RE: de Soto
I'm interviewing Hernando de Soto, the Peruvian libertarian propagandist, on the radio tomorrow. Any ideas for questions? Doug +++ How many acres of trees have been exported to Japan since Fujimori's been in power? How much of Peru is owned by Japan? Does he see that as a form of colonialism or does he feel the Westphalian system is an anachronism [itself a form of colonialism]? Ian
ECB raises rates
[full article at http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/FRI/FIN/ecb.2.html ] Paris, Friday, October 6, 2000 ECB Raises Key Rate Amid Signs of Slowing Move Isn't a Risk to Growth, Duisenberg Insists By John Schmid International Herald Tribune FRANKFURT - The European Central Bank surprised markets Thursday by raising interest rates just as fresh evidence was pointing toward a slowdown in the 11-nation economy. The president of the European Central Bank, Wim Duisenberg, said the move had been aimed at containing inflationary pressures and insisted that the economy could withstand tighter credit conditions. ''We see no threat to growth'' from this rate increase, Mr. Duisenberg said. He said the euro-zone economy was at ''cruising altitude.'' The bank raised its benchmark money-market rate a quarter of a percentage point to 4.75 percent, its seventh increase in less than a year. Since November, the bank has lifted rates by 2.25 percentage points. The move stunned economists who feared the euro zone's recovery had grown fragile. ''They keep raising rates into a slowing economy,'' said Thomas Mayer, chief European economist at Goldman, Sachs & Co. ''It is hard to see why they would have done it today other than to try to prop up the euro.'' If the rate move was aimed at shoring up the euro, its benefits were short-lived. The currency rose briefly as high as 87.86 U.S. cents but by 4 p.m. in New York, it fell to 86.91 cents, down from 87.46 cents Wednesday. Its record low is 84.92 cents, reached Sept. 20. Many economists say higher growth, not higher rates, will prove the best support for the euro. The rate increase comes in the roughest operating environment for the European Central bank since it was created along with the euro in January 1999. The currency has failed to respond to previous rate moves that theoretically should have given it a lift by enhancing euro-denominated yields. Now the bank has tightened the money tap again just as oil prices and the earlier tightenings have crimped economic confidence and possibly capped the region's recovery. ''There are cracks in the recovery,'' said Adolf Rosenstock, European economist at Nomura International PLC. France this week reported its biggest single-month slump in consumer confidence in five years, dropping its index to its lowest level in 14 months. In Germany, business confidence fell for the third consecutive month in August. Two weeks ago, major central banks joined the European Central Bank to intervene in the open markets and buy the euro out of a shared concern that the devalued currency could adversely affect the world economy. Mr. Duisenberg said: ''While the possibility cannot be ruled out that the increase in oil prices as such may temporarily dampen growth dynamics over the short run, the forces underlying solid growth in the medium term remain in place. The ECB seems intent on crushing any inflation that stems from high crude oil prices and the weak euro. It cannot afford to appear soft on inflation, analysts said, when its own credibility is on trial and the euro under pressure. ''Today's decisions continue to aim at ensuring that upward pressures on consumer prices stemming from oil prices and the foreign-exchange rate of the euro do not translate into more permanent inflationary tendencies.'' The largest euro-zone economies, Germany, France and Italy, have little reason to want higher rates, economists suggest. But several others, such as Ireland, Portugal, Finland and the Netherlands, all have brisk growth and rising inflation. Still, Mr. Duisenberg said, ''We had the maximum possible degree of consensus on today's decision.'' In other trading, the dollar fell to 109.12 yen from 109.37 yen but rose to 1.7505 Swiss francs from 1.7367 francs. The pound fell to $1.4465 from $1.4592.
RE: Re: Yugoslavia again
> > > >I'm sorry to see Milosevich go. > > In God's name, why? Don't *ever* be sorry to see nationalist thugs > go. Were you sorry to see Tudjman go? Were you sorry to see Mobutu > go? Were you sorry to see Galtieri go? > > > > Brad DeLong == Then we shouldn't be sorry to see the nationalist thugs at the CIA, DOD, NSA etc go too.Once we figure out how to get rid of them of course Ian
TNC's not the right target...
full article http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/TUE/FIN/think.2.html Paris, Tuesday, October 10, 2000 Transnationals' Critics Miss the Point Thinking Ahead/ Commentary By Reginald Dale International Herald Tribune WASHINGTON - Transnational corporations have always made great scapegoats. Those with a grudge against international capitalism denounce them for exploiting Third World countries and grinding down workers at home like modern-day robber barons. Charges of exploitation look weaker now that virtually every government in the world is struggling to attract the investment, jobs and technology that only transnational corporations can deliver. But that development has only exacerbated complaints that jobs are being jeopardized in the richer nations. Such allegations are made in a report submitted last month by Kate Bronfenbrenner of Cornell University to the U.S. Trade Deficit Review Commission. The report castigates American bosses for fomenting insecurity among workers by threatening to move operations abroad, or close factories altogether, whenever labor unions seek to gain a foothold. The report paints the familiar caricature of U.S. corporations migrating around the globe ''in search of lower and lower labor costs and higher and higher profit margins.'' Similar accusations are frequently leveled by union-inspired student activists railing against Third World sweatshops. Transnational corporations are no saints. They put their own interests, or, in the case of U.S. companies, those of their shareholders, first. But they should at least be criticized on the right grounds. As another report this month shows, there is little evidence to support these well-worn complaints against them. The World Investment Report 2000, published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, confirms that transnational corporations are playing an ever bigger role in the world economy. ''International production now spans - in different degrees - virtually all countries, sectors, industries and economic activities,'' it says. More and more countries realize that foreign investment is vital to prosperity and are changing their policies and regulations to attract it. Living and working conditions are likely to be worst where foreign investment is lowest. The pattern is nothing like the one that the critics depict. Karl Sauvant, chief author of the Unctad report, noted in Washington last week that 80 percent of foreign investment in manufacturing goes to industrial countries. The remainder that goes to developing countries is rarely dictated by labor costs. The main determinants of investment are the size and growth potential of local markets and such factors as ease of transport and communication. Far from looking for countries with low labor and environmental standards, transnational corporations favor those where the rules of the game are clear. Uncertainty, as for example in Russia, deters them. In a few industries, such as shoes and textiles, individual plants have sometimes been moved to where labor costs are lowest. But there is no systematic international conspiracy. American opponents of transnational corporations often ignore, or conveniently forget, that much more foreign investment flowed into the United States in the 1990s than flowed out. The criticisms sit uneasily with the lowest U.S. unemployment in 30 years. In fact, as the Federal Reserve has pointed out, the possibility that capital may move overseas has helped to keep employment high by holding wage increases and inflation down. What's more, the Cornell University report concedes in a roundabout way that threats to move abroad - though effective in limiting union penetration - are almost always bluffs. Such threats have recently been implemented only in 3 percent of cases, a much lower rate than in the mid-1990s. But that does not make the robber baron analogy totally invalid. The Unctad report draws an intriguing historical parallel between the reshaping of U.S. business in the late 19th century and what is happening at global level today. Just over 100 years ago in the United States, a wave of mergers and acquisitions helped give birth to a national market and production system, setting the stage for the dominant role of big business in the 20th century. Today's explosion of international mergers and acquisitions may mark the emergence of a global market and truly worldwide production. As Mr. Sauvant sees it, just as the birth of big business led to the development of national antitrust law in the United States, so worldwide competition policies are likely to emerge gradually in the years ahead. He is probably right. E-mail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
once again, tax breaks are the solution
full article http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/TUE/FIN/taibank.html Paris, Tuesday, October 10, 2000 Taipei Sets Tax Breaks For Banks That Merge Bloomberg News TAIPEI - Taiwan's banks will receive tax breaks if they merge, the island's new deputy prime minister said Monday as the government moved to revive stalled consolidation in the banking industry. The government has long pushed for lenders to merge to create stronger banks as part of a cleanup of the scandal-ridden finance industry. Deputy Prime Minister Lai In-jaw, appointed last week amid a shuffling of the island's four-month-old cabinet, said bank-reform efforts would be a top priority. ''Overbanking and vicious competition forced many banks to take on greater risks to compete in lending,'' Mr. Lai said in his first official news briefing. ''As a result, many banks suffer from problem loans. The Finance Ministry will generate measures such as tax breaks to encourage bank mergers.'' The government wants to see banks start merging six months after Parliament passes laws governing the status of financial holding companies to make combinations easier, Mr. Lai said. He did not give details on what measures were planned to promote consolidation. The Ministry of Finance tried last December to step up pressure on banks to merge, announcing that the state-owned Bank of Taiwan, Land Bank of Taiwan and Central Trust of China would combine. There has been little progress since then, and banks have been battered by scandals that have hurt confidence in Taiwan's financial sector. Moody's Investors Service Inc. has said that consolidation in banking ''could lead to greater financial-sector stability,'' though it also said ''rigid labor laws and political pressures'' could drain off much of the potential cost savings.
The Investment Theory of Politics updated
full article at http://news.ft.com/ft/gx.cgi/ftc?pagename=View&c=Article&cid=FT3UAUTI4EC&liv e=true&tagid=ZZZOMSJK30C&subheading=US 'Investor class' may hold the key to the White House door By Aravind Adiga Steven Weinstein, a 23-year-old New York University law student and amateur stock market speculator, uses an investment analogy to explain why Al Gore is the "rational choice" for investors voting in the 2000 presidential race. Imagine, says Mr Weinstein, that you are an investor who can hold only one company in your portfolio. That company is crippled with a debt problem, but you plan to live in retirement off the dividends from that investment. Unexpectedly, however, your company enjoys a windfall. Would you rather see your company's management pay down the long-term debt with the windfall, thereby securing your pension - or would you want them give it away in one fat dividend cheque? This is exactly the situation facing US voters today, says Mr Weinstein. While Mr Gore would use the record US budget surplus to pay the national debt and secure the long-term interests of investors, he says, George W. Bush, the Republican candidate, would squander the surplus in tax cuts. Mr Weinstein, who began investing three years ago to supplement his modest student income, is just one of millions of Americans with stock market investments who are preparing to vote in the elections. Some political analysts even believe individual investors such as Mr Weinstein, voting together as an "investor class", could hold the key to the elections. Indeed, with the culture of stock market investment now entrenched in American society, investors seem to have the critical mass to influence the elections. A Gallup poll conducted in October 1999 revealed that a staggering 60 per cent of American households now have stock market investments. In a similar poll in the 1950s, the figure was 8 per cent. Fuelled by the "new economy" boom of the mid-1990s, which saw a spectacular rise in the share prices of many internet companies, the investment craze has now swept across every socio-economic and age group in the US. Higher income families are more likely to hold stock, according to the poll, but ownership is now distributed throughout the economic spectrum. Young investors and full-time "day traders" are more likely to be drawn to hot new-tech companies, but older Americans are also playing the market through retirement funds. Some political strategists are convinced the phenomenal spread of stock investment has created a new "investor class" which votes strategically to protect its investments. Lawrence Kudlow, an economist at ING Barings, even asserts that the "investor class" has become the real power in American electoral politics. Mr Kudlow, an economist in the Reagan administration, echoes the views of many conservative commentators when he argues that the "investor class" has rallied against Mr Gore because of his populist attacks on the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors. Worried investors will reject Mr Gore for being "anti-business" and lift Mr Bush to victory in November, Mr Kudlow predicts. Yet, opinion polls suggest that people describing themselves generally as "investors" are almost evenly divided between Mr Gore and Mr Bush. Greg Valliere, chief strategist at Schwab Washington Research Group, notes that Mr Bush's proposed income-tax cuts, far from enticing investors, have worried them by raising the spectre of a renewed expansion of the national debt, which could eventually lead to interest rate increases, a depressed stock market, and an endangered social security fund for America's retirees. "Most investors have been ambivalent at best on the issue of tax cuts. It's been a big shock for Republicans," Mr Valliere says. The lack of a clear choice for US investors raises a more fundamental question - whether an "investor voting bloc" exists at all. Take Corey Bandes, a 40-year-old Chicago attorney who has been investing in stocks and mutual funds for nearly 30 years and belongs to American Association of Individual Investors. For all his interest in the stock market, Mr Bandes says that when it comes to voting, "I don't think of myself as an investor first." His experiences with friends, who also invest, has convinced Mr Bandes that "when talking of politics, most people don't think of themselves as investors". In fact, many are even prepared to vote against the parties they believe would most benefit their investments. Kelvin Daly, a Washington DC-based employee of UPS, the courier company, and a devout follower of the stock market, believes that "traditionally the Republican party has been the party under which investors have done better". Yet he will not be voting for Mr Bush. As a passionate opponent of capital punishment, Mr Daly is disturbed by Mr Bush's liberal use of the death penalty as Texas governor. Reflecting the views of many investors, Mr Daly says the key factor for him as a sharehol
Times of India on economic growth
full article http://www.timesofindia.com/today/10busu1.htm RBI sees slower growth; interest rates unchanged NEW DELHI: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) forecast slower than expected economic growth and left lending rates unchanged on Tuesday as it released its monetary and credit policy for the six months to March 2001. RBI governor Bimal Jalan told bankers as he released the half-yearly report that economic growth during the year to March 2001 would fall short of government targets. "As per present indications, the real GDP (gross domestic product) growth during 2000-2001 can be placed in the range of 6.0 to 6.5 percent, as against the projection of 6.5 to 7.0 percent," he said. Official interest rates would be left unchanged, Jalan said. "It is not proposed to make any change in some of the important monetary measures, such as the bank rate, the cash reserve ratio or the liquidity adjustment facility," he said. The RBI has laid emphasis on strengthening the financial markets, by coming out with final guidelines on issue of commercial papers (CPs), catergorisation and valuation of banks' investments and financing by them of equities and investments in shares. In a bid to boost exports, banks have been permitted to credit 70 per cent of inward remittances in exchange earners foreign currency accounts of export oriented units in export processing zones, software technology/electronic hardware parks and 50 per cent in respect of others. With a view to provide flexibility and depth to the money markets, RBI has proposed to withdraw restrictions on transferability period for certificates of deposits issued by both banks and financial institutions (FIs). The apex bank has issued guidelines on commercial papers (CPs) enabling companies, particularly those in the services sector, to easily meet short-term working capital needs. It has proposed to make rating mandatory for the term deposits accepted by FIs with effect from November 1, 2000 to improve the functional effeciences of the money markets. The RBI has decided to extend the permission granted to select companies, which have been given specific permission to route call money transactions through primary dealers (PDs), currently available up to December 2000 for a further period of six months. The RBI has decided to constitute a group to suggest smooth phasing out by a planned reduction in the access to call/money markets by FIs and mutual funds. It has decided in principle to move over in due course to order-driven screen based trading in government securities on the stock exchanges. Guidelines governing the maintenance of the constituents' securities general ledger (SGL) accounts would be framed to encourage investors to hold securities in scripless form and ensure that entities holding securities in custody employ practices and procedures so that constituents securities are approporiately accounted and kept safe. With a view to strengthen financial position of banks, it is proposed to include the general provision of standard assets in thier two capital in line with the international best practices. To bring about more transparency to the balance sheets of public sector banks and to provide additional disclosures, RBI has asked banks to annex balance sheets of their subsidiaries to their own beginning from March 31, 2001. Due to improvements in the payment and settlement systems, recovery climate and upgradation of technology in the banking sector, the concept of past due for non-performing assets was being dispensed with effect from March 31, 2001. The RBI said it was moving towards a risk-based supervisory regime and an international consultant has submitted its project report (phase I) in this regard and their recommendations cover vital areas like data management, supervisory process, inspections, feedback to banks and external audit among others. A discussion paper regarding credit exposure limits of banks to individual and group borrowers is to be finalised by December that would address the concept of capital funds, credit exposure in particular the coverage of non-fund and other off-balance sheet exposures and the exposure limit itself. On banks financing equities and investment in shares, the RBI said the guidelines would enable the bank boards to frame suitable operational guidelines for each bank, taking into account their individual risk profiles, and provide for investments by banks in the equity market on a more stable and long-term basis subject to appropriate prudential norms. Banks may formulate transparent policy for charging penal interest rates with the approval of the boards and such policy should be governed by well accepted principles of transparency fairness, incentive to service the debt and due regard to genuine difficulties of customers. In the context of the present policy of providing more flexibility and operational freedom to banks as well as government and other enterprises, it has been decided to unde
China WTO entry encountering snags
[full article http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/WED/FPAGE/wto.2.html ] Paris, Wednesday, October 11, 2000 China's Entry to WTO Unraveling Beijing Appears to Resist Opening Markets and Reforming Laws By John Pomfret and Philip P. Pan Washington Post Service BEIJING - The final round of talks over China's bid to join the World Trade Organization has stalled, with Beijing resisting demands by the United States and other countries that it undertake major legal reforms and explain in greater detail how it intends to open its markets to foreign companies, Western officials say. The eleventh-hour impasse follows a breakthrough trade agreement between Beijing and Washington last year and a vote in Congress this year to grant Chinese products entering the United States some of the lowest tariffs allowed by law. It is so serious that some Western officials fear China may be experiencing ''buyer's remorse'' and that it is trying to back away from its promises to lower trade barriers and open up its economy. ''They are just beginning to realize what this deal means to their economy,'' said a Western diplomat involved in the negotiations. ''In some areas and in some significant ways, they are trying to back away.'' Western analysts said the delay might mean that Beijing's consensus in favor of WTO membership has weakened in recent months. Various segments of China's government, including the security services and various state-owned monopolies, remain strongly opposed to entering the Geneva-based group that enforces the rules of global commerce. The deadlock also is reinforcing the concerns of many Western business leaders that China will find other creative ways to hold off the deluge of foreign investment and products waiting to roll into its markets. The U.S. trade representative, Charlene Barshefsky, has requested an urgent meeting with Prime Minister Zhu Rongji in an attempt to push the negotiations forward, and she may be traveling to Beijing as early as this week. Ms. Barshefsky said last week that China might not enter the trade organization this year. A senior Chinese trade official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Chinese government no longer expected to join the organization this year, though it still hoped to enter early next year. He predicted ''more tough talks'' when Ms. Barshefsky arrives, blaming anti-Chinese bias on the part of U.S. and European negotiators for the stalemate. ''You are holding us to a higher standard than other countries,'' he said. ''Even the United States has laws on its books that violate the WTO.'' By entering the organization next year, China could push back by a full year the carefully negotiated timetables dictating when it must remove various trade barriers. It would also take the final talks over China's membership out of the hands of the Clinton administration and leave them to the next president. ''Your president, a lame duck, must make the political decision that he wants China in the WTO,'' the Chinese trade official said. ''He must use whatever political capital he has left to make this happen. If he decides not to, our entry into the WTO could be delayed even longer. If he decides to support us, then we should in theory be ready to enter sometime next year.'' China's accession to the WTO could spark a revolution in how business is conducted in the world's most populous country. On paper, it would slash tariffs on agricultural and industrial products and open up China's markets to direct foreign competition, giving foreign companies the right to sell, distribute and market goods without going through Chinese middlemen. Proponents of the trade deal have also argued it will promote political change in the authoritarian nation by strengthening the rule of law and by helping China's fledgling private sector. Blocking China's 14-year quest to join the group is a dispute over the final legal documents that will spell out China's commitment to abide by the organization's trade rules. More important, these documents will combine the terms of the bilateral agreements China has reached individually with the United States, the European Union and 135 other members of the WTO. The Chinese complain that the United States and some European countries are trying to pry new market concessions from Beijing in these documents. They also contend that negotiators are asking China to do more than other countries to explain how it will live up to its trade promises. ''It is inappropriate and unnecessary to invent a new set of rules specifically for China,'' said Long Yongtu, the chief Chinese negotiator, after talks in Geneva broke down late last month. ''We believe that this is in fact an attempt to reopen negotiation on the bilateral agreements already signed.'' He added that Western trade negotiators ''always think China is too big, China is developing too fast. I don't think 'WTO-plus' is fair to China.'' Western negotiators insist they are not seeking new conce
RE: Re: Memory & History: Herman Melville's _Benito Cereno_ (was Re: Yugoslavia to fSU and Chile)
Yoshie Furuhashi dijo: > What has not changed, > however, is the idea that it is Americans who should bring criminals > of the world to justice. It goes without saying that this self-image > makes Americans forget the fact that they are the biggest criminals: > the only remaining superpower that acts with impunity, for there is no > one in the world who can bring Americans to justice. * Yoshie, Do you really mean such a blanket statement or do you prefer to mean the American ruling class? There are lots of US citizens who'd love to haul persons of power and wealth in "our" country before some international tribunal, they're just too time poor and financially strapped to do it [I leave aside the mobilization of competencies necessary to make it so]. == Save for the workers of the United States of America. But, in order to do it, they must overcome nationalism. There lies the central paradox of our times: nationhood is already a matter of the past for the workers of the USA, while it still lays in the future for those outside the USA... Néstor Miguel Gorojovsky [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Nestor, Do you mean this to say that nationalism is still desirable as a form of cultural defense against the Americanization of everything? Ian
RE: pray for disaster
Ah yes, the disaster multiplier. It's done wonders in the US coastal communities and wherever floods strike along major rivers... Ian > > > Note how their model seems to suggest that the earthquake may have > actually increased the GDP. Who needs military spending? > > On the Macroeconomic Impact of the August 1999 Earthquake in > Turkey: a First Assessment. >
Yugoslav workers start firing their bosses
full article http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/THU/IN/revenge.2.html Paris, Thursday, October 12, 2000 Across Yugoslavia, the Once-Powerful Get the 'Milosevic Treatment' By R. Jeffrey Smith and Peter Finn Washington Post Service BELGRADE - It is not often that low-level employees in large institutions get to dictate the wording of resignation notes for the boss to sign. But this is common in the newly democratic Yugoslavia, where high and mighty people are being kicked out by their subordinates. The fall of President Slobodan Milosevic last weekend has triggered an astonishing spate of citizens' revenge across the country, as people target their bosses in spontaneous retaliation for years of government abuse. Sometimes the anger degenerates into violence. >From the southern city of Leskovac, where a mob burned the home of a pistol-waving Socialist Party official last week, to the central Danube River city of Smederevo, where a group of angry physicians showed a formerly well-connected hospital director the door Tuesday, allies of the old government are getting their comeuppances en masse. Leading the purge are people like Slavica Simonovic, who manages a fleet of luxury cars for one of Yugoslavia's largest corporations but gets paid a pittance; Jovan Trnic, a longtime administrator at a huge prison complex, and Dr. Slobodanka Stajevic, a pediatrician at a decrepit hospital. The new president, Vojislav Kostunica, is worried the trend might get out of hand. Like citizens' justice anywhere, Yugoslavia's version is bound to be afflicting the innocent at times as well as the guilty. Jeers for the Departing Chairman Radoman Bozovic, a Milosevic insider and chairman of the huge Genex Group, found out he was in trouble Monday when he strode into the lobby of Belgrade's Intercontinental Hotel, which Genex owns. There, Mrs. Simonovic, a 20-year employee and manager of the fleet of 80 luxury vehicles, was waiting. She strode up and told him flatly that he had to quit. He responded that he did not know her, ignored her demand and walked past her into the hotel. But that did not solve his problem - hundreds of whistling and jeering Genex employees were waiting in the lobby. Genex was once one of the most successful companies in Yugoslavia, a conglomerate trading in glass, electronics, textiles, tourism, petroleum, aviation, pharmaceuticals and other products. It had $6 billion in annual sales and a work force of 5,800. Like other major Yugoslav enterprises, it was ''socially owned,'' a peculiar capitalist-Communist concept in which shares were allotted to workers. ''It was a great company,'' Mrs. Simonovic said. In the old days, the company was a cash cow in Yugoslavia's developing economy. But then came Mr. Milosevic. Shortly after becoming president of Serbia, Yugoslavia's dominant republic, in 1989, he appointed his own men as deputy managers. Later, he abolished its board of directors in favor of a single manager, whom he selected. Mr. Bozovic, a former Serbian prime minister, took over the company in March 1999 - on the first day of the bombing of Yugoslavia by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization during the Kosovo crisis - and promptly began selling some key assets and laying off workers.
Who would've thunk it
October 12, 2000 http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/12/politics/12LEND.html Senators Propose Global Version of C-Span By THE NEW YORK TIMES WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 Two senators proposed setting up a global equivalent of C-Span, the public affairs cable channel, as a way of dismantling what they called the formidable wall of secrecy that shields decision making at several leading international agencies. In a report, the senators, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York and Ron Wyden of Oregon, both Democrats, said that despite pressure from Congress, several leading American and international financial and trade bodies continued to operate behind closed doors. The lawmakers were particularly critical of secrecy practices at the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the International Olympic Committee. They also called for more disclosure by the Federal Reserve Board. They suggested that creating a global network devoted to televising agency meetings could create momentum for more openness. The Clinton administration says it has been working for transparency in all global institutions. Most global agencies say they are as open as their member nations allow them to be.
RE: Suppressed Voices: McReynolds and Nader (fwd)
McReynolds and the socialists have a solution. "Vast corporate structures" should be placed "under social ownership," he said when he announced that he would seek the Socialist Party nomination for President. But McReynolds does not hold that the state should take over large corporations. Rather, he supports worker control and advocates putting large corporations, particularly the Fortune 500, into local, community hands. ** We've been hearing this since the 1860's if not earlier, yet as someone who has worked in a Fortune 500 corp. that's literally done everything we deplore them for, I've yet to see specific legal and economic proposals to achieve this [I've looked at everything from Yunkers to G&B's ideas, Mondragon to the Japanese co-op networks, all very provocative stuff]. Suffice it to say that since last November, activists and others on the left coast of the US are now obsessed with this mystery. This seems to be a gaping hole in left prescriptions for organizational change at the micro and macro economic level. What would socializing IBM or UPS, or McDonalds for that matter, look like? How would significantly enlarging the residual claimants on the enterprises' surplus change the incentive structure in the firm? How do we alter the communicational dynamics internal to those production systems so that competencies, decision making etc. under tight temporal and budgetary constraints lead to less conflict ridden outcomes at both the firm and community level? How do we change the IFI's, including the Fed to make the changes viable? Do we dust off and radicalize further the Meidner plan? How do we know that the successor "logic of accumulation" of a post capitalist economic-legal system would generate the investment levels to achieve the "Green Economy" we need to achieve over the next 50 years, especially given how poor predictability is at the level of social systems, let alone that Capital would fight with every legal and military tool at it's disposal? We should be extremely thankful that the last 16 months, nay at least since the Rio Summit of '92, has put the public focus on the corporate system; what was it Ellen Wood said not too long ago about Capital being totally naked now? Acitivist-Professoriat alliances should, hopefully, become stronger over the decade, but we need to work at it + make it fun!! Ian "Finally, the left must somehow awaken from its slumber and place the socialization of capital -- inserting public interests within corporate decision making -- at the heart of its program. The goal is not only to instill ecological and humane values in production, but also to transform the most powerful political opponent of social progress into its willing instrument." [Peter Dorman]
RE: Re: RE: Suppressed Voices: McReynolds and Nader (fwd)
Lisa & Ian Murray wrote: >This seems to be a gaping hole in left prescriptions for organizational >change at the micro and macro economic level. What would socializing IBM or >UPS, or McDonalds for that matter, look like? As opposed to small, locally owned enterprises? What would socializing them look like, and all the communicational/organizational forms? How wretched those can be was shown in an article in a recent issue of Dissent by Liza Featherstone, an excerpt of which follows... Doug ** Oh negative on the binarism, great one. D McR.'s point on the larger capital takes the small was all too clear to this puppy. I'd be the last to romanticize small B's [even though my father-in-law did run a great little pharmacy till he got slammed by pharmaceutical company monopsonies who were goin' after his medicare recip.'s $$$]. It's funny Liza F. refers to Powell's as I was in there last July doin' WTO agit work and tried to get them to help me track down David Ellerman's books. Got along with two of the workers at the info desk and they told me in whispers about the drive. I told them if they couldn't find more than one copy of each of the books I was lookin' for they should keep them for themselves as they are great ammo for workers everywhere. Now Oregon has some of the best co-op and worker ownership laws in the US, but "private" local banks are the institutional bottleneck that must be smashed and unfortunately nothin' was done with the CRA folks who went to Capitol Hill during Gramm-Leach-Biley to put pressure on that potential lever for change[ can't blame 'em, they were fighting for their lives]. Figuring how out how to re-socialize the big beasts will make it easier for workers in smaller enterprises in markets with highly ephemeral demand because we could pass Basic Income legislation to mitigate the wage crunch. Crucial to future strategies on this front is to point out that a firm with 150,000 workers and 2 million shareholders is already a social institution [as well as an ecological process in it's own right]; it's a matter of contract and property. Even workplaces with unions can be dictatorships; we've all heard the horror stories about shop stewards run amok, not to mention the prez' of locals that grab them pensions..It's partly a matter of conceiving richer, multi-dimensional models of risk. Who takes the greater risk; a petty b. who organizes a hazmat firm, hires managers to run it while he's/she's at the beach or golf course every other Th through Mo. or the workers who are doin' the cleanup with suits that ain't too protective? We've conceded too much to those who think risk only occurs in the realm of finance which creates asymmetry of voice for petty b. with bogus exit options for far too many workers. Richer worker ownership models that accept some constraints on the self-ownership/labor theory of property thesis that is the linchpin of the argument [constraints for the sake of public goods such as providing retirement security and their ilk via taxation by the state etc.; G. A. Cohen's work read alongside David E.'s stuff helps] are very desirable in lots of well placed magazine articles and websites over the next decade... Trespass against the happy consciousness, Ian More recently, employees at Powell's Books, a six-store chain in Portland, Oregon -- who, at $7 an hour, were making no more than Portland's average fast-food worker, and had just been denied an expected wage increase -- faced a similar, though more restrained, counterattack when they wanted to join the International Longshore and Warehouse Union's Local 5 (ILWU). Owner Michael Powell is a prominent progressive in Portland who is active in the local Democratic Party and an outspoken free-speech advocate. His bookstore is a favorite meeting-place for the Portland left, and at least appears to celebrate diversity of all sorts. This summer's in-store readings included lesbian poet Minnie Bruce Pratt and ecofeminist Charlene Spretnak, and the store's Web site is run in close partnership with the Utne Reader. So last fall, employees and customers alike were surprised that Powell fought the union. He sent out a letter to all his employees' homes accusing the union of corruption (actually confusing it with a different union); later, he campaigned against the ILWU's long record as a defendant in discrimination suits. "You say the word 'union,' and everyone's supposed to feel all squishy. I don't get it," Powell insists. "I understand if you're organizing farm workers, or people in Bangladesh. But this is not that kind of situation." The union won in April, 161 to 155 -- a very close margin. Paul Couey, who w
Where did trade go?
full article at http://www.iht.com ] Paris, Tuesday, October 17, 2000 For Free-Traders, the Choice Is Bush By Reginald Dale International Herald Tribune WASHINGTON - The opening up of world trade is one of the few recent economic issues to have generated strong emotions in the United States, bringing angry demonstrators onto the streets of Washington and Seattle to protest globalization. Trade, however, has been the dog that didn't bark in this year's presidential election, and neither of the main contenders, Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore, has been publicly challenged on trade policy - perhaps because many people assume that both are broadly in favor of free trade. The two more protectionist candidates, Pat Buchanan on the right and Ralph Nader on the left, have together garnered only a few percentage points of support. The obvious conclusion is that, at a time of virtually full employment, the rage of the demonstrators is shared by only an insignificant proportion of the electorate. And yet there are major differences between Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush. The election's outcome will have a big impact on the future of freer trade and on U.S. leadership of the trading system. From the free-trade point of view, there can be little doubt that the optimal result would be a presidential victory for Mr. Bush and continued Republican control over both houses of Congress. That conclusion is not, of course, accepted by leading Democrats, who insist that the trade record of the Clinton-Gore administration is second to none. If anything, President Bill Clinton may have pushed trade liberalization too far, Ira Shapiro, a former U.S. trade negotiator, said at a recent conference organized by the American Enterprise Institute. That argument neglects the fact that none of Mr. Clinton's trade triumphs, including congressional approval of the North American Free Trade Agreement and of permanent normal trade relations with China, could have been achieved without large numbers of Republican votes. Rather than fight for free trade, Mr. Clinton has in fact allowed the insidious concept of ''fair trade'' to gain ground. As Jagdish Bhagwati, the doyen of trade economists, points out in a soon-to-be-published book, ''The Wind of the Hundred Days: How Washington Mismanaged Globalization,'' the subjective concept of fair trade is an open invitation to protectionists to do their worst. Mr. Clinton lamentably botched the World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle last year, allowing it to become - in the words of Michael Smith, who served as deputy U.S. trade representative under former President Ronald Reagan - ''arguably the worst trade happening'' since the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill of the 1930s that exacerbated the Depression. Mr. Clinton's embrace of the demonstrators' demand for trade sanctions against countries that refuse to implement the kind of labor standards mandated by U.S. labor unions, an idea that is anathema to developing nations, hammered the last nail into the Seattle coffin. Mr. Clinton failed to fight hard enough to win new trade negotiating authority from Congress, a precondition for serious negotiations with U.S. trading partners, and allowed trade policy to be dominated by a litigious approach that focused on the defense of U.S. special interests rather than the health of the trading system. The continuing fight over presidential negotiating authority shows the differences between the two sides at their clearest. While most Democrats want labor and environmental standards to be written into all future trade agreements, most Republicans do not. Given the extent of opposition to the Democrats' proposals from developing countries, adopting those proposals would effectively kill hopes for another successful round of world trade negotiations, especially with China in the WTO. E-mail address: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Revitalizing the guaranteed income debate
http://bostonreview.mit.edu/
Alan G.'s latest...
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2000/200010192.htm http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/speeches/2000/20001016.htm ...Unfettered competitive pressures will foster consolidation in the long run as liquidity tends to centralize in the system providing the narrowest bid-offer spread at volume. Two or more venues that are trading the same security or commodity will naturally converge toward a single market. One market offering marginally narrower bid-ask spreads at volume will attract the business of others, improving its liquidity further and reducing that of its competitors. This, in turn, will engender an even greater competitive imbalance, leading eventually to full consolidation. Of course, this process may not be fully realized if there are impediments to competition or if markets are able to establish and secure niches by competing on factors other than price... ...Change often engenders controversy because entities currently earning above-market rates of return owing to dominance over a segment of a market will seek, not unexpectedly, to protect those returns. Many entities will argue that the rules, regulations, or market practices that give rise to such niches are critical for the continued functioning of markets or are in the best interest of investors. These same entities, however, will see the need for additional competition in areas where others are earning above-market returns. Policymakers have an obligation to ensure that market participants and trading venues compete on terms as even as possible and that the property rights of participants are scrupulously enforced.
RE: trade pact with Jordan
well it must be true... > > Do any of you know about the trade pact with Jordan? The NY Times says > that labor approved. > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 530-898-5321 > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Would a Bush presidency be even more bullish on the $
full article at http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/THU/FPAGE/bux.2.html Paris, Thursday, October 26, 2000 Euro Puts Central Banks to Test Currency Is at New Low, but Few See Any Likelihood of Intervention By Tom Buerkle International Herald Tribune LONDON The euro touched an all-time low of 82.48 cents, and in late trading in New York it was at 82.82 cents, compared with 83.72 cents late Tuesday. The continued decline will put the European Central Bank and the central banks of the G-7 to the test, analysts said. ''Further intervention would be required to convince markets that the G-7 are serious,'' said Joe Prendergast, currency strategist at Credit Suisse First Boston. ''The second time around will not be as easy as the first. The surprise element has been spent.'' Two major changes have occurred over the past month to reduce the prospects of intervention, analysts said. For one thing, the whiff of panic that pervaded financial markets in September, and seemed to spur the central banks into action, has largely dissipated. Oil prices have stabilized at a little over $33 a barrel, about $3 below their September peak. Major stock markets have rallied in the past week, even though leading U.S. indexes remain below their levels of a month ago. And the euro's decline has been anything but a speculative stampede. ''There are more signs of stability than there were the last time they intervened,'' said Russell Jones, currency strategist at Lehman Brothers International. ''The price action has been pretty calm. It's been a gradual grind downward'' for the euro, he added. The seeming disarray among European policymakers following comments last week by the ECB president, Wim Duisenberg, in which he cited factors arguing against intervention, also appears to have reduced the chances that the G-7 could agree on concerted action. A reiteration of the Clinton administration's strong-dollar policy by Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers on Tuesday suggested that U.S. policymakers ''want to demonstrate that they blame Europeans for the problem,'' Mr. Jones said. Meanwhile, the fundamental factors driving the currency markets continue to favor the dollar at the expense of the euro, analysts said. The euro has been hit in recent days by fresh evidence that the European economy is slowing more rapidly than that of the United States. French data released Wednesday showed that the growth of consumer spending in the euro zone's second-largest economy slowed significantly in the third quarter, while the latest Ifo monthly survey of German business conditions, released Tuesday, showed a sizable decline. Investors also are starting to take seriously the prospect of a shift in U.S. economic policy if George W. Bush wins the presidential election, analysts said. Mr. Bush's tax-cut proposals have led some analysts to envisage a repeat of the loose fiscal, tight monetary policy combination of the Reagan years, which propelled the dollar to much higher levels in the mid-1980s. ''The policy settings would be pretty unanimously dollar-bullish,'' Mr. Prendergast said.
Reducing or displacing bank risk?
full article http://news.findlaw.com/ap_stories/f/1310/10-25-2000/20001025000713150.html The bill is at http://www.house.gov/banking/hr1161ar.pdf House OKs Bill To Reduce Bank Risk WASHINGTON (AP) _ The House passed a bill on Tuesday designed to reduce risk to the nation's banking system should a major financial institution become insolvent. The measure, supported by the Clinton administration, passed by a voice vote. The legislation would allow a bank or investment firm in bankruptcy-court protection and its creditors to separate out the company's losses from derivatives trading, rather than have the trading contracts tied up in bankruptcy proceedings. Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, representing the administration, and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan last Friday urged lawmakers to approve the legislation before Congress adjourns soon for the year. The Senate has yet to act on a similar measure. Derivatives are complex financial instruments whose value depends on the value or change in value of an underlying security, commodity or asset. Businesses use them to guard against losses from unexpected market movements. Speculators and investment funds trade them as high-risk bets, hoping for huge returns. ``We believe that this is a rare opportunity for government to take an important, tangible step to mitigate systemic risk and improve the integrity of our financial system,'' Summers and Greenspan wrote in letters to House and Senate leaders. The measure adopted Tuesday also is included as a provision in broader legislation rewriting the bankruptcy laws, passed by the House on Oct. 12, that President Clinton has said he will veto. Because of the veto promise, Summers and Greenspan had urged the leaders to adopt the provision as a stand-alone bill. ``It would reduce the likelihood that incidents such as the near-collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in September 1998 would pose a broader threat to our financial system,'' they wrote.
RE: E. Wood's defence of Brenner
It really, really helps to read Wood alongside Christopher Hill's "The World Turned Upside Down". Problems for the landlords [and the Parish System in general] began with the reign of Henry the VIIIth. Nor should we avoid the fact the rise of atheism in England had a lot to do with the eroding of subinfeudation, an important legal component of the problem. That Wood does not mention these issues is a critical oversight [blindsight, actually]. Ian > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Ricardo Duchesne > Sent: Thursday, October 26, 2000 10:50 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:3552] E. Wood's defence of Brenner > > > We are now into the heart of the Brenner-Wood thesis, page 46 of > *The Origin of Capitalism*, first sentence: "In England, an > exceptionally large proportion of land was owned by landlords and > worked by tenants whose conditions of tenure increasingly took the > form of economic leases, with rents not fixed by law or custom but > responsive to market conditions." Few sentences down: "The > English ruling class was distinctive in its growing dependence on > the productivity of their tenants, rather than on exerting coercive > power to squeeze more surplus out of them." > > Neither my rhetoric nor Wodd's will do anymore. Some key > questions need answering: Why (and when) did peasant conditions > of tenure "took the form of economic leases"? Did the English > ruling class become "distinctive" after the economic leases were > introduced, or was it able to introduce those leases because it was > already distinctive? No answers yet, except that, in the next page, > Wood reiterates that "petty commodity producers" (or yeomen > farmers) were not waiting for an opportunity to become full > capitalists; rather, they were compelled to do so: "Yeomen were > typically the very kind of capitalist tenants who were subject to > competitive pressures..." (47). Fine, but let's be aware she has > said there were yeomen farmers *before* there were tenant > farmers, before they were forcefully converted into tenant farmers. > This yeoman did not grow naturally into a capitalist tenant, but was > forced into one. Nonetheless there were Yeomen, and one has to > ask under what conditions of tenure were they holding their lands: > customary, freehold? > > At the bottom of p.47, Wood considers what was "distinctive" > about English lords, and does say it was because they had certain > distinctive economic powers that they were able to introduce > capitalistic leases. She says it was precisely because English > lords lacked politico-legal powers of coercion that they had to rely > on "purely 'economic' means" of expoitation. And here comes a > central point: it was because England was "uniquely centralized" > very early on in its history (as we will see further later) that lords > were "deprived" of extra-economic powers - such powers had been > absorbed by the state - somehow leaving lords with "purely" > economic powers (pure now because such powers were previously > fused with political ones). But let's not make too much of this > fusion stuff; the message is essentially that lords had to find other > means to exploit peasants because they had less politico-legal > powers than their counterparts in the continent. So, it may be that > it was *not* any distinctive "economic" powers which allowed them > to impose economic leases, but that having little or no extra- > economic ones, they were compelled to find another (purely > economic) way of exploiting the peasants. >
FSC deadline and possible veto....
full article at http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20001030/pl/economy_congress_dc_1.html Monday October 30 2:46 PM ET U.S. May Miss WTO Deadline on Tax-Break Plan WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Republican leaders in the U.S. Congress warned on Monday that a standoff over tax cuts may doom for the year legislation aimed at heading off a trade war with Europe over a multibillion-dollar program of tax breaks for American exporters. John Czwartacki, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, and aides to Republican leaders in the House said Congress would not revive the bill if President Clinton (news - web sites) carries out his threat to veto their $240 billion tax-cut package contained in the measure. The warning came ahead of a Nov. 1 deadline set by the World Trade Organization (news - web sites) (WTO) for Congress to repeal the Foreign Sales Corporation (FSC) program, which doles out tax breaks to U.S. exporters through offshore subsidiaries. If Washington misses the deadline, the European Union (EU) could seek to impose sanctions on billions of dollars worth of U.S. goods. U.S. officials warned that move could spark an all-out trade war between the world's biggest trading powers. The WTO ruled in February that the FSC was an illegal export subsidy, handing the EU a major trade policy victory. The WTO initially gave the United States until Oct. 1 to repeal the system, but later agreed to extend the deadline to Nov. 1 to give lawmakers more time to complete their work. In response, Republicans wrapped the FSC bill into the party's end-of-the-year tax package, which won House of Representatives approval last week. Under the legislation, the United States would exclude certain categories of foreign-source income from U.S. taxation. Unlike the FSC, companies would receive the benefits directly, rather than through offshore tax havens. Despite the looming deadline, Clinton has threatened to veto the entire package, citing concerns about other tax provisions. To avert a confrontation with the EU, White House officials have urged Republicans to move the FSC bill on its own or as part of a smaller package. But Republican leaders refused to back down. ``This is the last chance for tax cuts and the last chance for FSC. The president is going to have to sign or veto,'' Czwartacki said. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
Why isn't this a stockmarket election, or Bush' bear
full article: http://www.economist.com/World/na/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=397606&CFID=2252 02&CFTOKEN=41668739 Shareholders are more likely to vote than non-shareholders; so it is possible that almost two-thirds of the voters this time will be shareholders, compared with just over a third in 1996. This doubling of numbers could be one of the biggest social, as well as electoral, changes in America. Yet you would hardly know it from the campaign. As they enter the final stages, the Bush and Gore teams are busily tailoring their attack ads to ever-narrower groupsCatholic men in Pennsylvania suburbs, or married women with some college education, two children and full-time jobs, and so forth. Yet the campaigns have not targeted shareholders in this explicit way, even though they are by far the most numerous voting group in the country. More than that, there has been no correlation between changes in the Dow or Nasdaq and voters preferences. There has not even been a link between the Dow and voters attitudes to the economy (which have generally remained positive while the market slides). On the face of it, then, this does not appear to be a stockmarket election in any meaningful sense. Possible explanations for this phenomenon range from the obvious (neither side wants to risk a market crash by blurting out something stupid) to the ridiculous (George W. Bush does not want to talk about the market because his chief economic adviser, Larry Lindsey, took all his money out of stocks). Conventional wisdom, though, argues that the main reason shareholders are not playing a serious political role is that the investor class (to use the term popularised by Larry Kudlow, a Wall Street economist) has not gained class-consciousness.
following this debate, who you all voting for?
the ludditism of the Greens and Ralph bother me, but i just tell myself that when progressive caveman/woman experimented with microbes to invent baked bread and brewed beer and was challenged by his/her peers for "upsetting the balance of nature", he/she just told them, "Get used to it!". same applies today, IMO: "Get used to it." norm *** This is a pathetic caricature of both the Greens and Luddites [both the original and many of today's current adherents] The original English Luddites were against the [fairly new at the time] system of property and contract that enabled capitalists to radically deflate labor costs. This was considered an egregious violation of the Lockean theory of property that many in the country subscribed to, including the nascent socialists. They had no truck against technology. Similarly, while there are a few Greens who would love to "go back to Eden", what most want is a greening of technology and the state to, via incentives or coercion, bring about rapid innovation in the industrial system so as to increase energy productivity while lowering the effluent profile of as many pollution producing systems as possible. At the same time they want a larger shift in society away from the worship of technology as an end in itself. Their main beef against the corporate system in this context is that it actively retards technological innovation via the current property rights scheme and the outright buying of politicians. Ian
New Nader ads
at least somebody is using comedy in the campaign NADER CAMPAIGN UNVEILS NEW TELEVISION AND RADIO AD CAMPAIGN WASHINGTON, D.C., Oct. 31 - Ralph Nader's surging campaign today introduced his latest radio and television spots. [ads below] In the new 30-second television message and 60-second radio spot, both entitled "Grow Up," different children sarcastically relate what they hope will be their future when they grow up and are old enough to vote. The spots are parodies of a popular television advertising campaign that was first seen on the Super Bowl two years ago. "While the other candidates continue to attack each other and our campaign, we want to remind people to focus squarely on what is most important in this election-the future of our democracy and our political system," said Theresa Amato, campaign manager for Nader 2000. "Ralph Nader is the alternative to the corporate-funded duopoly that is selling our democracy to the highest contributors." The new Nader messages will air in up to 30 markets before election day, according to Bill Hillsman of North Woods Advertising, the company that created the spots. "Grow Up-Vote" Radio Spot KIDS V.O.: When I grow up I want the government to have the same problems it has today. KIDS V.O.: I want health insurance to cost me an arm and a leg. KIDS V.O.: I want to buy products that are unsafe. KIDS V.O.: Eat unsafe foods. KIDS V.O.: I want my tax dollars to be used for corporate bailouts-- KIDS V.O.: Corporate welfare- KIDS V.O.: Tax breaks for the very rich. KIDS V.O.: When I grow up. KIDS V.O.: When I grow up. KIDS V.O.: I want to use up all our natural resources. KIDS V.O.: I want education to be the governments last priority. KIDS V.O.: I want to be disillusioned. KIDS V.O.: Disenchanted. KIDS V.O.: Disinterested. KIDS V.O.: Disenfranchised. KIDS V.O.: I want to vote for the lesser of two evils. KIDS V.O.: I want there to be one political party to choose from KIDS V.O.: When I grow up I want politicians to ignore me. FEMALE Is this what you want from your government?...Or do you want something ANNCR: better for yourself and the next generation? Voter Ralph Nader for President. RALPH: "Whatever you do, do vote, and spend a few hours thinking and reading about what you want your vote to mean and what kind of politics you want to see in America's future." FEMALE ANNCR: Paid for by the Nader 2000 General Committee Nader 2000 "Grow Up" TV Spot (THIS SPOT IS A MONTAGE OF CHILDREN BETWEEN THE AGES OF 6 & 12 SPEAKING DIRECTLY TO CAMERA, ONE AT A TIME. EACH LINE BELOW IS READ BY A DIFFERENT CHILD.) When I grow up I want the government to have the same problems it has today. I want to vote for the lesser of two evils. I want to be lied to. I want to be apathetic. I want tax breaks for the very rich. When I grow up... When I grow up... I want to be disillusioned. Disenchanted. Disenfranchised. When I grow up I want politicians to ignore me. V.O.: Is this what you want from your government?Or do you want something better for yourself and the next generation?Vote Ralph Nader for President.
Using tax policy to create comparative advantage
[that's 4.5 billion $$ a year] Wednesday November 1 12:48 PM ET Senate Passes Export Tax Measure By CURT ANDERSON, AP Tax Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - The Senate passed a $4.5 billion export tax measure Wednesday that would replace a law ruled an illegal trade subsidy by the World Trade Organization (news - web sites). The bill is a major step in avoiding potential retaliation from the European Union. On a voice vote, the Senate sent the legislation to the House, but GOP leaders balked at immediately following suit. The measure is also part of a larger 10-year, $240 billion tax relief package that is being delayed in the Senate for unrelated reasons and has drawn a veto threat from President Clinton (news - web sites). House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, told reporters that House Republicans favor holding firm on the entire tax measure rather than moving individual pieces, even if Congress takes a break until mid-November for next week's election. ``The House has spoken on taxes,'' Armey said. ``We think it's good work and we think it ought to be signed.'' Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, senior Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said if Congress did not pass the export tax legislation before adjourning for the year it could result in $4 billion in retaliatory tariffs from the Europeans. ``It had the potential for a ruinous trade war,'' Moynihan said. ``We have just dodged a big bullet.'' The legislation, costing $4.5 billion over 10 years, would replace the Foreign Sales Corporation law invalidated by the WTO, which provides tax breaks for more than 6,000 U.S. companies operating offshore sales subsidiaries. The measure is a top priority for the Clinton administration and has broad bipartisan support, but for weeks it was blocked by a handful of Democrats - Sens. Richard Bryan of Nevada, Paul Wellstone of Minnesota and Ernest Hollings of South Carolina among them. They had objected to extending the export tax breaks to such industries as drug makers, tobacco companies and defense contractors. The larger $240 billion tax bill pending in the Senate faces an uncertain future, especially with the priority export tax provision moving separately. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., is steadfast in his refusal to grant GOP leaders unanimous Senate consent for the bill to be brought up because it would effectively block Oregon's assisted suicide law. Clinton opposes it for several reasons, contending its school construction provisions are inadequate and that $30 billion in Medicare money is not properly divided. If agreement is not reached to bring up the bill for debate, Lott said he would seek a vote, probably Thursday, to cut off the filibuster. That would require 60 votes and some Democratic support. GOP leaders have adamantly opposed rewriting the bill to meet Clinton's demands. The tax bill would increase contribution limits for 401(k) plans and IRAs, cut taxes for businesses, create new incentives for investment in impoverished areas and increase the $5.15-an-hour minimum wage by $1 over two years. -
Re: Laws of Motion: Do they exist for non-capitalist MPs?
JD>>This equates "laws of motion" with the unforeseen consequences of the "invisible hand" of the market. I don't see why other systems might have unforeseen consequences of purposeful action, though of course, they'd be different. For example, Kornai argues that USSR-style top-down planning encourages the rise of a shortage economy. Bureaucracies allow people to rise to the level of their incompetence (the Peter Principle). Etc. *** Back when I was a freshman in econ. history class I asked "if it's invisible how can we tell if it's a hand?" Can't we get past these metaphors. Economies are Newtonian in only the trivial sense that we're all "just" physical objects moving in space. Plus Marx was wedding Newtonian metaphors which are a-teleological [primacy of efficient cause] with Hegel [Aristotelian, Taoist-itself largely a-teleological, post-Kantian] models of logic and teleology which have cross theoretic inconsistencies/incommensurabilities. The coherence doth not "work".. Ian
Down in Flames :-) !!!
all hail the Repugs Full article at http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/FRI/FIN/tax.2.html Paris, Friday, November 3, 2000 U.S. Bill to Avoid Trade War Falters in Tax-Cut Battle By Steven Pearlstein Washington Post Service WASHINGTON - The bitter battle between President Bill Clinton and Congress over a Republican-proposed tax cut has claimed another victim: a bill, desperately sought by big business, aimed at avoiding a costly trade war with Europe. The bill, which has strong bipartisan support in Congress, would replace $4 billion in tax breaks to big exporters with a revised tax regime that U.S. officials hope will pass muster under world trading rules. Last year, the World Trade Organization ruled that the old tax breaks were illegal export subsidies, and the European Union threatened to retaliate with trade sanctions against U.S. companies unless the subsidies were repealed by Nov. 1. But on Wednesday, after a revised tax regime proposed by the administration was passed unanimously by the Senate, House leaders refused to take up the bill, preferring to hold it hostage in their effort to pass a larger tax-cut bill that Senate Democrats had threatened to filibuster and Mr. Clinton has vowed to veto. With the House's refusal to take action, the EU is now free to issue a list of $4 billion worth of U.S. exports to Europe that will be subject to 100 percent tariffs. Although the retaliatory tariffs may not take effect until next year, merely publishing them will cause problems for U.S. corporations. U.S. businesses had made passage of the revamped tax breaks one of their top legislative priorities this year, and lobbyists swarmed all over the Capitol on Wednesday in a desperate, and ultimately unsuccessful, effort to press House leaders to grant final passage before recessing for the election. ''We've heard from our members, and they made it clear: This is one that has to get done,'' said Bruce Josten, vice president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. ''There can be some serious consequences to American business if this bill is not passed.'' ''A disaster,'' said one lobbyist for an industry organization. ''It's simply ridiculous to start a trade war with our biggest customer because of this election-eve bickering.'' Ironically, businesses have paid dearly for having a Congress that is responsive to their interests. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, corporations donated more than $280 million during this election cycle to House candidates and the Democratic and Republican campaign committees, including $156 million to Republicans Under the existing tax code, corporations receive substantial tax breaks if they funnel their exports through paper corporations set up in offshore tax havens. According to the journal Tax Notes, in 1998 alone Boeing Co. received a $130 million tax break under the program, Cisco Systems Inc. $55 million and Monsanto Co. $29 million.
RE: Re: Re: Laws of Motion: Do they exist for non-capitalist MPs?
JD>> the only kind of theory that exists in social science is metaphorical (or rather involves a simile: the model is like the phenomenon being investigated). All efforts to "merely describe" what's going on (empiricism) involves some sort of theory, often covert. So we're stuck... The hope is that our theories are better than those of the hegemons. *** Yup >Economies are Newtonian in only the trivial sense that we're all "just" >physical objects moving in space. why do theories have to be Newtonian? I don't get this. Please explain. * They don't; I was commenting on the use of "the laws of motion of capitalist development". Is the above a metaphor or simile? "The circulation of commodities"; is this metaphorical/analogical to physiology or is it, along with the circuits of capital, a precursor of cybernetics/systems theory [this is what I was taught by a German prof. who worked with Habermas] and complexity theory. M--C--M' is a wonderful little algorithm and model of iterativity. As the Phish song puts it, "expanding exponentially like some recursive virus." >Plus Marx was wedding Newtonian metaphors which are a-teleological >[primacy of efficient cause] with Hegel >[Aristotelian, Taoist-itself largely a-teleological, post-Kantian] models >of logic and teleology which have cross theoretic >inconsistencies/incommensurabilities. The coherence doth not "work". I don't see how Marx was Newtonian at all, nor how Hegel was Taoist. In general, I don't explain the theory you're putting forth, Ian. Please explain. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine *** Well, what's "the laws of motion"? As for Hegel's Taoist influences, the Jesuits brought back the Tao Te Ching, the Analects and the I Ching and translated the stuff about 1600-1620 or so [I think the main guy doin' the shuttle diplomacy was Matteo Ricci]. Leibniz was one of the first to get a hold of these translations [bein' a diplomat and all] and wrote extensive commentaries on them [I think Open Court Press recently republished the stuff]. I can't remember sources off the top of my head and my books on the issues are buried in boxes, but somehow Hegel got a hold of the stuff and loved it [as did Leibniz and of course boatloads of westerners still do]. That Yin/Yang symbol is an icon of the dialectical interpenetration of opposites. Anyway, Chinese poetics/cosmogony is pretty damn a-teleological; there's no taxonomy of formal/efficient/final causes a la Aristotle. Galileo and all the usual suspects banished teleology from physical dynamics and left only efficient causes; the laws of motion. Marx wanted nothin' to do with the Aristotelian taxonomy of causation but because he spent more time with Hegel's texts than, say Leibniz' Monadology, and with the Aristotelian logic of bivalence being so ubiquitous in Hegel even as he tried to transcend it in his argument against Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" in "The Phenomenology of Mind", Marx inherited all the baggage [see the Grundrisse intro on Lenin's claims for how to read]. The question of whether Marx' view of history is secularized teleology/eschatology is, of course, a controversy to say the least. [Justin's the Hegel fan, so he can probably give you a lot more on these issues]. In fact, the first real rigorous steps beyond bivalence in the west didn't get it's first real start until George Boole published his work in 1854. Hegelianism went out the window as Boole and Frege's, along with Cantor's work, swept philosophy and math departments with some pretty heavy implications for political thinkers in Euro academies. I haven't seen anything as to whether Marx knew of Booles' work. The debate over multivalued logics and their use in modeling causal dynamics is extremely heated and can lead to madness :-), Just ask J. Barkley Rosser Jr. Hope this helps, Ian
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Laws of Motion: Do they exist for non-capitalist MPs?
Jr.>> Ian, Egads, madness? Well, actually I'm holding a tea party here in Wonderland for any who are interested in multi-valued logics and causal dynamics, :-) Two minor notes: 1) Leibniz was more influenced by Confucius than by Taoism. In China these are very much competing dogmas, although one can argue that they are complementary in a dialectical manner. Confucianism is the philosophy of the scholar in power and Taoism is the philosophy of the scholar out of power. 2) I see complex dynamics in some of Marx's work. As with a lot of other issues, it depends on which of his stuff one is reading. Thus, Vol. II of Capital and such stuff as the simple and expanded models of reproduction look pretty "Newtonian" and following rather simple "laws of motion." However, the discussion in much of Vol. III looks a lot more complex. Barkley Rosser ** I was taught he was more influenced by the I Ching, at least with regards to the Monadology and his innovations in logic and math. The Confucian aspects probably influenced his diplomatic side. If you have a text that goes into it in detail, let me know por favor. As for us, we're all Taoists no? :-) Will definitely look at II & III many more times Tryin' Kolmogorov, Sklar, Smorynski and Nicolis damn near kills us regular folks, makes me wanna put a Massive Attack CD on cue just to shut down for a week or three. Ian >
RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Laws of Motion: Do they exist for non-capitalist MPs?
JD >>Metaphor or simile? it depends how the sentence is structured. When economists use a model to describe the economy, that's metaphorical. If they say that the economy is _like_ the model, that's a simile. It's all poetry, though hopefully it's logically consistent on the inside (unlike most poetry). * Gotcha. Economics as poetry? Dream on! :-) We can't judge Marx's theory by what it was a precursor to (since "even the Devil can quote scripture"). Agreed, precursoritis is ex post facto reading. More specifically, I'd say that Marx's "laws of motion" of capitalist development are not and cannot be deterministic. [We seem to agree that excessive determinism is a problem; I hope we agree that some determinism helps us understand the world.] *** Yup. If anything, "Law" is about determination, the elimination of alternatives, a banishment of possibilities by those delegated to do so. Legal/illegal -- monarchy/anarchy etc., "the infernal arbitrariness of choice" as Holmes, Wittgenstein, Derrida and many others have shown. Our social life has "islands" of determinism in an aleatory sea. They aren't (in practice, which is what counts) because Marx never finished his work, as with crisis theory, which he left as a bunch of brilliant but incomplete insights. [If we're smart, we might be able to fill in the gaps and make the links...] They can't be, because (as Mike Lebowitz argues) in CAPITAL, Marx deliberately left the "laws of motion of working-class development" out, treating the working class as either a passive or a merely reactive force. The "laws of motion" of actually-existing capitalism are a combination of an incomplete story of the laws of motion of capital and the laws of motion of wage-labor. The latter -- the so-called "subjective factor," the collective self-liberation of the working class via developing its organization and class consciousness -- seems to be an inherently non-deterministic process. *** Most chaotic indeed! If capitalism is expanding like a virus, we're trying to find a vaccine. So the process isn't deterministic in practice. * Yup, and that's precisely the kind of metaphorical thinking we can use to reach out to younger people who know something is very wrong and are looking for concepts to facilitate solutions that resonate with their "concrete" experiences. User friendly abstractions I say.. Ideally, though not in practice, Marx's laws of motion are akin to but also different from the "dynamics" of the perfectly competitive market that I tell my students about. There's a structure that has internal tendencies toward an equilibrium (if "economic profits" differ from zero, entry or exit moves them toward zero, the ideal equilibrium). [This is similar to Marx's tendency for the rate of profit to be equalized between sectors, except that the NC economists lack a valid theory of what determines the overall average profit rate.] In Marx's system, there's a fundamental -- structurally-based -- conflict of class (collective) interests between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, that represents a constant source of actual struggle and other problems, along with the general problems of any commodity-producing society (the conflict between socialized production and individual appropriation of wealth). These structurally-based conflicts imply tendencies toward their solution. * Well, that's what "kids" want to know nowadays; specifics they can use, not abstract generalities. Mapping freedom and justice and class struggle onto a fresh set of metaphors and similes that allow them to look at work and leisure and civic participation in ways that "makes" them want to organize and build solidarity so as to challenge how the "laws of property and contract" can be totally changed so as to enlarge the scale and scope of freedom and justice and keep us riding on this big blue ball. For Marx, however, the internal tendencies are not realized automatically, unlike with the NC theory of a perfectly competitive market. Though he was optimistic about the chances of revolution, his theory was never deterministic. Even in the very-rhetorical MANIFESTO, he and Engels saw the possibility of a Hobbesian-style result (the mutual destruction of the contending classes) rather than a successful socialist revolution. Instead, we see the structurally-based moves toward class conflict (these days, a one-sided war, the neoliberal movement) and crisis, without the culmination. >As for Hegel's Taoist influences, the Jesuits brought back the Tao Te >Ching, the Analects and the I Ching and translated the stuff about >1600-1620 or so [I think the main guy doin' the shuttle diplomacy was >Matteo Ricci]. Leibniz was one of the first to get a >hold of these translations [bein' a diplomat and all] and wrote extensive >commentaries on them [I think Open Court Press rece
RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Laws of Motion: Do they exist fornon-capitalist MPs?
> > Unfinished texts usually look more complex than more finished > ones. But my core > question is, how useful is it to label arguments "Newtonian" or > "Non-Newtonian." > Nothing in Newton has actually been falsified -- it's just been > placed in a > larger context. And while the first section of Vol. II certainly can be > accurately condensed by writing the same tautology in four > different forms -- it > would take about half a page -- what he does each time he rotates > the tautology > again and expands on it is one of the glories of western > literature. Perhaps a > literary student can appreciate it better than someone trained in > technical > economics. > > Carrol *** The same strategy has been used with utterly brilliant results in biology and ecology by Lewonton and Levins in the 1960's. Ian
The farm crisis or collectivization by monopsony
would this be a case of corporate syndicalism? full article http://thenation.com FEATURE STORY | November 20, 2000 The Last Farm Crisis by WILLIAM GREIDER The contemporary triumph of free-market capitalism has revealed to farmers, if not to other Americans, the bitter last act in this drama. Farmers can see themselves being reduced from their mythological status as independent producers to a subservient and vulnerable role as sharecroppers or franchisees. The control of food production, both livestock and crops, is being consolidated not by the government but by a handful of giant corporations. While farmers and ranchers suffered three years of severely depressed prices at the close of the 1990s, the corporations enjoyed soaring profits from the same line of goods. Growers are surrounded now on both sides--facing concentrated market power not only from the companies that buy their crops and animals but also from the firms that sell them essential inputs like seeds and fertilizer. In the final act of unfettered capitalism, the free market itself is destroyed. In farm country these developments are often described, with irony, as America's top-down version of collectivization. "It's interesting," said James Horne, who leads an Oklahoma center for sustainable agriculture. "Our system of support payments for the farmers survived about as long as the Soviet system did, around seventy years. Now, here in the United States we're doing exactly what the Russians are undoing in their agriculture. They're decentralizing and we're centralizing." Farmers tend to express the point more pungently. "We're in a death struggle out here, and we're getting our butts kicked," said Fred Stokes, a former career Army officer who retired to raise cattle in his home state of Mississippi. Stokes calls himself a Reagan Republican, but frequently begins a statement by saying, "Now, I'm not a socialist but..." "The thing that bothers me most is the Big Brother aspect of this deal," he said. "It's clear the government is more concerned with mining big profits for these corporations than it is with food security or family farmers. It's all about more money for a handful of guys who will be the elites. The rest of us wind up swinging machetes. You talk about feudalism. This thing makes farmers indentured on their own land; they're going to be the new serfs." The media's usual take on this new farm crisis is a tearjerk feature story that begins with a worried farm couple poring over bills at the kitchen table, children crying in the background; and it closes with a romantic elegy for Jefferson's doomed yeomanry. Too bad, but that's the price of progress, end of story. I intend to skip over the pathos of farm families, widespread though it is, and focus instead on the intricate economics of monopoly power and why collectivized agriculture promises ruinous social consequences for the rest of us. Farming, as an industry, is inescapably different from other sectors--since weather is always a big wild card in production--but the patterns of concentration and control in food production provide a visible primer for what's also been under way in the larger economy. The same great shifts in structure and market domination are fast forming in finance and banking, telecommunications, media and other sectors. The much-celebrated entrepreneurial spirit is steadily neutered--"rationalized," the players would say--by the same rush of mergers, acquisitions and "strategic alliances" among supposed rivals. (See Adam Smith on how businessmen always yearn to escape from price competition through collusion.)
[PEN-L:5121] Dollars and Sense....
Went perusing for some Econ. documents at the UW library this afternoon and picked up some material on Senate approval of NATO expansion, Turkey and the Kurds, and privatizing National Security regarding fissionable material from Russia. Sources will follow quotes: "Bob Smith (R-NH) called attention to a recent poll, conducted April 23-26 (1998), showed that only 32% supported expansion when confronted with the cost estimates that put the US taxpayer share at between 400million and 19billion$ over 10 years for the 1st round of expansion." Arms Control Today, April 1998, p. 20 "Since 1980, the US has sold or given Turkey 15billion$ worth of weapons. Turkey, in turn, has leveled, burned, or forcibly evacuated 3,000 Kurdish villages. Forty thousand lives have been lost and two million have been made homeless." The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, March/April 1999, p. 27. "Washington has consistently put domestic commercial and financial interests, most notably those involved in the recent privatization of the US Enrichment Corporation (USEC) ahead of US national security interests...The deal--worth an estimated 12billion $ to Moscow-- would guarantee that the Russian HEU (Highly Enriched Uranium, enough to build more than 20,000 nuclear weapons, would never again be used for weapons purposes." Arms Control Today, August/September 1998, p. 8. Ian Murray Seattle, WA
[PEN-L:5257] Yugo Economics....
Anybody on the lists read this one? Investment and Property Rights in Yugoslavia : The Long Transition to a Market Economy (Soviet and East European Studies, No 86) Cambridge University Press, 1992. by Milica Uvalic In this book, Milica Uvalic examines the theoretical and empirical issues related to investment in Yugoslavia since 1965. She explores investment policies, sources of finance, macroeconomic performance, enterprise incentives and current property reforms in relation to Western theory on investment behavior in the labor-managed firm and Kornai's theory on socialist economies. In line with Kornai's theory, the author argues that the fundamental causes of problems in Yugoslavia are generic to socialist economic systems, rather than the specific characteristic of self-management. For decades Yugoslavia has been trying to develop its own model of socialism based on workers' self-management and increasing use of the market mechanism. As a result, many scholars view the Yugoslav economy as very different from other socialist systems. In this book, Dr Milica Uvalic shows, on the contrary, how some of the fundamental features of the Yugoslav economy have remained similar to those characterizing other socialist economies. Dr Uvalic focuses on theoretical and empirical issues related to investment in Yugoslavia since 1965. She examines investment policies, sources of finance, macroeconomic performance, enterprise incentives and current property reforms in relation to Western theory on investment behaviour in the labour-managed firm, and to Kornai's theory of socialist economies. In line with Kornai, the author reveals that, in spite of substantial institutional change, the investment process has continued to be characterized by an over-investment drive, severe capital market distortions and capital allocation according to non-market criteria, frequent state intervention in daily enterprise policies and limited enterprise autonomy, lack of financial discipline and the socialization of losses. The author argues that investment reforms have not led to substantially changed enterprise behaviour, which illustrates the limited results to be expected from partial reforms in a socialist economy. The fundamental causes of investment problems in Yugoslavia are thus typical of 'traditional' socialist economic systems, rather than the specific characteristic of self-management. Investment and property rights in Yugoslavia is a most topical work. It presents a great deal of new material and addresses issues that have previously been dealt with in isolation. It will be widely read by students and specialists of Eastern Europe, comparative economic systems and finance. Ian
[PEN-L:5072] J. F. Dulles and Tito
On page 482 of "The Prize" by Daniel Yergin, it is stated that John Foster Dulles and Eisenhower approved of foreign aid for Tito in the Summer of 1956. That same summer came the famous dispute with Nasser over the Aswan damn, along with the manipulations of the Sterling by the US Government, to stop the British-French "seizure' of the Suez. Does anyone have any historical data on US aid to Yugoslavia during the 50's-60's which would provide background for some of Dr. Chussodovsky's recent history? Ian Murray Seattle, WA
[PEN-L:5019] Timetable?
How much more shaping up of our facts and conjectures before we go on the "offensive"? http://www.fair.org/media-contact-list.html Ian Murray Seattle, WA
[PEN-L:7449] RE: Re: Re: Nominalism and the Biosphere: RE: Re: RE: Harvey, Leibniz & Marx
Apologies to all for bad editing. I think the myth of "man's" fall is older than capitalism, Jim. Max Weber and all that. A redemptive Civic Utopian project is as old as Augustine at least. As for materialism as an ontology; well, philosophy of science has got as many problems as neoclassical econ Pre-evolutionary world views all were neologisms at one time or another. Learning the language(s) of evolutionary ecology and struggling with giving them coherence is the practice. Learning to crawl, Ian > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jim Devine > Sent: Saturday, May 29, 1999 11:03 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:7447] Re: Re: Nominalism and the Biosphere: RE: Re: RE: > Harvey, Leibniz & Marx > > > (this one was hard to read. I had to reedit it using > as quotation marks > to make it readable. matter bracketed by >>> <<< refers to what Ian said > before; within >><< to what I say; within >< to what he replied. It would > be nice if people adopted this or some similar convention.) > > Ian Murray had written: >>>However, I think that while capitalism and > socialism have contradictions, we perpetuate a self misunderstanding of > ourselves as organic beings when we state we are in conflict with nature. > It is the thought that makes it so. A genuine Pygmalion effect if > you will. > The "fall" never happened..<<< > > I wrote: >>I can't agree with the view that "the thought" "makes it so." > Capitalism and bureaucratic socialism both have dealt with their > _internal_ > contradictions by dumping costs on nonhuman nature, coming into conflict > with the latter. Because humanity/nature is a unified system, this > represents a contradiction within a totality.<< > > Ian now writes: >I was trying to get across the idea that "man" > contradicting nature is the secularization of our fall in the Garden of > Eden myth. A pernicious pathology of thought that helped catalyze > capitalism into rapacious overdrive. Evolutionary theory thankfully > dismantles this idiocy.< > > I don't see capitalism as being catalyzed by a pernicious pathology of > thought. Rather, as a materialist, I see capitalism as catalyzing a > pernicous pathology of thought, i.e., the endless effort to exploit and > conquer nonhuman nature. > > Evolutionary theory dismantles the theory on the level of theory. The > problem is on the level of practice. Only if evolutionary theory can > mobilize people to change their practice will the endless expansionism of > capitalism end. > > >>I don't see why metaphors (etc.) need to be used to control nonhuman > nature. Can't they be used to guide us on how to live with > nonhuman nature? << > > >I was saying that modern science had the (un)conscious desire to be god. > The acceptance of the incompleteness of our theorizations of nature's > dynamics (Godel is pertinent here) leads to a much more humbling attitude. > Parts/wholes in systems theory force us to let go of the dream of control; > this has enormous implications for ecological engineering.< > > Okay, that makes sense. My view is that formal theories can only capture > the abstract dimensions of empirical reality (including nonhuman nature). > That formal theories cannot capture the concrete dimensions, i.e., the > heterogeneity, implies a certain humility toward the subject > being studied. > But it seems to me that this is no reason to give up the task of improving > on our abstract theories. > > Further, it seems to me that theories that allow us to have > greater control > of certain aspects of nonhuman nature can be modified to allow us to find > ways of living with nonhuman nature in a mutually-beneficial way. In terms > of a recent movie, the Force can be used for Good. We need not > "go with the > 'dark' side." > > >>> Clearly we have a long way to go in learning how to name that which > does not name itself; what previous generations have called > Reality/Being.<<< > > >>I don't understand this.<< > > >This is the fundamental claim of nominalism; things don't name > themselves, > we name them. And that there are a plurality of strategies for naming the > dynamics of the world. The strategies conflict, not the things named. > "Reality is just itself, and it is nonsense to ask whether it be true or > false." (Whitehead)< > > okay. But wouldn't you say that external reality puts some limits on what > we name its components? For example, we need two different terms for "up" > and "down." We couldn't use the same word for both. > > >Capitalism misnames ecological reality (semi)deliberately in order to > justify it's exploitation of nature and human beings. Ecological Reality > bites back with Cholera, cancer etc. the whole host of iatrogenic diseases > that are the externalities of production (Lewonton goes into this in > Biology as Ideology).< > > In what way has ecological reality been misnamed? It also seems to me that > the misnaming is the smallest p
[PEN-L:7445] Re: Nominalism and the Biosphere: RE: Re: RE: Harvey, Leibniz & Marx
Jim, However, I think that while capitalism and socialism have contradictions, we >perpetuate a self misunderstanding of ourselves as organic beings when we >state we are in conflict with nature. It is the thought that makes it so. A >genuine Pygmalion effect if you will. The "fall" never happened.. I can't agree with the view that "the thought" "makes it so." Capitalism and bureaucratic socialism both have dealt with their _internal_ contradictions by dumping costs on nonhuman nature, coming into conflict with the latter. Because humanity/nature is a unified system, this represents a contradiction within a totality. I was trying to get across the idea that "man" contradicting nature is the secularization of our fall in the Garden of Eden myth. A pernicious pathology of thought that helped catalyze capitalism into rapacious overdrive. Evolutionary theory thankfully dismantles this idiocy. >I don't see why metaphors (etc.) need to be used to control nonhuman nature. Can't they be used to guide us on how to live with nonhuman nature? I was saying that modern science had the (un)conscious desire to be god. The acceptance of the incompleteness of our theorizations of nature's dynamics (Godel is pertinent here) leads to a much more humbling attitude. Parts/wholes in systems theory force us to let go of the dream of control; this has enormous implications for ecological engineering. > Clearly we have a long way to go in learning how to name that >which does not name itself; what previous generations have called >Reality/Being. I don't understand this. This is the fundamental claim of nominalism; things don't name themselves, we name them. And that there are a plurality of strategies for naming the dynamics of the world. The strategies conflict, not the things named. "Reality is just itself, and it is nonsense to ask whether it be true or false." (Whitehead) Capitalism misnames ecological reality (semi)deliberately in order to justify it's exploitation of nature and human beings. Ecological Reality bites back with Cholera, cancer etc. the whole host of iatrogenic diseases that are the externalities of production (Lewonton goes into this in Biology as Ideology). Capital must be confronted in many contexts; the WTO makes for good "target practice", and it is the next immediate project of Capital we must challenge when we have the chance this fall. Nobody really knows what ecological democracy is...yet; we learn how to create it while struggling against Capital Thanks for reading, Ian
[PEN-L:7440] RE: Re: Re: Re: RE: Harvey, Leibniz & Marx
One of the many problems that emerges from L an L's views on contradiction is that they never specify when and where epistemology leaves off and ontology begins. This a boundary that is extreeemly fuzzy (logic). Mathematical physics tirelessly strives to create self-consistent models of natural phenomena at a swarming multitude of space-time scales. Thermodynamicists do not consider quantum theory a contradiction of their experimental or theoretical results by any means. Indeed, the conjoining of mathematical physics and computability theory have demonstrated that "there is a self-consistency in that the laws [of physics] generate the very mathematics that makes those laws both computable and simple." (Davies in Zurek, p. 66) "Things change because of the actions of opposing forces on them, and > things are in the way because of the temporary balance of opposing forces. Forms change due to the actions of algorithms of complementary vectors and scalars. Is this sentence antithetical to, or complementary of, the above proposition; or both? "The dialectical view insists that persistence and equilibrium are not the natural state of things but require explanation, which must be sought in the actions of the opposing forces." The recursive view explores and accepts the myriad topologies that make stability/instability possible. What is the unnatural state of "things"? Disequilibrium, flux and aleatory randomness also require explanation. The folks at the Fed and the World bank have been data mining major parts of Lucas' et. al. "Recursive Methods in Economic Dynamics" since it first came out. It was prominently displayed in major downtown DC bookstores for quite a while. It is the robustness and seductive allure of recursion that drives the folks who work on Swiftnet and it's progeny and the Fed's macroeconomic simulation night and day. Leibniz and Whitehead damn near stumbled on Recursion theory. They were led to this by a deep appreciation of Chinese philosophical poetry/dialectics; which was also Hegel's great inspiration (via the Jesuits; Leibniz had extensive notes on Chinese culture, recently published). Leibniz asked what it would be like to be a Lucretian atom (in contrast to Descartes query of what would the world look like at the atomic level). This leads to the genuine question of respect/empathy for other living beings, in a neglected aspect of Harvey's quest for an ontological basis for environmental justice; for surely biodiversity must be a part of this picture. Hence, if monads feel (Whitehead) then experience [yes this is problematic] is as old as living itself, and the interiority of organic being is not confined to humans alone. Ecosystem preservation a la Cronon and Worster take on a wholly enriched dimension when the natural history of experience meets up with core/periphery explanations and narratives in environmental history. Do we question the Indians ecological vision because WE (now) view the Buffalo as experiencing suffering when they went over the cliff (in fact, the landing)? In the post-Enlightnment milieu the Cartesians denied animal/plant suffering; dualism and all that. Whitehead strove mightily to overcome this dualism at the behest of Haldane and William Bateson. In "Conceptual Issues In Ecology", edited by Esa Saarinan, L and L state that: "Many-to -oneness means that there are many possible configurations of populations which preserve the same qualitative properties at the level of the whole..." "...Whole and part do not completely determine one another." (p. 116) Leibniz, Whitehead and Harvey would have no trouble agreeing with this one.This is pluralistic supervenience, a powerful explanatory strategy in biology and the philosophy of mind, not dialectics. "In Marx, the class contradictions of capitalism involve the possibility of abolishing classes and therefore the dynamics of human society." How will the abolition of classes lead to a cessation of the dynamics of human society? Cronon and Worster see the dynamics of human economies as (almost)perpetually linked to multiple ecological systems; some of which we engage in rapacious extractions, some of which we engage in homeorhetic, complementary, and "sustainable" relationships (I'm thinking of Asian agricultural terraforming in all it's beauty). To encourage the latter and let go of our maladaptive addiction to the former...They both feel, or at least I read them as saying, that an aesthetic "revolution" is necessary to rupture the tyranny of economism. Worster, in particular, is quite explicit about this. It also shows up in Dr. O'Connor's ravaging of the semiotic sleight of hand "natural capital"; the biosphere should not be imprisoned by economic discourse. "and just what does a fish know of the water in which it swims all it's life?" AE Ian Murray Seattle, WA "Complexity, Entropy and the Physics of Information", edited by W. Zurek, Addison Wesley, 1990 "Conceptual Issues in Ecolog
[PEN-L:7262] Harvey, Leibniz & Marx
"the separation between city and countryside undermines the very essence of an ecosystem: recycling of nutrients into the soil." Ecosystems have no essence; boundaries and material flows are observer defined constructs. Cities are ecosystems. There is a whole "new" field called industrial ecology that all Marxian thinkers would do well to look at, I'm sure Marx would have... Industrial Ecology: Towards Closing the Materials Cycle, by Robert and Leslie Ayres, Edward Elgar publishers. Ian Murray
[PEN-L:7356] Nominalism and the Biosphere: RE: Re: RE: Harvey, Leibniz & Marx
Contradiction is polysemous and I am more than comfortable with it's usage
in all things human.
However, I think that while capitalism and socialism have contradictions, we
perpetuate a self misunderstanding of ourselves as organic beings when we
state we are in conflict with nature. It is the thought that makes it so. A
genuine Pygmalion effect if you will. The "fall" never happened..
We take our fear of death out on the planet. That being said, we have been
theorizing the world around us for 10,000 years or so with symbols,
metaphors, metonyms, similes etc, all the while trying to get at a "causal"
model that will give us everything we created god for; omniscience,
omnipotencecontrol.
When we accept incompleteness(and the open-ended dynamics of thought) and
let go of the desire to control the planet we can start to seriously inquire
into how to think in terms of complementarity, mutuality, adaptability and
evolvability. I state this with the full realization that only 9% of
Americans (I don't know the numbers for the rest of the world) "believe" in
evolution. Clearly we have a long way to go in learning how to name that
which does not name itself; what previous generations have called
Reality/Being.
Exploring the complementarities and tensions between ecology (as theory and
practice) and economics (as theory and policy) will be as great a challenge
for us as the physicists' attempts to reconcile Relativity and Quantum
theory. It will cost gobs of money and generate millions of woman/man hours
of discussion and debate.
We know all too well what institutions and the theories/ideologies which
they are "embodiments" of, that are the rightful objects of our frustration.
A young institution (the WTO), which is only five years old is already
struggling to expand it's niche; we have the genuine opportunity to continue
the efforts of activists and scholars from around the world to decreate it's
expansionary tendency (the Geneva meeting was a great example of what we're
going to need to continue). If we let it grow to become the size of the
Pentagon or the IRS our children will never forgive us. We waste precious
time lambasting one another when we should be motivating one another to
create political/economic ideas that would help bring about the ecological
democracy (with social justice in the drivers' seat) more than a few on this
list desire.
To be anthropomorphic about it: "Natural Selection does not care whether a
brain has or tends toward true beliefs, so long as the organism reliably
exhibits reproductively advantageous behavior." (Paul Churchland)
Ian Murray
Seattle, WA
> -Original Message-
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jim Devine
> Sent: Thursday, May 27, 1999 8:54 AM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L:7345] Re: RE: Harvey, Leibniz & Marx
>
>
> Ian Murray wrote: >Inconsistencies and contradictions are linguistic
> artifacts; nature does not "contain" a [contradiction] nor or a not
> function in it's dynamics. Does a marine ecology "contradict" a
> terrestrial one? A natural balance is always a temporary
> eddy/stability in
> a relentless flux. ...<
>
> The first sentence refers to an old debate. The view that "contradictions"
> are only linguistic artifacts typically refers to the view that a
> "contradiction" must be a _logical_ matter. ("The sky is blue" contradicts
> "the sky is red.")
>
> But there are other meanings of the word "contradiction" and we don't have
> to always use words in one specific way. (After all, the word "investment"
> means something different to an economist than it does to most
> people.) In
> the Marxian tradition, a "contradiction" refers a structurally-based
> conflict within a unified totality or system: within the
> societal totality
> of capitalism, for example, there is a structurally-based conflict between
> the class interest of workers and that of capitalists. There is thus a
> contradiction within capitalism.
>
> Now, are their "contradictions" within "nature"? There are conflicts, as
> between the fire ants in the Southeastern US and the more indigenous
> species of animals. I don't know if there are true contradictions (of the
> sort defined in the previous paragraph) in non-human nature. I think it's
> reasonable to say there may be "dialectics of nature" as long as we admit
> that they are qualitatively different from those within human
> society. If I
> remember correctly, Levins and Lewontin's discussion in THE DIALECTICAL
> BIOLOGIST does not employ the concept of contradictions to understand
> non-human nature. So we might say that there are _no_ contradictions
> (structurally-based conflicts) within non-human nature, a pretty large
> qualitative difference.
>
> But there sure seems to be a contraction within the system of humanity
> combined with nature, which is the right totality to look at.
> Class society
> -- and especially capitalism and its imitator, bureaucratic socia
[PEN-L:7273] RE: Harvey, Leibniz & Marx
Inconsistencies and contradictions are linguistic artifacts; nature does not "contain" a nor or a not function in it's dynamics. Does a marine ecology "contradict" a terrestrial one? A natural balance is always a temporary eddy/stability in a relentless flux. Ecological apocalyptics are simply creating an aesthetics of futility and, like anger, are a waste of time. It is largely because we avert our knowledge practices from "seeing" our impermanence as malleable phenotypes that leads us to create pathological/parasitic ecologies of industrial habitats. No one is saying your list aren't ecological "bads"; its just that you're using the term contradiction in a context where it may not legitimately apply. For more see: Donald Worster's The Wealth of Nature, ch. 13. Frank Golley's A History of the Ecosystem Concept R. C. Lewontin's Gene, Organism, and Environment in Evolution from Molecules to Men Ruth Millikan's Language, Thought and other Biological Categories > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Louis Proyect > Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 3:58 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:7263] Harvey, Leibniz & Marx > > > Ian Murray: > >Ecosystems have no essence; boundaries and material flows are observer > >defined constructs. Cities are ecosystems. There is a whole "new" field > >called industrial ecology that all Marxian thinkers would do well to look > >at, I'm sure Marx would have... > > Using the term 'ecosystem' in this fashion is consistent with Harvey and > Cronon's approach. Again, it does not address the fundamental > contradiction > addressed by Marx in the 19th century and which has only deepened. The > creation of cities like NYC, LA and Chicago has created huge > contradictions > in the natural balance. Industrial farming with its chemical fertilizers, > insecticides and pesticides is creating a major health crisis, including > the following: > > 1) cancer epidemics (see "Living Downstream" by Sandra Steingraber) > 2) death of marine life due to phosphate runoff from midwest > farms into the > Mississippi > 3) unhealthy food due to conditions necessary for industrial farming (mad > cow, ecoli bacteria, etc.) > 4) pollution of rivers and lakes by poultry and pork agribusinesses > 5) exhaustion of soil, and crop susceptibility to disease > 6) extinction of animal and plantlife because of unsustainable farming > practices > 7) desertification because of both the way soil is used and diversion of > rivers for wasteful irrigation > 8) etc. > > Now you can call cities Chicago "ecosystems" just as long as it is > understood that we are committing suicide as a species while the > contradiction between city and countryside is maintained. The problem is > that these issues are not addressed by Cronon and Harvey, which I find > astonishing for people who claim to have read Marx. > > > > > Louis Proyect > (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html) >
[PEN-L:6331] RE: Ciao, Baby
So how can they be "the only true hope for human progress" then? All 6 billion of US? Ian Murray > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Brad De Long > Sent: Sunday, May 02, 1999 8:33 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:6329] Ciao, Baby > > > >All complaints about Clinton Administration policy and the > Democratic Party > >may be directed to Nathan Newman and Prof. Brad DeLong. > > > >... > >Regards, > >mbs > > > > Complaints about the Democratic Party--the only true hope for human > progress over the next quarter century--I will be glad to receive and deal > with appropriately. > > Complaints about the Clinton Administration... It's not *my* Clinton > Administration... It hasn't been *my* Clinton Administration since they > signed Welfare Reform and Helms-Burton... > > Brad DeLong > > >
[PEN-L:6399] FW: (mai) Two stories on the battle for WTO Director-General Position
> -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of > Margrete Strand-Rangnes > Sent: Tuesday, May 04, 1999 9:06 AM > Subject: (mai) Two stories on the battle for WTO Director-General > Position > > > BATTLE ROYAL FOR WTO LEADER'S POST > > By Martin Khor > (Director, Third World Network, an international NGO based in Penang, > Malaysia). > > > Blurb:The months-long contest for the job of Director-General of the > World Trade Organisation has reached a dramatic and less-than-pleasant > climax. Supporters of Mike Moore, former New Zealand Prime > Minister, claim > victory. They want Thai Deputy Premier, Dr Supachai Panitchpakdi to > withdraw. But the countries supporting Supachai claim that he has led in > support all the while until manipulation by big players > intensified. They > are calling for a vote, which is being resisted by the US and some other > countries. Underlying the bitter fight is a strong feeling by many > developing countries that the WTO's decision-making process is > again being > manipulated in an undemocratic way to suit the interests of major powers. > > > > > The fight over who becomes the next Director-General of the World Trade > Organisation has turned both dramatic and nasty over the past few days in > Geneva. > > The issue has gone beyond whether Thai Deputy Premier Supachai > Panitchpakdi > or former New Zealand Prime Minister Mike Moore is the better candidate. > > At stake is the credibility of the WTO itself, as the months-old selection > process has raised questions about the way key decisions are made and how > the organisation seems to be susceptible to the influence of a few major > powers, especially the United States. > > Supachai is strongly backed by the Asean group in WTO and other Asian > countries (including Japan and India), a majority of African > countries, some > European countries and a few key Latin American (Brazil and Mexico) and > Central American countries. He is thus seen as a candidate of the > developing world. > > Moore however has the support of the United States, a key and perhaps > decisive factor, since the US wields such enormous power at the > WTO. He is > also backed by many European countries (especially France), most Latin > American and some African countries. > > Previous Directors General of the GATT (the predecesor of the WTO) and the > WTO have all come from developed countries, especially from Europe. It had > been said at the time Renato Ruggiero, an Italian, was made D-G > in 1995 that > the next appointment would go to a candidate from a developing country. > > That would be fair, for after all the vast majority of the WTO's members > are developing countries. And Supachai seemed an appropriate > choice, given > his experience as Commerce Minister and Deputy Premier and his scholarly > record (he holds a PhD in Economics, specialising in development > planning). > > Moore too has an interesting history, having risen from trade union leader > to Trade Minister and Prime Minister. > > The WTO members agreed that both candidates were excellent and > suitable. In > that case, many argued, Supachai should be given the advantage since he is > from the developing world. > > Indeed, for the past few months, Supachai has been ahead in the race, > commanding a clear majority support. In a normal democratic procedure, > involving some kind of vote, he would have been acclaimed the victor. > > But in the queer process of the WTO, decisions are made by "consensus." > This theoretically means that everyone should agree or at least no one > should object. > > Given such a vague concept, "consensus" has often really meant that > decisions can be made only when the major powers, particularly the US, > agree.At meeting after meeting at the WTO, no "consensus" could be > reached to approve of Supachai, even though it was widely known > he had clear > majority support. > > Then in the past two weeks, intense campaigning was made on Moore's behalf > by the US. It is widely known that Washington made use of its extensive > network and influence to contact the governments of many developing > countries and persuade them to change their mind in Moore's favour. > > Then, at a marathon WTO session last Friday that went well past midnight, > the chairman of the WTO council, the Tanzanian Ambassador, Ali > Mchumo, made > a controversial opening speech, announcing that "the latest evaluation > indicates" that Moore had the support of 62 countries against 59 for > Supachai.He proposed that Moore be appointed the D-G. > > This raised a storm of controversy from Asean and other delegations > supporting Supachai.They felt that the selection process had been > manipulated, as there had been no announcement by the Chairman of > the levels > of support of the two candidates at previous meetings when it had > been clear > that Supachai enjoyed a clear lead. > > Moreover it was
[PEN-L:11101] RE: RE: Bill Gates' space grenades
Well perhaps a few of those satellites will fall on Carillon Point where he's been playing Dr. Evil on this project. ian > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Nathan Newman > Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 1999 9:45 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:11019] RE: Bill Gates' space grenades > > > > > > -Original Message- > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Chris Burford > > > > A couple of days ago one of the better UK channels, Channel 4, had an > > astonishing programme about the build up of satellites orbiting > the earth. > > Bill Gates is now planning a very large number of satellites > each fixed in > > a low orbit to cover the globe so that the internet can be accessed from > > any point directly. > > Without going into the "debris" scenario, it is worth noting that the US > government - currently suing Microsoft of course - was instrumental in > subsidizing and lobbying globally for Gate's plan. Here's a > little excerpt > (a bit old I admit) from an old Microsoft report of mine touching on the > issue: > > == > Teledesic: Domination from the Skies > > But Microsoft's control of the standards for Internet access over cable is > apparently not enough; Bill Gates has personal plans to own a worldwide > system of satellites beaming Internet access to homes anywhere in > the world. > Rather than Microsoft encircling the world, Bill Gates is investing out of > his own pocket in a project called Teledesic, a plan to launch > 288 low-orbit > satellites that will relay Internet traffic to any point on the > earth. Gates > and fellow billionaire Bill McCaw (who made his fortune early in the > cellular phone industry) are the primary partners in this $9 billion > venture, with AT&T and Boeing each receiving a smaller stake for their > contracting role in the operation.[90] > > The revolutionary part of Teledesic's approach is that traditional > stationary satellites are so high up that delays in transmission make them > less useful for high-bandwidth transmission like the Internet, so > Teledesic > will have to coordinate low-orbit satellites careening 435 miles above the > earth at 16,740 miles per hour. Using government-financed technology left > over from Star Wars experiments, Boeing is helping them solve the problem > and get their satellites launched by 2002. That is when the > partners want to > start service to anyone with a satellite dish (that need be no > larger than a > dessert plate).[91] > > The irony is that this plan to create a massive worldwide Internet access > service controlled by two of the richest men in the world has > been assisted > by the U.S. government with a complex give-away of radio spectrum that > amounts to twice the total spectrum controlled by all of the > country's radio > and television stations put together--without the government being paid a > cent for this favor.[92] In fact, the government lobbied hard at the World > Radio Conference, the world governing board for operating such a satellite > system, to help Gates and McCaw get approval for their venture. > > So with government-financed research and free radio spectrum courtesy of > U.S. taxpayers, Bill Gates will be adding the final touch to his computer > network domination with the most comprehensive broadband Internet access > system in the world--an access system that will no doubt enhance > Microsoft's > monopoly in the computing world. > > --Nathan Newman >
[PEN-L:11173] Re: finanz kapital
(What is the largest "privately-held" corporation?) Cargill. Pretty close behind is UPS, but they are going to go partially public (1%) by the end of the year. ian
[PEN-L:11275] ICTSD caqlendar for WTO events in Seattle
http://www.ictsd.org/html/seattlecalendar.htm Events Around WTO Seattle Ministerial Conference (30 November-3 December) To submit an event or correction to this list, please contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] ICTSD will be using this space in the forthcoming months to announce events that will take place around the WTO's Ministerial Conference in Seattle, Washington, from 30 November to 3 December. The list will cover the three-week period from 16 November to 10 December and will include events from all areas, including government, inter-governmental organisations, civil society, the business community and academia. Please bear in mind that there are also many other events taking place in the coming months that will address Ministerial issues; these will be listed on our regular calendar. 27 November, Seattle: THE INTERNATIONAL FORUM ON GLOBALIZATION (IFG) TEACH-IN ON THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION. The event will take place at the 2,500-seat Benaroya Seattle Symphony Hall. It will focus on the problems of economic globalisation and, specifically, on the activities of the WTO and other international agreements and institutions. For information contact the International Forum on Globalization, 1555 Pacific Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94109, tel: (1- 415) 771-3394, fax: 771-1121, web: http://www.ifg.org 28-29 November, Seattle: 1999 PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY/MARCH-RALLY AGAINST WTO/GLOBALIZATION IN SEATTLE. Main convenor is Sentenaryo ng Bayan, a Filipino organisation in Seattle. The conference will be held on and will culminate in a rally on 30 November. Both events will serve as counterpoint and alternative to the WTO 3rd Ministerial Meeting. A special half-day session is being planned to focus on the WTO's Agreement on Agriculture, peasants and rural women. Invited are organizations, groups and individuals, whether within or outside of the Peoples' Campaign Against Imperialist Globalisation (PCAIG) network, who have been active in resisting TNCs/MNCs, APEC, NAFTA, WTO-IMF-WB, globalisation and monopoly capitalism. It is expected that BAYAN networks in the US and Canada will participate. For information contact CAOA Secretariat, Bayan/Amihan/KMP, fax: c/o Gabriela (63-2) 374-4423, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 29 November-3 December, Seattle: CITIZEN'S TRADE CAMPAIGN EVENTS. The CTC will host a Citizens Summit in the United Methodist Church, located in downtown Seattle. Each day of the week will be devoted to a different set of related issues and will include symposia, plenaries, panels, skills-sharing, strategy sessions and dramatic press events. See below. 29 November, 11:30-13:30, Sheraton Hotel and Towers, Seattle: TIME TO TALK: FORUMS ON RACE SERIES. TOPIC: "BUILDING GLOBAL RELATIONSHIPS FOR LOCAL BUSINESS SUCCESS." Sponsored by the Urban Enterprise Center and Greater Seattle Chamber of Commerce. Roundtable discussion with luncheon speaker, Q & A. For registration or information contact Herman McKinney, GSCC, (1-206) 389-7231, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 29 November-3 December, 11:30-13:30, Seattle Space Needle: EUROPEAN UNION TRADE FORUM. TOPIC: "EUROPEAN-U.S. TRADE ISSUES AND WTO." Sponsored by the Council of European Chambers. Daily WTO briefings and luncheon for businesses, chambers, and public. A panel discussion, "Managing Issues Under WTO Rules: Genetically Modified Products," on 1 December with moderator Barry Mitzman. For registration or information contact Malte Kleutz, CEC, tel: (1-206) 352-9020, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 29 November; 1 December, Seattle University, Seattle: AFRICAN DAY BUSINESS FORUM. The forum will address the "Africa Trade Bill and WTO Impacts". Sponsored by the African Chamber of Commerce. Evening reception on 29 November; Business Forum on 1 December. Speakers include Heads of State, Ambassadors, US Government and US Trade Representative officials. For information contact Therese Kunzi-Clark, King County Office of Trade, tel: (1-206) 296-7421. 30 November, Seattle: AFL-CIO RALLY AND MARCH AT THE WTO. Worldwide Fair Trade networks will be marching with them. 2 December 10:00-20:00, Seattle: THE AMERICAS, REGIONAL TRADE AGREEMENTS AND THE WTO. To be held at the Seattle Center. Sponsored inter alia by the US-Mexico Chambers of Commerce, Consuls of Canada, Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Uruguay. Includes a day-long Trade Education Exhibition, a Reverse Trade Mission, panel discussions, and an evening reception with WTO briefing. For information contact Therese Kunzi-Clark, King County Office of Trade, tel: (1-206) 296-7421. 2 December, 18:30-22:00, University Plaza Hotel, Seattle: INDIA, TRADE OPPORTUNITIES, AND WTO. Reception and dinner with guest speakers Ambassador Naresh Chandra (invited) and Congressman Jim McDermott (invited). Sponsored by the Indo-American Friendship Forum. For information contact: Jagdish Sharma, IAFF, tel: (1-425) 489-0510, email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 3 December, 10:00-20:00, Westin Hotel or Sheraton Hotel, Seattle: A SALUTE TO SMALL BUSINESS & ASIAN PACIFIC TRADE. S
[PEN-L:11672] RE: Re: more on col'ism
On a Tuesday around 3:35 in the afternoon Capitalism was invented as the quest for a type of inequality that was different from the previous type of inequality. ian (couldn't resist) > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Rod Hay > Sent: Friday, September 24, 1999 6:31 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:11671] Re: more on col'ism > > > Yes they spawned there and for many millennia lived there. It is > when they > spread to agriculture that what can be called a capitalist system arises. > When capitalist principles take over the whole economy, and > capitalism as a > "pocket" disappears. > > Both sides in the debate I think agree on that. The debate seems to be on > what caused that spread. > > > Original Message Follows > From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > Personally I have always rather liked Lewis Mumford's > old line (quoted approvingly by Braudel) that, > "Capitalism was the cuckoo's egg laid in the confines > of the medieval towns." For all the talk of what went > on in the British countryside, it was indeed in urban areas, > whether Venice, Cairo, Canton, or Calicut that those nests > of capitalism spawned. > Barkley Rosser > > > __ > Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com >
[PEN-L:11701] RE: Re: WTO meetings
13 days ago we had Ellen Gould of the Council of Canadians speak in Seattle about the GATS 2000 proposals regarding int'l trade in services. Her talk would scare the p**s out of any public sector worker/union that heard it. It's open season on the civil service, folks. Everything from professional accreditation [teachers, physicians-but not laywers] to who reads your tax forms would become open to bidding on the part of any company on the globe that had access to the contractor provisions-which must be provided by every member government of the WTO. Medical records--think Iceland--would be pried open under GATS rules for extensive commodification by insurance industries, hospital administrators etc. Ms Gould's paper will be available shortly--hopefully on the Web--'till then take a look at http://www.wto.org/wto/services/services.htm ian > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Bill Rosenberg > Sent: Saturday, September 25, 1999 6:57 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:11699] Re: WTO meetings > > > A discussion paper on the effect of such agreements on tertiary > education (focusing on New Zealand) is available at > > http://www.aus.ac.nz/papers/brpaper.htm > > Bill Rosenberg > > > Date: Sat, 25 Sep 1999 15:03:26 -0500 > > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: [PEN-L:11690] WTO meetings > > To:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Reply-to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Priority: normal > > > In parallel with the recent thread on the IMF, WB and other > > international agenies advancing US imperialism, the following > > appeared in the Can Assn of Univ Teachers Newspaper, "The > > Bulletin" in the latest edition. > > > > New Trade Rules Target Education > > > > CAUT Bulletin, > > September 1999 > > > > Education unions and associations are warning that new rules being > > considered by the World Trade Organization will lead to the further > > subordination of post -secondary education to the dictates of > > private corporations. > > Critics are pointing to a document prepared by the WTO in the run- > > up to next year's millennium round of negotiations which identifies > > post- secondary education as a potentially lucrative new market > > ripe for exploitation. > > Citing with praise the growth of branch campuses, "virtual edu > > cation" and the international marketing of curricula and academic > > programs, the WTO paper notes that trade in post-secondary > > education services has exploded in recent years. In 1996 alone, US > > exports of higher education services reached $7 billion, making it > > the country's fifth largest service sector export. > > Nevertheless, the WTO argues that the continued growth of this > > market is being hampered by a number of so-called barriers to trade > > in the sector. Private companies seeking to establish a commercial > > presence abroad may be restricted by limitations in many countries > > on the operation of private universities and colleges. Where > > private institutions are permitted, the WTO maintains they may > > still face other barriers. In some nations, students enrolled in > > private universities and colleges may not qualify for financial > > assistance or even, according to the WTO, subsidized bus passes. > > The paper asserts that these regulations not only constitute re > > strictive trade practices, but also prevent "innovation" within > > uni versities and colleges. The WTO praises a number of nations for > > moving toward "greater market responsiveness" and "corporatization" > > of public universities which "increase competition and encourage > > investor and corporate participation in the education sector." > > "There is a lot of pressure mounting to open up post-secondary > > education in Canada and other countries to increased privatization > > and commercialization," said CAUT executive director Jim Turk. "That > > clashes head-on with those of us committed to quality > > publicly-funded education." > > Education International, representing 294 educational unions and > > associations worldwide, is also expressing concern about the WTO > > initiative."Given the existence of huge disparities between > > countries, is the idea of placing national education systems in a > > competitive situation not tantamount to selling out the education > > system in the weakest countries to a handful bf large transnational > > corporations?" El asked in response to the WTO discussion paper. > > El notes that the import of higher education services by South-East > > > > Asia gives some idea of the harmful consequences which trade > > liberalization will have: "increased dependence on foreign > > educational resources, acculturation caused by the use of a foreign > > language for teaching, a tendency to the standardization of > > education, and a curtailment of sovereignty." > > WTO members, including Canada, are to meet in Seattle in > > Nov
[PEN-L:11806] Focus on the Corporation follow-up: Anti-Scofflaw Alert
[From Robert Weissman & Russell Mokhiber] An easy way to help workers. ian > > > A few weeks ago, the Focus on the Corporation column was titled "A Law and > Order Regulation for Corporations." The subject was a proposal to prevent > the U.S. government from entering into contracts with companies that are > chronic or serious violators of labor, environmental, tax, antitrust or > employment laws. This note is a follow up to that column. > > For more details, see the Essential Action web page, > http://www.essentialaction.org/anti-scofflaw. > > The federal government is now accepting comments on the proposed > regulation. Business groups are weighing in heavily against it; and so if > the proposal is to be enacted, it is vital that citizens and public > interest groups submit comments in support of the regulation. > > It is easy to submit comments -- even a comment that says nothing more > than, "I support the principle that the federal government should not > contract with companies that seriously transgress the law" is valuable, > and comments can be submitted by e-mail (as well as regular mail). > > For background on the proposed regulation, and tips on what to say in > comments, see the Essential Action web page, > http://www.essentialaction.org/anti-scofflaw. You can e-mail comments > directly to the agency from this page. > > If you are so eager to send comments that you don't even want to check the > page, you can send them by e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or by regular > mail to: > >General Services Administration >FAR Secretariat (MVR) >1800 F Street, NW, Room 4035 ATTN: Laurie Duarte >Washington, D.C. 20045 > > Be sure to mention in all written comments that you are commenting in > reference to FAR case 99-010. > > ** Please pass this note on to friends, colleagues and relevant > listserves. ** > > > >
[PEN-L:11673] RE: Jubilee 2000 critique
A former Philosophy professor who just moved to Seattle from Brazil told me [through his new wife who translated] that the Rentier Class in Brazil has no intention of ever paying off the debts and that if you want real reform in Brazil the left should go after the Church's economic holdings [now there's an old set off accounting books]...all of them. ian > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Chris Burford > Sent: Thursday, September 23, 1999 11:03 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:11604] Jubilee 2000 critique > > > We need a serious critique of the Jubilee 2000 campaign. By that > I mean one > that sees its positive aspects but also its limitations. (Thanks Patrick > for the AIDC tip - web address I think you meant: www.aidc.org.za) > > The Pope has just made an alliance with Bono and Bob Geldorf to promote > this. The call is for the abolition of the debt of the 52 poorest nations > to mark the millenium. Bob Geldorf has emphasised that these nations will > never be able to pay and that new institutions are needed to help them. > > The Pope's involvement is significant. He is possibly conscious of the > charge from the non-Christian world that the 2000th anniversary of the > birth of Jesus might emphasise the imperialist domination of the caucasian > imperial powers. The Pope appears to have turned to the christian > democratic tradition to give extra legitimacy to the Catholic Church's > leadership position. The christian democratic tradition, emphasising ideas > of solidarity between workers and capitalists under a framework of social > justice, was a reaction to the rising tide of social democratic ideas in > Europe at the end of the 19th century. It is in character largely social > democratic itself. > > It is not as progressive as liberation theology, which this Pope > has always > opposed, but it is more progressive than the sort of catholicism that > supported the dictatorships of Salazar and Franco. > > The Jubilee 2000 call means that the global festivities on December 31st > will have a political component to them. The Pope will specifically make > the call in his speech. Bob Geldorf is presumably already planning ways to > repeat his success as a very minor British pop singer, to get lots of > better pop singers to sing "Feed the World" with him. Television > sponsorship will be considerable, as the companies scramble for > the biggest > audience. > > All this blather will not be of any concern of course to seriously macho > Marxists who can see through the capitalist, reformist, petty bourgeois > nature of the whole enterprise at a glance and roll off a withering > polemical expose half an hour later, if they do not think an inspired > contemptuous joke about Geldorf's musical abilities is sufficient. > > What is needed however is a more dialectical analysis of this > movement. The > emotional message will be there and transmitted to billions on 31st > December. Capitalism will seek to assimilate it in numerous ways. BUT that > will also create a political space for more serious criticism of the > limitations of the whole effort. There will be air time and screen space > for effective critiques. Serious political campaigning organisations like > Oxfam and World Development Movement will have their > spokespersons briefed. > The organisers of June 18th will also be looking for what they see as a > more incisive celebration of the millenium. > > Marxists (genuine, dialectical marxists) can influence this agenda if the > work is begun now. It does not matter from what immediate initial stance > they approach the Jubilee 2000 project so long as the emerging > critique is > a marxist one: dialectical, analysing positive and negative features, > relating the campaign to an international balance of class forces, and > coming up with a higher synthesis which can help what is democratic in the > movement unfolding before our eyes. > > Chris Burford > > London >
[PEN-L:11602] Virtual Walrasian Auctioneer?
One wonders if Levitt's been reading Peter Albin. http://www.nytimes.com/library/financial/092499market-sec.html September 23, 1999 S.E.C. Chief Wants One Site for Posting Stock Prices By GRETCHEN MORGENSON he chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission proposed a system Thursday for displaying electronically all orders to buy and sell United States stocks and called such a central posting essential to preserve the integrity of the nation's stock markets. Arthur Levitt, the S.E.C. chairman, outlined his general vision for the financial markets yesterday after months of wrenching changes in how stocks are traded. New electronic trading systems have emerged, on-line trading by individuals has exploded, trading by small investors has begun to occur outside the exchanges' hours of operation and the exchanges themselves have proposed becoming publicly traded for-profit companies. A FINANCIAL REVOLUTION Levitt seems most concerned that if trading continues to migrate to the new electronic market systems, investors may not get the best prices. Information about orders and transactions across the entire market are not now available in any one place. Technology, he said, allows the creation of a central system in which investors will be fully informed about prices everywhere, from the New York Stock Exchange, the Nasdaq market, the American Stock Exchange and the new systems. He stressed that he was asking for the development of a technology that would allow all orders to be shown to investors, not an institution or a place where all orders would be executed. In this way, competition would continue, along with innovation and pressure to keep costs low. "The beauty of this is technology has taken us to the point where we may be able to enjoy the benefits of competition while getting the benefits of centrality," Mr. Levitt said. Speaking at Columbia Law School, Levitt also said he was intrigued by the possibility of creating a single, self-regulatory organization to oversee the markets but suggested that each exchange continue its own surveillance. The exchanges now have self-regulating units, but those units could be compromised or at least conflicted if the exchanges become public companies with an obligation to provide the highest return to shareholders. In other areas, he was most concerned about fairness. He urged the elimination of a rule by the New York Stock Exchange that prohibits the trading of certain stocks by exchange members anywhere other than on the exchange floor. Fees charged to outside participants by the new electronic stock networks, he said, should also be eliminated. And the options exchanges, which have been effective monopolies for decades, must open their doors to true competition, he said. "I recognize the industry's inherent resistance to change," Levitt said in an interview before the speech. "But I'm willing to fight very hard to move in the direction of change rather than being a custodian." Frank Zarb, the chairman of the National Association of Securities Dealers, the parent of the Nasdaq market, applauded Mr. Levitt. "I think he's saying to us, 'You guys get this stuff fixed or we're going to have to see that it gets fixed,' " Mr. Zarb said. "It's a good clear menu of the major issues facing the industry -- a call for bold change when bold change is required." Levitt said his ideas were the result of yearlong deliberations with the S.E.C. staff and conversations with market participants. The proposals will result in stock markets that are more open, accessible and fair to all investors, he said. But given that so much about Wall Street remains hidebound even as great change has rocked the industry, the proposals will displease many in the business, both new and established. The organization that appears to have the most to lose under the proposals is the New York Stock Exchange, though its chairman said yesterday that the exchange was prepared to reinvent itself with the times. Levitt, 68, who has been the nation's chief securities regulator since 1993, this month became the longest-serving chairman in the commission's history. With the speech, he sought to position himself as the chairman who seized technological advancements as a way to level the playing field for investors and market participants of all types. Levitt couched his speech by asking many questions. This will surely disappoint market players who were looking for answers from the nation's top regulator and a clearer regulatory blueprint, though initial reaction yesterday was strongly positive to the speech. Jack Brennan, chief executive of the Vanguard Group, the mutual fund giant, said, "While innovation is a great thing, you always want to know that the innovation taking place is happening with integrity." Levitt made clear that he was not giving the securities industry its marching orders. Rather he was trying to shape the dialogue that must occur before changes can be made. "I want to
[PEN-L:11175] RE: Re: Re: finanz kapital
$50billion or so in sales http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5202/carinc.html ian > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Jim Devine > Sent: Thursday, September 16, 1999 3:56 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:11174] Re: Re: finanz kapital > > > how big is Cargill compared to other corporations? > > At 03:44 PM 9/16/99 -0700, you wrote: > >(What is the largest > >"privately-held" corporation?) > > > >Cargill. Pretty close behind is UPS, but they are going to go partially > >public (1%) by the end of the year. > > > >ian > > > > > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://clawww.lmu.edu/~JDevine >
[PEN-L:10857] Wisconsin help
Looking for info on the labor-green coalitions trying to stop privatization of utilities in Wisconsin. Any leads would be greatly appreciated. ian
[PEN-L:13053] AFL-CIO on November 30th and all that
[From Rich Feldman--King County Labor Council] During this next period of time, we will be subject to a sophisticated and full-scale propaganda effort targeted at diminishing our impact on WTO in Seattle. If you have been involved in union organizing campaigns, you have gotten a taste of the same kind of tactics that we will see on a much bigger scale. Efforts to discredit leadership, split workers from allies, divide workers into factions are all typical tactics employed when the bosses are determined to defeat our efforts. In this situation, one of the things the opposition fears the most is the helicopter shot of Fourth Avenue from Seattle Center to the Convention Center filled with people peacefully marching and protesting the WTO. So, did you read about the anti-biological warfare preparations recently in the Seattle papers with its scary headlines? We got immediate questions from union members about safety and if it was a good idea to bring their kids to attend the massive Rally and March on Nov 30. Funny, these preparations are standard at every major event these days from the Democratic National Convention to the Olympics but you don't see headlines or TV shots of firemen wearing moonsuits prior to those events - the kind of stuff that makes people question if they should attend. I should imagine that we'll see more stories about riot preparation, etc. Another example, there have been several recent stories (e.g. AP 10/27) developed in large part by the work of the National Chamber of Commerce that wildly mis-report a letter from the Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN) to President Clinton. The news reports really take the wind out the sails don't they? The real story should have been "the business community breaks ranks and finally supports workers' rights in international trade agreements." While this is at best a tiny installment on our long-range goals, it is a sharp departure from previous business arguments that workers' rights have no place in the international trading system. The ACTPN letter clearly states that "all our members are not in agreement on every element of the [U.S. trade] agenda." The AFL-CIO supports some elements of the U.S. agenda in Seattle: seeking to establish a working group on trade and labor, taking steps to make the WTO more transparent and accountable and rejecting any efforts by other WTO members to reopen the Antidumping Agreement. The AFL-CIO does not support the launching of major new negotiations before reviewing and assessing the impact of trade liberalization on income distribution, economic development, financial instability and the environment. The AFL-CIO does not support the Administration's drive to open service sectors to international trade. The AFL-CIO develops its policy positions through work at its Executive Council and National Convention. The AFL-CIO's position on the WTO is the one that is expressed forcefully and in some detail in Convention Resolution # 6, "New Rules for the Global Economy," which was passed unanimously by the delegates in Los Angeles this October. http://www.aflcio.org/convention99/res1_6.htm Nothing has changed in the AFL-CIO's position on the WTO. We want the WTO to incorporate enforceable rules protecting workers' rights and the environment, to open up its operations to give workers and other civil society representatives a meaningful voice, and to significantly overhaul its rules to safeguard consumer protections and prevent the overturning of legitimate national regulations on public health and the environment. We have been very clear that we do not want the WTO to initiate any new negotiations on investment, competition policy, or government procurement (other than transparency-enhancing measures). We are in full swing to organize a massive mobilization in Seattle on November 30. We now have 25 full time organizers on the ground in the Northwest from Vancouver, Canada to N. California with a concentration in the Puget Sound area to assure a strong labor turnout and to educate our members. A couple of reports from our mobilization efforts as of mid-October: - Every central labor council in Washington had a goal to fill three to 10 buses with ralliers-and every one has met or exceeded that goal. - A special train carrying 350+ travel from Portland to Seattle is full. - SEIU has stationed "Big MAC" (Mobilization Action Center), a purple semi-trailer equipped with 25 computer/phone stations in front of the Seattle Labor Temple. A MAC phone bank effort can generate hundreds of calls an hour with its automated dialing technology. After using it to call 150,000 union members on Initiative165, it will be used for WTO turnout. - 45 local unions in King County have designated a mobilization coordinator and are well on the way meet and exceed their turnout goals. - Nine hundred members of Machinists Local 751, who work at Boeing, will work as peacekeepers for the march through downtown Seattle
[PEN-L:13049] FW: Why Is the WTO So Anti-Labor?
[from the folks in Canada] -Original Message-From: Ellen Gould [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, October 29, 1999 11:15 PMTo: Lisa & Ian MurraySubject: Why Is the WTO So Anti-Labor?Why Is the WTO So Anti-Labor? It [the Internet] will destroy one of the great tyrannies of the past, the tyranny of location. Your accountant may now live anywhere, and already the WTO is saving you a lot of money by outsourcing translation -- thanks to electronic transmission we can use translators working at home in countries all over the world. Mike Moore, Director-General, World Trade Organization, September 1999 (from a speech by Moore, available on the Internet at http://www.wto.org/wto/speeches/mm6.htm) So here we have the WTO Director Generals bold vision of the future - employers scouring the globe to get work done on the cheap by home-based workers. Increasing corporate power to shift services work anywhere in the world is the focus of the new round of negotiations on the WTOs General Agreement on Services. In preparation for the millennium round, the WTO Secretariat has carried out a global investigation to identify any measures governments take that might restrain the ability to shift service work and reduce workers wages. But do the WTO staff really identify trade barriers as problems because employers cannot pay the lowest possible wages? After all, their own salaries are paid by the taxes of workers in WTO member countries. Here are some samples of what the WTO Secretariat actually says, and the places where you can find the original WTO documents so you can check for yourself: Driving Down Wages in the Retail Sector In the retail field, the WTO Secretariat says national requirements that keep corporations from minimizing labour costs are an Explicit Barrier to Trade: 33. Given the high labour intensity of distribution (especially in retailing), the sector is affected by limitations on the movement of natural persons [i.e. people]. Nationality requirements for staff prevent firms from minimizing labour costs through international recruitment. Source: Distribution Services, Background Note by the WTO Secretariat, 1998, on the Internet at:http://www.wto.org/wto/services/w65.htm Driving Down Wages in Environmental Services The WTO staff see a need for employers to be able to recruit foreign workers in the area of environmental services, such as garbage collection, as well. 30. Given the relatively high labour intensity of some environmental services, such as refuse disposal, the sector is affected by limitations on the movement of natural persons. Nationality requirements for staff prevent firms from minimizing labour costs through international recruitment. Environmental Services, Background Note by the WTO Secretariat, 1998 on the Internet at: http://www.wto.org/wto/services/w65.htm Of course, there is another way that nationality requirements could be viewed, such as Nationality requirements for staff prevent firms from threatening to relocate if their workers do not accept low wagesor Nationality requirements ensure that corporations do not engage in a race to the bottom in terms of working conditions. It all depends on your point of view. Driving Down Wages in the Health Sector In the health field, the WTO staff say the biggest benefit to be gained is through opening up health services jobs to foreign workers: 60. (T)he most significant benefits from trade are unlikely to arise from the construction and operation of hospitals, etc., but their staffing with more skilled, more efficient and/or less costly personnel than might be available on the domestic labour market. Health and Social Services Background Note by the WTO Secretariat, 1998, available on the Internet at: www.wto.org/wto/services/w65.htm Driving Down Wages by Lowering Standards In order to free up the ability of firms to minimize labour costs through international recruitment, WTO negotiatiors will discuss rules to make it easier for foreign workers to get temporary work visas. Work is already going on in the WTO to make service employees as interchangeable as possible by eliminating differences in qualification requirements, and reducing these to no more than is necessary in the view of WTO-approved authorities. The experience with NAFTA shows that giving the maximum flexibility to corporations to hire cheap labour does not help workers anywhere, either in industrialized or developing nations. (See Pulling Apart: The Deterioration of Employment and Income in North America Under Free Trade, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)
[PEN-L:13041] RE: Mode of Destruction/Star Wars Evil Empire
You'd' think they'd learn from Relativity and Chaos Theory that space is beyond control. Oh that's right we're talking about the Military. Ian Seattle > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Charles Brown > Sent: Friday, October 29, 1999 1:30 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:13033] Mode of Destruction/Star Wars Evil Empire > > > Space domination: pyramids to the heavens > > > By Bruce Gagnon > > > It was the Persian Gulf war that convinced the U.S. military that > "space dominance and space control" are necessary. And it was the > war in Kosovo that they used to show the world that they have > achieved their goal. > > In a June 17 news release, the U.S. Space Command proclaimed, > "Any questions about the role or effectiveness of the use of > space for military operations have been answered by NATO's > operation ALLIED FORCE." > > The news release concludes with the determination that, "The > Space Command's Global Positioning System constellation of 24 > satellites is credited with providing navigation and timing > support to coordinate the actions of allied air crews and naval > forces operating in the region." > > The Pentagon is so sure that whomever controls space will control > the Earth and beyond that they are feverishly working to deploy > anti-satellite weapons (ASAT's) that will enable the U.S. to > knock out competitors "eyes in the sky" during times of hostilities. > > As the Space Command says in their slick brochure, Vision for > 2020, "Control of space is the ability to assure access to space, > freedom of operations within the space medium, and an ability to > deny others the use of space if required." The early deployment > strategy of the military is to put into orbit the Kinetic energy > ASAT, that would essentially smash into a rival's satellite. > Space Command hopes to be able to deploy the KASAT within the > next five years. > > While recently attending the 36th Space Congress at Cape > Canaveral in Florida, I asked a panel of military officers the > status of the ASAT program. Panelist Col. Tom Clark responded > that the issue was "politically sensitive." He said that, > ultimately, the U.S. would "need an event to drive the public to > support ASAT deployment. But it will happen. We are now talking, > planning, doing research and development. Someone will attack one > of our systems." > > In the meantime Col. Clark assured the audience of 250-300 NASA > workers, aerospace industry representatives and military officers > that we have the "defensive" Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) > system that was recently approved by Congress. It is "obvious > that dual use is clear," Clark said, referring to the fact that > lasers in space could be fired either defensively or offensively. > > One of the problems for the military, though, is the need for > massive power projection for their space-based weapons. In a > study commissioned by Congress, Military Space Forces: The Next > 50 Years, author John Collins notes that "nuclear reactors thus > remain the only known long-lived, compact source able to supply > military space forces with electric power." Collins concludes > that nuclear reactors "could meet multi-megawatt needs of > space-based lasers, neutral particle beams, mass drivers, and railguns." > > In fact, because of the growing demand for space nuclear power, > the Department of Energy (DoE) is now studying the reopening of > previously closed production facilities at their deadly string of > labs across the United States. Between NASA's demand for future > nuclear powered space probes and the Space Command's desire for > nuclear powered space weapons, we could see a return of massive > contamination problems at the labs. > > Over 244 cases of worker contamination were reported at Los > Alamos labs in New Mexico between 1993-95 as DoE prepared the > plutonium generators for NASA's Cassini space mission. Work is > also on-going at Los Alamos on the nuclear rocket to Mars, with > nuclear reactors for engines. > > The Space Command's Vision for 2020 not only speaks of > controlling the Earth and the sky above our planet. They also > envision controlling the space beyond as NASA and aerospace > corporations move out to mine the moon, Mars and other planetary > bodies for minerals in coming years. > > Like Queen Isabella of Spain who paid for Columbus' exploration > in hopes of greater economic rewards, these forces are lining up > to harvest the enormous benefits expected from the exploitation > of the outer reaches. > > Vision for 2020 states that "Due to the importance of commerce > and its affects on national security, the U.S. may evolve into > the guardian of space commerce - similar to the historical > example of navies protecting sea commerce." > > Just to make sure, the aerospace industry is taking no chances. A > coalition of aerospace corporations are now engaged in a campaign > called the "Declaration of S
[PEN-L:12713] An Indian take on "globalization" and kakistocracy
To Michael P. and others, I'll respond to your WTO query tomorrow, as I've spent the last 5 hours chasing Al Gore all over Seattle with about 60 other mischief-makers. For now here's an interesting article from India on an aspect of the economy we don't hear much about from the WTO, economists and many others. ian THE TIMES OF INDIA, Thursday 14 October 1999 The Growing Empire of Transnational Evil By RASHME SEHGAL GLOBALISATION has helped expedite information and money flows across the world. Its flip side is that easier information and money access has resulted in an alarming increase in organised crime. Crime syndicates have emerged as one of the most powerful threats to the nation state, especially in the case of poorer countries who often lack the means or the political will to end this growing terror machine. The increasing criminalisation of business, politics and government has been a direct outflow of this phenomena. In an unusual departure from past practise, the UN has used the platform of its annual Human Resource Development report, usually aimed at highlighting social issues, to press the alarm bells on how organised crime cartels could, in the coming years, establish such an iron grip on world economies that it would be impossible to root them out. Last year alone these syndicates had a turnover of $1.5 trillion, a figure that surpasses the combined GNP of more than 50 of the least developing nations in the world. Their earnings are multiplying at a rapid rate while the income of governments is on the decline. Crime Syndicates Dubbing these syndicates `crime multinationals', the report seeks to draw a parallel between their style of operation and that of the multinational companies doing business across the globe. Syndicates such as the Six Triads in China which controls the restaurant trade of London, the Japanese Yakuza in the business of promoting pornography or the US-based Cosa Nostra controlling the heroin trade have developed strategic alliances with key partners whose linkages unfortunately remain largely invisible. So pervasive is the trade that even enforcement agencies are finding it difficult to unravel their manner of operation. Like multinationals sourcing out work to cheap labour in poorer countries, syndicates too have spread their tentacles over several countries. A luxury car hijacked in Johannesburg finds its way effortlessly to the streets of Moscow. A shipload of Bangladeshis is offloaded in England. Thousands of Ukrainian girls are being smuggled and sold into prostitution in the Netherlands. All this requires organisational skill and high level contacts and these syndicates know how to operate. Their growing power can be gauged from the fact that in western Europe alone 500,000 women and girls from developing countries are shackled to the sex business. By the UN's own admission, child prostitution alone is garnering a profit of $700 million per year. In the same way, the number of drug users has risen to 200 million, threatening entire neighbourhoods and communities the world over. This illegal drug trade alone has crossed the $400 billion mark, outpacing the combined trade in iron and steel and motor vehicles across the globe. India too has become trapped in a vortex of rising crime. Cases of extortion, kidnapping, drug peddling and prostitution have risen dramatically and the financial turnover of these underworld accounts is mind-boggling. Gangsters such as Dawood Ibrahim, Abu Salem and Chotta Shakeel operate out of Dubai, while Chhota Rajan operates from Malayasia. The government has already spent several thousand crores of rupees in trying to extradite Dawood Ibrahim but has failed. The arms trade is another billion dollar industry. A lesser known but equally dangerous fall out of this illegal trafficking in weapons has been the rise of private armies and the destabilising effect this is having on vulnerable societies. Defence is becoming privatised and international private military firms are proliferating. These mercenaries, hired to protect multinationals, soon acquire enough wealth to branch off into setting up affiliates in industries such as air transport, road building and trading. Their new-found legitimacy ensures them success in the business arena as well. Safety in Peril The spin-off of these undercurrents has seen wealth being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. The world's richest people have increased their assets from $440 billion to one trillion dollars during the past five years. This has spawned a huge underclass of people who lack the education and skills to find employment. They provide an ideal catchment area to be exploited by criminals. In India, police statistics reveal that growing numbers of unemployed young people are being sucked into crime. This is an extremely dangerous trend, especially since crime syndicates operate beyond the jurisdiction and accountability of any one nation. No adequate framework has
[PEN-L:12697] international dynamics
Third, how should we understand the WTO in light of this analysis and the current instabilities and crises. Assuming that the worst comes true, we get the MAI, the Government Procurement Agreement, etc., will this intensify competition and thus tensions, or will it enable MNCs to stamp out contenders Marty Hart-Landsberg = On 9/30/99 in Seattle it was Michael Moore's contention that the WTO would strengthen competition while rendering the competitive environment more predictable [yeah, I know what you're thinkin']. The dispute panel's decision against the US' Foreign Sales Corporation [at the behest of the EU -- read Airbus] would seem to strike a pretty heavy blow at one of the pillars of the strategic trade policy/"corporate welfare" paradigm that gets pretty heavy support in DC. At this stage it seems too early to see how the chips will fall. Clearly, Boeing, Microsoft and all the other beneficiaries of the OPIC and ExIm bank are pissed. Strategic trade does have an almost mercantilist ring to it so if the WTO goes around picking apart various countries subsidization strategies, we could see competition in hi tech sectors and agricultural goods become more intense and adversarial, hence less predictable. As for the government procurement provisions, wouldn't it be great to have all the lawyer positions at the Justice Dept. and FBI and DEA outsourced to the lowest bidder, all in the name of efficiency, privatization and a lowering of the tax burden! Try: Trade Warriors States, Firms, and Strategic Policy in High Technology Competition Busch, Marc L. In such areas as civil aircraft, semiconductors, high definition television, robotics, and superconductors, states are subsidizing their national champions and competing for market share in the "industries of tomorrow." This book explains why states intervene and (or) retaliate in some high technology industries, but not in others, and how these commercial rivalries are likely to unfold. Dr. Busch argues that states subsidize national champions in industries promising externalities for domestic industries, spend more on subsidies where these benefits do not escape national borders, and are more likely to bring these commercial rivalries back from the brink of a trade war where these subsidies leave both states worse off. CONTENTS Chapter 1; Introduction; Chapter 2; The Argument; Chapter 3; The Civil Aircraft Rivalry; Chapter 4; The Semiconductor Rivalry; Chapter 5; The High Definition Television Rivalry; Chapter 6; Robotics, Superconductors an Wheat; Chapter 7; Conclusion Cheers, Ian
[PEN-L:12734] Michael Moore in Seattle
Since Michael P. has asked a couple of times for elaboration on Seattle's encounter with the WTO's MM, I'll try to be as reliable a witness to the proceedings that took place Friday afternoon, October 1, 1999, at 4:30 pm at the University of Washington. Apologies in advance for any perceptual or emotional biases that may come through in the course of narrative as well as memory lapses [been running on 5 hours of sleep a night since we got word the WTO is coming to town]! Here goes: There were approximately 400 people in attendance. In addition to Moore and the WTO's lead economist Peter Lowe [can any NZ folks on the list give us his scoop, at least I'm pretty sure he's an NZ native], there were 6 other panelists; representing the UW faculty, women's health [PATH], labor and environmental [can we replace that word in the next millennium please] interests. Moore opened the session with a pretty canned speech, giving highlights in the history of Int'l Trade, economics, diplomacy, war, poverty etc. He stated that if most folks got the transparency they asked for, the most likely outcome would be that they would fall asleep! Trade review symposia are boring to the average person in his view. He gave a quick overview of the WTO's internal structure and it's relationship to other multilateral institutions. After he gave his speech the floor was opened up for questions from the panelists. The first was Patty Goldman, a Seattle attorney at EarthJustice. She took major exception to Moore's interpretation of WTO cases that have had negative impacts on US laws--the infamous Sea Turtle case and the Venezuelan gasoline case. It was her contention that the US went out of it's way to be non-discriminatory with regards to the writing and implementation of those laws [she helped write part of the Sea Turtle provisions of the MMPA]. Her rebuttal of Moore won a hefty round of applause from the audience. The next was Rich Feldman from the King County Labor Council. He stated in no uncertain terms that unionists in the US considered the WTO's blindness to labor rights a glaring stain on the WTO's legitimacy. This was put in the context of subsidies. To paraphrase: "why are price supports for small farmers WTO illegal, yet the subsidizing of military intervention in union busting activity or the refusal to consider unions legal, not considered illegal subsidies by the WTO. The holding of a gun to a workers head in a sweatshop is a subsidy." Additionally "why can we protect property rights but not labor rights, the WTO in this sense is a protectionist institution." Needless to say this caught Moore off guard and his response was thoroughly laughable and forgettable [I've since put those dendrites to other uses, sorry]. The crowd basically booed Moore's response [in a civil manner, mind you]. Richard Moxon, who teaches Strategy and International Management at UW went next. I almost totally forget what he said. If I remember correctly what little I do, he seemed very ambivalent about the WTO's guidelines for competition policy. Moore responded in a very indirect way and veered off into a discussion of the perils of people having a too Northern centered view of concerns about the WTO; that it exists and has substantive provisions for addressing the problems of The Global South, and that minimal sacrifices on the part of Northern countries [the US in particular] would have enormous benefits to The South--at which point someone from the audience yelled out "forgive the debt". When Moore asked "what"? because he didn't hear, the crowd, who did hear, joined in unison "forgive the debt!" [this was very moving actually]. Moore adamantly agreed! "Yes, yes, we should forgive the debt". The place erupted with applause [he fell for the trap, it was great--mind you, all this is on film]. Next was Jay Hair, former Prez. of the NWF who complained about the lack of transparency. Moore gave the reply of people would be bored as well as "the WTO is no more/less secretive than a meeting of the US cabinet." Next was Margaret Morrow, who is VP of PATH [Program for Appropriate Technology and Health]. She pointed out the gender bias of the WTO's agenda for the ministerial and also criticized the WTO's lack of transparency. Finally, Desmond O'Rourke, a Washington State Univ. professor of agricultural economics spoke about the benefits of free trade to consumers with regard to food prices. He cited statistics based on his research and also stated that the WTO wasn't moving fast enough on liberalizaion of agricultural policy--"my calculations indicate that if the present pace of reform continues, we'll achieve the goal of free trade in 2072" [that stuck to my neurons]. Moore and the audience got a good laugh out of that. That's all for now, tomorrow or over the weekend I'll type up the Audience dialog with Moore which was fascinating and really went to the core of the issues involved in the future of economic societ
[PEN-L:12860] ICFTU on Labor clause in WTO
Thursday October 21, 7:03 pm Eastern Time Workers body says WTO labour rule would help poor By Robert Evans GENEVA, Oct 21 (Reuters) - Officials of the biggest global labour grouping said on Thursday their demand for a social clause in World Trade Organisation agreements would mainly benefit developing countries. At the same time, they warned that new WTO negotiations on service industries could lead to destruction of state health and education systems around the world, especially in poorer states. ``We are not launching a crusade against developing countries. They stand to benefit more than anyone if core labour standards are incorporated into WTO (open trading) rules,'' Eddy Laurijssen of the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Union's (ICFTU) told a news conference. He said WTO member countries, presently totalling 134, who were fighting to end exploitation of workers were facing unfair competition from others who only paid lip service to it. Laurijssen, ICFTU Assistant General Secretary, confirmed the body would urge at a WTO Ministerial Meeting in Seattle starting on November 30 that the trade body adopt a social clause. Developing countries, which make up the overwhelming bulk of the WTO membership and can block any such move, have for years strongly resisted this idea. They say it is aimed at opening the way for richer countries to use WTO rules to protect their markets, and their workers' jobs, against competition from goods produced more cheaply in states with lower labour costs. SWING IN FAVOUR OF SOCIAL CLAUSE In discussions over the past few weeks on the agenda for Seattle, and the new ``Millennium Round'' of trade liberalisation talks the ministers may agree to launch, emerging economies have refused to contemplate a labour discussion. A new draft -- but highly provisional -- text of a ministerial declaration now under negotiation among envoys to the WTO makes no reference at all to the issue. The United States, under pressure from its own labour unions, has made clear it wants to raise the issue. Within the European Union, France is the main proponent of a social clause but there is so far no common stand among all 15 member states. ICFTU Chief Economist James Howard told the news conference at the International Labour Organisation (ILO) that some developing country governments were now swinging to the idea. He said South Africa was firmly in favour, and that some other governments in Africa and the Caribbean were coming round. Howard said the competition between coal produced in India and Indonesia was an example of how countries with a strong labour movement which protected work standards, like India, lost out to others were workers had little or no protection. ``We hope that we will be able to convince more and more developing countries that a social clause is in their interests,'' said Howard, accepting this would be a long process. Howard said there was increasing concern among public sector workers in developed and developing countries that the services negotiations, already set to start early in the New Year, would undermine the principle of health and education for all. There was especially strong pressure from private companies in the United States, where education services was a multi-billion dollar business and the fifth-largest export, for both sectors to be brought firmly under the WTO umbrella. ``If they are subjected to free trade rules, especially in developing countries, they face a very bleak future,'' he said.
gems of capitalist wisdom; was Re: Chinese desertification
Michael quoted: "Heyne, Paul. 2000. The Economic Way of Thinking (Upper Sadle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall). 334: "Firms do in fact have rights to discharge obnoxious substances into the air, as proved by the fact that they do it openly and are not fined. They have both actual and legal 'rights to pollute'." Heyne was the vocal [overconfident], loyal, economist apologist in Seattle for the MAI and WTO. He was barbecued in every public debate by both his own students, local activists and other ordinary working class folks. He couldn't even explain Ricardo right to an audience of 120+ people at a church in West Seattle in Oct. '99 to which an opposition con. who had debated him the year before on the MAI stated -- "now I'm 100% sure I won't allow my daughter to attend the University of Washington." Ian
Where'd the Bonds go?
Paris, Monday, July 31, 2000 Investors at a Loss Over Shrinking Debt Supply By John M. Berry Washington Post Service WASHINGTON - Claire Goldman, a 77-year-old retiree in Maryland, first got annoyed with the U.S. Treasury in March 1998 when it announced that it was not going to sell any more of its popular three-year notes. So she began to buy a different, shorter-term security, the one-year Treasury bill. Then, in February, the Treasury cut back sales of that bill from once a month to once every three months. Now it appears very likely to eliminate the bill soon. ''It is going to be very difficult for me,'' said Ms. Goldman, one of the millions of investors around the globe who are being forced to adjust as the world's safest investment - Treasury securities - disappears. The supply of such securities held outside federal government trust funds - although massive at $3.4 trillion - is shrinking as mounting federal budget surpluses reduce the U.S. government's need to borrow money each year. As the Treasury issues fewer notes, bills and bonds, and buys back some others, about $200 billion worth of securities will vanish from the books this year, and most if not all of the remaining supply could be erased over the next 10 years if the surpluses materialize according to government projections. Even the future of an American symbol of thrift, the venerable U.S. savings bond - a form of Treasury security - would be in doubt if there were no debt. Treasury securities have long been a popular investment, primarily because they are seen as carrying zero risk of default. Because they are safe and easy to trade and were until recently in abundant supply, they have been used for a wide range of purposes by all types of investors - becoming the grease that keeps the machinery of world financial markets operating smoothly. The supply shrinkage has already led to hiccups in the machinery and forced small and big investors alike to look for ways to alter investment strategies. Investors who will have to find alternatives include the portfolio managers of corporations, banks, mutual funds, pension plans, state and local governments, foreign countries and even the Federal Reserve System. There is no shortage of private debt, but even the best of it carries more risk of default than Treasury securities, which is a problem for risk-shy investors. As government paper is phased out, various investors will have to find alternatives to use as collateral for loans, securities that can serve as substitutes for backing of esoteric derivative instruments and for hedging positions taken in other securities. Financial markets are coping with new uncertainties because they have long depended on all but the shorter-term Treasuries as benchmarks for setting the interest rates of corporate bonds and other financial instruments. This year will be the third year in a row that federal budget surpluses have caused the government to issue fewer new securities. The Treasury Department has even started buying back from willing sellers older, relatively high-yielding notes and bonds as it retires about $30 billion worth of debt this year. But this new reality seemed to escape most investors and bond traders until just a few months ago, when the Treasury announced it was cutting back both the size and frequency of its auctions of new securities, such as the one-year bill. Suddenly, Treasury prices shot up and yields dropped significantly on the five- and 10-year notes and 30-year bonds. These rates dropped even though the Fed was raising short-term rates. Robert DiClemente, an economist with Salomon Smith Barney in New York, said the ''scarcity value'' of the securities had become more important in determining long-term yields than the Fed actions. After the unexpected drop in Treasury yields, the spread between the ultrasafe government paper and the relatively more risky private securities became much less meaningful. Treasury yields still are used as benchmarks, but they are less important than they were, and that importance will diminish steadily along with the volume of government securities. The markets are casting about for alternatives. Among the options for both individual and institutional investors are AAA-rated corporate bonds and those issued by institutions such as the World Bank. Notes and bonds from ''government-sponsored enterprises,'' such as Fannie Mae, which raises huge amounts of money with which to acquire home mortgages, could fill the bill. Fannie Mae is seeking to have the yields on its securities become a substitute ''benchmark'' against which yields on other securities are based. But Fannie Mae is under something of a cloud because President Bill Clinton's administration is trying to eliminate its access to direct credit at the Treasury, and Congress is holding hearings on that and other issues related to its future status. When the Treasury announces its borrowing plans early next month for the re
[PEN-L:26 Chinese desertification
>>It's more complicated than that. The tragedy of the commons is real. But many communities developed effective ways of combating the tendencies and avoiding its effects. That does not mean the tendencies are not real and that the effects do not occur. The problems we have with overfishing are a case in point. --jks = Justin, The tragedy of open access to non-property [over-fishing the oceans] is very different from Hardin's empirically inaccurate description of governance strategies of commonly held [usually under the parish system] property in England. The Familists knew the local ecology all too well,and were not "rational utility maximizers"; that's probably why they held all property in common and large numbers of the Levellers too were against the first enclosures. Both groups in England, as well as others, rejected the sky god and were pantheists or atheists which is an extremely intersting coincidence imo. The tragedies of deforestation that took place in Greece and other Mediterranean cultures were due to open access to non-property for the purpose of making warships and other empire technologies. I'm too ignorant to make any statements on pre-industrial non-euro cultures and ecologies The left needs to work a lot harder to counter the Coasian/Epsteinian nonsense on property Ian [the November '99 issue of Ecological Economics is devoted to sustainable governance of the oceans in light of recent developments in the treaty of the sea and the latest survey data on fisheries]
RE: Re: Chinese desertification; disappearing bluecrabs
Michael, In Hardin's scenario, there already is private property rights: "As a rational being, each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, he asks, "What is the utility to me off adding one more animal to my herd?" So what you have under Hardin's schematic, in fact, is private property predating on non-property under conditions of perfect competition, absence of a governance structure and marginalist doctrine. Is it any wonder he reaches the conclusions he does? The property rights that exist under Asian terraforming agriculture seem to be far more scale-efficient in terms of sustainability than what our great cowboy capitalists in Montana and Wyoming can come up with. Ian > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Perelman > Sent: Monday, July 31, 2000 7:18 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:4] Re: Chinese desertification; disappearing bluecrabs > > > I should have been more clear. The Tragedy of the Commons suggests that > environmental destruction comes from the lack of property rights. > There is a > group in Montana that suggests that all environmental problems > can be solved by > giving property rights to private owners. Supposedly, if I owned > all the fish > in the world, I would be careful not to overfish -- like the > private owners of > the forests. > > My point, which Jason mostly understood, many pre-market societies [before > markets became dominant, not without markets altogether] > developed methods of > avoiding the problem of over-exploitation. > > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 530-898-5321 > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Tragedy of the Rockfish
Monday, July 31, 2000, 12:00 a.m. Pacific Northwest rockfish face chancy future Monday July 31st 2000 by Hal Bernton Seattle Times staff reporter Part two of a two-part series. WARRENTON, Ore. - The skippers out of this Columbia River port take pride in their skill at catching Pacific Northwest rockfish. Their intimate knowledge of undersea canyons, pinnacles and reefs yields nets full of prime seafood. But what happens after the fish come aboard is often a source of anger and shame. Fishermen working under some of the most convoluted harvest rules in the nation discard part of their catch. Sometimes they dump up to a third of it, they say, including thousands of pounds of dead and dying rockfish. Most people with a stake in the rockfish harvest - federal regulators, scientists, conservationists, community leaders and fishermen - agree the 24-year-old management system is failing. The harvest rules set strict limits on how much of each species can be brought back to port. But when fishermen accidentally exceed the limits for one species as they pursue another, there's no limit on the amount of discards. To avoid fines for landing the excess fish, fishermen toss them overboard. "This is sick," said Greg Caisse, skipper of the Blue Max. "This management by waste just doesn't make any sense." The rules have restricted port landing limits to less than one-fifth the annual poundage brought in during the early 1980s. But populations of four rockfish species have crashed in recent decades due to what scientists believe is a double whammy of overharvesting and poor ocean conditions through the late 1990s. Several other species also have show substantial declines. Though ocean conditions this year have dramatically improved, scientists say it may take decades for some of these species to recover. So fishermen are bracing for tough times. Earlier this year, the federal Commerce Department declared the West Coast harvest a federal disaster, a declaration that shook loose $5 million in taxpayer dollars to aid coastal communities in Northern California, Oregon and Washington. And a fishery council, composed of federal, state and industry officials, wants to slash the size of the fleet. The 245-vessel trawl-net fleet could be reduced by more than half. "I think the system is broke," said Bob Alverson, a Washington commercial-fishing-industry representative to the Pacific Fishery Management Council. "The amount of fish available just can't support this fleet." Some rockfish live to 140 More than 50 different species of rockfish have contributed to the commercial harvest. They have names like yellowtail, widow, splitnose, shortspine and chilipepper, and range from shallow intertidal zones to depths of more than 1,000 feet. These rockfish may lack the name recognition of a chinook salmon or the majesty of an old growth fir. Often, they end up at the fish-market counter sold under the humble moniker of "red snapper." But they, too, form part of the region's natural resource heritage. They rank among the most long-lived of fish with life cycles that biologists are only beginning to unravel. Many rockfish species live 50 years or more. One species - the rougheye rockfish - can live to be 140 years old. With the dramatic improvement in ocean conditions this year, scientists are seeing increased numbers of juvenile rockfish. But because the fish are so slow to reach maturity, no one is expecting the populations to bounce back. Stocks of red-hued canary, for example, may take 55 years to rebuild even if the catch were held near zero throughout that time, according to a federal research report. Fleet's future less than rosy The small town of Warrenton, near the mouth of the Columbia River, is a key port for the Oregon trawl fleet, which claims roughly 70 percent of the catch off Washington. The trawl fleet built up its muscle power in the 1970s, aided by federal loans intended to help push out foreign factory trawlers that had laid claim to most of the fish within the U.S.'s 200-mile coastal zone. The fishermen proved an innovative group, constantly finding ways to improve the nets so they could penetrate rocky areas known to be good fishing spots. Despite the recent harvest declines, the trawl vessels remain an impressive sight lined up at the dock, nets furled around deck-top reels. But tourism and recreational boating are claiming a growing share of the local economy. Many of the trawlers are aging, their wheelhouse cabinetry scuffed and worn and hulls badly in need of paint. Crews also are suffering. Paychecks once topped $80,000 annually for some of the top deckhands on rockfish boats. This year, some say they'll be lucky to gross $20,000. Some fishermen have moved into healthier Northwest fisheries such as Dungeness crab, or have quit the business. Others have abandoned the Northwest rockfish for the much larger and prosperous Alaska trawl fisheries. Blue Max skipper Caisse, a rail-thin man
AG's friends latest simulation of a financial crash
[from a draft report also given at the July 12-13 conference on The Next Financial Panic] http://www.cfr.org/financialvulnerability/simulation/sim_scenario.html Ian
Re: rational expectations
Jim D. wrote: "who is it that determines who a "real authority" is? Is there a World Congress of Philosophers who makes this decision?" = Roger Coase floated the idea that there should be a few years back...very scary. Ian
RE: Brad on Krugman
Is Brad deep undercover working for the Gore campaign on one of those thick-slick policy tomes that float in DC bookstores between now and Jan.? > > > Since we haven't heard from Brad deLong on pen-l in a long time, here's a > snippet from his web-site > (http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/Econ_Articles/Reviews/krugman_ac > cidental.h > tml): > >
Oil Profit$$
Paris, Wednesday, August 9, 2000 Profit Surges At BP Amoco On Oil Prices Compiled by Our Staff From Dispatches LONDON - BP Amoco PLC said Tuesday that its profit in the second quarter more than doubled because of rising oil prices, its takeover of Atlantic Richfield Co. and cost-cutting. Profit from operations rose to $3.61 billion from $1.37 billion a year earlier, which excluded results from the $33.1 billion takeover of Arco in April. Like rival Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Amoco is benefiting from oil prices that averaged 70 percent more than in the year-earlier period. Yet BP in the past two years has spent more than $100 billion on buyouts of other companies - in addition to Arco, BP has bought the oil companies Amoco Corp. and Burmah Castrol PLC - creating confusion over the company's profit growth. ''The problem is determining what the clean number is,'' said Bruce Evers, an analyst at Investec Henderson Crosthwaite. The profit is calculated on a replacement-cost basis, taking into account the cost of replacing BP's reserves at current oil prices and stripping out one-time items. In London, BP Amoco shares fell to 600 pence ($9), down 7 pence BP Amoco was the last of the three biggest oil companies to report second-quarter results. Two weeks ago, Exxon Mobil posted a 123 percent jump in second-quarter earnings; Royal Dutch/Shell Group reported a 95 percent increase in profit last week. ''These results represent the cumulative impact of the progress we've made over the last few years - growth in volume and, equally important, growth in total productivity resulting from the way we work,'' said John Browne, BP's chief executive... http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/WED/FIN/earns.2.html
Modeling energy markets at Stanford
some decent reports on electricity, etc. http://www.stanford.edu/group/EMF/publications/index.htm
frontiers of environmental economics
ABSTRACT: We present a model that can be used to analyse economically optimal nutrient (nitrogen) stocks in agricultural lands. The model is applied to study cattle ranching in humid Costa Rica. The numerical results indicate that, for current meat prices and discount rate, it is privately optimal to 'mine' soil nitrogen. In the long run, efficiency is consistent with degraded and abandoned pastures, as observed in the study region. Sustainable pasture management is economically efficient only for a discount rate close to zero or for meat prices at about twice the highest recorded value in 1985-1997. The results highlight the potential conflict between sustainability and economic efficiency. Caveats and externalities that are not included in our model are Ø discussed. === The ghost of H. Hotelling... Ian
RE: Wage setting
mbs: Suppose we turned the question around. What trade policy would best serve service sector workers -- one that improved the (higher) wages of manufacturing jobs (for which service sector workers were qualified) and made these jobs more plentiful, or one that reduced the price of consumption goods and created more jobs in sectors with below-average wages. = Um, given the propensity of capitalists to displace manufacturing jobs with technology, conjoined with the fact that the energy/material inputs per unit of tool Z or good X must fall by at least a factor of ten over the next 60 years or so just in order to maintain the current level of energy use, wouldn't the trade question you pose be ancillary to the larger issue of more equitable trade flows of knowledge and resource conserving production methods? [I'll leave aside the "increase" in education levels necessary for various populations to achieve the knowledge base for such progress in production methods] Wouldn't that in turn take some of the entirely justifiable pressures of migration in search of adequate wages to buy consumption goods off the North, which is feeding the current wave of xenophobia? I say this not to reinforce a Northern bias, but rather that raising living standards in the South [which should be the major project of the 21st century] would call for a major, rapid diffusion of the best knowledge our species has, entailing a complete sea change in our views of property given the current price structure for hi-tech knowledge and artifacts. Ian
RE: RE: Wage setting
mbs: Maybe, maybe not. If I'm in Guatemala and life is better in the U.S., a given improvement in my life here does not necessarily deter me from seeking to migrate. It may in fact give me more means to do so. == agreed given the individualism of your response, but if there is a net increase in the living standards of poor country X odds are the pressures for flight to greener pastures would diminish.** mbs: If I believed what you say, yes. === I can send you chapter 6 of Paul Ekins "Economic Growth and Environmental Sustainability: The Prospects for Green Growth if you like. The numbers ain't pretty and are based on some algorithms cooked up by that strange duo [well one of them anyway] Barry Commoner/Paul Ehrlich. Ian
RE: Wage setting
mbs: Ehrlich is not a credible person to me. Agreed; butterflies he knows, the rest is c**p. For a great radicalization of their formula [and critique] try "Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment & Development" edited by J Silliman & Y King Ian
exporting energy efficiency strategies to China
http://www.nrel.gov/international/china/energy_efficiency.html http://www.pnl.gov/china/ ian
What Brad's been up to
[so Brad, did you get on a plane and do a sample of those in 49th percentile and below in the countries listed below or did you just read some stats?] Emerging Markets Are Back. Thanks, IMF By J. Bradford Delong Fortune August 14, 2000 Just two years ago, emerging economies were in heaps of trouble. The light at the end of the financial-crisis tunnel appeared to be a train barreling the other way. Doomsayers like Charles Wolf, an analyst at Rand, claimed that East Asia was suffering the fallout from a "perverse" development model. Economists blasted the International Monetary Fund for being both too lenient and too Scrooge-like. The agency and its ilk could do nothing right. Yet without major domestic economic reforms or an IMF overhaul, the troubled regions have recovered more dramatically and swiftly than anyone predicted. In the past year, real GDP has grown by 13% in South Korea, 12% in Malaysia, 7% in Thailand, and 8% in Mexico. Of the emerging-market economies most badly hit by the financial crises of the 1990s, only Brazil's and Indonesia's are disappointing, with real economic growth of 3%. Instead of the usual finger pointing, economists are in the uncustomary position of asking "What went right?" Here are some ideas: Economic gains from globalization have been enormous. Even in an economy as prosperous and as developed as South Korea's, real-wage levels are only a third of those in the US. This means that the potential for further growth and development is very large. East Asia's fundamentals--a well-educated labor force, good transportation and communications infrastructure, low taxes, and a relatively honest government--make it easier to attain First World levels of productivity. Market economies are much more resilient and flexible than pundits believe. Policymakers' expectations are still shaped by the memory of the Great Depression: Panic breaks out, demand falls, unemployment rises, confidence collapses, the economy stagnates, and it doesn't recover. But Great Depressions are rare events--that is why we remember them. A more likely scenario: As long as a nation's economy maintains a banking system that channels savings from households and investors to businesses, it will likely bounce back nicely from a recession; the deeper the recession, the higher the bounce. Emerging economies have strong and resilient enough market systems to make prolonged depressions unlikely. Global financial institutions did a much better job of handling the crises than they're given credit for. The recipe for alleviating a financial crisis is more than 100 years old: Show up with a lot of money to restore confidence, lend freely to fundamentally sound organizations that need cash, close down and liquidate failing businesses. This formula restores confidence and channels money from savers and investors to businesses that need capital. This is exactly what the IMF, the World Bank, the US Treasury, and G-7 did, pouring about $20 billion into Mexico and $60 billion into East Asia. The loans all look as if they'll be repaid with interest now that these crises are over. Critics blast these agencies for making all sorts of mistakes: The US Treasury for demanding early repayment of its loans to Mexico; the IMF for closing down some but not all of Indonesia's insolvent banks; the IMF (again) for demanding that East Asian economies showing budget surpluses raise taxes, thus shrinking demand and deepening the recession. These are valid criticisms, but they miss the point: The IMF and company did a number of little things wrong, but they did the big, necessary things right. What's the surest sign these organizations acted wisely? After the depression of 1929, US unemployment remained well above normal for 12 years. After the 1982 Mexican crisis, it took six years before growth resumed. Eleven years after its crisis, Japan - which hasn't restructured its banking system - is still stagnating. But Mexico's and East Asia's bad recessionary years were followed by the resumption of economic growth in just a year or two. J. Bradford Delong is a professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley and co-editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives.
Energy 2050
[From the latest Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Full essay at: http://www.bullatomsci.org/issues/2000/ja00/ja00fetter.html There is also a larger essay by the author which can be reached from the link below the excerpt] July/August 2000 Vol. 56, No. 4, pp. 28-38 By Steve Fetter Although the evidence for human-induced global warming is still the subject of intense debate, the majority of the world's climate researchers believe that the process is well under way. The earth is a natural greenhouse. It would not be habitable if natural greenhouse gases--chiefly water vapor--did not trap heat in the atmosphere. But industrialization and rapid population growth have significantly increased the concentration of greenhouse gases--especially carbon dioxide, which is released by fossil fuel burning and deforestation. In response to the belief that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases might lead to harmful changes in climate, the Framework Convention on Climate Change was negotiated in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. Its objective: to achieve "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system." Most studies of climate change focus on the global impact of a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the preindustrial level of 275 parts per million to 550 parts per million. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific body established to advise parties to the convention, a doubling would, over the long term, increase the average global surface air temperature by 1.5-4.5 degrees Celsius (2.5-8 degrees Fahrenheit), with a best estimate of 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit). Uncertainties about how cloud cover, ocean currents, and vegetation would change as the atmosphere warms are at the root of the wide range in estimates. But even "small" changes could have big consequences. An increase of 1.5 degrees Celsius, for example, would be greater than any change in the last 10,000 years; one of 4.5 degrees would rival the increase that occurred at the end of the last ice age. The European Union argues that the increase in average global temperature should not be allowed to exceed 2 degrees Celsius (3.5 degrees Fahrenheit) and that greenhouse gas concentrations should be stabilized at less than an "equivalent doubling" of carbon dioxide. (Equivalent doubling reflects the fact that other greenhouse gases--methane, nitrous oxide, and hydrocarbons--must be factored in.) This would require reductions in greenhouse emissions far beyond existing commitments or proposals. In particular, it would require a fundamental transformation of the global energy system during the next half century. Traditional fossil fuels--mainly coal, oil, and natural gas--would have to be largely replaced by energy sources that emit little or no carbon dioxide. The great transformation Energy experts predict that total global consumption of primary energy--energy used for space heating, transportation, and generating electricity--will double or triple over the next 50 years, from about 400 exajoules (EJ) per year in 1998 to 800-1,200 EJ per year in 2050. (An exajoule is a billion billion joules. One exajoule is about equal to the energy content of 30 million tons of coal, or the gasoline consumed by a million automobiles during their lifetimes, or the annual energy consumption of West Virginia or Portugal.) Fossil fuel consumption would have to be limited to about 300 EJ per year in 2050 to permit stabilization of anthropogenic greenhouse gases at an equivalent doubling. Carbon-free energy sources would then have to supply the difference: 500-900 EJ per year. That's daunting. In 1998, carbon-free sources supplied less than 60 EJ. Carbon-free energy would need to grow tenfold over the next 50 years--from 15 percent of the total commercial supply to 60-75 percent in 2050. Possibilities and improbabilities Only two sources of carbon-free energy--hydropower and nuclear fission-- currently produce a significant fraction of the world's energy supply, with each accounting for about 27 EJ per year (7 percent of the current energy supply), virtually all of it used to generate electricity. All other carbon-free sources-- geothermal, wind, solar, and commercial biomass combined--supplied only about 4 EJ (1 percent) in 1998. Carbon-free energy production has been growing recently at about 2 percent per year--much less than the 5 percent rate needed to stabilize carbon dioxide levels at an equivalent doubling. Moreover, most of the recent growth has been caused by an expansion of nuclear and hydro capacity, both of which are expected to taper off in the coming decades. Further expansion of hydropower is limited by geography and people's tolerance for dams. Hydropower's contribution might increase to about 60 EJ per year by 2050, but even that is doubtful. Among the other carbon-free sources of ene
RE: Taiwan: 10,000 telecom workers protest (fwd)
Title: SCMP.com - Asia's leading English news channel - FullText No wonder the US supports Taiwan entering the WTO separate from China. Ian
RE: Re: RE: Taiwan: 10,000 telecom workers protest (fwd)
US telecom corps are big pushers for privatization of state run telcom networks and are currently prepping to take Mexico to the WTO over the issue; with Taiwan in the WTO they'd have their wedge to gobble up that market too. Ian > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Stephen E Philion > Sent: Friday, August 18, 2000 9:23 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:685] Re: RE: Taiwan: 10,000 telecom workers protest > (fwd) > > > Ian wrote: > No wonder the US supports Taiwan entering the WTO separate from China. > Ian > > > Steve wrote: > Sorry Ian, what's the connection your making here with the article? > > Steve > > > Stephen Philion > Lecturer/PhD Candidate > Department of Sociology > 2424 Maile Way > Social Sciences Bldg. # 247 > Honolulu, HI 96822 > >
RE: testing
please ignore this message. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine Is this a koan? Ian
RE: RE: Re: RE: Taiwan: 10,000 telecom workers protest (fwd)
I wrote: US telecom corps are big pushers for privatization of state run telecom networks and are currently prepping to take Mexico to the WTO over the issue; with Taiwan in the WTO they'd have their wedge to gobble up that market too. Ian === Little did I know they were doing so as I spoke... Friday August 18, 12:56 pm Eastern Time U.S. takes Mexico to WTO over telecoms row GENEVA, Aug 18 (Reuters) - The United States has formally launched a World Trade Organisation (WTO) case which it hopes will force Mexico to open up its domestic telecommunications market, diplomats said on Friday. They said the U.S. complaint, in the form of a request for consultations with Mexico on the row, was filed with the WTO on Thursday. It says Mexico is breaking its obligations under the WTO's agreement on trade in services. Earlier this month, U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, apparently responding to pressure from U.S. companies like AT&T Corp (NYSE:T - news) and WorldCom Inc (NasdaqNM:WCOM - news), accused Mexico of allowing former state monopoly Telefonos de Mexico SA, or Telmex, to manipulate the domestic market. The U.S. companies say they are forced by Telmex to pay unfairly high fees for connections to the Mexican network and that it is barring them access to bandwidths needed for provision of Internet services. Telmex has rejected these accusations. Under WTO rules, Mexico has 10 days to respond to the U.S. request and 30 days to begin consultations. If no agreement is reached within 60 days, the United States can then ask the WTO to set up a panel to look into its complaint.
RE: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Wage Determination: wasCrapulism: a side bet
Missed Carrol's remark first time around. What do you make of this bit from the Grundrisse? "Money is therefore not only an object, but is the object of greed. It is essentially auri sacra fames. Greed as such, as a particular form of the drive, i.e. as distinct from the craving for a particular kind of wealth, e.g. for clothes, weapons, jewels, women, wine etc., is possible only when general wealth, wealth as such, has become individualized in a particular thing, i.e. as soon as money is posited in its third quality. Money is therefore not only the object but also the fountainhead of greed Hedonism in the abstract presupposes an object which possesses all pleasures in potentiality." Doug === Very Aristotelian. Wouldn't it perhaps be more accurate to say that hedonism presupposes an object which mediates the transition from potential to actual pleasure[s] in systems of generalized commodity production? So that in addition to money being "the face of the boss", money is the flip side of [or perhaps competitor with] the law, which also mediates the production of pleasure[s]? Ian What page #?
--The Hedonic Marx
Carrol wrote: Ian's emendation seems reasonable, except that he leaves out something important in Marx's formulation, hedonism IN THE ABSTRACT. The worker (and I include most college students under this category) essentially wants the things money can buy, not money as self-expanding value. == As the student desirous of the MBA or whathaveyou internalizes M-C-M' and goes on to desire stock options etc. insofar as these expand the potential for acquiring forms and expressions of pleasure, will he/she not have those abstract potentialities constantly reconfigured [in so far as they are dispositions a la Aristotle-modal logic and all that] so that they are, contra Marx [p 222], always already historical and thus, along pomo lines, the nature/history / breaks down? "Hedonism in the abstract presupposes all pleasures in potentiality." Hence $$ is both within and against the law [cokeheads on Wall Street being just one example]? "It is itself the community and can tolerate none other standing above it." Money desires to assume a claim to naturalness by eradicating or constraining "the mania for possessions [] possible without money." Ian
Energy Market update
[full article http://www.iht.com Meanwhile, Hurricane Debby heads toward St. Croix where the largest oil refinery in the western hemisphere is located...] Paris, Wednesday, August 23, 2000 Energy Crisis? Fuel and Power Shortages Worry U.S. LOS ANGELES - For the first time in a generation, the United States finds itself edging toward a possible energy crisis. Although experts are divided on whether such a crisis will occur, Americans are worrying seriously about their energy bills and energy supplies. Not since the Arab oil embargoes in the 1970s have analysts, businesses and consumers found so much to fear nearly everywhere they look. In California, the electricity grid has narrowly dodged rolling blackouts. The typical electricity bill in parts of Southern California has doubled, prompting state regulators Monday to start limiting consumer rates. Residents of the Northeast face high heating oil prices this winter and possible shortages. Gasoline prices continue to inflict pain at the pump as crude oil hovers around $32 a barrel, the highest since the Gulf War. The crisis mentality even pervades the once-placid natural gas market, in which already historically high prices rose 7 percent Monday in the wake of a pipeline explosion in New Mexico on Saturday that killed 11 campers and shut down one of eight gas mains feeding California. Meanwhile, a tropical storm designated Debby ostensibly threatens one-quarter of the nation's gas supply that comes from Gulf of Mexico platforms. Analysts fear that the United States is so short of both natural gas and heating oil that it faces a possible energy crisis this winter if temperatures dip below normal - with rationing and industrial shutdowns very distinct possibilities. ''It hasn't been like this since the late 1970s,'' said Edward Kelly, director of natural gas research at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Houston. ''You could see some industrial users facing some real tough choices about shutting down. And it wouldn't even take a severe winter for it to come to that.'' The pipeline accident and the tropical storm provide fresh examples of how the country's growing energy needs make it more vulnerable than at any time in decades to market factors such as weather or civil disturbances in producing countries. The energy situation might not yet feel like a crisis to U.S. consumers who remember the gasoline-station lines of the 1970s, when oil embargoes helped cause some U.S. businesses to cut back economic activity. So far, the jump in many energy prices has been absorbed by manufacturers, who do not think they have the pricing power in today's market to pass their costs along to consumers, said Rajeev Dhawan, director of econometric forecasting at the UCLA Anderson Forecast Project. That - and the fact that energy accounts for a much smaller portion of economic output than 25 years ago - is why inflation is up only slightly in the past six months, even as crude oil and natural gas prices have each doubled.
RE: increasing profit rates
If, in the US, then If you were to estimate what caused the increasing rate of profit during the last decade, how much credit would you give to weakening unions [8%] globalization[6%] lower environmental/regulatory standards [4%] financial shenanigans (i.e., manipulating pensions) [30%] new technology [15%] better management [37%] please tell me I'm wrong, Ian -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: RE: RE: increasing profit rates
The rest, including technology, is guesswork, IMO. mbs === What would need to happen to get adequate metrics for the other factors? Ian
RE: Re: RE: increasing profit rates
lower environmental/regulatory standards [4%] Max, I guessed at this being above zero on the odds that firms litigate their way to exemptions which have a cumulative effect of hollowing out enviro. regs. despite their being formally on the books. Ian
Re: Directed Polymers and the Distribution of Wealth
JBR Jr. wrote: I would note more generally that the new "econophysics" movement is full of a lot of people who don't know any economics and think they are "rebuilding economics from the ground up," when all they are doing is exhibiting their ignorance of the economics literature. = Not to mention their total avoidance of the history of property and labor law... Ian
FW: Re: Directed Polymers and the Distribution of Wealth
oops wrong list..no caffeine yet... > -Original Message- > From: Lisa & Ian Murray [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > Sent: Friday, August 25, 2000 8:42 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: Directed Polymers and the Distribution of Wealth > > > JBR Jr. wrote: I would note > more generally that the new "econophysics" movement is > full of a lot of people who don't know any economics and > think they are "rebuilding economics from the ground up," > when all they are doing is exhibiting their ignorance of the > economics literature. > > = > Not to mention their total avoidance of the history of property > and labor law... > > Ian
Name that Economist...
Who wrote this: "Economics is surely the only discipline in which a scholar can win the Nobel Prize for proving the existence of that which plainly does not exist." Ian
RE: Re: Name that Economist...
F.M. Scherer; referring to General Equilibrium in "New Perspectives on Economic Growth and Technological Innovation" Is economics a discipline where math is consciously used for fictive purposes [as in GE] or is it just because economists have worse luck at finding/creating math that refers to real world events? Einstein remarked that insofar as we are certain with our math, it does not refer to the real world and insofar as it does refer it must remain uncertain. Is the math and physics envy of economics the result of an existential anxiety with regards to uncertainty and does this lead to the desire to make the world conform to the mathematical model? And would that go part of the way in explaining what many perceive as arrogance [like PK making fun of "Seattle Man"]? Ian Albert Hirshman said somethin like that, but not quite: I paraphrased it this way in my Natural Instability book. In the sciences, joint Nobel Prizes are given to collaborators, where in economics, the prize is sometimes split between two persons who have worked to disprove the other's work (Hirschman 1981, p. 8). >
Overfishing versus Conservation
[Could an Aussie enlighten us on the property rights design on this one?] A Tale of Two Fisheries As New Englanders overfish their way to ruin, Australians have profited by becoming conservationists. By JOHN TIERNEY John Sorlien, a lean, sunburned fisherman in rubber overalls, was loading his boat along the wharf at Point Judith, R.I., not far from the spot where the "Tuna Capital of the World" sign stood three decades ago. Back then, you could harpoon giant bluefins right outside the harbor. Today, you would have a hard time finding one within 20 miles. Since the early 1970's, the tuna have declined -- along with cod, swordfish, halibut and so many other species in the ruined fisheries of the Northeast. Sorlien, like the other fishermen in this harbor just west of Newport, is surviving thanks to New England's great cash crop, lobsters, but he wonders how much longer they'll be around. "Right now, my only incentive is to go out and kill as many fish as I can," Sorlien said. "I have no incentive to conserve the fishery, because any fish I leave is just going to be picked by the next guy." Like the men who wiped out the buffaloes on the Great Plains in the 19th century, Sorlien is a hunter-gatherer who has become too lethal for his range. He is what's known in the business as a highliner -- a fisherman who comes back with big hauls -- but every season the competition gets tougher. When he got started 16 years ago, at the age of 22, he used a small boat and set traps within three miles of shore. These days, he doesn't even bother looking in those waters, which fishermen now refer to as "on the beach." He has graduated to a 42-foot boat and often goes 70 miles out to sea for lobsters, which can mean leaving the dock at midnight and not returning until 10 the following night. Each year, he has had to go farther and haul more traps just to stay even. Solien was starting the season on this May morning by loading hundreds of the traps onto his boat, the Cindy Diane. The four-foot-long steel cages, each baited with a dangling skate fish, would spend the next eight months at sea. Sorlien would be tending 800 of them in all. On a typical day, he would haul 300, sometimes 400, up from the ocean floor to remove lobsters and insert fresh bait. As he stacked one 40-pound trap after another on deck, it was easy to see why he and so many other lobstermen have back problems. "My chiropractor says he can always tell when it's lobster season," Sorlien said. The chiropractor is treating the consequence of what fishery scientists call "effort creep." Over the years, as Sorlien got a bigger boat and gradually doubled the number of his traps in the water, other lobstermen were doing the same. It was an arms race with no winners and some definite losers: the lobsters. Their life expectancy plummeted. "Lobsters used to live for 50 or 75 years," recalled Robert Smith, who has been lobstering at Point Judith since 1948. "When I started, it was not unusual to get a 30-pound lobster. It's been 20 years since I got one that was even 20 pounds." Last year, the biggest one he caught was four pounds, and that was an anomaly. Most lobsters don't even make it to two pounds. Biologists estimate that 90 percent of lobsters are caught within a year after they reach the legal minimum size at about age 6. "If you translate that to the human population," Sorlien said, "it means that our industry is relying almost entirely on a bunch of 13-year-olds to keep us going. That doesn't seem too healthy. If we get some kind of environmental disruption that interferes with reproduction one year, we'll end up with nothing to catch for a whole season. We just go from year to year not knowing what to expect. I don't have a clue what kind of year this will be for me. It's like we're backing up to the edge of a cliff blindfolded, and we don't know if we're 50 feet away or have two wheels over the edge." full article at http://www.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/2827mag-fisheries.html
offshore bank of the week
full article at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/Business/Inside_Business/2000-08/ruby27080 0.shtml 'Ruby' bank collapses By Paul Lashmar 27 August 2000 Grenada's government has taken over the controversial "$26bn" First International Bank of Grenada in a further twist to one of the most bizarre episodes in the history of Caribbean offshore banking. "The Grenadian authorities have finally stepped in, too late, and are effectively liquidating the bank, after everybody's money has disapp- eared," says David Marchant, editor of the Miami-based Offshore Alert newsletter, which claimed in January last year that the bank was suspect. Only three weeks ago the Grenadian government was still standing by the bank after a little-known chartered accountant from Yorkshire gave it a clean bill of health after an audit. He was called in by a British barrister acting for the bank. Mr Marchant says the accountant's report "triggered disbelief". The First International Bank of Grenada was set up by an American, Van A Brink, in 1998. Before moving to Grenada he lived in Oregon under the name of Gilbert Allen Ziegler, until going bankrupt in 1994. He then bought a Grenadian passport and changed his name. The bank was licensed solely on the capital asset of a red ruby, said to be valued at $20m (£13m). The bank offered early investors returns of up to 500 per cent, one of the highest rates ever offered by an offshore bank. The bank's first annual report claimed it had increased its capital from $110,000 to $14bn in the first year of operation. The bank's reported net income last year of $26bn would have made it the most profitable company in the world, overshadowing Microsoft's $4.5bn profit. Mr Brink, in an interview with the Grenada Broadcasting Network at the time, said his bank was "doing legitimate business" and "acting lawfully". He has now left Grenada for Uganda, living in a house once owned by the dictator Idi Amin. Mr Marchant says there is no evidence that the ruby even existed, and the claims of capital and profits of billions of dollars, "are now clearly fictitious". Every month, First International Bank of Grenada paid for hundreds of Americans to fly to the island and wooed them at upmarket beach resorts with lectures on the evils of US taxation. Prospective customers were assured their money would be insured by the International Deposit Indemnity Corp, a small private operation which was closed down on the island of Nevis, and also in Dominica, but now operates in Grenada. Some $100m is said to have been deposited by gullible clients. The Caribbean has recently come under political pressure from the US and Europe to clean up the offshore market. "Grenada is a recent entrant in the offshore banking market," says Mr Marchant. "There are believed to have been at least 14 banks, perhaps twice that, affiliated to the FIBG and if they are closed the number of banks based on the island will be at least halved." Grenada's Ministry of Finance said in a statement that the government took over the operations last week, appointing former accountant general Garvey Louison, effectively to act as receiver. Finance minister Anthony Boatswain told the Grenada Broadcasting Network he knew the bank was experiencing a "shortage of funds", but he did not say how it would affect investors. Government spokeswoman Nancy McGuire said recently that it was investigating the bank with the US Department of Justice and the FBI.
AG groupies getting nervous
Word is they wondered why the activists who've bothered everyone else for the past nine months left them off the social calendar :-) [full article at NYT] August 27, 2000 ECONOMIC VIEW Economic View: Global Calm Prevails, but Is It Deceptive? By RICHARD W. STEVENSON JACKSON HOLE, Wyo. -- When central bankers and economists from around the world gathered here two years ago for the annual conference sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, the worldwide economic outlook was bleak. Russia's finances were melting down. Asia was in a tailspin. Latin America's stability was at risk. Though no one had yet noticed, one of the world's biggest hedge funds was imploding. Even the ever-resilient American economy was under threat. In many ways, the atmosphere here over the last several days at this year's Fed conference on global economic integration could not have been more different. The global financial crisis of a few years ago has given way to general stability and renewed growth. With the partial exception of Japan, the big industrial nations are prosperous. Most of the developing world is rebounding. Financial markets, while still bearing the scars of 1998, are healthy if not robust. Yet there was an undercurrent of nervousness in much of the discussion here, and not because of the forest fires burning just a few miles away from this scenic resort. It seemed driven by a sense that while the last crisis had passed without much permanent harm, another might well be on the way, and that there was still no clear prescription for dealing with it. Paul Krugman of Princeton University presented a paper to the conference saying that economists were suffering from "persistent if low-grade anxiety" about the world economy, and said that one of the byproducts of increased economic integration among countries would be more frequent financial crises. Michael Mussa, director of research at the International Monetary Fund, felt compelled to ask whether the world was about to lapse back into isolationism and nationalism. And although his answer was no, the very fact that he raised the question suggested that policy makers had been shaken by the widespread protests in the last year over free trade and the threat it posed to labor and environmental standards. When Alan Greenspan, the Fed chairman, bemoaned the lack of progress in breaking down the remaining trade barriers among nations, and warned that support for globalization could erode the next time the economy hits a rough patch. It was certainly not news to anyone here, including Mr. Greenspan, that globalization carries risks and costs as well as undeniable advantages. The issue is what we have learned from the experience of recent years about how to minimize the chances of a problem erupting or to deal with it effectively once it has. Mr. Krugman, who also writes an Op-Ed Page column for The New York Times, told the meeting that economists have not even come to any consensus about what caused the troubles that began in Asia in 1997, much less worked out a new global financial architecture or crisis-response playbook. Most economists and policy makers here agree that high levels of short-term borrowings in foreign currencies by companies contributed greatly to the travails in Asian nations like Thailand. When local currencies collapsed, the repayment terms of these loans rapidly became prohibitive. Companies went bankrupt and economies spiraled downward in defiance of the beneficial effects that a cheaper currency is usually expected to have on exports. With the economy deteriorating, capital took flight, particularly as foreign lenders refused to roll over loans and took their money home. Why not try to block this kind of death spiral in the future by restricting capital flight? The policy makers and economists gathered here, by and large an avidly free-market bunch, could not quite swallow their distaste for limiting the mobility of money across borders, although Charles Goodhart of the London School of Economics suggested that there might be an ideologically acceptable compromise in using bank regulation, rather than outright capital controls, as a brake on the rapid withdrawal of funds from an economy. In any case, the last crisis may not hold any lessons for the next crisis, whatever it might be.
Re: Econophysics
Can anyone out there please point me in the direction of a bio of Pareto wherein his relationship to fascism is spelled out? Thanx Ian
RE: The IMF and the Presidential Candidates
Wall Street Journal - September 30, 1999 FEDERAL RESERVE OFTEN TOSSES OUT IMF ADVICE ON ECONOMIC POLICY By Michael M. Phillips Staff Reporter Of The Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON -- Which country has received the worst economic advice from the International Monetary Fund over the past few years? South Korea? Russia? Brazil? Think again. It might be the U.S. Just as they do for every member nation from Mozambique to Pakistan, IMF experts give the U.S. economic team an annual once-over. Every year IMF chief Michel Camdessus sits down to lunch in the Fed's executive dining room and coaches U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan on interest-rate policy. Time and again in recent years, the IMF has laid out an aggressive game plan -- the Fed should boost interest rates to stave off the threat of inflation. Time and again, the Fed has nodded politely and, for the most part, left interest rates alone. And for the last few years, the U.S. economy has continued to hum along. Diplomatic Terms "I wouldn't say" IMF advice "has a heck of a lot of weight -- I wouldn't say it's ignored either," one U.S. official observes diplomatically. A less diplomatic version of the play: Camdessus to Greenspan to trash can. The annual ritual highlights one reason the IMF, the international financial fireman, is in such political trouble in Washington these days. The IMF's track record, particularly in scandal-ridden Russia, has made it an irresistible target for Republicans jostling for position in the 2000 presidential race. Right or wrong, critics think the IMF gives bad advice. And, they say, if it can't give sound advice to the U.S., what hope is there for the poor countries that count on the IMF's steady hand? "The prescriptions they recommend are almost uniformly bad," says GOP presidential hopeful Steve Forbes, who plans to call for the IMF's abolition on Monday in Bretton Woods, N.H., where the institution was born in 1944. "They're like Typhoid Mary. Wherever they go, riots and depression seem to follow." Certainly, that's hyperbole. To be fair, many economists think the IMF has prescribed harsh, but necessary medicine, particularly during the global financial crisis that started in 1997. And the IMF hasn't been alone in urging the Fed to raise rates in recent years. Many Wall Street economists also believed that tight labor markets would eventually push up wages and prices and force the Fed's hand. At times it has seemed as if Mr. Greenspan was in the minority in his belief that technology had made workers so productive that companies could raise wages without jacking up prices. In fact, the IMF has hit its share of bull's-eyes. Like when Mr. Camdessus pushed the U.S. Treasury -- as he began doing even when it made the Clinton administration uncomfortable -- to get rid of the federal budget deficit. And the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, just completed a study showing that the IMF's economic forecasts for the U.S. have largely been on target. "The advice with respect to the U.S. has been remarkably close to what the policy has been," says Michael Mussa, the IMF's chief economist. Opposite Tracks Perhaps. But at key junctures over the past few years, the IMF has urged the Fed to move in one direction, and Mr. Greenspan, following his instincts, has headed in the other. Take July 1997, just weeks after the Thai baht collapsed and sparked what was to balloon into a full-fledged global financial crisis. On July 28, the IMF board of directors, including representatives of Russia, China and Japan, gathered at their Washington headquarters to discuss the U.S. economic outlook. Many of the directors advocated "a further, moderate and pre-emptive tightening" of credit policy to forestall inflation, according to an official summary of the meeting [full article in LBO archives 9/30/99] > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Perelman > Sent: Monday, August 28, 2000 6:15 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: [PEN-L:923] The IMF and the Presidential Candidates > > > Stanley Fisher of the IMF has warned that the proposed tax cuts are too > inflationary. Which presidential candidate will buckle under? > > Do any poor countries not the hypocrasy of the US pushing the weak to > follow IMF dictates. > > -- > Michael Perelman > Economics Department > California State University > Chico, CA 95929 > > Tel. 530-898-5321 > E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
Jackson Hole Presentations
Some of the talks by AG's Groupies are now available at: http://www.kc.frb.org/PUBLICAT/SYMPOS/2000/2000draft.htm http://www.kc.frb.org/PUBLICAT/SYMPOS/Symmain.htm Study up, this is our homework for next year's party with AG. Ian
Dump all you want, we'll take more
Monday August 28, 11:48 am Eastern Time WTO judges say U.S. should change anti-dumping law GENEVA, Aug 28 (Reuters) - World Trade Organisation (WTO) judges on Monday ruled that the United States must change a law which for 84 years has provided for civil and criminal penalties on foreign firms which dump goods on its markets. The ruling, by the WTO's quasi-judicial Appellate Body, confirmed an earlier finding against the law by a dispute panel set up at the request of the European Union and Japan. There was no immediate comment from the United States, which had appealed against the panel ruling, insisting that the 1916 law was consistent with WTO agreements. But in a statement issued in Brussels, the EU's executive Commission said it welcomed ``this clear-cut condemnation'' of a law it said had been invoked several times against companies in the 15-member Union ``and is still used against them''. U.S. officials had argued that the law -- formally called the Anti-Dumping Act -- was effectively obsolete. The law provided for civil and criminal penalties, including fines and imprisonment, for foreign companies found by a U.S. trade court to be selling goods in the United States below their market value to undermine U.S. competitors. The original WTO panel found that these provisions were in violation of global trade agreements which only allow member countries to impose import duties against goods being dumped in their markets. The EU, whose case was handled in parallel with that of Japan, went to the WTO in 1998 following a complaint from the European Confederation of Iron and Steel Industries (EUROFER). This followed citation of the 1916 law in a complaint over steel imports from the EU and Japan to the U.S. administration by the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation, a subsidiary of WHX Corp (NYSE:WHX - news) of New York.
