Re: RE: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Michael Pugliese]

cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
  must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
 Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
   And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
  mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
  Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
   Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta tions.

 That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
 Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
  all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
 America this is quite serious.
 America this is the impression I get from looking in
the television set.
   America is this correct?
   I'd better get right down to the job.
 It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
 in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
  psychopathic anyway.
 America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

  Allen Ginsberg, Berkeley, January 17, 1956



- Original Message -----
From: "Max Sawicky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, July 23, 2001 9:23 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:15466] RE: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)


> . . .
> As we have had most graphically demonstrated over the past two decades,
> economic growth is not a means to enable the nations to afford better
> housing, social programs and a more equitable distribution of income.
> Economic growth is an ideological program offered as a substitute for
> democracy, equality and social justice.
>
> FUCK GROWTH.
>
> Tom Walker
>
>
> Truly digmatic & poetic.  It's going on my wall,
> next to my Allan Ginsburg postcard.
>
> mbs
>

RE: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

. . .
As we have had most graphically demonstrated over the past two decades,
economic growth is not a means to enable the nations to afford better
housing, social programs and a more equitable distribution of income.
Economic growth is an ideological program offered as a substitute for
democracy, equality and social justice.

FUCK GROWTH.

Tom Walker


Truly digmatic & poetic.  It's going on my wall,
next to my Allan Ginsburg postcard.

mbs

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Tom writes:

>Talking in the abstract about socialism and hegemony and the dollar while
>the recession runs its course is like talking about not-rearranging the deck
>chairs. How many times does the shit have to hit the fan before the
>fan-gazers notice there are feces all over their faces?
>
>What is necessary is a transitional strategy that can buffer some of the
>worst dislocations of the recession-cum-implosion while resisting the
>imperative of "restarting growth." Difficult to sell to the mainstream? You
>bet. Finessing my own particular policy preference -- which I'm sure most on
>this list know by now -- what is necessary is the delinking of the
>necessities of life from the vagaries of the market. There are various ways
>to approach this but they all entail some kind of direct political guarantee
>not indirect interventions that are "intended" to achieve "the same"
>objectives through the medium of growth.

Why do you think Cuba -- the state that has struggled mightily to 
accomplish "the delinking of the necessities of life from the 
vagaries of the market" -- too has gotten dollarized _despite_ the 
long-standing US embargo?  Surely not because the Cubans got suckered 
into the ideology of economic growth at all costs.  It appears to me 
that questions of hegemony & the dollar are among crucial ones for 
socialists to consider, since it isn't very likely that the entire 
world will embark upon transition to socialism at once, even in the 
event of a general crisis that rocks the world.

As for "a transitional strategy that can buffer some of the worst 
dislocations of the recession-cum-implosion while resisting the 
imperative of 'restarting growth,'" it occurs to me that it sounds 
not a little like deflation in Japan, though Japan's inability to 
restart growth has not been due to a consciously adopted winning 
strategy on the part of Japanese leftists (who are very far from 
hegemonic!).  Where to go from here, though?

Yoshie

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Mark writes:

>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote,
>
>>  When the ruling class is global, rather than national, an imperial
>>  state (= the state whose politico-military powers guarantee the
>>  reproduction of capitalism) doesn't have to be a mercantilist
>>  success.
>
>The idea that the ruling class is global rather than national, which I think
>Ellen Frank first mentioned here, is contentious. Firstly, there have been
>earlier periods where transnational ruling elites shared more in common with
>each other than with 'their own' peoples, including as recently as 1914.
>These earlier periods of ruling class harmony, which date back to at least
>the time of Charlemagne (10th c) were not noticeably harbingers of universal
>peace, despite the illusions which elites entertain about themselves. There
>is no reason to suppose that history has changed that much. Satiated with
>plunder and basking in a glow of reciprocal fellowship, the criminals and
>schemers now converging on Genoa may believe they have created an era of
>universal brotherhood based on common ownership of T-bills and dollar
>holdings, but we should be more cautious.

The argument that the ruling class is global, rather than national, 
doesn't mean a promise of universal peace.  It simply means less 
chances of wars between rich nations (e.g., the USA & Germany).  The 
Gulf War, NATO bombings of Yugoslavia, etc. are good examples of 
"Kautsky's story of 'ultra-imperialism' (the rich capitalist powers 
unified against the world)...without the positive connotations that 
Kautsky saw (the ending of the anarchy of production)."

>Secondly, despite blather about a global elite, there is no evidence that
>the US ruling class has lost sight of its sense of historical mission, to
>the contrary. The fact that subaltern elites in its various satrapies are
>hogtied by their own investment in the Pax Americana only underlines and
>does not contradict the basic truth (which the US imperium shares with many
>earlier world-class empires). It is an *American* empire, not just an
>empire.

I think you conflate capitalists who do business in dollars (who may 
be anywhere in the world) with the U.S. governing elite (to whom 
governing elites elsewhere are subordinated).  The former and the 
latter are not identical, though naturally there is some overlap. 
Pax Americana (the hegemony of the U.S. governing elite) goes hand in 
hand with dollarization (the globalization of the ruling class).

>Capitalism, crucially, still depends upon the existence of powerful states;
>it cannot survive without the state, and the most important capitalist
>states are also the most imperialist. That is to say, the states with the
>largest classes of coupon-clippers, the biggest CADs and the biggest navies.

No one here says that capitalism does not depend upon the imperial 
state, the least of all Ellen.

At 1:49 PM -0400 7/18/01, Ellen Frank wrote:
>I found that the strongest and most
>consistent predictor of a currency's international
>use was the issuing country's share of MNC assets
>or sales.  Military spending and arms sales also
>were important, though less so.

Yoshie

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Charles Brown]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/20/01 02:10PM >>>
>recently citing that famous line about the most reactionary sectors of
>finance capital being the origin of fascism...

such a line was intended to justify the popular front. if only the most
reactionary parts of the ruling class support fascism then why not ally with
other parts of it.

pete

(

CB: Yes, I see contradiction you point to in what I say below. Even socialists have to 
unite with the bourgeoisie in extreme cases. 

The struggle against fascism was something of an emergency and exceptional situation. 
So, there was an alliance with the Roosevelt wing of the U.S. bourgeoisie.  I don't 
know that other sectors of the German bourgeoisie were open to alliance with lefts 
against the reactionary wing of the bourgeoisie. In the early '30's it was not obvious 
that the Nazis were going to carry out the holocaust and other horrendous crimes.



- Original Message -
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2001 10:26 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:15420] The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)


> No, I didn't mean you are in the bourgeois class. ( I'm in the petit
bourgeoisie myself , whether I like it or not )
>
> I'm thinking a socialist is someone who supports working class interests
and opposes bourgeois class interests, and aims to end capitalism. This is
why a socialist aims to support working class(wide) unity.
>
>
> Non-socialists of all types - trade unionist, social-democrat or liberal -
in some sense supports both working class and bourgeois class interests,
seeing them as compatible in some sense or ways.
>
> But I don't see how one can be loyal to both classes ( whether in one of
the main classes or not ). Or to the specific comment in the thread, I don't
see how "real  (enduring) workng class solidarity" could  be achieved by
those also supporting bourgeois class interests. Maybe you are saying
temporary and situational working class solidarity ?
>
> Charles B
>
> >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/20/01 12:18PM >>>
> If you're one of those you don't identify
> w/the bourgeois class.  Just because you're
> in a class doesn't mean you serve its interests.
>
> mbs
>
>
>
> But don't you have a conflict of interest and loyalties between the
working
> class and the bourgeois class ?
>
> Charles
>
> >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/19/01 04:34PM >>>
> Plenty, if you're a smart trade unionist,
> social-democrat, or even a labor-friendly liberal.
>
> mbs
>
> 
>
> CB: Speaking of (working) class solidarity, isn't that a socialist concept
?
> What use do non-socialists have for working class solidarity ?
>
>

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Michael Pugliese]

>recently citing that famous line about the most reactionary sectors of
>finance capital being the origin of fascism...

such a line was intended to justify the popular front. if only the most
reactionary parts of the ruling class support fascism then why not ally with
other parts of it.

pete

- Original Message -
From: "Charles Brown" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, July 20, 2001 10:26 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:15420] The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)


> No, I didn't mean you are in the bourgeois class. ( I'm in the petit
bourgeoisie myself , whether I like it or not )
>
> I'm thinking a socialist is someone who supports working class interests
and opposes bourgeois class interests, and aims to end capitalism. This is
why a socialist aims to support working class(wide) unity.
>
>
> Non-socialists of all types - trade unionist, social-democrat or liberal -
in some sense supports both working class and bourgeois class interests,
seeing them as compatible in some sense or ways.
>
> But I don't see how one can be loyal to both classes ( whether in one of
the main classes or not ). Or to the specific comment in the thread, I don't
see how "real  (enduring) workng class solidarity" could  be achieved by
those also supporting bourgeois class interests. Maybe you are saying
temporary and situational working class solidarity ?
>
> Charles B
>
> >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/20/01 12:18PM >>>
> If you're one of those you don't identify
> w/the bourgeois class.  Just because you're
> in a class doesn't mean you serve its interests.
>
> mbs
>
>
>
> But don't you have a conflict of interest and loyalties between the
working
> class and the bourgeois class ?
>
> Charles
>
> >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/19/01 04:34PM >>>
> Plenty, if you're a smart trade unionist,
> social-democrat, or even a labor-friendly liberal.
>
> mbs
>
> 
>
> CB: Speaking of (working) class solidarity, isn't that a socialist concept
?
> What use do non-socialists have for working class solidarity ?
>
>

RE: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

If you're one of those you don't identify
w/the bourgeois class.  Just because you're
in a class doesn't mean you serve its interests.

mbs



But don't you have a conflict of interest and loyalties between the working
class and the bourgeois class ?

Charles

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/19/01 04:34PM >>>
Plenty, if you're a smart trade unionist,
social-democrat, or even a labor-friendly liberal.

mbs



CB: Speaking of (working) class solidarity, isn't that a socialist concept ?
What use do non-socialists have for working class solidarity ?

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Charles Brown]

>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/19/01 08:57PM >>>

I agree that this is extremely important. "Extremely" is not sufficiently
superlative. It is a matter of life or death on an unimaginable scale. If
not now, then 10 years from now or 20. What difference does it make? Getting
growth back on track is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic after it has
struck (the rapidly melting?) iceberg. *Talking about getting growth back on
track* is talking about rearranging deck chairs.

Talking in the abstract about socialism and hegemony and the dollar while
the recession runs its course is like talking about not-rearranging the deck
chairs. How many times does the shit have to hit the fan before the
fan-gazers notice there are feces all over their faces?

What is necessary is a transitional strategy that can buffer some of the
worst dislocations of the recession-cum-implosion while resisting the
imperative of "restarting growth." Difficult to sell to the mainstream? You
bet. Finessing my own particular policy preference -- which I'm sure most on
this list know by now -- what is necessary is the delinking of the
necessities of life from the vagaries of the market. 



CB: As the beginning of a transitional strategy program howabout:

1) 30 hour work week , no cut in pay ( if I understand your position from all these 
years).

2) Constitutional ( or Canadian basic law) amendment for a right to a decent job or 
decent income

?

(((





There are various ways
to approach this but they all entail some kind of direct political guarantee
not indirect interventions that are "intended" to achieve "the same"
objectives through the medium of growth.

As we have had most graphically demonstrated over the past two decades,
economic growth is not a means to enable the nations to afford better
housing, social programs and a more equitable distribution of income.
Economic growth is an ideological program offered as a substitute for
democracy, equality and social justice.

FUCK GROWTH.

Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Rob Schaap]

G'day Seth, Tom and Mark,
 
> Tom Walker wrote regarding the false hope of re-starting economic
> growth:
> 
> “Difficult to sell to the mainstream?”
> 
> Tom, do you mean selling the "growth is the problem, not the solution
> to what ails us" message to the news media or to the general > population? 
>By the way, I think that the latter is open to your anti-> growth message.

I agree.  And one could do worse than quote those fierce lefties at *The
Economist*, who, in 1998, explained the contradiction between use value and
exchange value (and destroyed the notions of GDP and 'economic growth' to
boot) all in one sentence:  "a country that cut down all its trees, sold them
as wood chips and then gambled the money away playing tiddly-winks would
appear from its national accounts to have got richer". 
 
> >Discussions about how to get growth back on track (seemingly an
> >objective shared by many on pen-l) is actually discussion about how > >to turn the 
>gas even higher.

'Shareholder value' has effectively become the end of all means.  Never has
that simple little definition of 'instrumental rationality', as an exclusive
focus on means in the absence of any critical reflection on ends, been easier
to grasp.  You point at the day's newspaper (*any* day's newspaper) and quote
Thoreau on the technocratic society bent on 'improved means to unimproved
ends'.  Then you ask whether the rentier class is really the best end that
might be imagined.  Lesson over, I reckon.

> How many times does the shit have to hit the fan before the
> fan-gazers notice there are feces all over their faces?

It seems, alas, we must wait for the fan (of the neoliberal pipedream) to hit
the shit.  Shouldn't be long now ... albeit likely too long ...

> What is necessary is a transitional strategy that can buffer some of
> the worst dislocations of the recession-cum-implosion while resisting > the 
>imperative of "restarting growth." Difficult to sell to the
> mainstream? You bet. Finessing my own particular policy preference -- > which I'm 
>sure most on this list know by now -- what is necessary is > the delinking of the 
>necessities of life from the vagaries of the> market. There are various ways to 
>approach this but they all entail  > some kind of direct political guarantee not 
>indirect interventions   > that are "intended" to achieve "the same" objectives 
>through the > medium of growth.

Which is why we should all be pushing the old Polanyi line right now, I
reckon.  Do we want a market-embedded society or a socially embedded market? 
I realise the Marxists here (and on this count I am most definitely one such)
would argue that capitalism is by definition the former arrangement, but Mark
is right: right now the job is one of avoiding disaster via appeals to extant
ideals, institutions and imaginations.  Liberal democracy is up to that, if we
can convince people its formal guarantees are at risk from its assumed
companion, capitalism du jour.  The idea is already out there, even in the US
-where mcuh of the right (like McCain) and the 'left (like Nader) got ovations
every time they brought aspects of this contradiction up.  The people knew it
inside; they just needed someone famous to say it for them.  Now they need
that idea enlarged and linked to the likes of Genoa.

> Economic growth is an ideological program offered as a substitute for
> democracy, equality and social justice.

Just so.
 
> FUCK GROWTH.

Well, let's just fuck what's come to be called 'economic growth' ... we might
point to the silliness of counting as 'growth' a rapidly rising Bangladeshi or
Tongan demand for snorkels and flippers, or Delhi or Mexico City demand for
gas masks, or Iraq or Syria for bottled water ...

Cheers,
Rob.

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Tom Walker]

Seth Sandronsky asked,

>Tom, do you mean selling the "growth is the problem, not the solution to 
>what ails us" message to the news media or to the general population?

I mean the general public, the media, academics and policy elites (including
progressive intellectuals). But the difficulties are of course different
with each of the different groups. I agree that the public is open to the
anti-growth message and that it is a challenge communicating with them
outside of the mainstream media. Ironically, I find that what I would call
"progressive intellectuals" tend to be receptive personally and skeptical of
its broader appeal.

Us progressive intellectuals are very ambivalent about our professional
standing in the eyes of our (reactionary) peers. We tend to unthinkingly
concede greater weight to the conventionally prestigious act. Every
peer-reviewed, published article with equations in it adds to the weight of
authority even if the equations are trivial nonsense. A million
peer-reviewed, published articles with trivial nonsensical equations in them
constitutes a scholarly field (I won't mention names). Somehow we feel that
the way to refute those million trivial nonsensical equations is to publish
a hundred thousand peer-reviewed articles with non-trivial sensical
equations in them, as if reason will win out in a dialogue with unreason. 

I play that game, too. Maybe I do it to keep from having self-doubts about
whether I _could_ do it.

>By the way, I think that the latter is open to your anti-growth message.  
>But, communicating with them outside of the mainstream news media is quite a 
>challenge.  Consider the information the U.S. general population does get.  
>Here's one example.  The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in 
>Reporting did a study of U.S. TV coverage during the 2000 U.S. presidential 
>campaign and found that it got less attention then the case of Elian 
>Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who lived briefly in Florida.
Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Seth Sandronsky]

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)
by Tom Walker
20 July 2001 00:57

Tom Walker wrote regarding the false hope of re-starting economic growth:

“Difficult to sell to the mainstream?”

Tom, do you mean selling the "growth is the problem, not the solution to 
what ails us" message to the news media or to the general population?
By the way, I think that the latter is open to your anti-growth message.  
But, communicating with them outside of the mainstream news media is quite a 
challenge.  Consider the information the U.S. general population does get.  
Here's one example.  The media watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in 
Reporting did a study of U.S. TV coverage during the 2000 U.S. presidential 
campaign and found that it got less attention then the case of Elian 
Gonzalez, the Cuban boy who lived briefly in Florida.

Seth Sandronsky


Mark Jones wrote,

>Discussions about how to get growth back on track (seemingly an objective 
>shared by many on pen-l) is actually discussion about how to turn the gas 
>even higher.

I agree that this is extremely important. "Extremely" is not sufficiently 
superlative. It is a matter of life or death on an unimaginable scale. If 
not now, then 10 years from now or 20. What difference does it make? Getting 
growth back on track is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic after it has 
struck (the rapidly melting?) iceberg. *Talking about getting growth back on 
track* is talking about rearranging deck chairs.

Talking in the abstract about socialism and hegemony and the dollar while 
the recession runs its course is like talking about not-rearranging the deck 
chairs. How many times does the shit have to hit the fan before the 
fan-gazers notice there are feces all over their faces?

What is necessary is a transitional strategy that can buffer some of the
worst dislocations of the recession-cum-implosion while resisting the
imperative of "restarting growth." Difficult to sell to the mainstream? You 
bet. Finessing my own particular policy preference -- which I'm sure most on 
this list know by now -- what is necessary is the delinking of the 
necessities of life from the vagaries of the market. There are various ways 
to approach this but they all entail some kind of direct political guarantee 
not indirect interventions that are "intended" to achieve "the same" 
objectives through the medium of growth.

As we have had most graphically demonstrated over the past two decades,
economic growth is not a means to enable the nations to afford better
housing, social programs and a more equitable distribution of income.
Economic growth is an ideological program offered as a substitute for
democracy, equality and social justice.

FUCK GROWTH.

Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213







_
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Tom Walker]

Mark Jones wrote,

> Discussions about how to get growth back on track (seemingly an objective
> shared by many on pen-l) is actually discussion about how to turn the gas 
> even higher.

I agree that this is extremely important. "Extremely" is not sufficiently
superlative. It is a matter of life or death on an unimaginable scale. If
not now, then 10 years from now or 20. What difference does it make? Getting
growth back on track is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic after it has
struck (the rapidly melting?) iceberg. *Talking about getting growth back on
track* is talking about rearranging deck chairs.

Talking in the abstract about socialism and hegemony and the dollar while
the recession runs its course is like talking about not-rearranging the deck
chairs. How many times does the shit have to hit the fan before the
fan-gazers notice there are feces all over their faces?

What is necessary is a transitional strategy that can buffer some of the
worst dislocations of the recession-cum-implosion while resisting the
imperative of "restarting growth." Difficult to sell to the mainstream? You
bet. Finessing my own particular policy preference -- which I'm sure most on
this list know by now -- what is necessary is the delinking of the
necessities of life from the vagaries of the market. There are various ways
to approach this but they all entail some kind of direct political guarantee
not indirect interventions that are "intended" to achieve "the same"
objectives through the medium of growth.

As we have had most graphically demonstrated over the past two decades,
economic growth is not a means to enable the nations to afford better
housing, social programs and a more equitable distribution of income.
Economic growth is an ideological program offered as a substitute for
democracy, equality and social justice.

FUCK GROWTH.

Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Tom Walker]

Jim Devine asked,

>you really think that we're could be moving toward a period such as 
>1910-45, in which nation-state contention among the rich capitalist powers 
>led to trade wars and hot wars? do you have evidence?

First question: No, that's not what I said and not also what I think. I said
that hegemony isn't a zero sum game. My speculative worst-case scenario
would not be nation-state contention among rich capitalist powers but
synchronized institutional breakdowns within the various nation-states. The
nearest parallel would be with the breakdown of the Warsaw pact countries in
the late 1980s, with, of course, the difference that there wouldn't be a
"West" on the outside egging the process on. So it could be much more
protracted and ugly.

Frankly, the other boot hasn't dropped yet from 1989. Despite all the fairy
tales, it didn't turn into a glass slipper in the interim.

Do I have evidence? Yes, I do. Plenty. It's anecdotal and I'm skeptical
whether even that could be marshalled to be persuasive to anyone who doesn't
already see (or think they see) the writing on the other side of the wall.
Some of the evidence has to do with the proliferation of public travesties
and the growing public insensibility to same.

Speaking of saving, a line from a review of the book Affluenza mentions that
"our average rate of saving has fallen from about 10 percent of our income
in 1980 to zero in 2000." That is, there is a cultural side to the economic
dynamic that Godley and Izurieta call unsustainable. That cultural side is
not ONLY unsustainable -- it is something we shouldn't want to sustain if we
could. More evidence?

"In their eye-opening, soul-prodding look at the excess of American society,
the authors of Affluenza include two quotations that encapsulate much of the
book: T.S. Eliot's line "We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men,"
which opens one of this book's chapters, and a quote from a newspaper
article that notes "We are a nation that shouts at a microwave oven to hurry
up." If these observations make you grimace at your own ruthless consumption
or sigh at the hurried pace of your life, you may already be ill. Read on.

"The definition of affluenza, according to de Graaf, Wann, and Naylor, is
something akin to "a painful, contagious, socially-transmitted condition of
overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of
more." It's a powerful virus running rampant in our society, infecting our
souls, affecting our wallets and financial well-being, and threatening to
destroy not only the environment but also our families and communities.
Having begun life as two PBS programs coproduced by de Graaf, this book
takes a hard look at the symptoms of affluenza, the history of its
development into an epidemic, and the options for treatment. In examining
this pervasive disease in an age when "the urge to splurge continues to
surge," the first section is the book's most provocative. According to
figures the authors quote and expound upon, Americans each spend more than
$21,000 per year on consumer goods, our average rate of saving has fallen
from about 10 percent of our income in 1980 to zero in 2000, our credit card
indebtedness tripled in the 1990s, more people are filing for bankruptcy
each year than graduate from college, and we spend more for trash bags than
90 of the world's 210 countries spend for everything. "To live, we buy,"
explain the authors--everything from food and good sex to religion and
recreation--all the while squelching our intrinsic curiosity,
self-motivation, and creativity. They offer historical, political, and
socioeconomic reasons that affluenza has taken such strong root in our
society, and in the final section, offer practical ideas for change. These
use the intriguing stories of those who have already opted for simpler
living and who are creatively combating the disease, from making simple
habit alterations to taking more in-depth environmental considerations, and
from living lightly to managing wealth responsibly. 

"Many books make you think the author has crammed everything he or she knows
into it. The feeling you get reading Affluenzais quite different; the
authors appear well-read, well-rounded and intelligent, knowledgeable beyond
the content of their book but smart enough to realize that we need a short,
sharp jolt to recognize our current ailment. It's a well-worn cliché that
money can't buy happiness, but this book will strike a chord with anyone who
realizes that more time is more valuable than toys, and that our relentless
quest for the latest stuff is breeding sick individuals and sick societies.
Affluenza is, in fact, a clarion call for those interested in being part of
the solution. --S. Ketchum"



Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Tom says:

>Yoshie Furuhashi wrote,
>
>>There's nothing on the political horizon to replace US hegemony --
>>therefore Ellen's dissertation on dollarization holds up, I think,
>>despite the alarms sounded by Wynne Godley who writes as if the USA
>>had already entered into the same twilight of the empire that the UK
>>had earlier.
>
>The premise only supports the conclusion on the condition that hegemony is a
>zero-sum game. US drops ball; someone else picks it up. Uh-uh. Much more
>dangerous possibilities have presented in the past, such as during roughly
>the first half of the last century. In the hegemony sweepstakes "nothing" is
>something too.

I don't disagree at all.  Jim analyzes the problem of the interregnum 
very well at 
.  I 
maintain, however, that we are not in the interregnum today.

>The USA entered into the twilight of empire between 1968 and 1974. Any
>semblances of glory since then have been mirages sustained by the
>obsequiousness of USA's "partners" and the relentlessness of the public
>relations campaign.

If the USA had really entered the twilight of empire, it would have 
by now suffered from the same indignity that the UK -- an imperial 
has-been -- had:

At 11:03 AM +0300 7/17/01, Keaney Michael wrote:
>Can't remember where I came across it, but I
>read an interview with Godley recently in which he talks about having to
>teach himself economics while at HM Treasury in order to unlearn the rubbish
>he was expected to practise/spout. This was at an important juncture for the
>UK economy of course, as its perennial balance of payments problem was about
>to be "addressed" once and for all by the IMF.

When the ruling class is global, rather than national, an imperial 
state (= the state whose politico-military powers guarantee the 
reproduction of capitalism) doesn't have to be a mercantilist 
success.  In fact, practicing mercantilism even after becoming a 
great economic power is likely to get you into deep economic trouble 
(= overinvestment), in the process dragging down others a bit.  See 
Japan.

Yoshie

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Ellen Frank]

[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
>Sounds like a great diss.  Did you ever publish an article summarizing it?
>If not, what school did you do it at?
Thanks, Michael.  Unfortunately I did not.  
>
>> The official dollar role has been over since 1973. The US has run
>> current account deficit in every single year since then, deficits that
>> grow each year

You're right.  The balance of trade has been negative
virtually every year, but current account has been up and 
down (mostly down though) since Reagan.  I think the 
commerce dept has all the payments accounts up on
the web.

Best, Ellen
>
>I thought that we'd run a trade deficit every year since then, but that
>the current account didn't go into deficit until Reagan.  Am I
>misremembering?  Is there good URL to see a summary of these annual
>numbers for the last 30 years?
>
>Michael
>
>__
>Michael PollakNew York [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Jim Devine]

At 02:24 PM 7/19/01 -0700, you wrote:
>The premise only supports the conclusion on the condition that hegemony is a
>zero-sum game. US drops ball; someone else picks it up. Uh-uh. Much more
>dangerous possibilities have presented in the past, such as during roughly
>the first half of the last century. In the hegemony sweepstakes "nothing" is
>something too.
>
>The USA entered into the twilight of empire between 1968 and 1974. Any
>semblances of glory since then have been mirages sustained by the
>obsequiousness of USA's "partners" and the relentlessness of the public
>relations campaign.

you really think that we're could be moving toward a period such as 
1910-45, in which nation-state contention among the rich capitalist powers 
led to trade wars and hot wars? do you have evidence?

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Tom Walker]

The premise only supports the conclusion on the condition that hegemony is a
zero-sum game. US drops ball; someone else picks it up. Uh-uh. Much more
dangerous possibilities have presented in the past, such as during roughly
the first half of the last century. In the hegemony sweepstakes "nothing" is
something too. 

The USA entered into the twilight of empire between 1968 and 1974. Any
semblances of glory since then have been mirages sustained by the
obsequiousness of USA's "partners" and the relentlessness of the public
relations campaign.

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote,

>There's nothing on the political horizon to replace US hegemony -- 
>therefore Ellen's dissertation on dollarization holds up, I think, 
>despite the alarms sounded by Wynne Godley who writes as if the USA 
>had already entered into the same twilight of the empire that the UK 
>had earlier.

Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Jim Devine]

Yoshie writes:
>There's nothing on the political horizon to replace US hegemony -- 
>therefore Ellen's dissertation on dollarization holds up, I think, despite 
>the alarms sounded by Wynne Godley who writes as if the USA had already 
>entered into the same twilight of the empire that the UK had earlier.

I still haven't read his article on the subject, but I agree that this 
twilight is far away.

>Can US hegemony be too strong, in the sense that you discuss in "The 
>Causes of the 1929-33 Great Collapse: A Marxian Interpretation" at 
>?

it's quite possible. By driving down wages/benefits relative to labor 
productivity around the world, and by encouraging competitive 
export-promotion, the "Washington consensus" implies that the what the 
world needs now is ... the US as the consumer of last resort. But the US is 
falling down on that job, destabilizing the world. We live in interesting 
times...


Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

RE: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

I doubt that the majority of Mexican residents & Mexican-Americans in 
the USA are against trade with, investment in, & immigration from 
Mexico.  . . .   Yoshie


Neither am I.

mbs

RE: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

Plenty, if you're a smart trade unionist,
social-democrat, or even a labor-friendly liberal.

mbs



CB: Speaking of (working) class solidarity, isn't that a socialist concept ?
What use do non-socialists have for working class solidarity ?

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>At 02:05 PM 7/19/01 -0400, you wrote:
>>Jim Devine says:
>>
>>>Michael wrote:
It may be that intellectual property laws may be the most effective form
of protectionism devised so far.
>>>
>>>except that it's not the kind of thing that's called 
>>>"protectionism." It protects individual corporations or other 
>>>property-holders, not the domestic markets of countries. It's an 
>>>extension of "normal" property rights like patents, copyrights, 
>>>trade marks, etc. The owners of "intellectual property" can easily 
>>>take their property and move to another country.
>>
>>The decline of protectionism + the rise of intellectual property 
>>(among other things) = "Kautsky's story of 'ultra-imperialism' (the 
>>rich capitalist powers unified against the world)...without the 
>>positive connotations that Kautsky saw (the ending of the anarchy 
>>of production)"?
>
>Instead of the _equation_ of the "decline of protectionism" (etc.) 
>with ultra-imperialism (UI), I'd say that the former is the result 
>of the latter.
>
>The rise of UI started after World War II, when the US became the 
>hegemonic power in the capitalist sphere. The US power was cemented 
>by elite fear of the USSR and of various popular revolutions, from 
>Cuba (1960) to Portugal (1975) and beyond. US hegemony, along with 
>fear of a return to a new Depression at the end of WW II, encouraged 
>the creation of GATT and other efforts to unify the world market. In 
>the early phases, US-based industry was dominant economically, so 
>that they wanted to gain access to other countries' markets, so the 
>US supported GATT. Over the years, the superiority of US-based 
>industry has faded, but the generally pro-trade MNCs have gained 
>much more clout.
>
>The US-led system of UI has changed a lot over the years, partly due 
>to the disappearance of the USSR. There's a lot more emphasis on 
>solidarity of the "trilateral" powers. Even though there are a lot 
>of stresses within the UI coalition (cf. Kyoto), we see nothing 
>similar to the aggressive competition amongst nation-states that 
>prevailed before WW II.
>
>Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

There's nothing on the political horizon to replace US hegemony -- 
therefore Ellen's dissertation on dollarization holds up, I think, 
despite the alarms sounded by Wynne Godley who writes as if the USA 
had already entered into the same twilight of the empire that the UK 
had earlier.

Can US hegemony be too strong, in the sense that you discuss in "The 
Causes of the 1929-33 Great Collapse: A Marxian Interpretation" at 
?

Yoshie

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Jim Devine says:

>>If protecting union jobs is the only point, anti-immigrant & 
>>pro-protectionist nativism is patently pointless.  New immigrant 
>>workers are more pro-union than native-born workers -- hence the 
>>AFL-CIO's new stance.  To survive, organized labor has to sign up 
>>as many as it can, native or immigrant, legal or illegal.  Many 
>>foreign nations have higher rates of unionization than the USA 
>>also.  Since most trade & investment flow within the circle of rich 
>>nations, one might say that it is the USA that is bringing down 
>>labor standards of Japan & Western Europe by its cheap un-organized 
>>labor.
>>
>>The best way to protect union jobs is to sign up & make all union members.
>
>Yoshie is thinking long-term, while it seems that Max is thinking 
>short-term: one reason why the US labor movement is in such poor 
>shape is that the AFL-CIO didn't try very hard at organizing the US 
>South (at the same time that the leadership allied with the 
>government against more militant unionists, who often turned out to 
>be Communist Party members or other kinds of leftists).

Right.  The logic of getting short-term advantages in the labor 
market applies to all forms of exclusion, be they based upon 
nationality, immigration status, political belief, religious belief, 
gender, sexuality, education, or whatnot.  The idea of working-class 
solidarity is rooted in the necessity to think beyond the logic of 
market competition (= competing against other workers, as groups & 
individuals), the end point of which is atomism (= why not suck up to 
bosses & snitch on "trouble-makers" to curry favor, hoping to beat 
competitors [= fellow workers] & win goodies?).

>One reason why the late César Chavez should be admired is that he 
>made the effort to organize the undocumented.

Too bad that gains made by the UFW earlier have been virtually 
reversed in the last couple of decades.  Farm workers are stuck with 
the same struggles.

>It seems to me, finally, that even in the heat of a strike, unions 
>must reach out to find as many allies as possible. Teachers must 
>reach out to parents, etc.

Especially given the rise of service and/or public sectors, yes 
(though the same basically applies to agriculture & manufacturing 
also).

Yoshie

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>>If protecting union jobs is the only point, anti-immigrant &
>>pro-protectionist nativism is patently pointless.  New immigrant
>>workers are more pro-union than native-born workers -- hence the
>>AFL-CIO's new stance.  To survive, organized labor has to sign up as
>>many as it can, native or immigrant, legal or illegal.  Many foreign
>>nations have higher rates of unionization than the USA also.  Since
>>most trade & investment flow within the circle of rich nations, one
>>might say that it is the USA that is bringing down labor standards of
>>Japan & Western Europe by its cheap un-organized labor.
>>
>>The best way to protect union jobs is to sign up & make all union members.
>>Yoshie
>
>
>That's exactly what they are doing.  And you are going to see
>those new union members shoulder to shoulder with the old,
>calling for the protection of their jobs and wages against
>cheap foreign labor.
>
>mbs

I doubt that the majority of Mexican residents & Mexican-Americans in 
the USA are against trade with, investment in, & immigration from 
Mexico.  At the very least new immigrants in general often want to 
bring their family here.

Yoshie

RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

Oy vey indeed.  Reading Rakesh makes me forget
what I actually said about Lind.  I'm sure I
didn't say he was my leader.

I'm about 2/3rds thru The Next American Nation.
I've said the analysis of race and class history
in the book is very persuasive.  It's good
populism.  I'm on his elaboration and
defense of 'liberal nationalism' now.

We were talking about whether Lind was a *nativist,*
and Rakesh goes off on a bender about Vietnam. Obviously
you can be a "liberal internationalist" and support the
Vietnam war.  In fact, those were the dudes that started
it, not 'nativists.'  When I was a small shaver, I remember
seeing American Legion guys petitioning against the war
at a county fair. Later on LBJ set them straight, of course.

Once he's torqued off there is no talking to him.
You have to argue with two people at once -- him and
the person he makes you out to be. Way too exhausting.

mbs


Rakesh (here and gone again...)> On top of it, Lind seems to have written a
book in defense of
> genocidal US policies in Vietnam--did I understand you, right,
> Pugliese?

RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

I'm thinking about how to get from here to there,
and Yoshie is talking about getting from there
to here.

mbs


Yoshie is thinking long-term, while it seems that Max is thinking 
short-term . . .

RE: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

If protecting union jobs is the only point, anti-immigrant & 
pro-protectionist nativism is patently pointless.  New immigrant 
workers are more pro-union than native-born workers -- hence the 
AFL-CIO's new stance.  To survive, organized labor has to sign up as 
many as it can, native or immigrant, legal or illegal.  Many foreign 
nations have higher rates of unionization than the USA also.  Since 
most trade & investment flow within the circle of rich nations, one 
might say that it is the USA that is bringing down labor standards of 
Japan & Western Europe by its cheap un-organized labor.

The best way to protect union jobs is to sign up & make all union members.
Yoshie


That's exactly what they are doing.  And you are going to see
those new union members shoulder to shoulder with the old,
calling for the protection of their jobs and wages against
cheap foreign labor.

mbs

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Jim Devine]

At 02:05 PM 7/19/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Jim Devine says:
>
>>Michael wrote:
>>>It may be that intellectual property laws may be the most effective form
>>>of protectionism devised so far.
>>
>>except that it's not the kind of thing that's called "protectionism." It 
>>protects individual corporations or other property-holders, not the 
>>domestic markets of countries. It's an extension of "normal" property 
>>rights like patents, copyrights, trade marks, etc. The owners of 
>>"intellectual property" can easily take their property and move to 
>>another country.
>
>The decline of protectionism + the rise of intellectual property (among 
>other things) = "Kautsky's story of 'ultra-imperialism' (the rich 
>capitalist powers unified against the world)...without the positive 
>connotations that Kautsky saw (the ending of the anarchy of production)"?

Instead of the _equation_ of the "decline of protectionism" (etc.) with 
ultra-imperialism (UI), I'd say that the former is the result of the latter.

The rise of UI started after World War II, when the US became the hegemonic 
power in the capitalist sphere. The US power was cemented by elite fear of 
the USSR and of various popular revolutions, from Cuba (1960) to Portugal 
(1975) and beyond. US hegemony, along with fear of a return to a new 
Depression at the end of WW II, encouraged the creation of GATT and other 
efforts to unify the world market. In the early phases, US-based industry 
was dominant economically, so that they wanted to gain access to other 
countries' markets, so the US supported GATT. Over the years, the 
superiority of US-based industry has faded, but the generally pro-trade 
MNCs have gained much more clout.

The US-led system of UI has changed a lot over the years, partly due to the 
disappearance of the USSR. There's a lot more emphasis on solidarity of the 
"trilateral" powers. Even though there are a lot of stresses within the UI 
coalition (cf. Kyoto), we see nothing similar to the aggressive competition 
amongst nation-states that prevailed before WW II.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Jim Devine]

>If protecting union jobs is the only point, anti-immigrant & 
>pro-protectionist nativism is patently pointless.  New immigrant workers 
>are more pro-union than native-born workers -- hence the AFL-CIO's new 
>stance.  To survive, organized labor has to sign up as many as it can, 
>native or immigrant, legal or illegal.  Many foreign nations have higher 
>rates of unionization than the USA also.  Since most trade & investment 
>flow within the circle of rich nations, one might say that it is the USA 
>that is bringing down labor standards of Japan & Western Europe by its 
>cheap un-organized labor.
>
>The best way to protect union jobs is to sign up & make all union members.

Yoshie is thinking long-term, while it seems that Max is thinking 
short-term: one reason why the US labor movement is in such poor shape is 
that the AFL-CIO didn't try very hard at organizing the US South (at the 
same time that the leadership allied with the government against more 
militant unionists, who often turned out to be Communist Party members or 
other kinds of leftists).

One reason why the late César Chavez should be admired is that he made the 
effort to organize the undocumented.

It seems to me, finally, that even in the heat of a strike, unions must 
reach out to find as many allies as possible. Teachers must reach out to 
parents, etc.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Jim Devine says:

>Michael wrote:
>>It may be that intellectual property laws may be the most effective form
>>of protectionism devised so far.
>
>except that it's not the kind of thing that's called 
>"protectionism." It protects individual corporations or other 
>property-holders, not the domestic markets of countries. It's an 
>extension of "normal" property rights like patents, copyrights, 
>trade marks, etc. The owners of "intellectual property" can easily 
>take their property and move to another country.

The decline of protectionism + the rise of intellectual property 
(among other things) = "Kautsky's story of 'ultra-imperialism' (the 
rich capitalist powers unified against the world)...without the 
positive connotations that Kautsky saw (the ending of the anarchy of 
production)"?

Yoshie

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>At 1:46 PM -0400 7/19/01, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>>The defense of labor is best executed by class solidarity, regardless
>>of nationality, immigration status, etc., not by nativist attempts to
>>monopolize jobs by excluding "aliens," which are in the end futile.
>>When nativists scab by breaking class solidarity, that is, by
>>excluding "aliens," "aliens" naturally can scab back in retaliation.
>>If "you" don't think of "them" as class brothers & sisters, whey
>>should "they" honor the picket lines when "you" go on strike?
>>
>>Yoshie
>
>Under this form of class solidarity, there would be
>no trade unions worthy of the name.
>
>Real class solidarity means you protect union jobs.
>If you aren't in a union, you protect them towards
>the day when you can be in one, which protecting
>furthers.
>
>In a strike situation, calling for all to be employed
>is an empty gesture.  General or mass strike would be
>different, but those are not routine events in labor
>history.
>
>The labor movement is not bad on the full employment
>issue, and it's getting better on immigration. But it
>is not going to call for its own dissolution.  That's a
>bit too progressive.  Indifference to the use of any
>non-union workers to undercut union wages would be
>equivalent to organizational suicide.  Then you would
>see some *real* nativism.
>
>mbs

If protecting union jobs is the only point, anti-immigrant & 
pro-protectionist nativism is patently pointless.  New immigrant 
workers are more pro-union than native-born workers -- hence the 
AFL-CIO's new stance.  To survive, organized labor has to sign up as 
many as it can, native or immigrant, legal or illegal.  Many foreign 
nations have higher rates of unionization than the USA also.  Since 
most trade & investment flow within the circle of rich nations, one 
might say that it is the USA that is bringing down labor standards of 
Japan & Western Europe by its cheap un-organized labor.

The best way to protect union jobs is to sign up & make all union members.

Yoshie

RE: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

Under this form of class solidarity, there would be
no trade unions worthy of the name.

Real class solidarity means you protect union jobs.
If you aren't in a union, you protect them towards
the day when you can be in one, which protecting
furthers.

In a strike situation, calling for all to be employed
is an empty gesture.  General or mass strike would be
different, but those are not routine events in labor
history.

The labor movement is not bad on the full employment
issue, and it's getting better on immigration. But it
is not going to call for its own dissolution.  That's a
bit too progressive.  Indifference to the use of any
non-union workers to undercut union wages would be
equivalent to organizational suicide.  Then you would
see some *real* nativism.

mbs


The defense of labor is best executed by class solidarity, regardless 
of nationality, immigration status, etc., not by nativist attempts to 
monopolize jobs by excluding "aliens," which are in the end futile. 
When nativists scab by breaking class solidarity, that is, by 
excluding "aliens," "aliens" naturally can scab back in retaliation. 
If "you" don't think of "them" as class brothers & sisters, whey 
should "they" honor the picket lines when "you" go on strike?

Yoshie

P.S. to Carrol

When you come back to PEN-l, check out Ellen's posts on dollarization 
+ related threads.

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Michael Pugliese]

lled-as
just so many plastic pawns on cheaply assembled chessboard for the purposes
of impressing one another. Lind's complaint is that we did not play that
murderous game long and hard enough.

Had the United States agreed to honor the 1954 Geneva accords to which it
was a party and forced its client state to do the same by holding free
elections, roughly two million Southeast Asians and more than 58,000
American soldiers would not have died senseless deaths on a battlefield that
Lind admits held "no intrinsic value" for the United States. Perhaps Ho Chi
Minh, the likely winner, would have ended Vietnamese democracy right then
and there. That nation could hardly have suffered a worse fate than the
cynical strategy Lind envisions would have offered it. The South Vietnamese,
let us recall, were well aware of the despotic nature of the northern
regime, and yet precious few of them could bring themselves to take the war
seriously as anything but a for-profit operation designed to squeeze money
out of their rich but foolish sponsors. There is no way to win a war when
the people you are defending do not care to be defended. There is no excuse
for defending one purely on the basis of its alleged symbolic
value-particularly when that symbolism is hardly evident to anyone but
yourself.




Eric Alterman is a Nation columnist and author of Sound and Fury: The Making
of the Punditocracy, Who Speaks for America?: Why Democracy Matters in
Foreign Policy, and It Ain't No Sin to Be Glad You're Alive: The Promise of
Bruce Springsteen.








DISSENT /WINTER 2000 /VOLUME 47, NUMBER 1



- Original Message -
From: "Rakesh Narpat Bhandari" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2001 8:57 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:15343] Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it
fast as you can)


> >>Lind is not a nativist.  He is a liberal
> >>nationalist.  He may be a Listian, but
> >>to me that is not necessarily a Bad Thing.
> >>The idea that he is a right-wing plant is
> >>hallucinatory.
> >>
> >>mbs
>
> While what Pugliese downloaded includes reasonable criticisms of a
> neo bracero program, it soon became an assault on the poor Mexican
> immigrant. He uses the excuse of a neo bracero program to call for
> the exclusion of poor uneducated Mexicans as such instead of for the
> granting to them of worker and citzenship rights.
>
> The handling of complex studies on the job displacement effects of
> immigration (Bhagwati rung Borjas' clock in my opinion) and welfare
> burden of the poor Mexican immigrant (note Lind does not consider the
> sales taxes which even trabajadores sin papeles pay though they are
> probably in excess of any state benefits which they receive) is
> purely demagogic. Indeed Lind descends into the worst forms of
> scapegoating, and his prose becomes indistinguishable from the
> Brimelow's and Murray's who think a restrictive immigration policy is
> in the eugenic interests of the nation.
>
> >Already both LEGAL and illegal immigration from Mexico are
> >exacerbating America's social problems, because so many Mexican
> >immigrants are uneducated and poor. Mark Krikorian of the Center for
> >Immigration Studies -- a non-profit which advocates tightening
> >immigration laws -- claims that 31 percent of immigrants from Mexico
> >are dependent on at least one major federal welfare program. (my
emphasis)
>
> And then he goes on about their criminal propensities.
>
>
>
> In the thrall of nationalist myth Lind does not consider why a
> tougher immigration policy (and Lind seems to want to limit
> immigration over and above eliminating guest worker programs) may not
> necessarily improve the competitive position of poor citizens, but
> Max would have to study Marx (the mascot of this list) to understand
> why as a result of its laws of motion, the capitalist system will
> create a reserve army of labor out of its valorization base, i.e.,
> its population base, no matter how limited by restrictive immigration
> policy.  And taken over by nationalist myth Lind does not consider
> whether there are other more effective policies than restrictive
> nationalist immigration policy (Lind is not just after the neobracero
> program but-it seems to me--the immigration of poor Mexicans under
> any conditions) to improve the conditions of the citizen poor
> (assuming his interest is genuine). And if Lind were truly concerned
> with the  position of poor citizen workers rather than in Bell Curve
> fashion the putative dysgenic effects of poor Mexican immigration,
> wouldn't he would be giving other policy advice first and
> foremost--more pro union legislation, an expanded public sector,
> tougher anti anti black discrimination law, etc?
>
> On top of it, Lind seems to have written a book in defense of
> genocidal US policies in Vietnam--did I understand you, right,
> Pugliese? He has also called for a ban on the US import of third
> world goods on the basis of the most superficial arguments that this
> would be good for those poor third world people too. It would surely
> thrust many peoples into a holocaust of poverty.
>
> For Max to rise to the defense of Lind and call him a liberal
> nationalist indicates what a reactionary he is. I thought Max was
> only pulling toes; now I must conclude that it is actually much
> uglier.
>
> The insults will only increase from here, so Michael, I am unsubbing.
>
> Good luck to all you progressive economists which I insist is an oxymoron.
>
> Yours, Rakesh
>
>

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

Max:

>Lind's position re: immigration is strictly of a
>piece with the basic idea of labor defense, a
>concept our free-trade marxists have great difficulty
>with.  It is that the obligation of a trade union is
>to fight efforts to undercut its wages with other
>workers.  It does not matter where they are,
>what color they are, or how miserable they are.
>
>Now you could argue that he does not execute this
>idea well in his position on immigration.  Obviously
>the AFL is coming around to a different view, but
>that is Lind's point of departure.  There is no
>intrinsic chauvinism in opposing the out-migration
>of jobs to ANY non-union destination, domestic or
>foreign.  Obviously such opposition often falls
>prey to or opportunistically exploits chauvinism,
>but the underlying motive is totally appropriate
>for a labor defense organization.

The defense of labor is best executed by class solidarity, regardless 
of nationality, immigration status, etc., not by nativist attempts to 
monopolize jobs by excluding "aliens," which are in the end futile. 
When nativists scab by breaking class solidarity, that is, by 
excluding "aliens," "aliens" naturally can scab back in retaliation. 
If "you" don't think of "them" as class brothers & sisters, whey 
should "they" honor the picket lines when "you" go on strike?

Yoshie

P.S. to Carrol

When you come back to PEN-l, check out Ellen's posts on dollarization 
+ related threads.

RE: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend itfast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

>Lind is not a nativist.  . . .

Check what he says about the need to control immigration in one of 
his books. Maybe I am hallucinating his nativist sentiment; I didn't 
buy the book, just glanced through it at a bookstore. If I am wrong, 
I will apologize profusely.   Rakesh


Hmm.  You glance thru somebody's book at a
bookstore and pronounce their essence on
that basis?  I'm glad you didn't go into
law enforcement.

Try out Lind's definition of what he calls "The
New Nativism".  He points out that opposition
to immigration, isolationism, protectionism,
or racial preferences are all separable doctrines.
Each may be held w/o respect to the other, and none
are essential to nativism.

He defines nativism as a definition of national
community based on race and/or religion; for the
U.S., this means a Euro-American pan-Christian
nationalism where government favors no particular
religion but Christian religions in general.
It is not necessarily opposed to
immigration per se, but only to immigration of
particular groups.  It might be isolationist
with respect to, say, the Balkans conflict,
but not necessarily with respect to an assault
on some favored group by some disfavored one.
Protectionism is least intimately connected
with nativism.

To this Lind counter-proposes his preference for
a liberal nationalism, wherein the nation is
understood as shared language and culture, and
where the contributions to this by a wide
assortment of immigrant groups is duly recognized.
It's a melting pot position.
There is no whiff of state religion or racial
exclusion in this, though it could be criticized
on other grounds.

Lind's position re: immigration is strictly of a
piece with the basic idea of labor defense, a
concept our free-trade marxists have great difficulty
with.  It is that the obligation of a trade union is
to fight efforts to undercut its wages with other
workers.  It does not matter where they are,
what color they are, or how miserable they are.

Now you could argue that he does not execute this
idea well in his position on immigration.  Obviously
the AFL is coming around to a different view, but
that is Lind's point of departure.  There is no
intrinsic chauvinism in opposing the out-migration
of jobs to ANY non-union destination, domestic or
foreign.  Obviously such opposition often falls
prey to or opportunistically exploits chauvinism,
but the underlying motive is totally appropriate
for a labor defense organization.

The sad truth is that many radicals reject labor
defense in favor of abstractions and fantasies.

mbs

Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Rakesh Narpat Bhandari]

>>Lind is not a nativist.  He is a liberal
>>nationalist.  He may be a Listian, but
>>to me that is not necessarily a Bad Thing.
>>The idea that he is a right-wing plant is
>>hallucinatory.
>>
>>mbs

While what Pugliese downloaded includes reasonable criticisms of a 
neo bracero program, it soon became an assault on the poor Mexican 
immigrant. He uses the excuse of a neo bracero program to call for 
the exclusion of poor uneducated Mexicans as such instead of for the 
granting to them of worker and citzenship rights.

The handling of complex studies on the job displacement effects of 
immigration (Bhagwati rung Borjas' clock in my opinion) and welfare 
burden of the poor Mexican immigrant (note Lind does not consider the 
sales taxes which even trabajadores sin papeles pay though they are 
probably in excess of any state benefits which they receive) is 
purely demagogic. Indeed Lind descends into the worst forms of 
scapegoating, and his prose becomes indistinguishable from the 
Brimelow's and Murray's who think a restrictive immigration policy is 
in the eugenic interests of the nation.

>Already both LEGAL and illegal immigration from Mexico are
>exacerbating America's social problems, because so many Mexican
>immigrants are uneducated and poor. Mark Krikorian of the Center for
>Immigration Studies -- a non-profit which advocates tightening
>immigration laws -- claims that 31 percent of immigrants from Mexico
>are dependent on at least one major federal welfare program. (my emphasis)

And then he goes on about their criminal propensities.



In the thrall of nationalist myth Lind does not consider why a 
tougher immigration policy (and Lind seems to want to limit 
immigration over and above eliminating guest worker programs) may not 
necessarily improve the competitive position of poor citizens, but 
Max would have to study Marx (the mascot of this list) to understand 
why as a result of its laws of motion, the capitalist system will 
create a reserve army of labor out of its valorization base, i.e., 
its population base, no matter how limited by restrictive immigration 
policy.  And taken over by nationalist myth Lind does not consider 
whether there are other more effective policies than restrictive 
nationalist immigration policy (Lind is not just after the neobracero 
program but-it seems to me--the immigration of poor Mexicans under 
any conditions) to improve the conditions of the citizen poor 
(assuming his interest is genuine). And if Lind were truly concerned 
with the  position of poor citizen workers rather than in Bell Curve 
fashion the putative dysgenic effects of poor Mexican immigration, 
wouldn't he would be giving other policy advice first and 
foremost--more pro union legislation, an expanded public sector, 
tougher anti anti black discrimination law, etc?

On top of it, Lind seems to have written a book in defense of 
genocidal US policies in Vietnam--did I understand you, right, 
Pugliese? He has also called for a ban on the US import of third 
world goods on the basis of the most superficial arguments that this 
would be good for those poor third world people too. It would surely 
thrust many peoples into a holocaust of poverty.

For Max to rise to the defense of Lind and call him a liberal 
nationalist indicates what a reactionary he is. I thought Max was 
only pulling toes; now I must conclude that it is actually much 
uglier.

The insults will only increase from here, so Michael, I am unsubbing.

Good luck to all you progressive economists which I insist is an oxymoron.

Yours, Rakesh

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as youcan)

[Jim Devine]

I understand the sentiment, but non-protectionism can be just as bad as (or 
worse than) protectionism. Why dilute conceptual clarity to make a 
rhetorical point?

Michael Perelman writes:
>It is not protectionism, like the violence instigated by the US is not
>terrorism.  Protectionism (terrorism) is what the other guy does.
>
>Jim Devine wrote:
> >
> > Michael wrote:
> > >It may be that intellectual property laws may be the most effective form
> > >of protectionism devised so far.
> >
> > except that it's not the kind of thing that's called "protectionism." It
> > protects individual corporations or other property-holders, not the
> > domestic markets of countries. It's an extension of "normal" property
> > rights like patents, copyrights, trade marks, etc. The owners of
> > "intellectual property" can easily take their property and move to another
> > country.
> >
> > max writes:>Michael Lind (The Next American Nation) makes the point that
> > patents, IP, and professional licensure (i.e.,
> > tenure!) are the upper-class ("white overclass") variant of
> > protectionism.Consistent free-traders should be willing to do away
> > with those barriers to trade as well. How do laissez faire econ profs
> > justify tenure?<
> >
> > professional licensure is definitely a form of protectionism as the word is
> > usually used.
> >
> > BTW, I used to have a colleague who wanted to reject tenure on the basis on
> > laissez-faire principles. The college said: either take tenure or leave. He
> > stayed, eventually ending up in the administration.
> >
> > Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
>
>--
>
>Michael Perelman
>Economics Department
>California State University
>Chico, CA 95929
>
>Tel. 530-898-5321
>E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine

Re: Re: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as youcan)

[michael perelman]

It is not protectionism, like the violence instigated by the US is not
terrorism.  Protectionism (terrorism) is what the other guy does.

Jim Devine wrote:
> 
> Michael wrote:
> >It may be that intellectual property laws may be the most effective form
> >of protectionism devised so far.
> 
> except that it's not the kind of thing that's called "protectionism." It
> protects individual corporations or other property-holders, not the
> domestic markets of countries. It's an extension of "normal" property
> rights like patents, copyrights, trade marks, etc. The owners of
> "intellectual property" can easily take their property and move to another
> country.
> 
> max writes:>Michael Lind (The Next American Nation) makes the point that
> patents, IP, and professional licensure (i.e.,
> tenure!) are the upper-class ("white overclass") variant of
> protectionism.Consistent free-traders should be willing to do away
> with those barriers to trade as well. How do laissez faire econ profs
> justify tenure?<
> 
> professional licensure is definitely a form of protectionism as the word is
> usually used.
> 
> BTW, I used to have a colleague who wanted to reject tenure on the basis on
> laissez-faire principles. The college said: either take tenure or leave. He
> stayed, eventually ending up in the administration.
> 
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine

-- 

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
 
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast asyou can)

[Michael Pugliese]

y far the largest single
source is President Fox's Mexico, a Third World nation of nearly 100
million inhabitants sharing a 2,000-mile border with the U.S. The
opportunity north of the border is inevitably a huge magnet for the
poor but ambitious. There is no realistic way to stop the resulting
flow of people -- certainly no way that would be acceptable to the
American conscience.

This was headlined last May when five sunburned and dehydrated
survivors staggered up to Border Patrol agents in a desert called
"The Devil's Path" about 25 miles north of the Arizona-Sonora border.
Searchers found six more survivors, then 14 bodies. Smugglers had
abandoned the group in 115-degree heat without water. This is no
isolated instance; last year 491 souls perished trying to immigrate.
With the U.S. Border Patrol doubled by the 1996 act, these victims
were forced to risk death in increasingly desperate corridors.

Sealing the border against people willing to risk death is not a
practical option, let alone a morally attractive one. The only hope
is to manage the flow of people in a constructive and humane way. As
President Fox says, "By building up walls, by putting up armies, by
dedicating billions of dollars like every border state is doing to
avoid migration, is not the way to go."

Item one in any agenda to ease border problems would be rapid
economic development to provide opportunity within Mexico. It's
entirely possible that Mexico will become the next tiger economy. It
has the huge advantage of free trade with the world's largest market.
For all its poverty, it has a large first-world economic sector and a
technocratic elite educated at the best American universities.
Contrary to stereotypes, the general population is exceptionally
hard-working. Politically President Fox promises a fresh start after
ending 71 years of one-party rule. If Mexico can avoid the currency
depredations that have marred its last quarter-century, the
immigration problem may start to fade.

North of the border, the solution to the problem of illegal
immigration is to make it legal, or at least to normalize the
movement of people. A program of temporary work visas would allow
Mexicans to go home; the incentive for undocumented aliens now is to
stay rather than face the border barrier a second time.

Laws and regulations can generally be made more generous. The 1996
Border Patrol expansion is a dubious expense, expanding a
cops-and-robbers game that sometimes turns deadly. After the 14
deaths in May, the Mexicans promised to patrol their side of the
border in especially dangerous areas, while the Border Patrol
promised to arm agents with pepper balls rather than bullets. During
the campaign, President Bush talked of dividing the Immigration and
Naturalization Service into two agencies, one to police the border
and another to aid immigrants already here.

Another amnesty for undocumented aliens is already in the air; every
decade or so Congress somehow or another faces this reality. Even
opening Nafta borders completely, I would dare to suggest, might not
unleash a new flood of immigrants. There is a limit to the number who
actually want to come, and experience suggests that many of those who
do already can find a way. And after all, we did have a long history
of unlimited quotas for Western Hemisphere immigrants, ending only in
1965.

President Fox is nothing if not a visionary. Many scoffed at his
ambition to unseat the machine that had run Mexico for generations;
now they scoff at his proposals on immigration. But over the decade
or two he mentioned, a Nafta with open borders may yet prove not so
wild a dream.

- Original Message -
From: "Max Sawicky" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 5:21 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:15322] RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as
you can)


> Lind is not a nativist.  He is a liberal
> nationalist.  He may be a Listian, but
> to me that is not necessarily a Bad Thing.
> The idea that he is a right-wing plant is
> hallucinatory.
>
> mbs
>
>
> . . . Michael told me not to insult anyone, so I will hold back my
comments
> on the neo-nativist and self-proclaimed Listian Lind, who was hidden
> in a trojan horse offered to the left by Buckley and co. But once it
> was brought within the gates, I for one was not surprised that out
> came another faux intellectual windbag like Jim Sleeper whose good
> friend he is.
> Yours, Rakesh
>

Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend itfast as you can)

[Rakesh Narpat Bhandari]

>Lind is not a nativist.  He is a liberal
>nationalist.  He may be a Listian, but
>to me that is not necessarily a Bad Thing.
>The idea that he is a right-wing plant is
>hallucinatory.
>
>mbs

Check what he says about the need to control immigration in one of 
his books. Maybe I am hallucinating his nativist sentiment; I didn't 
buy the book, just glanced through it at a bookstore. If I am wrong, 
I will apologize profusely.

Rakesh

RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

Lind is not a nativist.  He is a liberal
nationalist.  He may be a Listian, but
to me that is not necessarily a Bad Thing.
The idea that he is a right-wing plant is
hallucinatory.

mbs


. . . Michael told me not to insult anyone, so I will hold back my comments
on the neo-nativist and self-proclaimed Listian Lind, who was hidden
in a trojan horse offered to the left by Buckley and co. But once it
was brought within the gates, I for one was not surprised that out
came another faux intellectual windbag like Jim Sleeper whose good
friend he is.
Yours, Rakesh

Re: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Jim Devine]

Michael wrote:
>It may be that intellectual property laws may be the most effective form
>of protectionism devised so far.

except that it's not the kind of thing that's called "protectionism." It 
protects individual corporations or other property-holders, not the 
domestic markets of countries. It's an extension of "normal" property 
rights like patents, copyrights, trade marks, etc. The owners of 
"intellectual property" can easily take their property and move to another 
country.

max writes:>Michael Lind (The Next American Nation) makes the point that 
patents, IP, and professional licensure (i.e.,
tenure!) are the upper-class ("white overclass") variant of 
protectionism.Consistent free-traders should be willing to do away
with those barriers to trade as well. How do laissez faire econ profs 
justify tenure?<

professional licensure is definitely a form of protectionism as the word is 
usually used.

BTW, I used to have a colleague who wanted to reject tenure on the basis on 
laissez-faire principles. The college said: either take tenure or leave. He 
stayed, eventually ending up in the administration.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Rakesh Narpat Bhandari]

>Rakesh Narpat Bhandari wrote,
>
>>And the size of the CAD (and trade deficit) is not correlated with
>>the value of the dollar; if it were there would be some reason to
>>expect Tom W's scenario of an imminent mass dumping of dollars.  Why
>>does there seem to be no correlation? Ellen's analysis seems to
>>provide an answer.
>
>The tag line "spend it fast as you can" was meant to allude to the line in
>the song, "I don't give a damn about a greenback dollar, spend it fast as I
>can" not to any conviction of mine that the demise of the dollar is
>imminent. If... IF... there is a mass dumping of dollars, the precipitating
>event will most likely NOT be the fundamentals of the dollar itself. My
>guess is it will probably not even be a "financial" event.

in mad money susan strange raises the possibility of Japanese flight 
from the dollar because of need to refurbish capital base of Japanese 
banks in accordance with Basel requirements. Strange's is the  most 
plausible guess as to what will be the trigger for global depression, 
I think.

rb

Re: RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as youcan)

[Rakesh Narpat Bhandari]

>Michael Lind (The Next American Nation) makes the point
>that patents, IP, and professional licensure (i.e.,
>tenure!) are the upper-class ("white overclass") variant
>of protectionism.
>
>Consistent free-traders should be willing to do away
>with those barriers to trade as well.  How do laissez
>faire econ profs justify tenure?
>
>mbs
>

You do know that unlike say Krugman and deLong the economists 
Bhagwati and Srinivasan have been very vocal critics of IPR regimes 
and regional trade acts (Srinivasan was critical of Big Boy Wonder 
Summer's greater indulgence for the latter in the early 90s, I 
believe, and they had some exchange in a learned journal, no?). I 
believe that Doug was a reader for Lord Meghnad Desai's forthcoming 
Verso book on globalization I very much look forward to reading his 
analysis of contemporary capitalism. (I certainly don't want to read 
anymore of his--i believe--wrong-headed technical analysis of the 
transformation problem.)
Michael told me not to insult anyone, so I will hold back my comments 
on the neo-nativist and self-proclaimed Listian Lind, who was hidden 
in a trojan horse offered to the left by Buckley and co. But once it 
was brought within the gates, I for one was not surprised that out 
came another faux intellectual windbag like Jim Sleeper whose good 
friend he is.
Yours, Rakesh

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Tom Walker]

Are you saying, then, that the absence of evidence is the same as evidence
of absence? I guess I missed what the "this" refers to that you wrote your
dissertation on.


Ellen Frank wrote,

>Actually, I don't overlook this. In fact I wrote my
>dissertation on this and looked into the role of
>historical "inertia" quite closely and it doesn't
>hold up.  
Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Tom Walker]

Rakesh Narpat Bhandari wrote,

>And the size of the CAD (and trade deficit) is not correlated with 
>the value of the dollar; if it were there would be some reason to 
>expect Tom W's scenario of an imminent mass dumping of dollars.  Why 
>does there seem to be no correlation? Ellen's analysis seems to 
>provide an answer.

The tag line "spend it fast as you can" was meant to allude to the line in
the song, "I don't give a damn about a greenback dollar, spend it fast as I
can" not to any conviction of mine that the demise of the dollar is
imminent. If... IF... there is a mass dumping of dollars, the precipitating
event will most likely NOT be the fundamentals of the dollar itself. My
guess is it will probably not even be a "financial" event.

The lack of correlation between current account deficit and value of the
dollar has nothing to say about future events. In fact, the term
"correlation" has no more scientific standing with regard to the issue than
do the words to the song I cited.

Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213

RE: Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Max Sawicky]

Michael Lind (The Next American Nation) makes the point
that patents, IP, and professional licensure (i.e.,
tenure!) are the upper-class ("white overclass") variant
of protectionism.

Consistent free-traders should be willing to do away
with those barriers to trade as well.  How do laissez
faire econ profs justify tenure?

mbs



It may be that intellectual property laws may be the most effective form
of protectionism devised so far.
-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

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

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Michael Perelman]

It may be that intellectual property laws may be the most effective form
of protectionism devised so far.
-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

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

Re: The US Dollar

[Michael Perelman]

I was impressed by Ellen's statement this morning, but I wonder how much
of the money invested in U.S. stocks and bonds is at risk from flight back
to its original source in say, Europe or Japan?  How much flight would be
required to spook the financial markets?  Couldn't a relatively small
amount spark a panic?

Any ideas?

On Wed, Jul 18, 2001 at 09:05:03AM -0700, Jim Devine wrote:
> Ellen wrote:
> >I have to disagree with the proposition that the US
> >current account deficit might presage flight from
> >the greenback, capital outflows and financial collapse.
> >Though the scenario is plausible on the surface, it
> >overlooks one thing.  Increasingly, the world's wealthy
> >count their wealth in dollars.
> 
> I agree: much more likely that a flight from the greenback is a simple but 
> quick fall in its value. For example, the real trade-weighted major 
> currency index for the dollar fell more than 20% from 1985 to 1986 and more 
> than 11% from 1986 to 1987. I don't think that this would involve a 
> financial crisis (or "collapse") as much as a stagflationary shock.
> 
> Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
> 

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

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

Re: Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Rakesh Narpat Bhandari]

>  > Actually, I don't overlook this. In fact I wrote my dissertation on
>>  this and looked into the role of historical "inertia" quite closely
>>  and it doesn't hold up.
>
>Sounds like a great diss.  Did you ever publish an article summarizing it?
>If not, what school did you do it at?
>
>>  The official dollar role has been over since 1973. The US has run
>>  current account deficit in every single year since then, deficits that
>>  grow each year
>
>I thought that we'd run a trade deficit every year since then, but that
>the current account didn't go into deficit until Reagan.


And the size of the CAD (and trade deficit) is not correlated with 
the value of the dollar; if it were there would be some reason to 
expect Tom W's scenario of an imminent mass dumping of dollars.  Why 
does there seem to be no correlation? Ellen's analysis seems to 
provide an answer.

Another point: For many the rising trade deficit indicated the loss 
of American competitiveness, but the picture has always been more 
complicated if one considers sales from foreign subsidiaries and the 
US surplus in high tech goods (see Scherer). Another point: Brenner 
makes the dollar devaluation the key to regained US competitiveness, 
but the US has been sitting pretty with a relatively high dollar for 
years now. Is that because the high dollar encourages capital inflow, 
thus reducing interest rates and encouraging a high level of 
investment in capital goods in which technological progress has been 
embodied?

Rakesh

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Michael Pollak]

> Actually, I don't overlook this. In fact I wrote my dissertation on
> this and looked into the role of historical "inertia" quite closely
> and it doesn't hold up.

Sounds like a great diss.  Did you ever publish an article summarizing it?
If not, what school did you do it at?

> The official dollar role has been over since 1973. The US has run
> current account deficit in every single year since then, deficits that
> grow each year

I thought that we'd run a trade deficit every year since then, but that
the current account didn't go into deficit until Reagan.  Am I
misremembering?  Is there good URL to see a summary of these annual
numbers for the last 30 years?

Michael

__
Michael PollakNew York [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Ellen Frank]

Actually, I don't overlook this. In fact I wrote my
dissertation on this and looked into the role of
historical "inertia" quite closely and it doesn't
hold up.  The official dollar role has been over
since 1973. The US has run current account
deficitd in every single year since then, deficits 
that grow each year -- nearly three decades of
rising deficits.  Periodically economists
warn that this is unsustainable, that the yen or 
deutschemark or pound or swiss franc or euro
will replace the dollar, but not only has that not
happened, the dollar's preeminence has increased,
markedly in the past several years.Almost all
mainstream explanations for this fail statistically -
the dollar is more, not less, volatile than many
other currencies.  Dollar holdings bear no
relation to inflation rates and little to interest
rates.  I found that the strongest and most
consistent predictor of a currency's international
use was the issuing country's share of MNC assets 
or sales.  Military spending and arms sales also 
were important, though less so.  



[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>Ellen is partly right but she overlooks the circular nature of her case.
>The
>wealthy count their wealth in dollars because of the historical role that
>the US dollar achieved over many decades. A US current account deficit
>doesn't change that historical role overnight. A few decades of current
>account deficits, though, create the conditions where that historical role
>could abruptly change. Things continue on as they have because "there is
>no
>alternative." At some point things can stop continuing on as they have,
>with
>or without an alternative, simply because there is no foundation for the
>way
>things have been continuing on. 
>
>
>Ellen Frank wrote,
>
>>I have to disagree with the proposition that the US
>>current account deficit might presage flight from
>>the greenback, capital outflows and financial collapse.
>>Though the scenario is plausible on the surface, it 
>>overlooks one thing.  Increasingly, the world's wealthy
>>count their wealth in dollars.  There is ample reason for
>>this -- dollar-denominated financial markets are
>>broad, deep and fully international; dollar-based
>>multinationals represent the bulk of all MNC assets in
>>which the rich hold their wealth; most of the developing
>>world is starved for dollars, so extra-US dollar lending
>>opportunities abound; etc...
>>
>>The significance of this is not simply that the demand
>>for dollars will remain high (indeed the fact that 
>>the dollar is rising signifies that there is considerable
>>excess demand for dollars).  It also means that a sizable
>>share of the world's wealth is held by people who
>>figure in dollars -- they don't care about the dollar's
>>value relative to the yen or euro or peso, because
>>they've already written off the yen and euro and
>>peso.  This is why, despite occasional bouts of 
>>speculation and depreciation, the world's wealthy 
>>continue to hold dollars and the dollar share
>>of international lending and reserves is increasing.
>Tom Walker
>Bowen Island, BC
>604 947 2213
>

Re: The US Dollar

[Jim Devine]

Ellen wrote:
>I have to disagree with the proposition that the US
>current account deficit might presage flight from
>the greenback, capital outflows and financial collapse.
>Though the scenario is plausible on the surface, it
>overlooks one thing.  Increasingly, the world's wealthy
>count their wealth in dollars.

I agree: much more likely that a flight from the greenback is a simple but 
quick fall in its value. For example, the real trade-weighted major 
currency index for the dollar fell more than 20% from 1985 to 1986 and more 
than 11% from 1986 to 1987. I don't think that this would involve a 
financial crisis (or "collapse") as much as a stagflationary shock.

Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine

Re: The US Dollar (spend it fast as you can)

[Tom Walker]

Ellen is partly right but she overlooks the circular nature of her case. The
wealthy count their wealth in dollars because of the historical role that
the US dollar achieved over many decades. A US current account deficit
doesn't change that historical role overnight. A few decades of current
account deficits, though, create the conditions where that historical role
could abruptly change. Things continue on as they have because "there is no
alternative." At some point things can stop continuing on as they have, with
or without an alternative, simply because there is no foundation for the way
things have been continuing on. 


Ellen Frank wrote,

>I have to disagree with the proposition that the US
>current account deficit might presage flight from
>the greenback, capital outflows and financial collapse.
>Though the scenario is plausible on the surface, it 
>overlooks one thing.  Increasingly, the world's wealthy
>count their wealth in dollars.  There is ample reason for
>this -- dollar-denominated financial markets are
>broad, deep and fully international; dollar-based
>multinationals represent the bulk of all MNC assets in
>which the rich hold their wealth; most of the developing
>world is starved for dollars, so extra-US dollar lending
>opportunities abound; etc...
>
>The significance of this is not simply that the demand
>for dollars will remain high (indeed the fact that 
>the dollar is rising signifies that there is considerable
>excess demand for dollars).  It also means that a sizable
>share of the world's wealth is held by people who
>figure in dollars -- they don't care about the dollar's
>value relative to the yen or euro or peso, because
>they've already written off the yen and euro and
>peso.  This is why, despite occasional bouts of 
>speculation and depreciation, the world's wealthy 
>continue to hold dollars and the dollar share
>of international lending and reserves is increasing.
Tom Walker
Bowen Island, BC
604 947 2213

Re: The US Dollar

[Ellen Frank]

I have to disagree with the proposition that the US
current account deficit might presage flight from
the greenback, capital outflows and financial collapse.
Though the scenario is plausible on the surface, it 
overlooks one thing.  Increasingly, the world's wealthy
count their wealth in dollars.  There is ample reason for
this -- dollar-denominated financial markets are
broad, deep and fully international; dollar-based
multinationals represent the bulk of all MNC assets in
which the rich hold their wealth; most of the developing
world is starved for dollars, so extra-US dollar lending
opportunities abound; etc...

The significance of this is not simply that the demand
for dollars will remain high (indeed the fact that 
the dollar is rising signifies that there is considerable
excess demand for dollars).  It also means that a sizable
share of the world's wealth is held by people who
figure in dollars -- they don't care about the dollar's
value relative to the yen or euro or peso, because
they've already written off the yen and euro and
peso.  This is why, despite occasional bouts of 
speculation and depreciation, the world's wealthy 
continue to hold dollars and the dollar share
of international lending and reserves is increasing.

Ellen Frank












[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>People would have to be confident that the fall would be very gradual.
>
>Jim Devine wrote:
>
>> a weaker greenback would be a good thing, if it falls _slowly_.
>>
>
>