Re: DeLong on Paul Sweezy: Deja Vu
The day that fool DeLong returns to this list is the day I picket Michael Perelman's house. He is a disgusting red-baiter. If he were in front of me now I would smack him in the mouth. Michael Yates It is telling that Brad De Long deliberately removed the recognizable context from his obituary of Paul Sweezy http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2004w08/msg00287.htm -- the context that De Long was perfectly capable of supplying four years ago, when Sweezy was still alive: * The Wayback machine * To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Subject: The Wayback machine * From: Brad De Long [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Date: Fri, 18 Feb 2000 16:08:27 -0800 I owe the context for a Sweezy quote from _The Present as History_... The publication in 1952 of Stalin's _Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR_ would make possible today a more satisfactory reply to Mr. Kazahaya on the law of value under socialism. Briefly, Stalin's position is that the law of value still continues to operate under socialism to the extent that certain features of capitalism, particularly the operation of the price mechanism in the agricultural sector of the economy, have not yet been eliminated. Under full communism, on the other hand, the law of value will no longer apply. In the light of this explanation, which seems to me entirely sound, I should like to amend the statement which Mr. Kazahaya criticizes, by substituting communist for socialist and communism for socialism. It would then read as follows: In the economics of a communist society the theory of planning should hold the same basic position as the theory of value in the economics of a capitalist society. Value and planning are as much opposed, adn for the same reasons, as capitalism and communism. This conveys my meaning more accurately than the original wording and is, I think entirely in accord with Stalin's view... http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2000m02.3/msg00065.htm * So, Sweezy wished to clarify the meanings of the terms socialism and communism by saying that the law of value still continues to operate under socialism to the extent that economy is capitalistic, i.e., governed by market discipline, whereas it won't under communism worth its name. As Jim Devine said four years ago, Well, this is a pretty mild and inconsequential thing to agree with Stalin [or the Soviet economist(s) who wrote the work attributed to Stalin] about (at http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2000m02.3/msg00067.htm). Perhaps, De Long thinks that we must insist that the earth is flat if Stalin wrote that the earth is round. :-0 -- Yoshie * Bring Them Home Now! http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/ * Calendars of Events in Columbus: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html, http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php, http://www.cpanews.org/ * Student International Forum: http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/ * Committee for Justice in Palestine: http://www.osudivest.org/ * Al-Awda-Ohio: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio * Solidarity: http://www.solidarity-us.org/
Deja Vu All Over Again
Good Morning America World News Tonight 20/20 Primetime Nightline WNN This Week November 7, 2001 HOMEPAGE NEWS SUMMARY US INTERNATIONAL MONEYScope WEATHER LOCAL NEWS ENTERTAINMENT ESPN SPORTS SCI / TECH POLITICS HEALTH TRAVEL FEATURED SERVICES RELATIONSHIPS SHOPPING DOWNLOADS WIRELESS INTERACT VIDEO AUDIO BOARDS CHAT NEWS ALERTS CONTACT ABC Friendly Fire Book: U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba By David Ruppe N E W Y O R K, May 1 In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban *migr*s, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro. America's top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba, and, casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation. Details of the plans are described in Body of Secrets (Doubleday), a new book by investigative reporter James Bamford about the history of America's largest spy agency, the National Security Agency. However, the plans were not connected to the agency, he notes. The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. But they apparently were rejected by the civilian leadership and have gone undisclosed for nearly 40 years. These were Joint Chiefs of Staff documents. The reason these were held secret for so long is the Joint Chiefs never wanted to give these up because they were so embarrassing, Bamford told ABCNEWS.com. The whole point of a democracy is to have leaders responding to the public will, and here this is the complete reverse, the military trying to trick the American people into a war that they want but that nobody else wants. Gunning for War The documents show the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government, writes Bamford. The Joint Chiefs even proposed using the potential death of astronaut John Glenn during the first attempt to put an American into orbit as a false pretext for war with Cuba, the documents show. Should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, they wrote, the objective is to provide irrevocable proof * that the fault lies with the Communists et all Cuba [sic]. The plans were motivated by an intense desire among senior military leaders to depose Castro, who seized power in 1959 to become the first communist leader in the Western Hemisphere only 90 miles from U.S. shores. The earlier CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by Cuban exiles had been a disastrous failure, in which the military was not allowed to provide firepower.The military leaders now wanted a shot at it. The whole thing was so bizarre, says Bamford, noting public and international support would be needed for an invasion, but apparently neither the American public, nor the Cuban public, wanted to see U.S. troops deployed to drive out Castro. Reflecting this, the U.S. plan called for establishing prolonged military not democratic control over the island nation after the invasion. That's what we're supposed to be freeing them from, Bamford says. The only way we would have succeeded is by doing exactly what the Russians were doing all over the world, by imposing a government by tyranny, basically what we were accusing Castro himself of doing. 'Over the Edge' The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower appointee Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the signed plans in hand made a pitch to McNamara on March 13, 1962, recommending Operation Northwoods be run by the military. Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job. The secret plans came at a time when there was distrust in the military leadership about their civilian leadership, with leaders in the Kennedy administration viewed as too liberal, insufficiently experienced and soft on communism. At the same time, however, there real were concerns in American
deja vu all over again
Jim D There are these folks who are hard to identify, so you declare them to be war criminals following the age-old principles of guilt by association -- and then incapacitate them (I guess this why Tony Blair's good friend Silvio Berlusconi sees Western Civilization as superior) ^ CB: Of course, all of us become guilty by association from the standpoint of the other side These Westerners don't seem to be able to get the concept of what goes around comes around and what's good for the goose is good for the gander
Deja vu
jim, i am unsubbing, and wish pen-l well in the development of national populism and keynesianism. rakesh % CB: I'm getting deja vu
deja vu all over again
Let us take, as an example, the problem of Chechnya. The Russians have argued that the bombing in Moscow was carried out by terrorists from Chechnya. Some people have serious doubts about that and believe that it was carried out by Russian Mafia to encourage the invasion of Chechnya. Text of Yeltsin address on Moscow bombings MOSCOW, Sept 13 (Reuters) - President Boris Yeltsin urged Russians on Monday to remain calm after a Moscow apartment block blast killed at least 45 people. He vowed a tough, swift response. Following is the text of his televised address to the nation (translation by Reuters, about 350 words): Today, a day of mourning, a new disaster hit us. There has been another explosion with more victims. Another night-time blast in Moscow. Terrorism has declared war on us, the people of Russia. I have given already the necessary orders. An anti-terrorist operations headquarters has started working with Interior Minister (Vladimir) Rushailo as its head. He will coordinate the actions of the Interior Ministry and other security bodies. We are living amid a dangerous spread of terrorism and that demands the uniting of all forces in society and the state to repel this internal enemy. This enemy does not have a conscience, shows no sorrow and is without honour. It has no face, nationality or belief. Let me stress -- no nationality, no belief. The struggle with terrorism cannot remain merely the business of police and special services. The situation makes us face the tough need to show willpower and unite our forces. Power should be consolidated in the face of this terrible threat. Federal and regional bodies should work as a united body. The government, parliament and president's administration should work as a well-coordinated machine. I am paying a special attention to repelling terrorist attacks in Moscow. We understand how difficult it is now for the Moscow city authorities, for mayor) Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov. I will give him all the help and support he needs in these difficult days. Respected citizens, I deeply mourn for those who have died and express my condolences to their relatives and friends. Our pain is immeasurable but I ask all of you to be self-controlled. The main aim of the bandits is to scare people and spread panic. I am sure they will not live to see this. The best response to the terrorists will be your vigilance and calm. Today it depends on each of you how effective the fight with this evil will be. The authorities will reply to the bandits' challenge in an adequate, tough, swift and decisive way. On July 20, 1998, the IMF deposited $4.8 billion in Russia's Central Bank. About that time, Russian banks, some under the control of government officials, were tipped off to the Kremlin's plan to devalue the ruble. The banks and government officials, who had purchased high-interest, short-term treasury notes issued by the government and known as GKOs, began selling them before the devaluation would drastically reduce their value. The banks took their ruble proceeds from the sales of the notes - including the proceeds earned by the government officials - and exchanged them for dollars from Russia's Central Bank. Some of the dollars in the Central Bank's reserves were from that IMF deposit. The banks then transferred the dollars to overseas banks. On Aug. 17, 1998, the ruble collapsed, leaving the GKOs held by the Central Bank nearly worthless. Meanwhile, the IMF money was effectively gone. These people were tipped off, (they) speculated, cashed out and pocketed the difference, a U.S. investigator said. It was not an accident. Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213
Re: deja vu all over again
I recall that Democracy Now had some fairly convincing discussion (Kagarlisky?) to the effect that the KGB did the bombings to stir up the flagging interest in the Chechen War. Police people were working around the buildings well before the blast Tom Walker wrote: Let us take, as an example, the problem of Chechnya. The Russians have argued that the bombing in Moscow was carried out by terrorists from Chechnya. Some people have serious doubts about that and believe that it was carried out by Russian Mafia to encourage the invasion of Chechnya. Text of Yeltsin address on Moscow bombings MOSCOW, Sept 13 (Reuters) - President Boris Yeltsin urged Russians on Monday to remain calm after a Moscow apartment block blast killed at least 45 people. He vowed a tough, swift response. Following is the text of his televised address to the nation (translation by Reuters, about 350 words): Today, a day of mourning, a new disaster hit us. There has been another explosion with more victims. Another night-time blast in Moscow. Terrorism has declared war on us, the people of Russia. I have given already the necessary orders. An anti-terrorist operations headquarters has started working with Interior Minister (Vladimir) Rushailo as its head. He will coordinate the actions of the Interior Ministry and other security bodies. We are living amid a dangerous spread of terrorism and that demands the uniting of all forces in society and the state to repel this internal enemy. This enemy does not have a conscience, shows no sorrow and is without honour. It has no face, nationality or belief. Let me stress -- no nationality, no belief. The struggle with terrorism cannot remain merely the business of police and special services. The situation makes us face the tough need to show willpower and unite our forces. Power should be consolidated in the face of this terrible threat. Federal and regional bodies should work as a united body. The government, parliament and president's administration should work as a well-coordinated machine. I am paying a special attention to repelling terrorist attacks in Moscow. We understand how difficult it is now for the Moscow city authorities, for mayor) Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov. I will give him all the help and support he needs in these difficult days. Respected citizens, I deeply mourn for those who have died and express my condolences to their relatives and friends. Our pain is immeasurable but I ask all of you to be self-controlled. The main aim of the bandits is to scare people and spread panic. I am sure they will not live to see this. The best response to the terrorists will be your vigilance and calm. Today it depends on each of you how effective the fight with this evil will be. The authorities will reply to the bandits' challenge in an adequate, tough, swift and decisive way. On July 20, 1998, the IMF deposited $4.8 billion in Russia's Central Bank. About that time, Russian banks, some under the control of government officials, were tipped off to the Kremlin's plan to devalue the ruble. The banks and government officials, who had purchased high-interest, short-term treasury notes issued by the government and known as GKOs, began selling them before the devaluation would drastically reduce their value. The banks took their ruble proceeds from the sales of the notes - including the proceeds earned by the government officials - and exchanged them for dollars from Russia's Central Bank. Some of the dollars in the Central Bank's reserves were from that IMF deposit. The banks then transferred the dollars to overseas banks. On Aug. 17, 1998, the ruble collapsed, leaving the GKOs held by the Central Bank nearly worthless. Meanwhile, the IMF money was effectively gone. These people were tipped off, (they) speculated, cashed out and pocketed the difference, a U.S. investigator said. It was not an accident. Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: deja vu all over again
Check the Johnson's Russia List archives at CDI. Kagarlitsky did write a piece alleging the FSB did bomb one of the apt. bldgs. in Moscow. Michael Pugliese - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, September 22, 2001 9:34 AM Subject: [PEN-L:17555] Re: deja vu all over again I recall that Democracy Now had some fairly convincing discussion (Kagarlisky?) to the effect that the KGB did the bombings to stir up the flagging interest in the Chechen War. Police people were working around the buildings well before the blast Tom Walker wrote: Let us take, as an example, the problem of Chechnya. The Russians have argued that the bombing in Moscow was carried out by terrorists from Chechnya. Some people have serious doubts about that and believe that it was carried out by Russian Mafia to encourage the invasion of Chechnya. Text of Yeltsin address on Moscow bombings MOSCOW, Sept 13 (Reuters) - President Boris Yeltsin urged Russians on Monday to remain calm after a Moscow apartment block blast killed at least 45 people. He vowed a tough, swift response. Following is the text of his televised address to the nation (translation by Reuters, about 350 words): Today, a day of mourning, a new disaster hit us. There has been another explosion with more victims. Another night-time blast in Moscow. Terrorism has declared war on us, the people of Russia. I have given already the necessary orders. An anti-terrorist operations headquarters has started working with Interior Minister (Vladimir) Rushailo as its head. He will coordinate the actions of the Interior Ministry and other security bodies. We are living amid a dangerous spread of terrorism and that demands the uniting of all forces in society and the state to repel this internal enemy. This enemy does not have a conscience, shows no sorrow and is without honour. It has no face, nationality or belief. Let me stress -- no nationality, no belief. The struggle with terrorism cannot remain merely the business of police and special services. The situation makes us face the tough need to show willpower and unite our forces. Power should be consolidated in the face of this terrible threat. Federal and regional bodies should work as a united body. The government, parliament and president's administration should work as a well-coordinated machine. I am paying a special attention to repelling terrorist attacks in Moscow. We understand how difficult it is now for the Moscow city authorities, for mayor) Yuri Mikhailovich Luzhkov. I will give him all the help and support he needs in these difficult days. Respected citizens, I deeply mourn for those who have died and express my condolences to their relatives and friends. Our pain is immeasurable but I ask all of you to be self-controlled. The main aim of the bandits is to scare people and spread panic. I am sure they will not live to see this. The best response to the terrorists will be your vigilance and calm. Today it depends on each of you how effective the fight with this evil will be. The authorities will reply to the bandits' challenge in an adequate, tough, swift and decisive way. . On July 20, 1998, the IMF deposited $4.8 billion in Russia's Central Bank. . About that time, Russian banks, some under the control of government officials, were tipped off to the Kremlin's plan to devalue the ruble. . The banks and government officials, who had purchased high-interest, short-term treasury notes issued by the government and known as GKOs, began selling them before the devaluation would drastically reduce their value. . The banks took their ruble proceeds from the sales of the notes - including the proceeds earned by the government officials - and exchanged them for dollars from Russia's Central Bank. Some of the dollars in the Central Bank's reserves were from that IMF deposit. . The banks then transferred the dollars to overseas banks. . On Aug. 17, 1998, the ruble collapsed, leaving the GKOs held by the Central Bank nearly worthless. Meanwhile, the IMF money was effectively gone. These people were tipped off, (they) speculated, cashed out and pocketed the difference, a U.S. investigator said. It was not an accident. Tom Walker Bowen Island, BC 604 947 2213 -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Humpty Dumpty, deja vu
Schwartz wrote, LP and its linguistic phil outliers came apart after 1950 and by 1975, Humpty Dumpty was all in pieces. This is when I started college. It was exciting; there was a sense we were going to get it right this time. and then he wrote, However, 25 years later, things have rather come apart. There are no common doctrines or methods, the territory is pretty well mapped, and while there is a lot of sophistication, there is not much progress or sense of progress. and still later he wrote, It's called thinking, and it's no more natural to humans than athletic achievement. And like athletic achievement, it takes painful work, and it isn't for everyone. Wow! There's a fascinating storyline here. Things fall apart and it's exciting because we think we have a chance to get it right this time. Then things fall apart. It may be called thinking, but like athletic achievement, it is a kind of thinking that isolates and privileges certain *machine-like* attributes and activities. Where is the breast-feeding event in the Olympics? The sillyness of such a question highlights the arbitrariness of the physical qualities -- speed, strength, agility -- that athleticism privileges *exclusively*. This is not to say that speed, strength and agility are "bad things". Only that their glorification constructs a one-dimensional image of the human body. As for Humpty Dumpty, there are two of them. There's the one in the rhyme who falls off a wall and can't be put back together again by all the kings horses and all the kings men. And then there's the one who Alice meets, the Humpty Dumpty whose words mean whatever he wants them to mean (it depends on who is to be boss) and who doesn't realize he's holding the sum upside down. One can well imagine *that* Humpty saying something like, "It's called thinking ... it takes painful work, and it isn't for everyone." I'll gloss over the implicit moral commendation given to the "painfulness" of the work and go straight to the elitist conclusion. It isn't that the thinking that isn't for everyone is BETTER thinking; it is rather precisely because it "isn't for everyone" that it is afforded such inordinate privilege. It is, then, a way of encoding an arbitrary privilege as "merit" -- another one of those circular arguments that affirms the goodness (rigor) of those at the top and the badness (error) of those at the bottom. Of course, it is also painful for Alice to be called stupid simply because the way she looks at the world (right-side up) is not the one that has been officially sanctioned by Humpty Dumpty. In earlier days, I knew well how to take "scholastic aptitude tests". I simply suppressed my rage at the insulting class presumptions underlying what I knew were meant to be the "right" answers and marked those answers anyway. One can do this in a three hour exam period and come away with one's integrity unscathed. But to make a career of it one has to either be an elitist or a hypocrite. Of course, there ARE exceptions. But they are EXCEPTIONS. Temps Walker Sandwichman and Deconsultant
Re: Humpty Dumpty, deja vu
I don't need these gratutiouus insults. I will explain just once, then if Temps can't be any more civil or any smarter, I will ignore him. In 1975, analytical philosophy was exciting because it seemed that we were putting an impressive but wrongheaded project (logical positivism) behind us, and we hada chance to get right what the positivists did not. There were a lot of very smart people thinking new thoughts. John Rawls' Theory of Justice was just out. Hilary Putnam's work in philoophy of mind and science was fresh. saul Kripke had just published an important work in philosophy of language. On the "left," Paul Feyerabend had reinvorgatored social constructivism. OK, 25 years later, after a lot of hard thinking, no new consensus has emerged to replace the kind of intellectual hegemony that positivism had. Instead, everyone is dispersed, and there is not a lot of groundbreaking work going on,a lthough much of what is done is being done at a high level with great sophistication. So the hopes of a common project to replace the one we demolsihed have not materialized. Now, does this mean that we should give up on careful argument, with clearly defined terms, precisely stated and closely linked premises for exactly formulated and carefully qualified conclusions, set forth with great sensitiviy to potential and actual objections? If that isn't thinking, what is? But some find it oppressive. Temps is one of these. That is OK, thinking is not for everyone. But Temps should leave it to those who like it, and not sneer at them. I agree that the claim that thinking is not for everyone is elitist. I am an elitist. I do not think that better philosophical thinkers deserve more power, money, or goodies than others, but they do deserve positions in philosophy departments that should be denied to those who are unable or unwilling to put in the effort involved in philosophical thinking. Their superiority is not moral or all around, but it is real in its sphere, just as Michael Jordan's superiority in basketball or Charlie Parker's superiority on the tenor is real. I would not want to study philosophy with Jordan or Parker, or basketball or jazz with Alan Gibbard (my astoundingly brilliant, physically inept, tolerably tone-deaf dissertation adviser at Michigan). If you confuse the idea that some people are better at some things than others with the idea that some people have the right to rule others and keep all the good stuff for themselves, you are obviously not one of the people who has exerted himself to discover whether he has a talent for thinking about political philosophy. --jks In a message dated Fri, 14 Jul 2000 11:28:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time, Timework Web [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Schwartz wrote, LP and its linguistic phil outliers came apart after 1950 and by 1975, Humpty Dumpty was all in pieces. This is when I started college. It was exciting; there was a sense we were going to get it right this time. and then he wrote, However, 25 years later, things have rather come apart. There are no common doctrines or methods, the territory is pretty well mapped, and while there is a lot of sophistication, there is not much progress or sense of progress. and still later he wrote, It's called thinking, and it's no more natural to humans than athletic achievement. And like athletic achievement, it takes painful work, and it isn't for everyone. Wow! There's a fascinating storyline here. Things fall apart and it's exciting because we think we have a chance to get it right this time. Then things fall apart. It may be called thinking, but like athletic achievement, it is a kind of thinking that isolates and privileges certain *machine-like* attributes and activities. Where is the breast-feeding event in the Olympics? The sillyness of such a question highlights the arbitrariness of the physical qualities -- speed, strength, agility -- that athleticism privileges *exclusively*. This is not to say that speed, strength and agility are "bad things". Only that their glorification constructs a one-dimensional image of the human body. As for Humpty Dumpty, there are two of them. There's the one in the rhyme who falls off a wall and can't be put back together again by all the kings horses and all the kings men. And then there's the one who Alice meets, the Humpty Dumpty whose words mean whatever he wants them to mean (it depends on who is to be boss) and who doesn't realize he's holding the sum upside down. One can well imagine *that* Humpty saying something like, "It's called thinking ... it takes painful work, and it isn't for everyone." I'll gloss over the implicit moral commendation given to the "painfulness" of the work and go straight to the elitist conclusion. It isn't that the thinking that isn't for everyone is BETTER thinking; it is rather precisely because it "isn't for everyone" that it is afforded such inordinate privilege. It is, then, a way of
Deja vu?
Financial Times (London), September 8, 1990, Saturday The Japanese wonder-ride bumps back to earth IT IS the slow-motion crash which almost everybody outside Japan saw coming. This week the Japanese stock market was testing its low point, nearly 40 per cent below the crazy peak reached at the end of last December when the Nikkei average topped out at 38,900. Even after such a serious set-back there are still plenty of bears around. It may seem bad enough that the Nikkei is languishing around the 24,000 mark, but you can easily find pundits willing to project the Tokyo market down to 21,000 or even 15,000. [It is now at 19,000]. (clip) The Japanese stock market miracle could not continue into the '90s, although it was a wonderful ride while it lasted. The returns over the past decade were fabulous. If you had put Pounds 1,000 into a typical Japanese specialist unit trust at the beginning of 1980, that would have been worth Pounds 11,770 last January 1. At that point, of course, you should have sold. By now you would be lucky if your holding were worth more than Pounds 8,000. The bursting of the bubble has scarcely been surprising. At the peak, typical dividend yields were under 0.5 per cent, and price-earnings ratios were 60 or 70. There were long and inconclusive arguments about the extent to which Japanese companies have had hidden earnings which should be added back to make their p/e ratios comparable with those in the US or Europe. But, on the superficial numbers, many Japanese stocks last year were being valued at three or four times as much as they would be in the US. Such was the measure of the possible downside risk. With this in mind, foreigners have been selling Japanese stocks in the past few years, though many of them got out too soon. After all, the Tokyo market brushed aside the Wall Street crash of October 1987 with amazing aplomb. What finally pricked the Japanese asset price bubble was the tightening of monetary policy. During the '80s Japanese interest rates fell steadily; bond yields dropped from near 10 per cent in 1980 to about 4 per cent in 1988; while the official short-term discount rate was reduced from from almost 7 per cent to 2.4 per cent over the same time-span. Money was so cheap that the prices of assets such as shares and property (not to mention Van Gogh paintings) became detached from reality. But last year the Bank of Japan, worried by the dizzy property price spiral and the weakness of the yen, began to change tack. Its short-term discount rate has now been lifted in five stages to 6 per cent, and long bonds yield 8 per cent. These dramatic moves have forced the equity market to attempt to reconnect with the real world. But at what level will it touch bottom? Some Tokyo watchers derive comfort from the fact that a few big Japanese industrial stocks such as Matsushita now have ratings which are reasonably in line with international levels. Value investors, the ones who look at individual company fundamentals, are starting to take an interest in Tokyo after years of steering well clear. But the average p/e is probably still well over 30. Some sectors, particularly financials, remain at silly prices to western eyes. The realignment of the Japanese equity market could take some time to be completed, and amateur investors should keep on the sidelines. Louis Proyect (The Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org)
Deja vu all over again?
Conditions (and people) now are not the same as conditions (and people) then (a point to which, as I've said, Keynes himself gave great emphasis in warning against the dangers of uncritically concluding that what happened in the past is a good guide to what will happen now and in the future). There are some parallels, however, as the following passage from the Treatise on Money (vol. 2, pp. 175-6) indicates: ""With the Wall Street collapse in the autumn of 1929 one of the greatest 'bull' stock exchange movements in history came to an end. But we may remark that this was preluded by the development of 'two views' on an enormous scale. Whilst one section were still keen to buy stocks and carry them on borrowed money, even at very high rates of interest, another section were 'bears' of the position (in the sense in which I have used the term) and preferred to hold money rather than stocks. If we take the volume of brokers' loans on the New York stock exchange as the measure of the 'bull-bear' position, i.e. of the degree to which 'two views' had developed, we find that at the end of September 1929, which was the culminating point, the total of these loans had risen to $8,549. Three months later the collapse of stock prices had brought the 'two views' together, at a level of values where the two parties could agree with one another more nearly, and the total of the brokers' loans fell to less than half the above, namely $3,990 million. We have not had on any previous occasion so perfect a statistical test of the way in which, when stock prices have risen beyond a certain point, the machinery of the 'two views' functions. But the fact that the technique of the New York market allows an important proportion of the 'bear' position to be lent directly to the 'bulls' without the interposition of the banking system, together with the low reserve which the member banks are required to hold against time deposits, facilitated immense fluctuations in the magnitude of this position without the disturbance to the industrial circulation which would result almost inevitably in such conditions as characterise the British system. Nevertheless the high market rate of interest which, prior to the collapse, the Federal Reserve System, in their effort to control the enthusiasm of the speculative crowd, caused to be enforced in the United States - and, as a result of sympathetic self-protective action, in the rest of the world - played an essential role in bringing about the rapid collapse. For this punitive rate of interest could not be prevented from having its repercussion on the rate of new investment both in the United States and throughout the world, and was bound, therefore, to prelude an era of falling prices and business losses everywhere. "Thus I attribute the slump of 1930 primarily to the deterrent effects on investment of the long period of dear money which preceded the stock-market collapse, and only secondarily to the collapse itself." Ted -- Ted WinslowE-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Division of Social Science VOICE: (416) 736-5054 York UniversityFAX: (416) 736-5615 4700 Keele St. Toronto, Ontario CANADA M3J 1P3
[PEN-L:7905] deja vu: a trip in the (over)time machine
At a little past noon on October 7, 1978, Frank Schiff of the Committee for Economic Development addressed a conference on Work Time and Employment convened by the U.S. National Commission for Manpower Policy. Assembled at the Capitol Hill Quality Inn in Washington, D.C., the conference attendees were indeed a quality collection of noted academics, high level civil servants, and influential spokespersons for business and labor. Schiff was responding to a paper on "Policies to Reduce Fixed Costs of Employment" that had just been presented by Robert Eisner. Speaking of the goal of accomodating individual preferences for worktime and leisure, Schiff remarked, "To achieve this goal, Professor Eisner places major stress on employment subsidies and tax credits, essentially to offset the effect of public policy and institutional work arrangements that create a bias against flexible work arrangements. This is clearly one possible approach, but it should be emphasized that it is by no means the only way to deal with the problem. Other possible options include direct efforts to reduce the existing institutional biases against flexible work time patterns -- for example, by relating the cost of particular fringes more to hours worked than to the number or employees, or by relevant changes in the computation of experience ratings." Schiff's remarks were, admittedly, not delivered in scintillating prose and the topic may seem somewhat obscure and technical. One slight amendment would clarify what Schiff was saying: instead of referring to the "biases against flexible work time patterns", Schiff could have better identified the problem as "public policy and institutional biases *in favour of* overtime and unemployment." In spite of that small point of obfuscation, Schiff's comment stands out from the 445 page conference report as such profound good sense that it no doubt was quickly and profoundly forgotten by all and sundry in attendence. Perhaps even by Schiff. In the 18 years since that prestigious Washington, D.C. conference, much has changed but the institutional bias in favour of overtime has remained. Perhaps the best known effort to redress the imbalance was a bill to increase the overtime penalty of the FLSA from time and a half to double time, introduced by Democratic congressman John Conyers in the late 1970s. The logic against Conyers bill, however, was impeccable: it was countered that the measure would increase labour costs and therefore wouldn't achieve its intended job creation effects. Conyers' bill went nowhere. But to give a bit more context on the timing of the Work Time and Employment conference, it should be remembered that in July 1978, the Bonn Summit of the G-7 had taken place at which President Jimmy Carter affirmed the U.S government's top priority of fighting inflation. The next year, 1979, Paul Volcker was appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. The fight against inflation uber alles had begun in earnest. Because unemployment was seen as an indispensible tool for fighting inflation (NAIRU), the idea of removing institutional biases in favour of unemployment never caught on. Let us return for a moment to that October day in 1978 and indulge in a bit of economic science fiction. Imagine that Frank Schiff's comment about *removing the institutional biases* had seized the imagination of the conferees. Imagine that reporters from the major news media were in attendance at the conference and Schiff's offhand suggestion became the subject of front page feature stories and soul-searching editorials. Imagine that a national debate broke out in the United States about the nature of work and the illegitimacy of government regulations that prolonged work beyond the desires of individuals. Imagine the emergence of a mass labor/civil rights movement demanding the freedom to work for as many or few hours as one desired and insisting on the repeal of all legislation that enforced excessive work. Imagine the victory of this labor/civil rights movement. What would our social, economic and political landscape be like today -- 18 years later -- if Frank Schiff's spark of common sense had fallen on the dry tinder of citizenship rather than on the damp soil of econometocracy? Regards, Tom Walker ^^ knoW Ware Communications | Vancouver, B.C., CANADA | "Only in mediocre art [EMAIL PROTECTED] |does life unfold as fate." (604) 669-3286| ^^ The TimeWork Web: http://mindlink.net/knowware/worksite.htm
