Re: [PEN-L] tobin's q and oil again
This is forcing me to recap Bina's argument.. but that is not at all the case... all I meant to say vaguely however, is that I am impressed at how the US backed by the Saudis were capable of delinking oil pricing from the direct producer and to further deepen the divide between actual production conditions and finance.This serves the interests of global capital immensely. At one time it was said that the returns to the Saudi and Kuwaiti royal families etc was higher in the world stock markets than in their returns from oil. The decartelisation follows from the weakening of the oil countries joint political stand so as to diminish their sovereignty over their natural resources... Saudi Arabia as opposed to Iraq always made the argument for higher production and encouraged quota breaking because according to their silly argument higher oil prices will produce immediate alternative sources of energy in the West making their oil useless... they wanted to sell oil cheap and sell now, because the spending requirements on the inside were not so pressing as in more socilaised Iraq or Algeria and more importantly because the US dictated the Saudi policy line... between 1986 and 2002 Saudi real GDP per capita was negative three percent and about 20 % of the population lived below the national poverty line by about 2000.. but absolute repression and huge unquestionable income inequality allowed the country to export still billions of dollars in capital and its savings always exceeded its investment. The saying goes there are rich saudis but saudi Arabia is not rich. It is not only about oil per se though that is important. the US moved from influence to control over oil.. because the energy content from of still rising powers in the developing world is twice that of OECD. and at 10% of world trade dollarising oil is also relevant. but the control element is really the primary component. we will have to see from that how japan, germany and brasil enter the security council and in what capacity. i think the argument for oil in itself and oil as means for furthering controlcomes as a package. The worst argument however that comes out of pseudo progressive circles is an accounting argument which goes as follows, most trade and flows occur within the OECD and really there is no need to invade the third world.. the US and Europe did it out of ignorance or benevolence.. colonialism was costly to them. if you only explain things to them they will stop invading intervening and leave the third world to the dogs. jointly or separately, the west has to kill to live, be it by division of territory or by ultra imperialism. what the pricing in the dollar conceals value theory lays bare. They need the cheap people and they need the cheap resources badly from the very outset. they're making a killing not simply profits. Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Isn't this very similar to Cyrus Bina's explanation?On Fri, Jul 01, 2005 at 10:37:48PM -0700, soula avramidis wrote: Equalisation of the rate of profit made easy=or is fictitious capital formation weighing more heavily against the equalisation of the rate of profit? I think there is no escaping the former condition. Because in oil market for inst., the important fact is that the reference prices of oil those of WTI and Brent on which the pricing of all types of crude in international trade is either directly or indirectly based are determined in futures markets. Or, to be more precise, in a constellation of futures, spot, physical forward and derivative markets where, because of much greater liquidity, the US futures markets dominate and in the dollar. A factor which may have strengthened the move to higher prices relates to perceived differential rates of return from investment in different markets. Financial institutions, hedge funds and even some locals do not participate exclusively in oil markets. Most of them are participants in an array of financial markets (bonds, equities, foreign exchange, different primary commodities). They move funds between these markets in response to their views about possible differences in returns. The belief that the oil market may exhibit more tightness in the next few months which is indeed a belief that prices are likely to rise makes the oil market more attractive than, say, equities or bonds. Funds move to oil and seek to buy futures contracts. The rise in demand for these contracts naturally causes prices to rise by more than they would if there were less liquidity available. There are, therefore, second-order factors which magnify the impact of fundamental causes on prices. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com-- Michael PerelmanEconomics DepartmentCalifornia State UniversityChico, CA 95929Tel. 530-898-5321E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu Yahoo! Sports Rekindle the Rivalries. Sign
Re: [PEN-L] PK on China Challenge
I too was surprised about this angle, and I appreciate Jim's posting this important article, which caught my eye when copied into the International Herald Tribune which I get in London. There it was printed above another article also copied from the NYTimes, by Nicholas Kristof, who doesn't strike me as being particularly left-wing, entitled Playing into China's hands [June 28 edn] This starts The biggest risk we Americans face to our way of life and our place in the world probably doesn't come from Al Qaeda or the Iraq war. Rather, the biggest risk may come from this administration's fiscal recklessness and the way this is putting us in hock to China. My impression from a distance is that various voices are trying to create a liberal consensus, mainly by opportunist shifts of course, that will leave Bush relatively isolated and weak by the midterm elections. This could include appeals to selfish national factors, and even racism. I find Krugman's article more interesting for the details and the picture of how China is moving, almost amoeba-like now, to penetrate, and incorporate the USA into a world system open as much as possible to its influence. Remember China has a culture of continuous highly complex social consciousness, well before any claims to socialism (debatable though that is). It knows its massive inertia and momentum, and is relaxed enough to view its position in the world strategically. Among its cultural strengths is a sophisticated theory of managing conflict. It may use sudden dramatic confrontation or humiliation, as when they dismantled the high technology spy plane screw by screw soon after the start of Bush's first term and the neo-con suggestion that China was the US's main strategic opponent. But there is much in Chinese tradition about the merits of managing relations with significant others without direct confrontation but by careful manoeuvre. Reading Krugman's article it is possible to see the reasonable argument that China now owns so many US treasury bonds that it has successfully ensured itself against anti-Yuan speculation. Unless it is to stop balancing the payments exchanges by continued capital inflow, it must start turning to stocks. And the US would not like China to stop supporting the balance of payments all of a sudden would it?? ... And being Chinese they may think rather carefully about which stocks to buy and they may take the long term view . Including in a world in which there will be pressure on natural resources ... There are also interesting echoes in this article updating to my mind some of the arguments Lenin rehearsed in Imperialism - yes it is of great strategic importance in the era of finance capital still to secure access to resources and markets. But compared to 100 years ago it is cheaper and easier to do this through finance capitalist companies, than by warfare between states. Especially if Chinese culture anyway fosters a degree of collective cohesion and subtle centralised direction between these companies. China has two millennia of continuous culture without needing to build bourgeois civil society from scratch for purposes of social coherence. This enormous social value would be called by some today social capital. This, coupled with the massively growing accumulation of *finance capital* by the Chinese, is shifting the balance of forces in the world insidiously more dramatically than any dramatic shift of the tectonic plates can move a continent a few centimeters. And this is happening under the surface, while Bush and Blair posture for the moral ideological high ground over Africa and the environment, These issues are the ideological drapery for the enthronement of some sort of new world government. But who will have control of the money? Chris Burford PS CARTOON The accompanying cartoon in the IHT was particularly apposite, by Danziger. One letter change between Khruschev and Hu Jin Tao - BURY vs BUY Khruschev pounding his shoe at the UN shouting We will BURY you!! Hu Jin Tao, smiling like a young smart sales rep with his hands innocently behind his back, in front of a sign Red China - We will BUY you!! One letter difference, but if the Soviet Union had found a path to economic growth which did indeed overtake the west, and the Soviet Bloc had not collapsed, then we might well have faced this new phase of financial interdigitation by that route. (Of course the compromises the Chinese have made to reach the present remarkable situation are another matter And it has taken almost 50 years. But what is that in the lifetime of the human race? CB - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 4:35 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] PK on China Challenge The part that surprised me in Krugman's article was the final paragraph in which he revealed his preference for blocking China. In his pre-leftish phase, wasn't Krugman angry with
[PEN-L] Sandronsky's rant
The Spies of Mother's Day California Spying, Schwarzenegger-Style http://www.counterpunch.org/sandronsky07022005.html
