Re: [PEN-L] Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
- Original Message - From: ertugrul ahmet tonak [EMAIL PROTECTED] I watched this guy in his DN interview. I didn't find him fully believable. Here is what a reviewer (without reading the book!) said about him at Amazon's site: ...you have to consider that this could well be a hoax or simply fiction. Consider that the previous books by this guy are called: Here's a note from a good friend who - along with several of us at a conference in Florida last week - viewed a great video of Hazel Henderson interviewing both Kenneth Rogoff and Perkins (the video is from a forthcoming PBS series on ethics in business): I am NOT at all surprised by his Shamanic interests. One day I will right an ethnography of the American Caucasian tribal pursuit of native wisdom. These kinds of seekers are a dime a dozen in Ecuador and much of the Andes--especially members from the California branch of the tribe. (I recently sourced a journo in the UK writing a piece on Shamanistic travel junkets, that folks are dropping upwards of $5k for two weeks of visioning !). So I don't think his other stuff discredits his present work. (It is disappointing to hedge a bet that the Marxist/materialist blinders would lead one to think that EHM was a hoax, because he's a new-ager. That may help explain, sadly, why the US-left may never win hearts and minds of Christian-middle-America...woe to us all.) I think the best thing to do is just show that video with him and Rogoff! My own impression is that Perkins is no hoax, and that his existential angst has led him to this confessional. In his own words: This book is a confession. Pure and simple. It is not a How To. It is the confession of a man who allowed himself to become a pawn, an Economic Hit Man, a man who bought into a corrupt system because it offered so many perks and buying in was easy to justify, a man who knew better but could always find excuses for his own greed, for exploiting desperate people and pillaging the planet, a man who took full advantage of the fact he was born into one of the wealthiest societies history has ever known and also could pity himself because his parents were not at the top of the pyramid, a man who listened to his teachers, read the text books on economic development, and then followed the example of other men and women who legitimatise every action that promotes Global Empire, even if that action results in murder, genocide, and environmental destruction, a man who trained others to follow in his footsteps. It is my confession. As for his employers, he has this analysis: Are such people part of a conspiracy? Are they a tightly knit fraternity bent on dominating the world? My answers to those and other similar questions vacillated. Yet, over time I began to liken them to the plantation owners of the Pre-Civil War South, men drawn together in a loose association by common beliefs and shared self-interest rather than an exclusive group meeting in clandestine hideaways with focused and sinister intent. Is his modus operandi unusual? I don't know, but it sounds entirely credible. He was recruited for the consultancy firm MAIN (Charles Main) by a National Security Agency operative, and picks up the story in Chapters 1-2 of his book: Claudine told me there were two primary objectives of my job: to 1) justify huge international loans that would funnel money back to [consulting firm] MAIN and other US companies (such as Bechtel, Halliburton, Stone and Webster, and Brown and Root) through massive engineering/construction projects, and 2) bankrupt the countries that received those loans (after they had paid MAIN and the other US contractors, of course) so that they would be forever beholden to the creditors and therefore easy targets when we needed favors, including military bases, UN votes, or access to oil and other natural resources. My job was, she said, to forecast the effects of investing billions of dollars in a country. Specifically, I would produce studies that projected economic growth for 20 to 25 years into the future and evaluated the impacts of a variety of projects. For example, a decision might have been made to lend a country one billion dollars in order to persuade its leaders not to become aligned with the Soviet Union. I would be asked to compare the benefits of investing that money in power plants versus a new national railroad network or telecommunications systems. Or, I might be told that the country was being offered the opportunity to receive a modern electric utility system and it would be up to me to demonstrate that such a system would result in sufficient economic growth to justify the loan. The critical factor, in every case, was Gross National Product. The project that resulted in the highest average annual growth of GNP won. If only one project was being considered, I would need to demonstrate that developing it would bring super benefits to the GNP. The unspoken aspect of every one of these projects
[PEN-L] Kmart, Sears to merge, create nation's third-largest retailer
Kmart, Sears to merge, create nation's third-largest retailer Wednesday, November 17, 2004 ASSOCIATED PRESS CHICAGO - The discount retailer Kmart Holding Corp. is combining with one of the most venerable names in U.S. retailing, Sears, Roebuck Co., in an $11 billion deal that will create the nation's third largest retailer. The company being created by the surprise combination announced Wednesday would be known as Sears Holdings Corp., but will continue to operate the Kmart and Sears stores under their current brand names. The combined company is expected to have $55 billion in annual revenues, 2,350 full-line and off-mall stores, and 1,100 specialty retail stores. That will mean it will trail only Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. among the biggest U.S. retailers. It will be headquartered in the northwestern Chicago suburb of Hoffman Estates, where Sears has its headquarters, but will maintain a significant presence in Troy, Mich., where Kmart is based. Under the agreement, which was unanimously approved by both companies' boards of directors, Kmart shareholders will receive one share of new Sears Holdings stock for each Kmart share. Sears, Roebuck shareholders can choose $50 in cash or half a share of Sears Holdings stock. That portion of the deal values Sears shares at $11 billion, a 10.6 percent premium over its value at Tuesday's close. Kmart chairman Edward Lampert will be the chairman of Sears Holdings, while Sears CEO Alan Lacy will be vice chairman and CEO of the new company. The new 10-member Sears Holdings board will have seven members from Kmart and three from Sears. The merger will enable us to manage the businesses of Sears and Kmart to produce a higher return than either company could achieve on its own, Lampert said in a press release. The merger, expected to close by the end of March 2005, is subject to approval by Kmart and Sears shareholders, regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions. Kmart filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in early 2002, leading to the closing of about 600 stores, termination of 57,000 Kmart employees and cancellation of company stock. The retailer emerged from bankruptcy in May 2003 and in March posted its first profitable quarter in three years. Mired in a retail slump, Sears had long fallen out of favor on Wall Street after losing ground to competitors and enduring sluggish sales for years. The company last fall introduced its Sears Grand stores, which offer grocery and convenience items besides traditional Sears fare such as clothing, home appliances and tools. The concept had delivered promising results for the struggling retailer at its first three stores in metropolitan Salt Lake City, Las Vegas and Chicago, in the suburb of Gurnee. Kmart, in recent years, has been shedding many of its underperforming stores, a strategy that has helped the once-struggling discount retailer bounce back after it emerged from bankruptcy. In fact, Kmart has sold 50 stores to Sears for $575 million as part of that strategy. Earlier this month, it appeared that Sears could be shifting toward a similar direction after the disclosure that Vornado Realty Trust, a real estate investment trust, had purchased a 4.3 percent interest in the department-store chain. That move left the impression that the value of Sears' real estate holdings may be not be fully reflected in its stock price. Since that Nov. 5 announcement, Sears' stock has jumped 25 percent. It closed at $45.20 in trading Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange. Company officials said the merger would help make their properties more profitable through a broader retail presence and improved operational efficiency in areas such as procurement, marketing, information technology and supply chain management. The combination will greatly strengthen both the Sears and Kmart franchises by accelerating the Sears off-mall growth strategy and enhancing the brand portfolio of both companies, Lacy said. This will clearly be a win for both companies' customers while significantly enhancing value for all shareholders. The merger will not affect agreements to carry home and fashion lines including Martha Stewart Everyday, Lands' End and Sesame Street, the companies said.
[PEN-L] Empirical confirmation of Hart-Landsburg/Burkett
A New Pattern Is Cut for Global Textile Trade China Likely to Dominate as Quotas Expire By Peter S. Goodman and Paul Blustein Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, November 17, 2004; Page A01 AMPARA, Sri Lanka -- Wild monkeys and Buddhist shrines outnumber any signs of industry, and rampaging elephants are not uncommon. The closest port lies seven hours away, down a rutted road. Yet here in the jungle of this small island nation in the Indian Ocean, the Daya Apparel Export Ltd. factory and others like it churn out pants and shirts for American Eagle Outfitters, A-line skirts for the Gap and bras for Victoria's Secret. If I didn't have this job, we wouldn't have enough to eat, said 20-year-old Mohammed Ismail Mazeela, one of 2,000 women from surrounding villages who work at the plant. The $40 monthly wage supports her family in Sammamthurai village, where people walk trash-strewn lanes in bare feet. It buys the electricity powering the lone bulb in her shack, the food her mother cooks over the wood fire on their concrete floor, and schoolbooks for her sister's three children. There is nothing else here. Soon there may be even less. On Jan. 1, World Trade Organization rules governing the global textile trade will undergo their biggest revision in 30 years. The changes are expected to jeopardize as many as 30 million jobs in some of the world's poorest places as the textile industry uproots and begins consolidating in a country that has become the world's acknowledged low-cost producer: China. About $400 billion in trade is at stake, but the implications are greater than the money involved. Since 1974, many developing countries have pinned their economic hopes on a complicated system of worldwide quotas that guaranteed each a specified share of the lucrative textile markets in the United States and Europe. By specifying how many blue jeans or how much fabric an individual country could export, the quotas have effectively limited the amount of goods coming from major producers like China, while giving smaller or less competitive nations room to participate. Capital and jobs followed the quotas, helping countries build an industrial base through textile exports. full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55462-2004Nov16.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
[PEN-L] No more of the 'poor'
No more of 'the poor' For people who live in poverty, the stigma they face and the shame it creates can be as devastating as the economic consequences Ruth Lister Wednesday November 17 2004 The Guardian Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin sang about it; politicians pontificate about it; the poor are denied it. Respect - or rather disrespect - is key to understanding what poverty means to those experiencing it. The statistical trends that dominate the political debate are vital in holding government to account. The huge increase in poverty under the Conservatives is a stark reminder of their regressive policies. The slow but steady reduction in child and pensioner poverty under Labour is one of the few beacons for those who had hoped for a more aggressive assault on inequality and injustice. Statistics are also essential for pinpointing groups at the highest risk of poverty - for example, Pakistani and Bangladeshi families and female-headed households - and for illuminating the impact of persistent poverty. But statistics don't bleed. So sometimes they are embellished with human interest stories that ask people to parade their poverty. However well intentioned, these can treat the poor as objects of pity - passive victims lacking agency. Less sympathetic accounts represent them as a source of moral contamination, a threat, an economic burden or even an exotic species. All are examples of a process that treats the poor as different from the rest of us. The language used to describe the poor has been articulated by more powerful groups - media, politicians, academics. It is a language rooted in the historical division between the deserving and undeserving. The more obviously demeaning examples today are underclass, welfare dependent and the American trailer trash. But the less value-laden poor can itself be problematic. It is an adjective that we apply to them. Yet people in poverty are often reluctant to wear what they perceive to be a stigmatising label, with its connotations of inferior, as in poor quality. As a noun, the poor, like the disabled, robs people of their individual humanity. People in poverty are not asked how they want to be described. This is symptomatic of a failure to listen to what they have to say about the meaning of poverty. Lack of respect, denial of dignity and a consequent sense of shame and worthlessness are constant refrains when people in poverty talk about how they are treated. Two contributions at a national hearing held by Church Action on Poverty are representative: The worst blow of all is the contempt of your fellow citizens. I and many families live in that contempt; and I just feel very angry sometimes that people are ignorant of the fact that we are humans as well and we do need to be respected. The effects were described graphically by a participant in a UK Coalition against Poverty workshop: You're like an onion and gradually every skin is peeled off you and there's nothing left. All your self-esteem and how you feel about yourself is gone - you're left feeling like nothing and then your family feels like that. The stigma can be particularly difficult to bear for children: the wrong clothes, for example, can trigger bullying and exclusion from the social activities of their peers. From the playground to the social services department, disrespectful treatment adds psychological insult to the economic injury of poverty. What are the implications for the politics of poverty? Collective political action requires the kind of collective identity that has historically fuelled working-class movements. This is difficult when poor represents a shameful economic condition to be endured rather than an individual, never mind collective, identity to be embraced. Disabled people and gays and lesbians have been able to transform a negatively ascribed category into positive affirmation of a collective identity as the basis of a politics of recognition of their own difference. But proud to be poor is not a banner under which many want to march. And the last thing people in poverty want is to be seen as different. Moreover, practical barriers and the struggle for day-to-day survival, which can sap energy and health, make political action difficult. Nevertheless, there are countless examples worldwide of deprived communities organising to effect change. Women are often the driving force. Political agency is strengthened in the process. Disrespectful treatment can itself provoke political action. A poverty activist in the US tells how it was the indignity of having to line up daily to receive a ration of five pieces of toilet paper, rather than homelessness itself, that provoked a group of homeless people to organise. Respect for dignity is the foundation stone of a human rights discourse increasingly being deployed by people with experience of poverty to counteract the negative discourses imposed on them. In August, in a rare willingness to claim poverty as a political
[PEN-L] Disillusioned with politics? Vote Redgrave!
Disillusioned with politics? Vote Redgrave! Tania Branigan Wednesday November 17 2004 The Guardian He is treading the boards in Newcastle as a critically lauded King Lear. She is filming a Merchant Ivory costume drama in Shanghai. But next week Corin and Vanessa Redgrave, the siblings as well known for their leftwing activism as their stage credits, will step into a new role - as founders of Britain's newest political party. Peace and Progress, to be launched in London on November 27, aims to put human rights at the heart of next year's election agenda. The Redgraves admit it will stand in no more than three constituencies - and will not win a single seat. It will even campaign for rival parties. They will back Conservative candidates willing to protect the basic liberties they believe are increasingly under threat. There's a space which needs to be filled by a political party which will agitate for the work human rights groups are doing, Mr Redgrave said. We will say 'Perhaps these are people you should vote for - and these are people you shouldn't'. The opening conference of the Peace and Progress party will feature speakers ranging from Anna Politkovskaya, the award-winning Russian journalist, to American human rights lawyers, to Azmat Begg, whose son Moazzam is held at Guantanamo Bay. Its manifesto calls for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq; the cancellation of third world debt; the return of Britons held at Guantanamo Bay and the release of all foreign nationals held without trial in the UK. Mr Redgrave believes he was excluded from work for many years because of his politics, but has enjoyed a theatrical renaissance since communism fell and people discovered that Marxism was no longer frightening. Their father Sir Michael was blacklisted by the BBC for communist affiliations. Human rights encompasses every part of our lives, argued Ms Redgrave, in a telephone interview from China. We are talking about social, economic, political and civil rights for all people. Pensions and children's benefits are human rights questions; I'm horrified by the way old people are treated in this country. The new phenomena is that now [human rights abuses] are happening in Britain and the US with the concurrence of our government. I feel particularly strongly because I'm of the generation of children whose relatives fought in the war and it was on that basis that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the conventions which followed it were created. The pair are not expecting to stand themselves, although they have not ruled it out. Cynics might argue that voters will always be more concerned about tax cuts than civil liberties. Mr Redgrave prefers to be optimistic. I think there is a fundamental response of decency and concern from people. How that compares to concern on other issues will have to be tested, and that's what we're doing, he said. -- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore, this e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.
[PEN-L] Translating economic into cultural insecurity
Translating economic into cultural insecurity * From: Hinrich Kuhls [EMAIL PROTECTED] The age of anxiety American academic Richard Sennett, who has been teaching in London for five years, returns to New York and takes the cultural and political temperature Saturday October 23, 2004 The Guardian [...] How this translation works is exemplified by perhaps the most controversial book to appear in America this season, Samuel Huntington's Who are We? He is well known to Brits for his previous book, The Clash of Civilizations , which argued an inevitable global conflict between Islam and the west; this new book minia turises the same argument within America. Now Mexicans appear as local Muslims, an alien, unmelting presence refusing to play by American rules. The book is less remarkable for its ethnic prejudices than for its invocation of traditional American values, wrapped up in a Protestant non-conformist, small-town, package; Huntington proudly asserts he is anti-cosmopolitan, world-travelled Harvard professor that he is. Though most Mexican immigrants happen to live in abject poverty, that is not the point; he is defending America. This is indeed an apology for soft fascism. CB: The old term social fascist is useful in describing the Reaganite movement of the last 25 years. In Michigan, Reaganite John Engler carried out a destruction of General Assistance, state mental hospitals, state takeover of Detroit's school board, criminal court, social spending cuts et al. from 1990 to 2003.
[PEN-L] Equality? That's a bit rich
Equality? That's a bit rich Heather Stewart: Rich man, poor man: How some Brits are more equal than others Heather Stewart Sunday November 07 2004 The Observer In the days of Old Labour, fighting against the inequalities in society was a central tenet of leftist philosophy. In his first Budget in 1974, Denis Healey jacked up income tax rates by 3p, taking the rate for top-earners to 83p in the pound, and promising to 'set Britain on the road to that just and fair society, which in the long run is the only basis on which to build the national unity we need'. Just how far Labour - and Britain - has come is exposed in a new book, which shows that although the government's programme of quiet redistribution has helped to lift the living standards of the poorest since 1997, by the start of the twenty-first century income inequality was greater than at any time since the 1940s. John Hills, an LSE professor who also sits on the influential Turner commission on pensions, assembles a plethora of evidence to show that we face pressing questions about how much we want the state to do to tackle poverty and social division. About 40 per cent of the total increase in income between 1979 and 2003 went into the pockets of the top 10 per cent of Britain's earners. Between them they now take home more than the whole of the poorest half of society. Instead of creating a Thatcherite meritocracy, or John Major's 'classless society', the policies of the 1980s and 1990s have actually reduced social mobility, Hills finds. A recent study showed that the earnings of children born in 1970 are more closely related to their parents' earnings than those of children born in 1958. And although many people have brief spells of poverty in their lives before moving on, the evidence suggests that almost half of those who are poor remain so over a 10-year period - 'most poverty is accounted for by those who are persistently or recurrently poor'. After Labour's long wilderness years through the 1980s and early 1990s, the goal of 'equality' no longer seemed to be a vote-winning aspiration. The Thatcher administrations saw themselves as setting hard-working entrepreneurs free in the hope that the benefits of unfettered capitalism would eventually 'trickle down' to everyone. Capping the incomes of the best paid was dismissed as 'the politics of envy'. Tony Blair said in 1996 that he wanted to be judged by whether he raised the incomes of the poorest in society, but equality per se had dropped off the agenda. 'This was the culmination of a strategy adopted since Tony Blair became leader in 1994 to shed Labour's tax and spend image,' says Mills. 'Discussion of redistribution had also been studiously avoided.' Once safely in office, Labour was more ambitious in some areas: a series of means-tested tax credits and above-inflation rises in universal benefits have been strikingly successful in making progress towards the government's goal of halving child poverty within 20 years. The poorest pensioners have also received extra help. Hills calls this approach 'selective universalism'. But the public is unhappy about the scale of income inequality. In the authoritative British Social Attitudes Survey, for example, the proportion of respondents saying that the gap between high and low incomes is 'too large' has consistently been well over half. The latest figure, from 2002, was 82 per cent, including 70 per cent of those who said they were Tory supporters. Hills says we now need to have a grown-up debate, which will have to include the question that strikes fear into every politician: 'should we pay more tax?' Part of the problem is that everyone tends to think they're part of 'Middle England'. When people were asked, in a 1999 survey, to put themselves in one of 10 groups, from the top to the bottom of society, more than three quarters opted for one of the middle four groups, and just 0.4 per cent thought they were in the top tenth. Surprisingly, a childless couple earning no more than #163;44,000 between them in 2002 would fit into the latter category. Peter Robinson, the chief economist at left-leaning thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research, agrees with Hills that the reason Labour in government has largely avoided the subject of equality is because tax has become a taboo. 'I think that the problem here is that Labour is still hyper-sensitive about tax, and about being perceived to be the party of tax and spend,' says Robinson. In fact, both taxes and spending have risen, he says, and without a surrender of public support, but also without opening up a realistic debate about what the state should do, and who should pay for it - the issue at the heart of Hills's book. 'They've done nothing to prepare the ground to have that kind of conversation with the public,' Robinson says. 'They've done nothing over the last seven years to shift public opinion.' A good place to start might be by spelling out some of the facts Hills
[PEN-L] All across Europe, politics and religion still go hand in hand
Britain, not the US, is the odd one out All across Europe, politics and religion still go hand in hand Peter Preston Monday November 08 2004 The Guardian Let us call it Blair exceptionalism. Our leader is a committed, practising Christian. A priest from Great Missenden arrives at Chequers every available Sunday to hold Blair family communion. Residual public debate does not inquire whether the prime minister is a true believer, but whether - one imminent day - he'll convert from high C of E to join Cherie in RC Towers. That is exceptional. Nobody, of course, can quite penetrate beyond the outward and visible show of premiers past, but overt Christianity hasn't exactly steamed up modern Downing Street's windows. I have no idea how John Major or Jim Callaghan spend their Sabbaths. I always felt Mrs T was happier lecturing Archbishop Runcie than listening to him. (Who is this Almighty person?) And Harold Wilson wore his Gannex more visibly than his religious convictions. So Tony Blair is different. He is, in a sense, more like George Bush and the millions of evangelicals who voted for the born-again president than he resembles any of his immediate predecessors - or most of us. For we Brits are not a devout nation. Perhaps, at birth, marriage and death times we still go through the motions, but our church attendance record lies far down any European league table. We are a Missing (if not wholly Immoral) Majority once the steeple bells start ringing. What does that mean in everyday life? It means putting fire and brimstone at the back of the coal shed. It means a shrugging, shuffling scepticism of too many preachy certainties. It means that the causes which catch our imagination, like foxhunting or experiments with rats, achieve a headline salience far ahead of the abortion arguments, the human arguments, transfixing middle America. It means that mass religious debate is dead - and you pop out to put the kettle on at 7.48 every Today show morning. There are still racking debates around, to be sure, as gay bishops jostle women priests to the side of the pulpit. But these are ruckuses within the great, amorphous mass of Anglicanism, an established church without an established position. They start in New Hampshire and wend their way towards Lambeth Palace through a smog of introversion. They are all about what should be allowed inside the walls. By definition, they exclude non-participants. Eleven American states voted on gay marriage last week. You didn't need a seat in the synod to have a say. As this litany of differences unfolds, moreover, a second perception sidles into play. Perhaps it isn't just Tony Blair who is exceptional. Perhaps we ought also to be talking about British exceptionalism. I happened to be in Malta last week, discussing the case of Rocco Buttiglione in a university lecture theatre. Malta, number 25 on the EU membership list, not only doesn't have abortion, it doesn't have divorce either. (Its new Brussels commissioner was hugely relieved to get the fisheries brief; he'd probably have taken bread as well.) Not far from the university, on the other side of the Grand Harbour, stand the great bastions where the Knights of St John held sway; and the order's churches seem to dominate every street in Valletta. They are part of all our history, of a crusading Christian Europe militant to defend Jerusalem and spread the word by force of arms. This history hasn't ended. Not, of course, in the great balloon of al-Qaida that dogs every policy. Not in Bosnia or Kosovo, as Islam and Christianity fail to coexist. Not in Cyprus, north and south. Not between faiths in Northern Ireland. Not when Turkey's EU membership is on the table and the opponents talk Christian Europe. Not when the charge against Buttiglione is led by German MEPs dubbing him an acolyte of the Pope. Not when mainstream conservatism in Strasbourg - the one that excludes our Tories - is Christian Democrat. Many of these tensions, to be sure, are reflected in mainland Britain. Many of the faiths that live side by side on this island have passion and dynamism to spare. But they do not make us a country where religion much impinges, or can any longer drive, our politics. In the wake of Bush, there's been majority moralising from the Mail, for instance. Melanie Phillips, another true believer, leads that charge. But when such moralising turns to politics on other pages, the dimension swiftly narrows. Broken, dysfunctional families cost #163;2,500 a month in a Bamp;B (or rather more at a Travelodge). Asylum seekers come to sponge on the NHS. Gypsies are rich enough to buy their own fields. Simon Heffer reprises that old second world war anthem: Why should our men die for America? Even gambling, when the gloves come off, comes down to addiction and crime. No good Samaritans there, then, no simple matters of right or wrong. Our homegrown version of the Moral Majority talks taxpayers' cash and envy and fear and profound
[PEN-L] Paul Craig Roberts on the dollar
Paul Craig Roberts writes: In the post World War II period, the dollar took over the reserve currency role from the British pound, because the supremacy of US manufacturing guaranteed US trade surpluses. The British pound lost its role due to debts of two world wars, loss of empire, a run down industrial base, and socialist attack on UK business. How did the socialists attack UK business? Bill
Re: [PEN-L] Paul Craig Roberts on the dollar
They nationalized some companies, though mostly the lemons (hence the term lemon socialism--the companies that lost money). Far-seeing businesspeople acquiescenced in this takeover--if a business was essential to the national well-being and lost money, it was better to have the government run it. But others stood firm on ideological grounds. Any socialism--lemon or otherwise--was an unaccaptable assault on British capital. Joel Blau Original Message: - From: Bill Lear [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Wed, 17 Nov 2004 08:56:58 -0600 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Paul Craig Roberts on the dollar Paul Craig Roberts writes: In the post World War II period, the dollar took over the reserve currency role from the British pound, because the supremacy of US manufacturing guaranteed US trade surpluses. The British pound lost its role due to debts of two world wars, loss of empire, a run down industrial base, and socialist attack on UK business. How did the socialists attack UK business? Bill mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ .
Re: [PEN-L] Paul Craig Roberts on the dollar
Not just establishment, very, very conservative -- almost an economic Buchananite. On Wed, Nov 17, 2004 at 09:59:49AM -0500, Louis Proyect wrote: Socialized medicine, one might guess. Despite being published by Counterpunch, the author is an establishment figure. -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: [PEN-L] question - differential exploitation
From: michael a. lebowitz Mon, 15 Nov 2004 --snip Well, there's a question that has me baffled! My google-search has yielded lots of differential exploitation of moths, fruit resources, blue crabs, even the commons--- ie., it must be a familiar concept in biology; but, I don't see any use of it before I used it in a paper on the limits of social democracy in 1991 as follows: ---snip Michael, its a splendid concept, both for theory and praxis. (I like to send you a piece having differential exploitation in it, but I dont have your email address - mine is gko15athotmail.com ) Gernot
Re: [PEN-L] Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
- Original Message - From: Patrick Bond [EMAIL PROTECTED] [snip] I am NOT at all surprised by his Shamanic interests. One day I will right an ethnography of the American Caucasian tribal pursuit of native wisdom. These kinds of seekers are a dime a dozen in Ecuador and much of the Andes--especially members from the California branch of the tribe. (I recently sourced a journo in the UK writing a piece on Shamanistic travel junkets, that folks are dropping upwards of $5k for two weeks of visioning !). So I don't think his other stuff discredits his present work. (It is disappointing to hedge a bet that the Marxist/materialist blinders would lead one to think that EHM was a hoax, because he's a new-ager. That may help explain, sadly, why the US-left may never win hearts and minds of Christian-middle-America...woe to us all.) I think the best thing to do is just show that video with him and Rogoff! - The confluence of financiers getting stoned and becoming enchanted with cultures they were fleecing is pretty old, no? I think the guy who was the model for a lot of baby boomers was R. Gordon Wasson, an international banker who, after having ingested a bunch of psylocibin in Mexico, wrote a big piece in Life magazine that attracted the attention of Timothy Leary. When Leary was in upstate NY he became buddies with a guy named Billy Hitchcock who took LSD not necessarily to gain metaphysical insights but rather with the goal of how can I make more money on the stock market. Thus psychedelics, libertarianism and capitalism became an exit for some of the elites from the banalities of the Cold War. One other guy who was pretty instrumental was Willis Harman at Stanford who also mentored...David Korten.
[PEN-L] The Secret War
Title: Message The Secret War Frustrated by intelligence failures, the Defense Department is dramatically expanding its `black world' of covert operations by William M. Arkin 27 October 2002 Los Angeles Times SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. -- In what may well be the largest expansion of covert action by the armed forces since the Vietnam era, the Bush administration has turned to what the Pentagon calls the "black world" to press the war on terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The Defense Department is building up an elite secret army with resources stretching across the full spectrum of covert capabilities. New organizations are being created. The missions of existing units are being revised. Spy planes and ships are being assigned new missions in anti-terror and monitoring the "axis of evil." The increasingly dominant role of the military, Pentagon officials say, reflects frustration at the highest levels of government with the performance of the intelligence community, law enforcement agencies and much of the burgeoning homeland security apparatus. It also reflects the desire of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to gain greater overall control of the war on terror. Insulated from outside pressures, armed with matchless weapons and technology, trained to operate below the shadow line, the Pentagon's black world of classified operations holds out the hope of swift, decisive action in a struggle against terrorism that often looks more like a family feud than a war. Coupled with the enormous effort being made throughout the government to improve and link information networks and databases, covert anti-terror operations promise to put better information in the hands of streamlined military teams that can identify, monitor and neutralize terrorist threats. "Prevention and preemption are ... the only defense against terrorism," Rumsfeld said in May. "Our task is to find and destroy the enemy before they strike us." The new apparatus for covert operations and the growing government secrecy associated with the war on terrorism reflect the way the Bush administration's most senior officials see today's world: First, they see fighting terrorism and its challenge to U.S. interests and values as the 21st century equivalent of the Cold War crusade against communism. Second, they believe the magnitude of the threat requires, and thus justifies, aggressive new "off-the-books" tactics. In their understandable frustration over continued atrocities such as the recent Bali attack, however, U.S. officials might keep two points in mind. Though covert action can bring quick results, because it is isolated from the normal review processes it can just as quickly bring mistakes and larger problems. Also, the Pentagon is every bit as capable as the civilian side of the government when it comes to creating organization charts and bureaucracy that stifle creative thinking and timely action. The development of the Pentagon's covert counter-terror capability has its roots in the 1979 Iran hostage crisis. The Army created a highly compartmentalized organization that could collect clandestine intelligence independent of the rest of the U.S. intelligence community and follow through with covert military action. Known as the Intelligence Support Activity, or ISA, when it was established in 1981, this unit fought in drug wars and counter-terror operations from the Middle East to South America. It built a reputation for daring, flexibility and a degree of lawlessness. In May 1982, Deputy Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci called the ISA "uncoordinated and uncontrolled." Though its freelance tendencies were curbed, the ISA continued to operate under different guises through the ill-starred U.S. involvement in Somalia in 1992 and was reportedly active in the hunt for Bosnian Serbs suspected of war crimes. Today, the ISA operates under the code name Gray Fox. In addition to covert operations, it provides the war on terrorism with the kind of so-called "close-in" signals monitoring -- including the interception of cell phone conversations -- that helped bring down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. Gray Fox's low-profile eavesdropping planes also fly without military markings. Working closely with Special Forces and the CIA, Gray Fox also places operatives inside hostile territory. In and around Afghanistan, Gray Fox was part of a secret sphere that included the CIA's paramilitary Special Activities Division and the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command. These commands and "white" Special Forces like the Green Berets, as well
[PEN-L] URGENT: Stop GERMAN NAZI SCHWARZENEGGER before it is too late!
Title: Message This is an exchange from Marxmail around a parody-comment I wrote about the hysterical character of much of the liberal campaigning in 2004, which may actually have contributed a little to their defeat. I am certain that all the yelling about Bush's "stupidity" was counterproductive for Kerry. Bush is actually a practical, sly, and competent demagogue with a pseudo-populist style (like Clinton).I am sure that the claims of stupidity were popularly and correctly taken as snobbery towards the "common man" except in places where Bush had already become actively hated. At any rate, it turned into an exchange with Lueko Willms, a German activist, which took up in a half-parodic form, some of the reactionary grooves that liberal hysteria-mongering (like any other kind) can flow into. Fred Feldman The Change-Links list in LA carried a letter about Arnold Schwarzenegger's attempt to rally support for changing the US constitution so he can run for president in 2008. The Change-Links list included a crew of ferocious Nader-baiters. The most aggressive was a guy who voted for Nader in 2000 but was blinded by the light on the road to Damascus after Gore's defeat and became a frenzied Nader-hater thereafter. There's no denying that this individual definitely should have voted for Gore, but why Nader, who did not care nearly so much about who won, was to blame for his not doing so was never clear to me. Early in the campaign, I wrote a letter to Change-Links suggesting that if they and other Democrats didn't stop concentrating their fire on Nader, they would be very sad bunnies come November, But who listens? This just demonstrated that Kerry supporters could be as sectarian in their way as as the most far-out leftist. Anyway, this begins with the letter I wrote to them about the danger that Schwarzenegger, whose father was a supporter of the Nazi party at one time (invariably cited by his left-liberal critics as though it proves something or other), may be elected in 2008. Fred Feldman Stop GERMAN NAZI SCHWARZENEGGER before it's too late! by Fred Feldman Ah, Arnold for President. Just what this list needs for 2008. Think of all the scapegoating and sectarian screaming that contributors to this list could pour our with an actual real live German Nazi running for President on the Republican ticket. There were many more scapegoats for supporters of the Democrats in 2004 than in 2000, although I am sure that Nader will not be left out. This time the Democrats were defeated by the Gays. They forgot about the needs of the country for a Democratic President at all costs and pushed for more rights! Next time they better shut up tight! And the women who kept pushing for their right to abortion and pressuring politicians to support it? NEVER AGAIN! No more divisive defense of women's rights. We've got to elect a Democrat, OR THIS TIME IT REALLY WILL BE THE END! A GERMAN NAZI FOR GODS' SAKE!! Have feminists and gays no decency. I'll bet you will find some Republican money going into their efforts. Keep digging, you'll find it. And what about the Iraq war? Poor Kerry, the latest victim of treason from the ranks of the left, kept trying to sell himself to the Red States as a war candidate, and he was perfectly sincere, too. Who sabotaged his efforts? Those who thought the war was still an issue when the only issue was to STOP THE REPUBLICAN! About half of his organizing base marched against the war in Iraq in New York, thus making him look like an antiwar candidate to prowar people, while antiwar people knew his real position.! Never again. With AN ACTUAL HONEST TO GOD GERMAN NAZI RUNNING, we will have to learn to once and for all to drop EVERYTHING and support the Democrat as he tries to stay as far to the right of us as possible! No more protesting the war! And did all of us remember to go to church every Sunday (including the Jews and Muslims -- we all have to make sacrifices when the stakes are so high)? No, we didn't (and not just the Jews and Muslims, either). More ammunition for the Red State Republicans. AND WITH A GERMAN NAZI POISED TO TAKE OVER THE COUNTRY, I sure hope we learn our lesson. The ENEMY is US! Only by helping the Democrats to defeat US can we save the nation from HERR SCHWARZENEGGER, THE FIENDISH GERMAN NAZI! Fred Feldman Response by Lueko Willms: Actually, Schwarzenegger is from Austria. Reply by Fred Feldman: How can you torment me with technicalities when A GERMAN NAZI IS MARCHING ON THE WHITE HOUSE! Anyway, it's about BLOOD, NOT BORDERS! Response by Lueko Willms: Look, Fred, there are three colors in your answer: brown, white, and red. What flag is that? There is no flag which has brown in its colors, so we are left with white and red, and these are Austria's colors. Q.e.d. BTW, marching ... as a German Nazi he must be marching by a strong Prussian "Stechschritt", or goosestop, as
[PEN-L] Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Encompassing elements of Patrick O'Brian's first and final novels, Peter Weir's exciting but reactionary Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World might strike one as the dialectical opposite of Herman Melville's sea-going tales. Melville's anti-authoritarianism and sympathy for workers and indigenous peoples is turned on its head. In Weir's film, the sailors and the native peoples recede into the background, while the officers and their reactionary values are basked in a kind of halo. This is all the more surprising given Weir's history as a critic of the military-imperial ethos in Gallipoli. Starring Russell Crowe as Captain Jack Aubrey, Master and Commander takes place mostly on the waters and islands of the Atlantic and Pacific as he pursues a much larger and better armed French warship in 1805 during the Napoleonic wars. The film begins with a surprise attack on Aubrey's ship and concludes with his revenge. Since this period is so remote from 20th century WWII and Cold War semiotics, it by no means can serve as a facile propaganda piece for Anglo-American imperialism. Indeed, O'Brian's The Far Side of the World pitted Aubrey against American warships during the war of 1812. By substituting the French for the Yankees, Weir makes the film more commercially viable although by no means more relevant to a modern audience's thirst for easily recognizable villains. Indeed, after Aubrey's ship is nearly blown to bits in the opening scene, he confides to his fellow officers that the French were more skillful than they were, as if discussing a football match on the following Monday morning. In the climax of the film, Aubrey rouses his men with the cry, Do you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly? Do you want your children to grow up singing the 'Marseillaise'? Oddly enough, this evokes the climactic scene in Shakespeare's Henry V, when the British monarch also leads his troops into battle against a far larger French army: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. You might recall that military historian and plagiarist Stephen Ambrose wrote a book titled Band of Brothers that like all his books put forward an old-fashioned defense of martial values. Ambrose served as a consultant for Stephen Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan. In addition, Spielberg directed a TV movie based on Band of Brothers. The affinity between O'Brian, Ambrose and Spielberg should be obvious. In contrast to Melville in the 19th century, who lashed out at military injustice in Billy Budd, and Joseph Heller, whose Catch 22 made WWII look like the hellish madness that it was, they seek to restore war-making to the glory it once enjoyed. War-making of course requires blind obedience. In Master and Commander, the midshipman Hollum (Lee Ingleby) has lost the respect of his men, who view his youthful sensitivity as a weakness. When one of the crew jostles Hollum as he passes by him on deck, Aubrey has the man whipped in full view of the rest of the crew. Aubrey correctly observes that it is necessary to use corporal punishment as a way of maintaining discipline since the rank-and-file have little sense of Britain's imperial calling. What brought them into battle during the reign of Henry V and the Napoleonic wars was cold cash, just as is the case in Iraq today. A character like Hollum showed up in Saving Private Ryan. Corporal Upham, a translator, is not like the rest of the soldiers. He is a not a killing-machine, but a hesitant intellectual. When he is swept up in a hand-to-hand battle between a fellow soldier and a Nazi, he is reduced to a fearful puddle of tears and an object of contempt in the audience's eyes. Clearly, he is not made of the same mettle as those who took snapshots at Abu Ghraib or who put a bullet into a helpless, wounded Iraqi insurgent. In contrast to Aubrey, the ship's doctor is a man of breeding and sensitivity, but far more useful in the scheme of things than the feckless Hollum. Whatever his reservations about Aubrey's crusade, he knows how to stitch a wound (the film includes gruesome but realistic scenes of on-board surgery.) Played by Paul Bettany, Dr. Stephen Maturin is not afraid to raise criticisms of his friend and commanding officer's relentless, Ahab-like drive to track down and destroy the French warship. Ultimately, however, it is Aubrey's bullheadedness that prevails. Of some interest is Maturin's avocation for collecting plants and animals during stopovers on the remote Pacific islands, where indigenous peoples are depicted as grinning, gift-bearing bumpkins out of 1950s National Geographic magazine. His passion appears totally
[PEN-L] Pat Leahy likes Alberto Gonzalez
NY Times, November 17, 2004 Leading Democrat Senator Won't Block Confirmation of Gonzales By DAVID STOUT WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - President Bush's nominee for attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, was all but guaranteed Senate confirmation today when a leading Democrat expressed fondness for the nominee and signaled that he would not stand in his way. I like him, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the leading Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said today after a closed meeting with Mr. Gonzales, whom he has known as White House counsel. I said jokingly that the president, with the majority he has in the Senate, could have sent up Attila the Hun and got him confirmed, Mr. Leahy said. But Judge Gonzales is no Attila the Hun; he's far from that, and he's a more uniting figure. full: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/politics/17cnd-couns.html -- The Marxism list: www.marxmail.org
Re: [PEN-L] Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
Louis Proyect writes: In the climax of the film, Aubrey rouses his men with the cry, Do you want to see a guillotine in Piccadilly? Do you want your children to grow up singing the 'Marseillaise'? Oddly enough, this evokes the climactic scene in Shakespeare's Henry V, when the British monarch also leads his troops into battle against a far larger French army: We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; For he to-day that sheds his blood with me Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, This day shall gentle his condition: And gentlemen in England now a-bed Shall think themselves accursed they were not here, And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day. Note that Shakespeare's Henry V, speaks not in French-fearing or French-hating terms, but in what were for those days, social-democratic terms. The yeomen who fight with him and his nobles raise themselves above those of higher status who did not volunteer by their participation. And more than that, there is the suggested bribe: This day shall gentle his condition. And the Shakespeare Henry V, if not the real one (and my reading of the life of the real one suggests that he would have followed this wise course), would certainly listen sympathetically the the appeals of a yeoman who fought with him that day. The Shakespeare speech, which I still repeat to myself when I go into battle in this or that tight situation, is populist and Not explicitly chauvinist (though it is clearly nationalistic in its appeal). Anti-slacker-Lords, not anti-French. (As the years go on, I remember this line more and more: Old men forget, but he'll remember, with advantages, what feats he did that day.) Its worth remembering that this Henry denies hating France, saying something like, Why I love France so that I will not part with an inch of her (remembered quote). While Henry's claim to France is purely dynastic and legally absurd (as Shakespeare and Branagh, but not the great Olivier, show), his appeal to the troops is nationalist and populist, but certainly not racist. (Shakespeare and Branagh do cover up the slaughter of the prisoners of Agincourt, by Henry V's troops -- the only sane explanation of the wild disparity in the totals of French and British slain that they report. Instead, they focus on an alleged slaughter by the French of the children who guard the English baggage. I was not angry ere now! fumes the outraged Henry. It is expressly against the very laws of war, ruminates his fellow Welshman Fluellen.) You can miss all this in Olivier's very beautiful but heavily edited Henry V film, which, unlike Branagh's version, was made to fuel British war fever in the wake of the Battle of Britain. Kenneth Branagh (faithful to Shakespeare, I think, in this regard) captures Henry as popular demagogue of the developing new monarchy (Bolingbroke, and later Tudor) where the King attempts to present himself as the 'people's King. Even his image as a former tavern drunkard and whore-chaser with Falstaff and the gang is part of the populist image. This is Branagh's finest hour, to my knowledge, especially such moments as a sobbing exhausted Henry embracing his Welsh captain-of-arms Fluellen and proclaiming, I, too, am Welsh after the victory. Great moment. Very moving. And politically very profound. It is very important that a good demagogue COMPLETELY BELIEVE what he says when he says it. Demagogues who are true cynics, like McCarthy, are second rate and tend to fall by the wayside with the first setback. Henry V represents a different kind of political rule than his predecessors, in a society that is becoming less purely feudal -- a society changed by the consequences, which include more than the defeat, of Wat Tyler's peasant rebellion and the subsequent fall of the Norman-Plantagenet Richard II. Fred Feldman
[PEN-L] democrat/liar
Today at basketball, there was a dispute about a foul. When I made my case, a young man, whose father is a fundamentalist preacher said that I was a liar because I was a Democrat. He knows nothing about politics, but just assimilates stuff like that. When someone fell a few weeks ago, his father said that the person on the ground was a flip-flopper, like Kerry. I found this incident interesting because it suggest how difficult it is to get working class people to understand what is going on. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
[PEN-L] on the subject of China
China to invest $20 billion in Argentina Wednesday, November 17,2004 BUENOS AIRES: China's President Hu Jintao and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner signed cooperation agreements as Chinese companies pledged investments of 20 billion dollars. Chinese companies would develop railway and aerospace projects and send tourists to the South American country on holiday packages. The goals will be to strengthen strategic cooperation and continue the firm reciprocal support in terms of sovereignty, such as the territorial integrity of both countries, Hu said through an interpreter. Lo Fong Hung, chief executive of the China Construction Bureau, said during a ceremony that 20 billion dollars would be invested in Argentina. Some eight billion dollars would finance urban and interurban railways and five billion dollars would be invested in fossil fuels over five years, according to Argentine officials. Another six billion would build 300,000 homes and other infrastructure projects, such as 450 million in communications and 260 million in satellite technology. Welcomed by dozens of children waving the two countries' flags at Buenos Aires airport, Hu and his official delegation took a 50-car convoy into the capital ahead of meeting Kirchner. Argentina laid out maximum civilian and military honors for the visit with a cavalry guard escorting Hu and his wife, Liu Yongqing to the government headquarters. Hu has sought to use this Latin American tour -- ahead of a major Asia-Pacific leaders' summit in Santiago this week -- to extend China's economic reach in the region. Argentina has been desperate to attract new investment since its spectacular default on its foreign debt in 2001. Hu said the accords were intended to strengthen strategic cooperation. The two governments are going to stimulate enterprises to increase initiatives in the agro-food, industrial, mining and infrastructure sectors, said the Chinese leader after signing the accord. One poll published Tuesday said 78 percent of Argentines believe the economic agreements will be important to help Argentina's efforts to escape its economic crisis. In Brazil, where he spent five days, Hu secured recognition from the government that China is a market economy which helps its case in international anti-dumping disputes. In exchange, Brazil obtained greater access to the Chinese market for its beef and poultry industry, as well as a 200 million dollar order for at least 10 Embraer airplanes. Hu was expected to seek the same concession from Argentina. As in Brazil this has caused concern in Argentina that such a move could weaken Argentina's defenses against a flood of Chinese goods. It is impossible to compete with China equally, said Aldo Karagosian, who heads Argentina's textile industry federation. We fear an avalanche of Chinese products. On Wednesday, Hu will meet the Supreme Court president and the mayor of Buenos Aires before heading to San Carlos de Bariloche in the foothills of the Patagonian Andes for a private visit. Hu will leave Argentina on Thursday for the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Santiago. Trade between China and Argentina reached 2.6 billion dollars between January-October. But it favored Argentina whose exports reached 2.1 billion dollars -- more than 80 percent of that in soy exports. http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=161617category=FrontendCountry=world# AFP | REUTERS | xxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor Comparative International Development South Asian and International Studies Programs University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA Phone: (253) 692-4462 Fax : (253) 692-5718 xxx
Re: [PEN-L] Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
From: Patrick Bond [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... It is disappointing to hedge a bet that the Marxist/materialist blinders would lead one to think that EHM was a hoax, because he's a new-ager. That may help explain, sadly, why the US-left may never win hearts and minds of Christian-middle-America...woe to us all... FWIW, one of the few things that the US Left shares with Christian middle Americans is a disdain for New Age religion. The exception is those members of the US left who are also New Agers. On the other hand, Christians -- especially the evangelistic type -- really hate New Age religion, seeing it as pagan. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [PEN-L] in hock to the Chinese
I do not see the situation as the U.S. in hock to or dependent on China. One could just as well see the situation as the Chinese are dependent on a steady flow of FDI, increasingly from the U.S., and access to the U.S. market which is where a growing percentage of their output is going. The more important thing is that workers in both countries are increasingly being emeshed in a accumulation dynamic that is destructive of working and living conditions. The U.S. needs Chinese capital to keep growing (and that growth is doing less and less for working people) and China needs fdi directed at the U.S. market to keep growing (and that growth is doing less and less for working people) and the growth process is leading to greater and greater imbalances. Not a good situation. Marty Hart-Landsberg On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Chris Burford wrote: The magnitude of what has happened is scarcely comprehensible. This regime has placed the USA in hock to the Chinese. All the more serious because the Chinese, drawing on 2000 years of culturally rich tactical and strategic approaches, will not overplay their hand prematurely. They will be sure not to lose this strategic advantage. They are in a sense drawing the USA into the orbit of the Middle Kingdom in a world of advanced finance capitalism. The fly is caught in the mesh. Chris Burford Mike Friedman wrote: Dollar's Decline Is Reverberating Sun Nov 14, 7:55 AM ET By David Streitfeld Times Staff Writer During a routine sale of U.S. Treasury bonds in early September, one of the essential pillars holding up the economy suddenly disappeared. Foreigners have been regularly buying nearly half of all debt issued by the U.S. government. On Sept. 9, for the first time that anyone could remember, they stayed home.
Re: [PEN-L] on the subject of China
Yes CNN are just running an interview with Lagos of Chile, following the signing of an agreement with China. I could not quite understand what was being said about APEC. At first it seems intuitively strange to think of a free trade area, even one that takes 20 years to develop that actually straddles the Pacific. South East Asia, yes, but across the Pacific ...? Yet here in this clip below is further evidence that China is planting its feet strategically in Latin America. To outflank the USA? To start to add a few more threads around the web in which the fly has already been caught? After all, if China is trying to get rid of capital, in order to keep the exchange rate of the yuan low, it only has to have a relatively benign official public policy, to start investing in Latin America, as conscientiously as the British did in the 19th century, quietly to build up a dominant stakeholding over a decade or two. How could the USA object to this pleasant offer below that the poor Chinese will generously help tourism and rail travel in Argentina? Chris Burford London - Original Message - From: Anthony D'Costa [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 10:48 PM Subject: [PEN-L] on the subject of China China to invest $20 billion in Argentina Wednesday, November 17,2004 BUENOS AIRES: China's President Hu Jintao and Argentine President Nestor Kirchner signed cooperation agreements as Chinese companies pledged investments of 20 billion dollars. Chinese companies would develop railway and aerospace projects and send tourists to the South American country on holiday packages. The goals will be to strengthen strategic cooperation and continue the firm reciprocal support in terms of sovereignty, such as the territorial integrity of both countries, Hu said through an interpreter. Lo Fong Hung, chief executive of the China Construction Bureau, said during a ceremony that 20 billion dollars would be invested in Argentina. Some eight billion dollars would finance urban and interurban railways and five billion dollars would be invested in fossil fuels over five years, according to Argentine officials. Another six billion would build 300,000 homes and other infrastructure projects, such as 450 million in communications and 260 million in satellite technology. Welcomed by dozens of children waving the two countries' flags at Buenos Aires airport, Hu and his official delegation took a 50-car convoy into the capital ahead of meeting Kirchner. Argentina laid out maximum civilian and military honors for the visit with a cavalry guard escorting Hu and his wife, Liu Yongqing to the government headquarters. Hu has sought to use this Latin American tour -- ahead of a major Asia-Pacific leaders' summit in Santiago this week -- to extend China's economic reach in the region. Argentina has been desperate to attract new investment since its spectacular default on its foreign debt in 2001. Hu said the accords were intended to strengthen strategic cooperation. The two governments are going to stimulate enterprises to increase initiatives in the agro-food, industrial, mining and infrastructure sectors, said the Chinese leader after signing the accord. One poll published Tuesday said 78 percent of Argentines believe the economic agreements will be important to help Argentina's efforts to escape its economic crisis. In Brazil, where he spent five days, Hu secured recognition from the government that China is a market economy which helps its case in international anti-dumping disputes. In exchange, Brazil obtained greater access to the Chinese market for its beef and poultry industry, as well as a 200 million dollar order for at least 10 Embraer airplanes. Hu was expected to seek the same concession from Argentina. As in Brazil this has caused concern in Argentina that such a move could weaken Argentina's defenses against a flood of Chinese goods. It is impossible to compete with China equally, said Aldo Karagosian, who heads Argentina's textile industry federation. We fear an avalanche of Chinese products. On Wednesday, Hu will meet the Supreme Court president and the mayor of Buenos Aires before heading to San Carlos de Bariloche in the foothills of the Patagonian Andes for a private visit. Hu will leave Argentina on Thursday for the annual summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Santiago. Trade between China and Argentina reached 2.6 billion dollars between January-October. But it favored Argentina whose exports reached 2.1 billion dollars -- more than 80 percent of that in soy exports. http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=161617category=FrontendCountry=world# AFP | REUTERS | xxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor Comparative International Development South Asian and International Studies Programs University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA
Re: [PEN-L] in hock to the Chinese
I can see how the enmeshments could on both sides lead to instability and vulnerability. But I am having a hard time imagining how the Chinese are not benefiting from this massive growth. Perhaps if we broke down the beneficiaries (in class terms if you like or by residency and age) we will get a variegated picture but I think on the whole the Chinese workers are doing economically well, compared to its own history and relative to others. One young Chinese student commented if I expected the Chinese to remain poor! As for the circuits of capital, China is playing pretty much the same game. It must, the rules dictate it. So I would agree with Marty that China is a capitalist roader in a trajectory sense. What it does later and whether it actually does are different issues. And on a remotely related note, the report on China and the textile quotas going away there was not one mention of Indian exports. I might add that even businesses in India (esp the smaller ones were already shivering with fright). But India is a large exporter. Low costs are to China's advantage but why not India's? My understanding is that it has to do with production knowledge and logistics of volume production. On these China is ahead in the textile game. Cheers, anthony xxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor Comparative International Development South Asian and International Studies Programs University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA Phone: (253) 692-4462 Fax : (253) 692-5718 xxx On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: I do not see the situation as the U.S. in hock to or dependent on China. One could just as well see the situation as the Chinese are dependent on a steady flow of FDI, increasingly from the U.S., and access to the U.S. market which is where a growing percentage of their output is going. The more important thing is that workers in both countries are increasingly being emeshed in a accumulation dynamic that is destructive of working and living conditions. The U.S. needs Chinese capital to keep growing (and that growth is doing less and less for working people) and China needs fdi directed at the U.S. market to keep growing (and that growth is doing less and less for working people) and the growth process is leading to greater and greater imbalances. Not a good situation. Marty Hart-Landsberg On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Chris Burford wrote: The magnitude of what has happened is scarcely comprehensible. This regime has placed the USA in hock to the Chinese. All the more serious because the Chinese, drawing on 2000 years of culturally rich tactical and strategic approaches, will not overplay their hand prematurely. They will be sure not to lose this strategic advantage. They are in a sense drawing the USA into the orbit of the Middle Kingdom in a world of advanced finance capitalism. The fly is caught in the mesh. Chris Burford Mike Friedman wrote: Dollar's Decline Is Reverberating Sun Nov 14, 7:55 AM ET By David Streitfeld Times Staff Writer During a routine sale of U.S. Treasury bonds in early September, one of the essential pillars holding up the economy suddenly disappeared. Foreigners have been regularly buying nearly half of all debt issued by the U.S. government. On Sept. 9, for the first time that anyone could remember, they stayed home.
Re: [PEN-L] Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
On Nov 17, 2004, at 3:37 PM, Devine, James wrote: From: Patrick Bond [EMAIL PROTECTED] ... It is disappointing to hedge a bet that the Marxist/materialist blinders would lead one to think that EHM was a hoax, because he's a new-ager. That may help explain, sadly, why the US-left may never win hearts and minds of Christian-middle-America...woe to us all... FWIW, one of the few things that the US Left shares with Christian middle Americans is a disdain for New Age religion. The exception is those members of the US left who are also New Agers. On the other hand, Christians -- especially the evangelistic type -- really hate New Age religion, seeing it as pagan. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] Here's a song I wrote over the years (there are three first stanzas depending on who was president). Enjoy. Dan Scanlan I Think Ill Stay Home And Get Centered 1991, 1993, 2001 Dan Scanlan (1) There's a CIA, drug runnin', oil baron banker in the White House... (2) Theres a two-faced, non-inhalin, cult-killin', World Bank shill in the White House... (3) There's a born-again, smirk-faced, daddy's little coke freak in the White House Sold out donkeys and treacherous lackeys populate the Senate and the House And the cops in LA with a straight of four clubs beat on a King on his back While media-made dullards yahoo with their flags the massacre of Iraq. I think Ill stay home, I think Ill stay home, I think Ill stay home And get centered. The Kuwaiti emir cried a big tear when his gold bathroom faucet was plunder I know how he feels, I had a few bucks in an SL thats gone under My dads pension plan went belly-up on the whim of a legislative dolt While army storm troopers dropped from the sky in Panama, Iraq Humbolt. I think Ill stay home, I think Ill stay home, I think Ill stay home And get centered. Ill hide my head in the sand to my fill and in private take stock of my Karma Ill stall my demise with a homeopath pill and stake out a plot in Nirvana The couch potato hugs a beer in his hand, hes numb in his new world confusion But Ive taken worshops all over this land, Ive got a good hold on illusion I think Ill stay home, I think Ill stay home, I think Ill stay home And get centered. Cop cars screech U-turns at Broad Street and Pine While garbage slingin supervisors make skate boards a crime A new jail at the top of the old sewer line, now thats pushin our luck Kinda like haulin our wealth and our health on a Robinson Timber truck I think Ill stay home, I think Ill stay home, I think Ill stay home And get centered. I think Ill say O-m-m-m-m-m.
Re: [PEN-L] in hock to the Chinese
The issue here is whether Chinese workers are benefiting from this ongoing shift to a foreign driven export led growth model. I certainly agree that there is a rising middle and upper class that is enjoying great new wealth. And I also agree that China at the end of the Mao period was in need of change. But it is my impression from reading and talking to labor analysts and activists in Hong Kong and totally unrepresentative visits to China, that while many working people probably did benefit from the early stage of reforms, that is no longer the case. In fact almost as staggering as the gains in output are the losses of health care, pensions, education etc. for the great majority of workers. In fact, not only are Chinese workers low wage in general, most of them do not even get paid what they are supposed to be paid. There are increasing numbers of strikes, especially by the migrant work workforce over non-payment of wages. There are also increasingly organized protests by state workers over pension non-payment. So, behind my statement is a sense that working and living conditions are now on the downslide for many workers. Again, I am not saying that real production is not taking place in China or that a significant minority of people are not enjoying new wealth. But rather that economic dynamics are not favorable for a majority of working people. Income may have gone up, but the marketization of health care, pensions, education, housing etc. means that for growing numbers that money does not buy what it might seem. And, the process under way in China is likely to intensify pressures on workers to work harder, under unsafe conditions and for little if any gain. That is separate from the question of the sustainability of China's growth. Marty On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Anthony D'Costa wrote: I can see how the enmeshments could on both sides lead to instability and vulnerability. But I am having a hard time imagining how the Chinese are not benefiting from this massive growth. Perhaps if we broke down the beneficiaries (in class terms if you like or by residency and age) we will get a variegated picture but I think on the whole the Chinese workers are doing economically well, compared to its own history and relative to others. One young Chinese student commented if I expected the Chinese to remain poor! As for the circuits of capital, China is playing pretty much the same game. It must, the rules dictate it. So I would agree with Marty that China is a capitalist roader in a trajectory sense. What it does later and whether it actually does are different issues. And on a remotely related note, the report on China and the textile quotas going away there was not one mention of Indian exports. I might add that even businesses in India (esp the smaller ones were already shivering with fright). But India is a large exporter. Low costs are to China's advantage but why not India's? My understanding is that it has to do with production knowledge and logistics of volume production. On these China is ahead in the textile game. Cheers, anthony xxx Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor Comparative International Development South Asian and International Studies Programs University of WashingtonCampus Box 358436 1900 Commerce Street Tacoma, WA 98402, USA Phone: (253) 692-4462 Fax : (253) 692-5718 xxx On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Martin Hart-Landsberg wrote: I do not see the situation as the U.S. in hock to or dependent on China. One could just as well see the situation as the Chinese are dependent on a steady flow of FDI, increasingly from the U.S., and access to the U.S. market which is where a growing percentage of their output is going. The more important thing is that workers in both countries are increasingly being emeshed in a accumulation dynamic that is destructive of working and living conditions. The U.S. needs Chinese capital to keep growing (and that growth is doing less and less for working people) and China needs fdi directed at the U.S. market to keep growing (and that growth is doing less and less for working people) and the growth process is leading to greater and greater imbalances. Not a good situation. Marty Hart-Landsberg On Wed, 17 Nov 2004, Chris Burford wrote: The magnitude of what has happened is scarcely comprehensible. This regime has placed the USA in hock to the Chinese. All the more serious because the Chinese, drawing on 2000 years of culturally rich tactical and strategic approaches, will not overplay their hand prematurely. They will be sure not to lose this strategic advantage. They are in a sense drawing the USA into the orbit of the Middle Kingdom in a world of advanced finance capitalism. The fly is caught in the
Re: [PEN-L] Pat Leahy likes Alberto Gonzalez
[EMAIL PROTECTED] 11/17/04 4:23 PM NY Times, November 17, 2004 Leading Democrat Senator Won't Block Confirmation of Gonzales By DAVID STOUT WASHINGTON, Nov. 17 - President Bush's nominee for attorney general, Alberto R. Gonzales, was all but guaranteed Senate confirmation today when a leading Democrat expressed fondness for the nominee and signaled that he would not stand in his way. I like him, Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the leading Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said today after a closed meeting with Mr. Gonzales, whom he has known as White House counsel. no surprise re. above, leahy helped confirm all but a couple of bush's 100 or so appt's during time he was judiciary chair - from when vermont's jeffords became independent in spring 2001 until 2002 elections when reps regained senate control... one ostensible 'lesson' dems have learned from 2004 election is do not filibuster, some believe that daschle lost his seat because of this.. dems only blocked a few appts, compare to reps and clinton appts, they held up so many that number of vacancies led rehnquist to complain about stalling tactics... below is different view of gonzalez: November 14, 2004 A CALL FOR FULL SENATORIAL INQUIRY AND INVESTIGATION OF ALBERTO GONZALEZ To: ALL MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE A petition to immediately, and without delay, open an investigation into the history and character of Alberto Gonzales to determine his qualifications and suitability for the position of U.S. Attorney General. We, the undersigned citizens of the United States, find Alberto Gonzalez an unacceptable candidate for Attorney General of the United States for the following reasons and wish you to pursue an investigation relative to: -Alberto Gonzales' involvement with the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, in which Mr.Gonzales did advise the President and direct the Pentagon to disregard international treaties like the Geneva Convention and to conduct war in violation of International and Federal law; -Alberto Gonzales' involvement with Vice-President Cheney's Energy Commission meetings, whereby through Mr.Gonzalez' efforts, such meetings have been kept secret and out of the scrutiny of the public eye; -Alberto Gonzales' knowledge of the leaking of CIA Agent Valerie Plame's name to the public in violation of Federal law, whereby no resolution or discovery has been provided despite clear cut lines of investigation; -Alberto Gonzales' history of accepting contributions from large corporations such as Enron and Halliburton for his political efforts, and the subsequent overturning of legal cases in favor of said companies. It is further noted that Mr. Gonzalez was counsel to Enron for a period of approximately 13 years, and that said company is now bankrupt and accused of fraud and misconduct; -Alberto Gonzales' record as Chief Legal Counsel to then Texas Governor, George W. Bush. As a primary advisor to the Governor on the subject of Capital Punishment, we use as an example the State Execution of Terry Washington. Mr. Washington was a 33-year old mentally challenged man with the communication skills of a 7-year old boy. Alberto Gonzales failed to advise then Governor Bush that Mr. Washington's trial lawyer did NOT enlist a mental-health expert on Washington's behalf, in which he was entitled under a 1985 Supreme Court ruling. Mr. Gonzalez repeatedly and consistently failed to provide to the Governor all the necessary facts and relevant information required to render decisions in over one hundred death-penalty cases; -Finally, Mr. Gonzalez has never tried a civil or criminal case and does not have the prerequisite experience to perform the duties of Attorney General of the United States. We, the people, require an Attorney General who will be fair, competent, one who is without extremist and partisan views, and will serve at the will of the people. The Attorney General must uphold the law and not be subject to conflicts of interest with corporations and other special interests groups. This request for investigation of the facts listed above brings Mr. Gonzales' ability to assume the position of U.S. Attorney General into serious question. We, the undersigned, request that our elected Representatives act in accordance with the Constitution of the United States of America in a legal, impartial, and expedient manner, holding an open hearing and review before the people of the United States, on the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of U.S. Attorney General. We feel it is our patriotic duty to request such action from you and that you as our elected officials, have a duty to respond fully in a timely, responsible manner. -- Please Note: Due to Florida's very broad public records law, most written communications to or from College employees regarding College business are public records, available to the public and media upon request. Therefore,
[PEN-L] China again
Lester Brown visited our campus yesterday. He said that he had been asked before Nader to be the Green party candidate in 2000, but he declined. His statistics about China were frightening. 24,000 villages have been abandoned in the Northeast because of desertification. The water table at an alarming pace. I did not catch the exact statistic. Finally, he suggested that China's rapidly increasing imports of grain have the potential to price poor countries out of the market. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
Re: [PEN-L] overwork for gamers
Eubulides wrote: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-sweat17nov17,0,6197150.story?coll=la-home-business The love of my life comes home late at night complaining of a headache that will not go away and a chronically upset stomach, she wrote. My happy supportive smile is running out. Within 48 hours, ea_spouse had received more than 1,000 sympathetic responses - from colleagues of her fiance at Electronic Arts Inc. and from men and women across the fast-growing $25-billion video game industry. This is a vivid illustration of why I get so damned pissed off at leftists (and particularly leftists self-identified as marxists) who continually refer to the middle class and/or use the phrase working class only in reference to those who are in some sense manual workers. It's a careless habit that endlessly stands in the way of understanding what is going on in the u.s. today. Carrol
