill-conceived monetarist project that has added to Europe's considerable economic problems, and its effective demise shouldn't be mourned by anyone who cares about Europe's unemployed. The sooner it is dispatched to the knacker's yard, the better. First, a bit of history. The stability and growth pact was dreamed up by the Germans in the mid-90s as a means of ensuring that the European Central Bank (ECB) could be as tough on inflation as the Bundesbank. Interest rates were going to be set for all members of the eurozone by the ECB, but control of fiscal policy - taxes and spending - would be left in the hands of national governments. For the Germans that was a big problem. What if one country (Italy was the country in mind) tried to get round the anti-inflationary policy of the ECB by cutting taxes or increasing public spending? Rules were drawn up saying that if countries ran budget deficits of more than 3% of GDP they would be obliged to take remedial action or face fines. The basic premise of the pact was sound enough. It would have been impossible to launch the euro without some arrangement in place for individual members to run fiscal policy. The problem was that the mechanism chosen was deflationary, punished countries when they were already in trouble and was at least 20 years out of date. What it did was establish a system whereby countries were obliged to raise taxes or cut spending when slow growth pushed their budgets into deficit. In the short term, the victory of Germany and France this week was a humiliation for the commission. But the long-term outcome could be beneficial provided European policy-makers seize the moment. Britain was humiliated on black Wednesday when speculators blew the pound out of the exchange rate mechanism, yet it proved a blessing in disguise. The government was forced to stop wrecking the economy by sticking to a policy that was no longer working. Economic policy was rethought; since then neither the economy nor the Bank of England has looked back. Credibility has been gained, not lost. Would the same apply to the eurozone? Certainly. The markets don't believe it is credible for countries to immolate their economies simply to meet the pact's doctrinaire terms. These are deflationary not inflationary times; the pact is a throwback not just to mark one Thatcherism but to the early 1930s when governments thought the right response to the Great Depression was to aim for balanced budgets. It's as if Maynard Keynes had never lived. The smart move would be for the commission, the ECB and the member states to accept that the game is up and that they should start afresh. As Brown never ceases to tell them, Europe can buy a new fiscal policy off the peg from the Treasury any time it likes. Brown's model would allow countries to run deficits in bad times provided they ran surpluses in good times, and permit borrowing for investment just so long as debt levels were modest. The chances of this happening are, however, remote. More likely, a neutered form of the stability pact will remain in place, with fudge taking the place of reform. That would be a great shame, since the current imbroglio presents the best chance in years to bring European policy-making into the modern world. Does all this affect Britain's euro decision? You bet. The vacuum left at the heart of eurozone fiscal policy means a possible UK referendum on membership of the single currency recedes even further. The fact is, however, that it is
meanwhile, on the production possibility curve
Europe aims for endless energy Tim Radford, science editor Thursday November 27, 2003 The Guardian Europe's scientists hope to mimic the power of the sun and create limitless energy on Earth with the help of a £6bn experiment in the south of France. Ministers in Brussels gave the go-ahead yesterday for Iter, the world's biggest and most ambitious fusion reactor, at Cadarache near Aix-en-Provence. It will be 10 years in the making and, in its 20-year operating life, researchers will experiment with a kind of slow hydrogen bomb in the hope of extracting vast amounts of clean energy from tiny amounts of heavy water. Iter will replace Jet, the current joint European fusion research project, based at Culham, Oxfordshire. Sir Chris Llewellyn-Smith, head of the UK fusion programme, said yesterday: The Iter project will allow a major step towards an inexhaustible source of environmentally friendly power. Petroleum and coal deliver chemical energy liberated by the breaking of chemical bonds in the form of fire. Nuclear fission of enriched uranium exploits the energy released by the breakdown of a unstable heavy atom to a lighter one. But the ash from a fission reaction is radioactive and it stays too hot to handle for thousands of years. The great prize has always been fusion power: the fusion of two hydrogen atoms to make one of helium, releasing huge quantities of heat. Every second, the sun converts 600m tonnes of hydrogen into helium and illuminates and warms this planet from 90m miles away. To do the same on Earth, engineers and physicists have to collect deuterium and tritium - isotopes of hydrogen - and heat them to more than 100m C, many times hotter than the heart of the sun. At these temperatures the heavy hydrogen would become a plasma, a ball of subatomic particles which would fuse to become helium and a shower of neutrons and a supply of heat. One kilogram of heavy hydrogen would supply the heat now generated by 10m kg of fossil fuel. There would be no greenhouse gases, no soot, and no long-lived radioactive waste. The oceans contain all the heavy hydrogen such reactors would need. Fusion power would, in theory, be safe, because the challenge is not to stop a fusion reaction, but to keep it going. But that is the catch. If plasma at 100m C so much as touched anything, it would go out like a light. The trick is to keep tiny pellets of fuel suspended in a kind of magnetic bottle in a sealed chamber. Then engineers would have to pump blasts of laser fire at the pellets, compressing them to 20 times the density of lead, at which point they would start to behave like tiny stars, releasing a thermonuclear blast of neutrons to heat up a containment wall many metres away. Fusion's most ardent enthusiasts believe that a viable power plant is 30 years away. Iter is just another stage in the research. Although the Cadarache site has Brussels' backing, the decision has yet to be confirmed by the other partners in the project. These include Canada, the US, Russia, Japan, South Korea and China. There is one other candidate site - at Rokkashomura in Japan - and the final decision could be made in Washington next month.
Telmex/WTO
Telmex: WTO Telecoms Ruling Hurts US Reuters Wednesday, November 26, 2003; 10:54 PM By Pablo Garibian MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Carlos Slim, the billionaire owner of Mexico's dominant telecoms company, Telmex, said on Wednesday the United States came out worse in a World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling on a dispute between the two countries. The WTO said in a recent initial ruling that Telmex is pursuing anti-competitive practices and should lower the termination fees it charges U.S. operators to connect their long distance calls to its network, a Mexican government source said. However, the source said the WTO panel recognized U.S. operators are using a technique known as bypass in Mexico, disguising voice calls as data calls in order to place them in networks without paying international interconnection charges. This initial ruling is indicating that they (the United States) are the ones that did something more delicate, worse, in doing the 'bypass', Slim told reporters at his offices. Since 1997, Mexican operators have lost $2.04 billion due to this practice, Slim said. The United States took its complaint to the WTO three years ago, accusing Mexico of not living up to promises to guarantee telecommunications competition. If the WTO panel formally recognizes in its final ruling at the start of 2004 that U.S. operators are using illegal practices like bypass, it could impose laws or measures to enforce a ban. What they are objecting to with Mexico is that the interconnection price is not the one they want but at the same time, it's lower than that which they pay other countries. Slim said Telmex interconnection tariffs have come down gradually to 9.5 cents from an average of 77.9 cents in 1990, and that the trend is for further falls. It's an important decline, he said. The fees Telmex charges are below the reference level suggested by the International Telecoms Union, as well as the level the U.S. government demands for any dominant operator in the world, Slim said. The panel has to be told that, he added. But, the panel also said it is anti-competitive that Telmex, as the dominant telecom in Mexico, is the only firm authorized to negotiate termination fees with foreign operators and that all other Mexican telecoms firms have to abide by the deal. Telmex owns around 95 percent of local phone lines in Mexico and controls close to 70 percent of the long distance market. The company charges between 5.5 cents and 11.75 cents to connect a long distance call, depending on the city it is going to. The rates were agreed with WorldCom and ATT in 2002. Both governments have until December 5 to submit opinions to the WTO. The official ruling would be made at the end of December or early in 2004, the source said. It is highly likely Mexico will appeal the ruling after it is made official in 2004, the Mexican government source said.
