[PEN-L] Interesting comment on Whigs and Democrats
Posted to my blog by Owl: great post. I have unfortunately read Michael Holt's hagiographic and bloated/unedited "Rise and Fall of the American Whig Party." The similarities between the contemporary Democrats' capitulations, negotiations and cowardice is enlightening. Though Clay probably single-handedly held the party together, there were other notorious Whigs as well. I couldn't help but think of Joe Lieberman when I read about Daniel Webster, a northern/Boston Whig who early in his career denounced nullification, but eventually signed and supported the fugitive slave law of 1850, one of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed. Another similarity is the fact that the "soft" Whigs ran strong-men and generals for president half of the time: William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, and Winfield Scott were all generals known for their heroic slaughter of Indians and Mexicans. This reminds me of contemporary Democrats lusting after Wesley Clark or Colin Powell as savior candidates, or Hilary and Obama speaking in tough trigger-happy tones about Iran. Both parties were/are seen to be "soft", where the opposition was/is "tough" on minorities, slaves, "terror". By appropriating a tough and famous candidate, the Whigs could grab some extra votes. Funny thing with history, though, WHH and Taylor were both too old to be president, both died in office so the "compromise" VPs, John Tyler (southern Virginia racist) and Millard Fillmore became president Reading about these Whigs can be frustrating (especially when Michael Holt writes like a hand-wringing contemporary Democrat: afraid of the abolitionists' morally righteous fury, rooting on the Whigs' stupid quest to compromise in a situation that had a clear right and wrong.) Who is today's William Lloyd Garrison? Frederick Douglass? John Brown?
Re: [PEN-L] query: neoliberals
thanks. I've decided to keep calling them "neoliberals." I see "neoclassical economics" as type of economics and neoliberalism as a political ideology. The overlap of these two sets is largely what I call the "Ekon," those crude economists who dominate textbooks and policy discussions. (Marx would have called them vulgar economists.) There are neoclassicals who aren't neoliberals (like Sen?) and neoliberals who aren't neoclassicals (like the Austrian school). On Nov 12, 2007 7:19 AM, Gernot Koehler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > How about "market fundamentalism"? > GK > - > > Jim D. wrote: > in my never-ending battle against the use of clichés, I'm looking for a new > synonym for "neoliberal" and "neoliberalism." I think "marketron" is a good > replacement for "neoliberalism," but "marketronism" is too clumsy. Any > ideas? > > Are you ready for Windows Live Messenger Beta 8.5 ? Get the latest for free > today! -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
[PEN-L] insanely lucrative investment strategy finally faces public scrutiny
insanely lucrative investment strategy finally faces public scrutiny by Adam Doster In These Times (October 29 2007) Employees knew that Hastings Manufacturing Company, a family-owned auto-parts supplier thirty miles south of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was in deep water. Facing financial pressure, 375 employees - two-thirds of whom were in the United Auto Workers' (UAW) bargaining unit - conceded $1 million in benefits to save their company, relinquishing newly negotiated pay raises and agreeing to cover part of their own health care costs. But according to UAW Local 138 Chief Steward Kim Townsend, who testified before the House Commercial and Administrative Law subcommittee in September, when Hastings' management declared bankruptcy and was taken over by the private equity firm Anderson Group in December 2005, the slicing didn't stop there. Sick days were cut in half, an existing two-tier wage system with a top rate of $13.49 an hour was maintained and the allotment for bargaining time was limited to two hours a month on company time. For retirees, the consequences were more dire, with pensions and health care coverage all but severed. To market analysts, Hastings appears more profitable today. But its value stems not from innovation but from breaking obligations to the company's employees and retirees. "We make the same products", Townsend said at the hearing, "in the same building, with the same equipment, for the same customers as we did before the asset sale". As the Hastings case exemplifies, mysterious financial entities known as private equity funds are laying waste to economies around the world. The firms that manage these funds grab up companies, strip them of their assets, gobble up the profits, and leave workers and local communities to pick over the detritus. Supporters of private equity schemes argue that takeovers can improve businesses' financial performance. But the privacy under which fund managers operate makes monitoring and honest analysis difficult. And while only some people understand how this influential investment strategy works, moves are afoot in Congress to rein in these corporate predators, an indication that private equity firms won't lurk in the shadows forever. Private equity funds are complicated entities. Essentially, they are unregulated pools of private capital raised and controlled by investment managers, otherwise known as "general partners". Typically, managers buy up undervalued companies, de-list them from public exchanges, restructure them through a variety of tactics, and then sell their stake in the leaner, more profitable business to interested buyers, other private equity firms or on the stock market through another Initial Public Offering (IPO). Advocates argue that squeezing inefficiencies out of underperforming companies not only creates a more vibrant economy but also yields returns that support projects from which all citizens benefit, including new construction or job creation. For example, DaimlerChrysler made headlines this May when it sold a controlling interest in the scuffling but iconic Chrysler Group to Cerberus Capital Management for $7.4 billion. With the agreement, the German auto giant was left with a 19.9 percent stake in Chrysler but freed itself of its responsibility for pension and health care liabilities. Most of these funds are financed by cash-rich institutional investors known as "limited partners" - pension funds, insurance companies, university endowments, wealthy individuals - that commit large sums of money for a fixed period of time, usually ten years. Because private equity funds can generate only so much capital from wealthy sponsors, most transactions are leveraged by debt financing, with the acquired company's assets used as collateral for the loans. Sometimes as much as eighty percent of the transaction value comes from this form of financing. Private equity investors profit only when the firm sells the restructured companies, but the fiscal acumen of managers and the latitude offered by leverage can lead to returns of thirty percent or forty percent. While eighty percent of buyout profits flow to the limited partners, the managers retain the carried interest, or twenty percent of the gains realized by the fund. Fund managers also charge an additional two percent annual management fee, which can net them hundreds of millions of dollars alone after large buyouts. Spurred primarily by strong stock prices and low interest rates that have led to massive liquidity growth in world markets, the private equity industry has exploded in recent years. According to Private Equity Intelligence, a London-based company that does research on the industry, these funds raised a record $406 billion in 2006. More than 170 funds each hold $1 billion or more in assets. They brokered $475 billion in deals last year alone, thirteen times more than five years ago. And while US companies are spearheading private equity's expansion, Europe
Re: [PEN-L] central bank credibility v. transparency
Julio Huato wrote: > The way I look at it, ultimately, all financial assets are contingent > claims on physical productive assets: means of production (MP) and > labor power (LP). This is a plain accounting fact. The price of MP > and LP (in social settings where they're commodities) have objective > centers of gravity: "values." That's my view at least. Some > respectable PEN-L members believe that valuing MP and LP is inherently > impossible or self-contradictory. Not me. I've looked into the > argument a few times and remain unconvinced. I'm with Marx on this. At the microeconomic level, there can be systematic deviations between price and values: relative prices of production (long-term equilibrium prices) often deviate from relative values, as Marx recognized. Differences in industrial organization (monopoly vs. freer competition, etc.) also encourage price/value deviations (though, in theory, they could also counteract the deviations due to technical reasons). It's only on the macroeconomic level that the objective centers of gravity of prices are the values. On the aggregate level, all revenues from newly-produced commodities are produced by labor and all property income arises from the extra labor (surplus-value) that's extracted from labor-power. (The aggregate level here is the world capitalist system.) > Clearly, these values are the social aggregate (average) of private > expectations about the amounts of social labor required to reproduce > the MP and LP in "normal" conditions -- expectations conditional on > existing information available to whoever is doing the valuation. I disagree or maybe I misunderstand. In any event, values don't reflect subjective expectations. Instead, they reflect objective facts (which are often unknown or poorly known). The value of labor-power, for example, is the cost of reproducing labor-power over time, stated in labor-value terms. Workers' subjectivity -- their class consciousness or lack thereof -- can raise or lower that cost, but it has to be expressed in practice, not simply in thoughts or words. Expectations do affect objective facts (the power of prophecy), but in the end, the facts adjust slowly and are hard to change, while subjective views adjust quickly and are easier to change (within the limits set by the facts). > Ultimately, as Marx also believed, the valuation of MP and LP is > social, that is, the computation or aggregation of expectations is > conducted by trial and error in/through market exchange. Those values > are what I call the "fundamentals." They're social objects. They're > objective: independent of the subjectivity of individuals. this is confusing. I'd say instead that expectations are shaped and limited by objective facts (which are often not known very well). Expectations -- say of profit streams over time -- can be quite far from the objective facts (the production of surplus-value).[*] In the Marxian tradition, this is a source of financial crises, as expectations "adjust forcibly" to reality. Typically, however, they overshoot going downward, so that reality is never achieved. > That said, we need to keep in mind that the objectivity of values is > social. When people do things (e.g. produce in given social > settings), their actions crystallize into new or transformed social > objects (not necessarily tangible, but material or physical in the > most general sense of these terms): products, social structures and > their emerging properties, institutions, broader social conditions, > culture, history. The degree of social objectivity of a given social > object depends on its particular nature. Ultimately, these social > objects are all historically contingent. Some are contingent upon a > change in people's minds or habits or customs. Others are contingent > on a change in laws or political conditions. Others are contingent on > changes in more hardened economic structures. Etc. that sounds reasonable to me. [*] for example, the profit rate in the US seems to have peaked in 1997, while financial markets continued to soar until 2000-2001. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
[PEN-L] No recession
From: Fred Feldman I am not necessarily in disagreement with your assessment. I assume it is an assessment and not just a prediction, since you are not claiming to be either the late Jeane Dixon or Nostradamus. CB: Yes, my assessment is based in a sort of dumb empiricism of the last couple of decades, not a sophisticated empiricism worthy of the economists on this list. I mean no big recession, depression, by the way. Not one of the little recessions that have come in recent years. PEN-L is known for seeing signs of recession, recession mongering. And usually in recent times no big downturns have come to the US. There was a crash in Southeast Asia, Russia, Brazil stagnation in Japan etc. I just figure that the US financial dictators and their economists and bankers have figured out how to use their international financial and corporate power to prevent big recessions in the US. I don't know how they do it, but they get the result. I don't think its' the Invisible Hand operating just in the US , well in a sense it is the invisible hands, but not mysterious , other worldly hand, but the hand of the big bourgeoisie, educated and trained by all the experience of capitalism over the decades, and applied practically by those with the most ability to effectuate any economic move they make. The dictatorship of the bourgeoisie taken to a new level of exactness and control. The dictatorship being seated in the US. Their methods are a bit more scientific than gimmicks. ^^^ I assume you did not send your prophecy -- if that is what it was -- to the Weekly World News, which specializes in such political insights. CB: It's more of a PEN-L type comment. It's sort of PEN-L pessimism upside down. ^^^ Wbat is the analysis that brings you to this conclusion, in contrast to the crash-mongering of Mike Whitney et al (the fact that they crash-monger does not mean that a crash is not happening, since even a stopped clock is right twice a day. I firmly believe a crash is coming. I do not believe in eternal "stagnation" a la Monthly Review. But I have learned from experience that this bias (however well-founded) cannot govern my response to conjunctures. . However, I think it may be true that the gimmicks that have kept US capitalism on top -- invariably responded to with disaster-mongering by the Whitney et al -- may be running out of gas: ^^^ CB: That might be why they invaded Iraq ( smile) ^ the government deficit, the trade deficit, the weak dollar, the "debtor" status of US capitalism, the debt bubble and all the other bubhles which have kept the US economy at the top of the capitalist food chain internationally, outsourcing, moving US companies as a whole to semicolonial countries which must sign free trade pacts in exchange, may be losing steam/ ^ CB: Yea, but they always seem to come up with another bubble filled with steam, and they just float on to more and more profits and money. How much total money is there now ? The whole thing is like a bubble or maybe its a balloon. At bottom, in my view, because of the underlying decline in the value of products due to the increased productivity of labor -- the historical tendency of the rate of profit to decline (this is called deflation, but is not simply the opposite of inflation, which can coexist with it -- the two phenomena have different causes and characteristics). Maybe this is beginning to assert itself more fiercely in defiance of the gimmicks which have served so well in the past. While (as a person who no longer feels able to say, "I predict" with the old savoir faire), I acknowledge that leftists (including myself) have underestimated the profffpfimd strength of imperialism, above all US imperialism. But what is the concrete and factual analysis that leads Charles to his conclusion, which I think could be true, but cannot derive from the facts available to me at the moment. Fred Feldman -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Charles Brown Sent: Friday, November 09, 2007 9:25 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L] No recession I predict that the current financial crisis will not lead to a recession in the US economy. Charles >>> raghu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 11/12/2007 3:15 PM >>> On Nov 12, 2007 5:54 AM, Marvin Gandall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Actually, many accepted that prices were way out of whack, and were > terrified of the systemic implications and the possibilty of their being > caught in the inevitable downdraft. So in that sense their own survival > and > that of the economy has been a real concern. But, as you point out and as > is > always the case, this larger class interest was subsumed by the multitude > of > particular ones competing to turn a quick profit and to make the most > timely > exit, and there has not yet been a model developed to resolve the > contradiction. Chuck Prince, formerly of Citigroup described the
Re: [PEN-L] central bank credibility v. transparency
On Nov 12, 2007 5:54 AM, Marvin Gandall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Actually, many accepted that prices were way out of whack, and were > terrified of the systemic implications and the possibilty of their being > caught in the inevitable downdraft. So in that sense their own survival > and > that of the economy has been a real concern. But, as you point out and as > is > always the case, this larger class interest was subsumed by the multitude > of > particular ones competing to turn a quick profit and to make the most > timely > exit, and there has not yet been a model developed to resolve the > contradiction. Chuck Prince, formerly of Citigroup described the bubble nicely earlier in the year: "When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you've got to get up and dance. We're still dancing." -raghu.
[PEN-L] Whigs and Democrats
In the course of reading T.J. Stiles’s excellent biography of Jesse James as background for a review of movies about the famous bandit, including the latest with Brad Pitt in the leading role, I came across a number of references to the Whig Party's efforts to straddle the fence between anti-secessionism and support of slavery. Robert Miller, the editor of a Whig paper in Missouri in the 1850s, wrote “Where there is no legal sanction of slavery the masses, the laboring portion of the people, are oppressed and run over.” Stiles describes Miller as “a Whig, struggling like all Missouri Whigs to cling to his party even as it disintegrated. Whig leader James S. Rollins wrote that his party was “ready to resist illegal Northern aggression and abolition on the one hand, and to suppress the Southern fanaticism and nullification on the other.” In other words, they stood for everything and for nothing. Eventually, the Whig Party disappeared because it proved incapable of challenging the Democrats who did not have divided loyalties. Some Whigs ended up joining the Republican Party, which was up to the task of confronting the Slavocracy even if they were not totally committed to abolitionism at the outset. The most famous of them was Abraham Lincoln, a great admirer of party leader Henry Clay, who was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1846. Henry Clay was known as the “Great Compromiser”. When I first came across Stiles’s reference to the Whigs, I began taking a closer look at this party and came to the conclusion that they were the Democrats of their day. If the Whigs imploded because they were incapable of developing an adequate response to the crisis of their day–slavery–then one can surely anticipate the Democrats to begin to disintegrate in the 21st century for analogous reasons. War, racism, ecological destruction and a host of other ills are associated with the slavery of our time–namely wage slavery. By issuing empty denunciations of these ills, as Al Gore does in “An Inconvenient Truth,” and refusing to tackle the underlying cause of such ills, they prove incapable of sustaining the support of their base, as the low approval rating for Congress today would indicate. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/11/12/whigs-and-democrats/
Re: [PEN-L] Libertarians on the Central Banks
On Sun, 2007-11-11 at 15:35 -0800, Jim Devine wrote: > > > Laurent writes: > > PS: the astute reader will have noticed that USA fed/gov debt makes > > 99.9% of the headlines and papers but count for less than 20% of > > total USA debt, the other 80% is unknown to MSN and most economists. > > One sector debt has (nominally) doubled in the last 8 years and just > > reached 100% of GDP without "anyone" noticing. > > "One sector debt" = ?? Household debt: went from 6.4 trillions in 1999 to 13.3 trillions in Q2 2007 (all nominal - I assume), 75% of it is mortgage debt and the remaining 25% consumer debt (Z1 report page 8). BEA published current dollar GDP for 2007 is 13.8 trillions (Q2 yearly / seasonally adjusted, table 3 of Q3 release) which makes household debt 96% of GDP in the USA. The average yearly household debt increase over the last eight years was 0.86 trillions per year or about 6.2% of 2007 GDP or about 8.8% of 2007 personal consuption expenditure. Truly enormous numbers. I wonder why no one adjust growth by debt variations (debt is just betting on future GDP after all), any taker? Laurent
Re: [PEN-L] central bank credibility v. transparency
Julio Huato Writes: "The way I look at it, ultimately, all financial assets are contingent claims on physical productive assets: means of production (MP) and labor power (LP). This is a plain accounting fact. The price of MP and LP (in social settings where they're commodities) have objective centers of gravity: "values." That's my view at least. Some respectable PEN-L members believe that valuing MP and LP is inherently impossible or self-contradictory. Not me. I've looked into the argument a few times and remain unconvinced. I'm with Marx on this." I agree. And are we not essentially in a situation in which global currencies are valued around the US dollar, and the value of the US dollar, de-linked from gold, is valued on financial market perceptions of the ability of the US to meet its debt obligations (ie. the ability of the state to tax its productive asset base)? A major component of the coming financial meltdown seems to stem from the fact that the value-basis of the global economy (currencies - especially the US dollar) has shifted to an even more precarious value-basis. Where once currency values hinged around market perceptions of gold, they now appear to hinge around market perceptions of the market itself. Every injection of liquidity or increase in the supply of money through monetary manipulations appears to put more distance between the underlying value of assets produced in the real economy and the exponentially increasing amount of money in circulation. Am I way off? Jayson Funke Graduate School of Geography Clark University 950 Main Street Worcester, MA 01610 -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Julio Huato Sent: Monday, November 12, 2007 12:35 PM To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [PEN-L] central bank credibility v. transparency Shane Mage wrote: > What meaning can "the true probability distribution" have here? > Probability distribution (objective) can apply to the outcome of a > series of "random" events like throws of dice or spins of a roulette > wheel, or to (subjective) *an* estimate of the "likelihood" of > various (mutually incompatible) future possibilities. The way I look at it, ultimately, all financial assets are contingent claims on physical productive assets: means of production (MP) and labor power (LP). This is a plain accounting fact. The price of MP and LP (in social settings where they're commodities) have objective centers of gravity: "values." That's my view at least. Some respectable PEN-L members believe that valuing MP and LP is inherently impossible or self-contradictory. Not me. I've looked into the argument a few times and remain unconvinced. I'm with Marx on this. Clearly, these values are the social aggregate (average) of private expectations about the amounts of social labor required to reproduce the MP and LP in "normal" conditions -- expectations conditional on existing information available to whoever is doing the valuation. Ultimately, as Marx also believed, the valuation of MP and LP is social, that is, the computation or aggregation of expectations is conducted by trial and error in/through market exchange. Those values are what I call the "fundamentals." They're social objects. They're objective: independent of the subjectivity of individuals. That said, we need to keep in mind that the objectivity of values is social. When people do things (e.g. produce in given social settings), their actions crystallize into new or transformed social objects (not necessarily tangible, but material or physical in the most general sense of these terms): products, social structures and their emerging properties, institutions, broader social conditions, culture, history. The degree of social objectivity of a given social object depends on its particular nature. Ultimately, these social objects are all historically contingent. Some are contingent upon a change in people's minds or habits or customs. Others are contingent on a change in laws or political conditions. Others are contingent on changes in more hardened economic structures. Etc. Keeping track of this, probability theory and statistical inference can be used productively. > But (first > case) "variables" in the social sciences are essentially unique > (100% probable), like the present value of an asset as determined > ex post. I really don't understand this. What is the PV of an asset "as determined ex post"? Are you talking about an actual asset price? Are you talking about the results of backtesting some asset pricing model? In those cases, indeed, you can think of those prices (actual or predicted) as unique realizations of the true random price under some probability distribution. But neither of these is a PV. PV is your best estimate of the price of the asset as of now. The one that dictates your next move (or lack thereof) regarding the asset. And that's an expectation, conditional on the information avai
Re: [PEN-L] central bank credibility v. transparency
Shane Mage wrote: > What meaning can "the true probability distribution" have here? > Probability distribution (objective) can apply to the outcome of a > series of "random" events like throws of dice or spins of a roulette > wheel, or to (subjective) *an* estimate of the "likelihood" of > various (mutually incompatible) future possibilities. The way I look at it, ultimately, all financial assets are contingent claims on physical productive assets: means of production (MP) and labor power (LP). This is a plain accounting fact. The price of MP and LP (in social settings where they're commodities) have objective centers of gravity: "values." That's my view at least. Some respectable PEN-L members believe that valuing MP and LP is inherently impossible or self-contradictory. Not me. I've looked into the argument a few times and remain unconvinced. I'm with Marx on this. Clearly, these values are the social aggregate (average) of private expectations about the amounts of social labor required to reproduce the MP and LP in "normal" conditions -- expectations conditional on existing information available to whoever is doing the valuation. Ultimately, as Marx also believed, the valuation of MP and LP is social, that is, the computation or aggregation of expectations is conducted by trial and error in/through market exchange. Those values are what I call the "fundamentals." They're social objects. They're objective: independent of the subjectivity of individuals. That said, we need to keep in mind that the objectivity of values is social. When people do things (e.g. produce in given social settings), their actions crystallize into new or transformed social objects (not necessarily tangible, but material or physical in the most general sense of these terms): products, social structures and their emerging properties, institutions, broader social conditions, culture, history. The degree of social objectivity of a given social object depends on its particular nature. Ultimately, these social objects are all historically contingent. Some are contingent upon a change in people's minds or habits or customs. Others are contingent on a change in laws or political conditions. Others are contingent on changes in more hardened economic structures. Etc. Keeping track of this, probability theory and statistical inference can be used productively. > But (first > case) "variables" in the social sciences are essentially unique > (100% probable), like the present value of an asset as determined > ex post. I really don't understand this. What is the PV of an asset "as determined ex post"? Are you talking about an actual asset price? Are you talking about the results of backtesting some asset pricing model? In those cases, indeed, you can think of those prices (actual or predicted) as unique realizations of the true random price under some probability distribution. But neither of these is a PV. PV is your best estimate of the price of the asset as of now. The one that dictates your next move (or lack thereof) regarding the asset. And that's an expectation, conditional on the information available to you (e.g. history of prices of the asset, etc.). > And (second case) nobody ever even tries to estimate a > true probability distribution comprising all possible values of > such a "variable." Well, it depends on your practical needs and resources. I don't think the "all possible values" is a big deal. There's nothing that stops you from assuming that the price of an asset can vary along the entire set of real numbers. I don't see why that'd be more costly than restricting the variation to a narrower range. The costly thing is the estimation of the parameters of interest of your distribution. There are trade-offs involved here, but simply put, how good is your data? The better your data, the more costly. Which parameters do you need to estimate? The higher the moments (center, dispersion, skewness, kurtosis, etc.), the more costly. Which assumptions about probabilistic behavior are you willing to make? The weaker your assumptions, the more costly. Etc. It boils down to a cost-benefit calculation. My impression is that, usually, most people in finance play the game at a level that only requires estimating the first 2-4 moments (center, dispersion, skewness, kurtosis). And, given their goals, they are willing to make strong assumptions. Still, that's a lot of compressed information about the true (unknown) behavior of the rv. More than most people use in their practice. > So how can the people who make up the > "markets" get it all wrong? The reason is that "all" is very long term, and > their only interest is very short term because that is where the loot is. > And in *every* short term they (collectively) make out like the > bandits they are. The huge costs are borne by other people, including > classsical shareholders, not only workers and their pension funds. Again, I don't think the is
Re: [PEN-L] The Long Fall
Greetings Economists, On Nov 12, 2007, at 12:40 AM, soula avramidis wrote: one should not underestimate the capacity of US empire to generate imperial rents by killing abroad. little that it matters how its accounts go, much that matters on its imperial aggression.. the 20 century killing spree is not far off Doyle; To me this asks if the imperial war machine is wrecked. My reply agrees with your comment. The lesson of Iraq to the U.S. is not conclusive about use of military power. I'm sure they still feel parts of the world offer them room to maneuver using military power. Other parts are problematic and they study how to better their odds there. My caveat is roughly they fear loss of administrative control, Cuba might be the best known example. They see nuclear weapons as neutralizing standing armies. They see army dissipation as fomenting loss of administrative control. Roughly speaking. They debate some about using small nuclear warheads I guess as further coercion than that a technical army offers. They can't scale up in my view beyond a very small nuclear exchange, because administrative control trumps military power. Again Cuba is the best example. Thanks, Doyle Saylor
[PEN-L] Nations share blame for Indonesia deforestation-VP
Reuters.com Nations share blame for Indonesia deforestation-VP http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSJAK66750 Fri Nov 9, 2007 JAKARTA, Nov 9 (Reuters) - Foreign nations share the blame for the destruction of Indonesian forests and should pitch in to help restore them, Vice President Jusuf Kalla said on Friday. Indonesia, host of a U.N. climate change conference in December, has been a driving force behind calls for rich countries to compensate poor states that preserve their rainforests to soak up greenhouse gases. http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSJAK66750
Re: [PEN-L] query: neoliberals
How about “market fundamentalism”? GK - Jim D. wrote: in my never-ending battle against the use of clichés, I'm looking for a new synonym for "neoliberal" and "neoliberalism." I think "marketron" is a good replacement for "neoliberalism," but "marketronism" is too clumsy. Any ideas? _ Are you ready for Windows Live Messenger Beta 8.5 ? Get the latest for free today! http://entertainment.sympatico.msn.ca/WindowsLiveMessenger
Re: [PEN-L] central bank credibility v. transparency
Julio: If people in the financial markets do this, how come they get the "fundamentals" so wrong? Maybe their perspective is not that of the working class. Maybe they don't care about human survival, let alone building communism. Maybe they only care about profits in the short run. Their "fundamentals" are not our fundamentals. They calibrate their models according to their interest and horizon of interest. Garbage in, garbage out. == Actually, many accepted that prices were way out of whack, and were terrified of the systemic implications and the possibilty of their being caught in the inevitable downdraft. So in that sense their own survival and that of the economy has been a real concern. But, as you point out and as is always the case, this larger class interest was subsumed by the multitude of particular ones competing to turn a quick profit and to make the most timely exit, and there has not yet been a model developed to resolve the contradiction. As for the complex new "structured" and re-structured products which are at the heart of the crisis, they didn't have a clue how to value these; they were "marked to make-believe". Doug: There's a curious asymmetry here. When the markets are zooming upwards, it's meaningless speculation. When they're collapsing, it's fraught with meaning. This could be something serious, but then again it could just be a problem that's getting amplified by extreme emotions. Who knows? === My view also. But the prospect of imminent doom, warranted or not, always evokes the strongest human emotions, even trumping greed. :) Moreover, there seems to be a lot more fear of the unknown in the present crisis, because calculating the potential damage is so elusive. They have no idea whether dumping the stuff on the market will lput a sharp end to the crisis in asset-backed paper or futher depress the other credit markets. One wag recently called it a "cockroach crisis"; a few have come out, and have provoked deep dread about how many more are inside the walls. No doubt the alarm is mostly genuine, but you also have to wonder how much of it is being manufactured. The banks don't like redirecting their earnings and slashing their dividends to reserve against their mounting losses, so they want the Fed to keep supplying them with liquidity. Exaggerating the potential impact is a means of neutralizing the strong dollar conservatives who would rather see the financial system purged at the expense of the more exposed banks and at whatever economic cost.
[PEN-L] iran is not a liberation project
according to the author: there cannot be obscurantist anti imperialism, he says snip The second prime project in the Arab region is the Iranian project. Its problematic aspect is that it is not a liberation project, but rather it is predicated on an agenda of expansion with nationalist and sectarian aspects. Although it collides with the U.S. and its imperialist orientation, the Iranian regime's struggle with imperialism is on the basis of benefits and spheres of influence, not geared to a politics of liberation. In this way, we can better understand the emergent contradictions in Iranian politics: the regime's support for the resistances in Lebanon and Palestine; its facilitation of the U.S. invasion and occupation in Afghanistan; and its destructive role in Iraq, sponsoring sectarian militias and politics which have caused the destruction of the country and the death of countless Iraqis. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bustani281007.html Surmounting Sectarianism in the Middle East: An Interview with Hisham Bustani by As'ad al-Azzouni In a recent interview with the Qatari daily al-Raya, the Jordanian Marxist writer and activist Hisham Bustani analyses current issues: the situation in the Arab region; threats against Iran; the "Broader Middle East Initiative"; the U.S., Arab regimes, and Islamists; and prospects of the Arab liberation project. This interview, conducted by the journalist As'ad al-Azzouni, clarifies the internal processes of subjection and their connection with external processes. It also sheds light on positions of Arab progressives and how they perceive their objective reality and future. Bustani emphasizes the need for Left unity in building a pan-Arab, de-sectarianized movement of principled resistance to imperialism. -- Bill Templer __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
Re: [PEN-L] The Long Fall
one should not underestimate the capacity of US empire to generate imperial rents by killing abroad. little that it matters how its accounts go, much that matters on its imperial aggression.. the 20 century killing spree is not far off __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
