Re: calling for the assassination of the President is against the law

At 04:31 PM 7/26/2004 -0400, you wrote: My recollection is that calling for the assassination of the President is a serious crime in the United States. [clip] You can't just go around threatening the President of the United States, even if you're a Senator, that's a serious crime. Ah, but note the

Re: Greed

David S. writes: Is Marx making an empirical point? Based upon observation, capitalists are motivated by greed? Or is it a definitional point -- under capitalism, capitalists by definition are motivated by "greed." For instance, let's hypothesize a man who decides in his youth that there is a R

Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

Charles Brown wrote: > by Devine, James > > Charles writes: > >>The funny thing is dialectics is logic. So, it is a way of talking about > things. Formal logic is a linguistic project. To which Ravi responds: i am not sure who wrote what, but addressing the above: i would submit that formal logic

Re: oops factor

Quoting Dan Scanlan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > Checking Your Bill for a New Charge Called 'Oops' > > By David Pogue > > (SF Chronicle, Dec. 4, 2003) -- Every few years, economists identify > another mutant variation of inflation to keep them awake at night. In > the 1980s, it was stagflation. Three

Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

understand this economist's use of "secular". What is the definition of "secular". Charles by Gil Skillman You could certainly point to recent economic phenomena supporting an affirmative answer to this question. E.g., in the US, the fact that significant increases in produ

Re: absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

Concerning Marx's statement of "the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation," Charles asks Does the empirical generalization suggested below have validity today nationally or globally ? You could certainly point to recent economic phenomena supporting an affirmative answer to this question.

Reagan's legacy

Did anyone else see the CNN hagiography? He was 93 - how many people died as a result of his policies? One of the biggest misrepresentations of the Reagan hagiographers is that he "fostered smaller government" (a claim featured in the headline for the Sunday NY Times article on his death). What

Re: More on the labor theory of value

But Michael, "number of pages produced" is a measure of labor performed, not labor power. And in Marxian terms, "the value produced by labor" is to some extent redundant, since to Marx labor *is* the substance of value, no? It would be more accurate to say on the basis of your example that the Bri

Re: Intro books/article on equilibrium

Bill, Which type of equilibrium? Competitive or non-competitive? Cooperative or noncooperative game-theoretic? Static or dynamic? Gil A co-worker of mine is interested in equilibrium theory. I have a few books at home I plan on lending him, but thought folks here might have some good suggestio

Re: More conservative Rock-and-Roll stars

OK, all American Rock-and-Roll stars are libertarians. Bruce Springsteen? Jackson Browne? Rage Against the Machine (as in, members of the former)? Bonnie Raitt? Gil

Re: ketchup, buns and manufacturing

In response to this question from Carrol, > > Doesn't Taco Bell manufacture food? If Wonderbread was sold at the > factory would it cease to be manufacturing and become "service"? dms answers The answer to that is: NO Taco Bell does not manufacture food. Pepsico manufactures something called foo

Re: quote of the day

His 1995 autobiography, _My American Journey_. Page 148 in the hardcover edition. Gil When and where? I may use it. Gil Skillman wrote: That Colin Powell. What a sense of irony. Gil "I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful well-placed ... managed to wangle slots in Reserv

Re: quote of the day

That Colin Powell. What a sense of irony. Gil "I am angry that so many of the sons of the powerful well-placed ... managed to wangle slots in Reserve and National Guard units." -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at

Re: Brilliant analysis from a soft rock icon

Mark Farner (of Grand Funk Railroad infame). Metallica - Original Message - From: "Michael Perelman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 10:31 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Brilliant analysis from a soft rock icon Pat Boone. On Fri, Feb 20, 2004 at 01:0

Re: song lyrics and poetry

Hey, let a thousand flowers bloom (Sung to the tune of "Where have all the flowers gone") Gil : Do people find such contributions useful? Just asking. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu

Re: intermediate microeconomics textbook...

Diane, Three choices are: Walter Nicholson's calculus-based text, called Microeconomic Theory or Intermediate Microeconomic Theory (he has another, non-calculus-based intermediate text as well), Hal Varian, Intermediate Microeconomics: A Modern Approach, and Binger and Hoffman, Microeconomics wit

Re: pop quiz Friday

Hmm. I don't remember if he used exactly these words, but Axel Leijonhufvud (or Axel the Lionheaded, as we affectionately call him) said something like this in an interview a year or two ago. I kidded him about it afterwards. Gil Who said it?: "Economists don't know much about how different ki

Re: the evolving exchange value of the human body

From foot-binding to leg-lengthening. Progress of a sort, I suppose Gil A tall order It's painful and slow, but can make you five inches taller. Jonathan Watts on the surgical trend sweeping China - leg-lengthening Monday December 15, 2003 The Guardian Kong Jing-wen has paid £5,700 to have

Re: the Clinton years

Michael writes: Gil seems to be saying that Clinton rode the rightward drift that had come before -- beginning I believe in the Carter years. Clinton was very smart. He knew what was happening. Instead of putting things right, he shifted the Dems. even farther to the right. Sam Smith in his Un

Re: the Clinton years

Across his 238 pages Pollin is unambiguous. "It was under Clinton" he points out, "that the distribution of wealth in the US became more skewed than it had at any time in the previous forty years. Inside the US under Clinton the ratio of wages for the average worker to the pay of the average CEO ro

Re: insurance question

Sitting here just south of the insurance capital of the US, I figured I should step up on this. Tell me more, Michael. What type of insurance? Which nation(s)? For starters, there's "The Historian and the Business of Insurance," edited by O. Westall, specific to insurance in Great Britain, and

Re: Sad Story

accompany them. This is, of course, one of the gravest and most pressing problems of our time...Many economists hope, indeed, that the ultimate remedy be found in the field of monetary policy..." Gil Skillman

Question

Here's something that's been puzzling me: it has been said that the U.S. state governments are in their worst fiscal crisis since the 1930s. And yet the US is not in the middle of its worst recession since the Depression; the Reagan-Volcker recession of the early 1980s, for example, was much wors

Re: Jazz & corruption.

For what it's worth, I think the original connection went corruption-->brothels and speakeasies and underground clubs-->jazz and sometimes blues. A prominent source of "corruption" was Prohibition, during which jazz was the hot dance music of the day. Nowadays corruption has no particular mu

Re: Bush ultimatum

Excerpting from Jim's post: Bush said Sunday during his weekly radio address. "This madman has every intention of firing back at our troops when we attack his country." Yeah, how crazy is that? Firing back at troops who attack your country? Who knows, if he's *really* crazy he'll order a preemp

Re: labor economics text

Funny you should ask. Yes there is, entitled _Labor Markets and Employment Relationships_, but unfortunately it won't be published until winter semester next academic year. Gil is there such a thing as a good labor economics textbook? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] &

Re: RE: Today's quiz

Since you guys think you are so hot, try this one: "Now I am prowling through the backyard and I am hiding under the car and I've gotten out of everything I've gotten into so far and I eat when I am hungry and I travel alone." Hint, everybody: notice how a lot of the phrase rhymes, sort of l

Triplethink!

Ravi writes, among other things: the background is russell's attempt to derive mathematics from logic based on richard dedekind and gottlob frege's formalisms. but in the attempt, russell discovered in inherent paradox arising from frege's notion of a function. russell wrote to frege: let 'w' b

Re: short vs. long-run contracts

If the paper Sabri refers to is the 1991 J. Ec. Theory paper by these three authors, the point of the Fudenberg et al. paper is a bit more specific, and correspondingly less silly, than Sabri's short summary would suggest. Here's the abstract: Long-term contracts are valuable only if o

Re: RE: Trotskyism alive and well

Jim writes: are you sure it isn't the National Institute _for_ Drug Abuse? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine No, that would be *Prescott Bush's* great-granddaughter. Gil > -Original Message

Re: Re: Oh!...uh...

In response to my comment > To the second question, the > Repubs can do a great deal of damage in two years, in terms of further and > more permanent tax cuts to the wealthy, corporate favors, further > evisceration of environmental protections, appointment of neanderthal > judges, etc. Carro

Oh!...uh...

(Was: uh-oh ii) Will the Republicans quickly overreach themselves? How much long-term damage can they do in two years? Will the Democrats ever wake up? I think Michael's questions are quite apt. To the second question, the Repubs can do a great deal of damage in two years, in terms of furth

Re: raising min wage

Mat, for some sources, check out: Zavodny, Madeline, "Why Minimum Wage Hikes May Not Reduce Employment," _Economic Review_, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, 1998, 83(2), pp. 18-28. Card and Krueger, _Myth and Measurement_ 1995 (reporting empirical studies in which they find that raising

Re: dead economists

Ellen, here you go: The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual in

Marx: "Institutionalist" and "Pure Theorist"

[Was: Time for Economics] Re this exchange: >Rob writes:>it's Marx who is the institutionalist par excellence.< > >absolutely! I wish the folks who try to reduce Marx to neoclassical >economics would see this. > >Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] >& http://bel

Just the facts, comrade

Pardon: substitute the word "ideal" for every instance of the word "abstraction" in my previous post under this heading. Abstractly, Gil

Just the facts, comrade

[Was: the D of P, then "abstraction vs. concreteness] Re >Sorry, Jim, this is not worth responding to. Your arguing in favor of workers democratic socialism is akin to Justin arguing in favor of >market socialism. I am not in the business of countering one abstraction with another. I prefer

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: : liberalism

Michael writes: > I would only add that in >these debates nobody seems to learn anything from anybody else -- at >least, you can pretty well predict what the few participants in such >debates will write. To be sure, most postings in most PEN-L debates appear as predictable rehearsals of existi

Re: Re: Drudgery

>>The Wall Street Journal today had a front page story about women >>in Mali, whose use of mechanized grinding machines has given them >>time to improve their lives and become literate. > >What's the point of this? Did the cotton gin enable slaves to improve >their lives and become literate? >Th

Re: Re: Re: Re: Drudgery

>OK. Labor saving devices save time and labor. This time and labor can be >invested in other (possibly worthwhile) projects. I'm on my fifth day of >not smoking and I'm irritable and I wanted to find out why Michael was >telling me that the world is round. Oh...Well, I can't help you on that

Re: On median voters and minority rights

Where I wrote >This is way off the mark. I'm not referring to any "model" of voting, silly, neoclassical, or otherwise, other than to note that if a majority rule choice obtains, then the preferences of the voter with "median" preferences among the available options will generally be satisfie

On median voters and minority rights

Was: variety of something or other... Consumer advisory: no repetitions of earlier arguments are advanced in the following post. Where I wrote: > > They do? So if Joanna were the median voter on the Pepsi vs. Coke > question, that would be all right with you? < Jim responds >democracy is

The market as a preference aggregator?

I agree with Justin that it's a bit of a stretch to think of "the market" as a mechanism for aggregating individual preferences into a "social preference ordering." It's more appropriate to think of the market as a mechanism of social *choice*, i.e. as something that selects *particular* outc

Re: RE: Re: variety in capitalist markets

Jim writes >obviously, these decisions cannot be made by Joanna alone. Instead, such >decisions -- what is adequate variety? what products are allowed? -- have >to be made democratically by the population as a whole, and following >democratic principles more profound than those that prevail i

Re: Re: Re: markets & profit maximization

Seems plausible. I should have added that an important consideration in figuring out what firms try to do is the "agency" problem, i.e. the issues that come with "the separation of ownership and control." Firm owners may want strict profit maximization, and yet their managers favor (for exam

Re: variety in capitalist markets

uch the same as a Plymouth.) > >Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] >& <http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine>http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine > > > > -Original Message- > > From: Gil Skillman > [<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] > &

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: markets & profit maximization

The problem with this line of argument is that for every seemingly trivial example of product differentiation one can come up with, you can also point to product differences that seem trivial to the average consumer/would-be voter and yet are critical to some. Some people find no difference be

Re: markets & profit maximization

Subject to a significant caveat, I agree with Jim's central point that cost minimization is a less restrictive and thus more general behavioral notion than profit maximization. The caveat is that, for enterprises that don't attempt to maximize profits, you can't know what counts as a "cost," o

Re: please modify your browsers

Yikes! Sorry, Doug, this was a default setting. I'll see about changing it. Gil

Thus sprach Marx: interpretation or characterization?

Where I wrote: >Gil Skillman responded: "I know he said this. And I pointed out >that the argument on which he bases this claim is logically >invalid." Andrew writes >First, I object to the term "pointed out." In your post, you (a) impute to me an argu

Marx and value: common ground?

Jim, I'm going to sidestep for now the part of our exchange dealing with Marx's putative association of  "a bourgeoise system of ethics" and the hypothetical condition that "commodities exchange at their respective values" and focus on the part of our exchange dealing with Marx's justification for

Thus sprach Marx

Where I wrote >Gil Skillman wrote: > >"Now, clearly Marx isn't saying this assumption [exchange of equivalent >values] "has to be" made, "must" be imposed, to satisfy the demands of >etiquette, or on ethical grounds, or because somebody will break

[no subject]

Where I wrote >There's no reason to think that Marx understands "a bourgeois system of ethics" to embrace the notion "that every commodity sells at its [labor] value," and some significant reasons to believe to the contrary. First, Marx associates the former primarily with *formal* (as opposed to

Re: BLS Daily Report

I'm sorry to hear this. This posting has been a reliable and informative aspect of PEN-L for a long time. Thanks, Dave. Gil >is no more. There are apparently valid concerns here at BLS that prevent me >from forwarding it, or any part of it, on a regular basis. I hope that it >has been of as

Re: LTV and income disparity

Hi, Nancy.  To get right to the point, the labor theory of value does not of itself imply a zero-sum conflict in the distribution of social income.  The reason for this is that, even if the total potential labor expenditure in an economy is fixed, the total product of that labor--and thus the tota

Re: RE: Re: RE: Brenner

Re this portion of the recent exchange on Brenner between Justin and Jim: (Justin:) >When I say Marx officially regards certan phenomena as surface, I means that when he talks value theory. he suggests that thesea re in need of value theoretical explanation. As Gil Skillman has (to my mind

Re: Inheritance tax is Marxist

> >Democratic foes of repeal advocate the redistribution of wealth, ``an >old Marxist idea that has been rejected everywhere in the world but >still has appeal'' in the United States, Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, said >Tuesday as debate began. Good old Gramm, past master in the uses of the Big Lie

Revelation

tten it all wrong. Also, I'd like to know M. Perelman's qualifications as a critic of my prose stylings. Harrumph, Dennis "Gil Skillman" Robertson

Re: RE: P.S.

When I said... > >For what it's worth, mainstream theory suggests another possible >explanation for positive interest rates besides time (and possibly risk) >preference, although it is not one that is typically emphasized: interest >represents a scarcity rent for capital. This latter explanati

P.S.

Sorry, that previous answer to Ian's pop quiz was too truncated. I should have said that mainstream theory suggests another possible explanation for positive interest rates that, like explanations based on time or risk preferences, is consistent with the operation of competitive and complete

Re: pop quiz time

It sounds like Keynes, except he would have criticized "(neo)classical economics" rather than "mainstream economists"; the latter phrasing sounds more recent. For what it's worth, mainstream theory suggests another possible explanation for positive interest rates besides time (and possibly ri

The uses of game theory

A while back someone asked about the usefulness of game theory. Below is a site that should, um, restore your faith in the power of this analytical framework. Amazing! Gil

Re: Nash equilibrium's relevance

Jim writes >In the article below, Varian explains Nash equilibrium. As an expert in game >theory, he points out that it's not a realistic prediction of how people >play most actual real-world games. > >If so, why is Nash's equilibrium used for all sorts of things, such as >electricity regulation?

Re: RE: Re: Re: RE: Nash, Harsanyi and Selten

> >That would be *quadrature* of the circle (constructing a line equal in >length to the circumference of any given circle). Squaring circles is >impossible. I once circled a square, though (warily). Gil

Re: RE: Re: game theory

Jim writes >yes, but do three- or four-person games ever produce useful results? are >other game metaphors used besides "I move" and "you move" of the standard >prisoner's dilemma box? Re the first question: for the most part, analyses of games that generically feature several players are not

Re: game theory

Jim writes >Why is it that "game theory" focuses only on the 2x2 matrix type of game (or >the N-person game)? (it doesn't) >or am I wrong to think that it is so one-tracked in its >mind? In a word, yes. The 2X2 games are primarily just used for illustrative purposes.

Re: Re: "Nobel" Prize

>No, noncommunication is a condition of game theory. Co-cnspirators are >treated as a single actor for purposes of the game. jks Strictly speaking, cooperative game theory doesn't address the possibility of communication one way or another, since strategies and information sets aren't model in

Re: Nash, Harsanyi and Selten

In response to this comment from me >Relatedly, a generic insight provided by >Nash noncooperative equilibrium is that the interactions of "rational" >self-interested actors need not--under some conditions, probably >won't--lead to "socially rational" outcomes. Charles writes >CB: This seems to

Re: Reply to Skiilman and RV on Roemer

Miychi writes >In debate between Skilllaman and RV on Roemer, It is unclear that whether >exploitaion is ³forced² or²voluntary². In reality, based upon sepatation >from >means of production, workers are ³ forced² to work at least to maintain >their physical condition. This unclearness result from

Nash, Harsanyi and Selten

[Was: Re: "Nobel" prize] In response to this comment by Justin, >> But Nash & Harsanyi made real contributions to economics. Jim writes >you think? As far as I know, there's no reason to think that the Nash >equilibrium applies in reality (and I'm not familiar enough with Harsanyi's >work to

Re: Roemer and Exploitation

I look forward to addressing Roberto's new set of comments on this thread after reading them carefully. But insofar as the exchange is already lengthy, involved, and possibly of limited general interest, I'll follow through on my earlier promise by responding offline. Gil >Following a thread of

Re: bounced from Mike Yates

Michael, here are two recent references: Daron Acemoglu and Jaume Ventura, The World Income Distribution, NBER Working Paper 8083, January 2001. Acemoglu and Ventura develop and offer evidence for a new neoclassically-based theory, but give references for the standard neoclassical account. Matt

Re: Marx vs. Roemer

Continuing the discussion with Charles. Fast forward to... >> >>CB: (Again, just because we are doing a fine tooth comb treatment, "surplus >>value" and "capital" are not entirely identical, but it may not matter. I'm >>not trying to be picky, but I am thinking that as you are doing a very

Re: Re: Re: Re: Roemer and Exploitation

Rakesh writes >I also had written the following on which Gil did not comment: > > >>To say that additional capital is increasingly in short supply vis a >>vis the new and displaced laboring population as accumulation >>progresses only means that in the course of accumulation the >>primordial

Re: urpe@assa

Mathew, the URPE@ASSA coordinator is Mieke Meurs at American University. I can look up her e-mail address if you need it. The deadline is generally not until May or June, so you're not under the gun here. If Mieke doesn't send an announcement directly to PEN-L, I'll forward the announcement whe

Re: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit

Charles, you write > >CB: Your argument for this is probably in your previous posts, but could you >reiterate it ? Does it follow from something else that surplus value is a >necessary condition for profit ? Marx makes surplus value part of the >definition of profit. > First things first: w

Re: Marx vs. Roemer

Charles, thanks for your post. It is entirely appropriate to demand care in definition and usage of terms, especially in these first steps. >>Regarding your discussion below, are you saying that because one necessary >>condition for _surplus_ value is that it follow a circuit of capital, that

Re: Re: Roemer and Exploitation

Hello, Rakesh. You write in part >Production (P) is explanatorily fundamental to the scarcity of DOPA >(S) and thus the persistence of exploitation (E). > >That is, P=>E implies P+S=>E > >It's into the hidden abode of production one must enter to explain >the persistence of scarce DOPA relativ

Re: marx's proof regarding surplus value and profit

Michael writes: >One more short, but obvious point regarding profit and surplus value. >Marx did offer one simple "proof" of the role of surplus value in the >creation of profit. Suppose, he says, that we take the working class as a >whole. If the working-class did not produce anymore than it c

Re: Defending civilised values by torture

Talk about your "axis of evil"! No wonder the US has so little global credibility: it keeps trying to have its moral cake and eat it, too. On the one hand, we're waging a "war on terrorism," which is used to justify the amazing cloak of secrecy over our military's actions. On the other, the p

Re: RE: Re: Re: Re: Marx vs. Roemer

At 03:04 PM 3/11/02 -0800, you wrote: >Shane [Mage] writes in response to Justin:>>A monopolist is able to get an >above-average rate of return on its capital. Nonmonopolists (except, >perhaps, in Lake Woebegone..) must therefore receive a below-average return >on their capital.<< > >Gil writes:>

Re: Re: Re: Marx vs. Roemer

Shane writes in response to Justin: >A monopolist is able to get an above-average rate of return on its capital. >Nonmonopolists (except, perhaps, in Lake Woebegone..) must therefore >receive a below-average return on their capital. This does not necessarily follow. Suppose, for example, that

Re: Re: Marx vs. Roemer

CB writes >>CB: To be more precise, Marx's position is that labor is the only source of >>new value, exchange-value. Individual capitalists may increase or lose >>some of their share of the total surplus value by various "buying and >>selling" of all types among themselves. Marx's recognizing

Re: Roemer and Exploitation

I'd like to continue the exchange with Roberto Veneziani (RV) concerning the meaning of Roemer's formal results and the impact of his excellent paper, "Exploitation and Time" on that meaning, but before doing so I want to make a couple of things clear up front. First, we start from a position of

Re: Veneziani on Roemer, Marx, and Skillman

Lest it be forgotten, this now extensive and multi-named thread began with my simple suggestion, in response to a P.S. in a post by Sabri, that Roemer's work raised issues that were of relevance to Marx's analysis in Volume I of Capital. This modest assessment was not intended as a referendum on

Kism as progressive yet contradictory

[Was: : [PEN-L:23525] Re: Re: Re: Re: Wade vs Wolf ] Doug writes >[Capitalism is] awful, but I guess it beats slavery or feudalism. But it's also >a deeply contradictory system, producing wealth and possibility >alongside poverty and oppression. A friend of mine who spent a few >years as a re

Re: Re: A role for static analysis?

Sabri, nicely put. Gil >As Melvin said: > >Hey, "space is the final frontier, these are the voyages of the >starship l-Pen, on its continuing mission to figure out what the >hell is going on." > >I guess this is why I like PEN-L so much.

Re: RE: Roemer and Veneziani

Jim, you write > >I haven't read Veneziani's paper, but the possibility of workers' saving >doesn't undermine Marx's theory. Marx does discuss workers' saving in volume >III (though I can't find the quotes, since my copy of CAPITAL that's been >marked up is at work). It's often assumed that the "c

Re: Re: RE: Roemer and Veneziani

Doug, What! Throw out these classics, when you could sell them on e-Bay for big bucks? Perverse. Gil >I was just cleaning out the bookshelves, trying to make room for new >arrivals in a cramped Manhattan apartment, and came across two issues >of the RRPE, one from the late 70s, the other f

Roemer and Veneziani

[Was: Re: [PEN-L:23400] RE: Re: Some questions] >Roemer's "Analytical foundations of Marxian economic theory" >should be understood as part of an ideological attack on, and >effort to suppress, Marx's ideas in their original form. If "ideological attack on" can be read as a synonym for "critical

Rigor mortis?

[Was: RE: Re: Some questions] Hello, Michael. You write: >Putting a premium on rigor seems to be one of the silliest ideas ever >proposed in economics. Take reality, remove all of the concrete aspects, >represent that husk of reality as a mathematical equation, and see what >comes of it. Al

A role for static analysis?

[Was: Re [PEN-L:23396] Re: Some questions] Sabri, you write >When I said "I looked at", I literally meant it. It is always >difficult to deduce from e-mails what exactly the author has in >mind, nor it is easy to tell whether the author is making a joke >or not. This is a very funny medium. In

Re: Re: Dornbusch: Argentina must surrender sovereignty on financial issues!!!!

In this context, let us not forget that a "committee of central bankers" runs a significant aspect of the US economy. Nor forget European nations' fears that consolidation of the EU would mean they all march to the economic tune of the Bundesbank. There's a common theme at work here. Gil >

Re: Some questions

Sabri writes, among other things, > >P.S: I looked at Roemer's "Analytical foundations of Marxian >economic theory" but was not particularly impressed. It looks >like Varian's "Microeconomic analysis". By the way, Varian is >definitely better than Roemer when it comes to using TeX, that >softwar

Re: a lesson from Japan?

But let us not forget that Japan has faced some serious constraints in digging itself out of its deflationary spiral, constraints that the US doesn't necessarily face. Among them: 1) The link from loose monetary policy to expansion-creating loans has been disrupted by the high percentage of non

Macro, micro, and Marx's method

[Was: Transformation Tsurris] Jim raises a number of interesting issues that go well beyond the simple point I suggested re Marx's V. III "transformation of commodity values into prices of production." I react to some of these points below. Those not interested in metatheoretical/pedagogical i

Re: On the necessity of socialism

In response to Doug's (tongue-in-cheek?) comment >Never. It was a ruse devised by the bourgeoisie to occupy the >attention of otherwise smart and knowledgeable Marxian economists on >something addictively divisive but politically irrelevant. Charles writes >Charles: Isn't it worse than that

The "famous" PEN-L debate

Hello Jim, I was trolling through the Web when I came across this blurb from you extolling a new book, From Capitalism to Inequality: "Chapter three ... is crystal-clear. If we'd read this chapter beforehand, the famous PEN-L debate with Gil Ski

[PEN-L:10198] Re: Re: Re: Re: John Lloyd article on Russiancollapse

>Gil Skillman wrote: > >>Although I certainly agree that the West has played a key role in turning >>Russia into a socio-economic basket case, there may be more here than meets >>the eye. First, concerning the statistics, there is a potential double >>measurement

[PEN-L:10187] Re: Re: John Lloyd article on Russian collapse

>Worse even. GDP, or some approximation of it, has fallen by half in >Russia, about twice as bad as the U.S. during the Depression - but >social indicators are much worse, with life expectancy falling and >the population shrinking. I don't think there's any precedent for a >falling population

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