Re: Najaf

2004-08-14 Thread Marvin Gandall
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 9:06 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Najaf > Marvin Gandall wrote: > > > > A spokesman for Al Sadr meanwhile told Agence France Presse > > early today that UN troops should be brought into Iraq to replace US forces, > >

Najaf

2004-08-14 Thread Marvin Gandall
(The US says the talks have broken down, and are again threatening an assault on the Imam Ali mosque. Why the assault has been repeatedly delayed is outlined below. The Sadrists have used the ceasefire during the past 24 hours to encourage and welcome supporters to Najaf, strengthening their positi

Re: Kerry would have gone to war

2004-08-11 Thread Marvin Gandall
Louis Proyect wrote: > (A frequent argument on behalf of Kerry is that he would have not > invaded Iraq after 9/11. He might be an imperialist but is not a rash, > adventuristic unilateralist. Guess what, folks. He is a rash, > adventuristic unilateralist. He might not be a born-again Christian an

Let the Empire vote, eh?

2004-08-11 Thread Marvin Gandall
An apparently only half tongue-in-cheek argument in yesterday's Globe and Mail for why Canadians and others should be allowed to vote for the US President. The Kerry Democrats, you would think, would have a real interest in taking the issue a step further. Rather than lamely trailing after Bush in

Re: Corporate Democrats

2004-08-10 Thread Marvin Gandall
Yoshie wrote: > > I've seen folks here and elsewhere contemptuously dismiss an > independent electoral challenge to the Democratic Party from the left > (Nader/Camejo and Greens who support them), an attempt to make voices > for peace heard inside the Democratic Party (Kucinich and those who > supp

Corporate Democrats

2004-08-10 Thread Marvin Gandall
One of the 200 business executives who came out for Kerry last week was Leo Hindery, a former CEO of Global Crossing and AT & T Broadband. In today’s Financial Times, Hindery identifies the major reasons why a small segment of the corporate sector - what the left has traditionally called the “enlig

Continuing China fever

2004-08-09 Thread Marvin Gandall
Today's Financial Times offers more dramatic evidence of how China has become the new beacon for Western-based multinationals. It describes the fierce struggle for dominance being waged over control of the lucrative China-US air cargo trade by FedEx, UPS, and European carriers like DHL --somewhat r

Re: Al Gore for overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2000

2004-08-07 Thread Marvin Gandall
Louis Proyect wrote: > Marvin Gandall wrote: > > Whether you think invasion/occupation versus sanctions/subversion represents > > only a nuance of difference or is more significant than that is a matter of > > judgment, of course. Certainly, you can make a case that the sa

Re: Al Gore for overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2000

2004-08-07 Thread Marvin Gandall
Louis Proyect quoting the New Yorker article: > The idea of overthrowing Saddam is not an idle fantasy-or, if it is, > it's one that has lately occupied the minds of many American officials, > including people close to George W. Bush. In 1998, during the period > when Saddam was resisting the inte

Tariq Ali on the US election

2004-08-06 Thread Marvin Gandall
(The following is from Doug Henwood's LBO-list. I may have missed Doug also posting it here. If so, my apologies for duplicating it. But a case can be made for reading Tariq Ali's comments twice. Ali, the radical British political commentator and playwright, has IMO succinctly grasped what is esse

Re: The rise of an emotion based left was Bush using drugs

2004-08-05 Thread Marvin Gandall
Sorry. The title is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. - Original Message - From: Devine, James To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 05, 2004 12:04 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] The rise of an emotion based left was Bush using drugs I agree

Re: The rise of an emotion based left was Bush using drugs

2004-08-05 Thread Marvin Gandall
Speaking of autism, read -- if you haven't already -- Mark Haddon's The Serious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, an outstanding first novel by a British writer with a background in working with autistic kids. Very funny and empathetic, about one such terrifically engaging 15 year old.

Re: China and socialism

2004-08-02 Thread Marvin Gandall
Louis Proyect wrote: > I recommend that you read Theodor Shanin's "Late Marx", which makes a > convincing case that Marx rejected the notion of universal models of > development. I haven't read Shanin's book. But reinterpreting Marx has been the fashion ever since the socialist revolution he fore

Re: China and socialism

2004-08-02 Thread Marvin Gandall
The problem, unfortunately, is there has never been anything other than a "scorched earth march to fully developed capitalist property relations" --anywhere, ever. Therefore, the issue becomes: is such a march historically progressive, despite the human toll? Marx, of course, answered in the affirm

Jonathan Schell on the DP's prowar stance

2004-07-31 Thread Marvin Gandall
(Jonathan Schell, in the forthcoming issue of The Nation, argues that the Democratic party has locked itself into continuing the war in Iraq, even though its base is in denial and is hoping Kerry's pledge to do so is just rhetoric designed to win the election. In fact, the outcome of the US occupat

Re: An emerging labor-led left in the DP?

2004-07-27 Thread Marvin Gandall
I appreciate Michael's intent to keep order, although I didn't especially mind your barb; I've seen you much less restrained. But I don't understand your angry reply. Why is it ok for you to call me "a trade union functionary for 25 years" (actually 20, I was previously a steward in the Steelworker

Re: An emerging labor-led left in the DP?

2004-07-27 Thread Marvin Gandall
Charles Brown wrote: > by Marvin Gandall > > -clip- > -- which explains their stubborn > refusal to buy the argument that the Democrats are "inimical to the > interests of working people." I think there will first have to be a major > change in the way most p

Re: An emerging labor-led left in the DP?

2004-07-27 Thread Marvin Gandall
Louis Proyect wrote: > Unfortunately, knowing that Kerry is inimical to the interests of > working people does not stop the bureaucracy from backing the DP. --- This raises the question of the relationship between the labour base and the labour bureaucracy. The conv

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

2004-07-24 Thread Marvin Gandall
Yoshie wrote: > Unions as organized entities (as opposed to factions of > activists in them) will be *the last* to join any third-party > movement on the left that has an actual potential to grow powerful > (that is, if they will ever join any such thing en masse at all -- > very improbable), for

Re: Thomas Frank op-ed piece

2004-07-23 Thread Marvin Gandall
Don't you think it will be necessary for the Greens to win a number of congressional seats before they can be seen as a potential alternative to the Democrats by the unions and social movements, and a durable third party in the country as a whole? After all, electoral politics in a capitalist democ

Re: Housing prices

2004-07-23 Thread Marvin Gandall
It may be the case that nominal house prices have rarely if ever fallen since WW II, but I would doubt their annual average percentage increase over this period exceeds the capital gain on stocks and certain classes of bonds, particularly when the carrying cost of this type of investment is factore

Re: Of Rumps and Dumps

2004-07-19 Thread Marvin Gandall
I largely agree with you, although I think you can find historical instances where the ruling class adjudges some degree of change necessary to act as a safety valve releasing mass pressures which threaten to overwhelm the system. The New Deal comes to mind in a period which saw the rapid growth in

Re: Of Rumps and Dumps

2004-07-19 Thread Marvin Gandall
Sartesian wrote: Somebody out there thinks the ruling class has dumped George Bush? Check out: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org/documents/RP_Ind_060204.pdf Check the whole site at: http://www.whitehouseforsale.org And this: Wall Str

BW: Timid fat cats

2004-07-16 Thread Marvin Gandall
The July 19th issue of Business Week reports that US corporations, stuffed with record profits, remain reluctant to invest their “mountains of cash”, which might be interpreted as a vote of non-confidence in the durability of the current recovery. Inventories are at a record low and the pace of cap

BW: Pleading poverty over pensions

2004-07-16 Thread Marvin Gandall
The cover story of the same issue of Business Week describes the massive effort being undertaken by US corporations to divest themselves of their pension obligations to their employees and retirees. Most of the attacks are aimed at the defined-benefit plans negotiated by once-strong unions in the a

The different domestic agendas of Tweedledum and Tweedledee

2004-07-12 Thread Marvin Gandall
(An interesting recent piece by the NYT’s Louis Uchitelle on the differing domestic programmes of the Republicans and Democrats. Their respective positions on health care, labour rights, tax policy, trade, and pensions mirror the same differences which divide social democratic and conservative part

Correction

2004-07-11 Thread Marvin Gandall
Sorry. Michael Ignatieff. George was his dad, a Canadian diplomat.

The US's inevitable dictator

2004-07-11 Thread Marvin Gandall
(It was bound to come to this - something which always eludes liberal imperialists like George Ignatieff and Thomas Friedman, seduced by the promise that US intervention abroad, however messy, will yield democratic results. The Pentagon’s widely discredited choice for strongman, Ahmed Chalabi, was

The housing bubble

2004-07-08 Thread Marvin Gandall
(Despite widespread speculation that the turn in the interest rate cycle will burst the housing bubble in the US and elsewhere, precipitating a wider financial and social crisis, early indications are that housing markets will soften and stagnate rather than collapse, according to a report in today

Re: Stephen Gowans on Fahrenheit 9/11 and Robert Jensen

2004-07-06 Thread Marvin Gandall
- Original Message - From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, July 06, 2004 7:14 PM Subject: [PEN-L] Stephen Gowans on Fahrenheit 9/11 and Robert Jensen July 6, 2004 Critiquing the critique Pandering to the lies the Left tells itself about the Dem

Business on Edwards

2004-07-06 Thread Marvin Gandall
(How business intends to go after Edwards as a “trial lawyer”, from today’s WSJ. Ignore the unintentional humour about the Chamber of Commerce’s “traditional stance of political neutrality”. Advice to the Democrats on how to blunt the thrust of Republican criticism by making Edwards the standardbea

Distinguishing between Tweedledum and Tweedledee

2004-07-06 Thread Marvin Gandall
(Or: are the 5 just misguided leadership dupes?) Really Laboring To Beat Bush The nation's largest union will shell out $65 million to campaign against the reelection of President George Bush. On June 23, the 1.6 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) announced at its ann

Still solidly Bush

2004-05-25 Thread Marvin Gandall
Even by traditional Republican standards and despite Iraq, Wall Street is engaged in an unprecedented drive to reelect George Bush, according to the Washington Post. Investment dealers like Morgan Stanley, who have profited hugely from the administration’s first term dividend and capital gain tax

Nuclear marketplace

2004-05-24 Thread Marvin Gandall
The case of an Israeli orthodox Jew selling nuclear weapons parts to a Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist illustrates the extensive underground trade in the components, today’s Los Angeles Times reports. Asher Karni, an Israeli citizen now resident in South Africa, was arrested on a recent visit to

Lula's China visit

2004-05-22 Thread Marvin Gandall
Brazilian president Lula’s state visit to China at the head of a huge business delegation, beginning today, is part of a strategic effort to connect the biggest emerging markets in the eastern and western hemispheres, says an article in the Financial Times. It is a development “with potentiall

Nader lauds Kerry

2004-05-20 Thread Marvin Gandall
Ralph Nader all but endorsed John Kerry for president in an interview yesterday with the New York Times, effectively undercutting those of his supporters who want to define his candidacy as a sharp break with the Democrats. Nader told the Times that Kerry was “very presidential”, and indicated

More evidence of crumbling US position

2004-05-20 Thread Marvin Gandall
(From today’s Financial Times) Iraq's rebel cleric gains surge in popularity By Roula Khalaf in Baghdad An Iraqi poll to be released next week shows a surge in the popularity of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical young Shia cleric fighting coalition forces, and suggests nearly nine out of 10 Iraqis see

Iran's cautious tactics

2004-05-20 Thread Marvin Gandall
Kaveh L. Afrasiabi in today’s Asia Times examines whether Iran is acquiescing in or subverting the US occupation of Iraq, and concludes it is doing both in tandem in response to a complex and fluid situation. On the one hand, the Iranians would like to see threatening US forces expelled from the r

Hardening divide

2004-05-19 Thread Marvin Gandall
The widely held view that the US-Europe rift is only a temporary one which will disappear with the Bush administration looks to be wrong, according to the latest Economist. The magazine says “the transatlantic rift that opened up because of Iraq shows little sign of healing. On the contrary, it may

Capital fright in India

2004-05-18 Thread Marvin Gandall
Investors are spooked but foreign manufacturers are largely unfazed by the Congress Party’s election win in India, according to reports in today’s Wall Street Journal and Financial Times. The Indian stock market plunged by a record 16% since the defeat of the right-wing BJP government and, especia

Revolt fizzling?

2004-04-15 Thread Marvin Gandall
Today’s Daily Telegraph is reporting that Moqtada al-Sadr has indicated his willingness to surrender and disband the Mahdi Army, which would likely halt the 10-day old Shia rising. According to the Telegraph, Sadr is said to be “buckling under the twin pressures of a massive build-up of American f

Marching on Karbala

2004-04-10 Thread Marvin Gandall
Today’s The Age (Melbourne) reports surging support for Moqtada al-Sadr among the millions of pilgrims converging on Karbala for the Shia holiday of al-Arbaeen, which it sees as a reprieve before an assault by US forces. The paper’s Baghdad correspondent Paul McGeough was “staggered” by the number

United resistance

2004-04-07 Thread Marvin Gandall
The Fallujah and Sadrist risings have sparked a much broader resistance movement among the Iraqi people, one which is rapidly uniting Sunnis and Shias, according to today’s New York Times. Times reporter Jeffrey Gettleman was in the Khadamiya neighbourhood in Baghdad when rumours circulated of a U

Re: Decisive showdown

2004-04-06 Thread Marvin Gandall
e needs. I sometimes think the inability to accept this as an explanation is the mistaken fear that it is a permanent condition. Marv Gandall - Original Message - From: "Carrol Cox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 11:52 AM Subject:

Re: Decisive showdown

2004-04-06 Thread Marvin Gandall
lt;[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2004 9:25 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Decisive showdown > Marvin Gandall wrote: > > Carrol Cox wrote: "I still think that it is really not possible to both > > support Kerry and continue to build the a

Sadr's popularity

2004-04-06 Thread Marvin Gandall
Separate first-hand accounts in today’s Guardian and Financial Times describe why the movement led by Moqtada al-Sadr is attracting support from Iraqis, particularly among the most oppressed. The Guardian’s Rory McCarthy says the Sadrists, led by the younger generation of Shia clerics, have acquir

Re: Decisive showdown

2004-04-05 Thread Marvin Gandall
Carrol Cox wrote: "I still think that it is really not possible to both support Kerry and continue to build the anti-war movement. It is essential that we keep front and center that Kerry will be a more dangerous imperial warrior than Bush." -

Decisive showdown

2004-04-05 Thread Marvin Gandall
Today’s Washington Post describes how nervous US authorities have provoked a showdown with the radical wing of the Shia movement led by Moqtada al-Sadr, which could decide the fate of the occupation. American officials had been hoping to contain and diminish al-Sadr’s influence, while cultivating

Consolidating control

2004-03-28 Thread Marvin Gandall
The US has taken steps to ensure it controls Iraq through its future army even after it formally transfers political sovereignty to a civilian government, reports today’s Washington Post. The Post says the US is creating an Iraqi defence department modelled on the Pentagon, and is presently traini

Taiwan's election

2004-03-27 Thread Marvin Gandall
Taiwanese president Chen Shui-bian's controversial reelection, being contested by the opposition, has left the island’s business interests and the Chinese government disgruntled, according to Business Week. Chen narrowly defeated Kuomintang (KMT) leader Lien Chan on March 20, following an assassin

The Newdow case

2004-03-26 Thread Marvin Gandall
Ellen Goodman in today’s San Francisco Chronicle says that atheist Michael Newdow’s constitutional challenge to the American Pledge of Allegiance may be nettlesome, but raises important questions of principle. Newdow, an emergency room doctor with a law degree, was allowed to argue his own case be

Interest rate debate

2004-03-25 Thread Marvin Gandall
Gerald Baker in today’s Financial Times describes the renewed debate within financial circles about whether it is time to tighten US monetary policy, and weighs in against “sado-monetarism”. Baker says “a deviancy popular among certain central bankers and commentators in the 1980s, is out of the c

Operation Backfire

2004-03-24 Thread Marvin Gandall
The Pakistani army has been mauled and the Musharraf government is risking civil war in its failed attempt to capture Ayman al-Zawahiri in the Pashtun tribal region, reports today’s Asia Times. American and Pakistani officials boasted last week that they had trapped a “high value target”, understo

Re: Yassin assassination

2004-03-23 Thread Marvin Gandall
Gandall - Original Message - From: "ravi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, March 23, 2004 2:13 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Yassin assassination > Marvin Gandall wrote: > > Though widely decried as stupid... > > > > why is this

Yassin assassination

2004-03-23 Thread Marvin Gandall
Though widely decried as stupid, Israel’s provocative assassination of sheikh Yassin simply underscores its opposition to a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians, according to today’s Wall Street Journal. Journal reporters Karby Leggett and Christopher Cooper note that the Sharon government’

Employer mobilization

2004-03-21 Thread Marvin Gandall
American corporations are planning a major effort to muster their employees to vote Republican to counter labour unions’ organizing on behalf of the Democrats, according to today’s Washington Post. The Post says the Business Roundtable and industry trade associations are enlisting a rapidly growin

Chomsky favours Kerry

2004-03-20 Thread Marvin Gandall
Though he admires Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky tells the Guardian he supports John Kerry over George Bush because “small differences can translate into large outcomes…in this case as in 2000.” The description of Kerry as “Bush-lite” is not “inaccurate”, he says, describing the Republicans and Democra

Iraq one year later

2004-03-19 Thread Marvin Gandall
The Economist is no longer convinced the invasion of Iraq was worthwhile, and reflects on the contradictory effects which make the outcome for the country and region so uncertain. Despite the “shocking clumsiness” of the occupation and resulting violence and insecurity, it cites polls showing most

Re: Historical Accuracy

2004-03-18 Thread Marvin Gandall
Shane Mage wrote: Marvin Gandall writes: >"...bourgeois-dominated but worker-based parties like the Democratic party in the US..." If Marvin thinks the Dumbocrats are "worker-based" they're most welcome to his support. I'm

Divided over Iran

2004-03-18 Thread Marvin Gandall
The Bush administration is split on Iran policy, according to the Financial Times - specifically over whether a deal favourable to US interests can be struck with the entrenched clerical leadership. The differences echo those between the State and Defence departments leading up to the invasion of I

Re: Historical accuracy

2004-03-17 Thread Marvin Gandall
No, I'm afraid this won't do, Louis. There was no distinction made between a party of the big bourgeoise and the petty bourgeoisie. The only permissable electoral activity for a Marxist was in relation to a party based on the unions and committed to public ownership. You're just trying to put a "pr

Re: Historical Accuracy

2004-03-17 Thread Marvin Gandall
Shane Mage is right in noting that Lenin was talking of intervention in a "class party", ie. the Labour Party, but he is wrong when he says Left-Wing Communism is concerned with "the differences between the leader of the British capitalist class and the leader of the British Labor Party" and that "

Re: Historical accuracy

2004-03-17 Thread Marvin Gandall
This would probably be the appropriate moment -- in light of your comments and Joel Wendland's -- to ask Louis to elaborate on the following statement: "...I am far more interested in defining the class criterion that would make support for bourgeois parties impermissible..." What are the "class c

Historical accuracy

2004-03-17 Thread Marvin Gandall
Louis Proyect wrote: "I have a feeling that the same people who are urging a vote for Kerry today will be urging the same policies in the future when workers are occupying factories and calling for a general strike. You don't switch brands from Menshevism to Bolshevism when the "time is ripe". Mens

Fading US tech lead

2004-03-17 Thread Marvin Gandall
The US’s once overwhelming dominance in high technology is beginning to wane, and outsourcing is only one of the symptoms, reports Business Week. Although the US is still the overall leader and Microsoft, General Electric, and Intel are household names, the Nordic countries are in the forefront of

RS

2004-03-16 Thread Marvin Gandall
I think the relevance of the classical Marxists, for myself at least, lies in their analytical power, which is immense, rather than their predictive power, which turned out to be negligible. That’s to be expected since it is a lot easier to accurately interpret current conditions than to speculate

Spain and Iraq

2004-03-16 Thread Marvin Gandall
Although the new Spanish socialist government, reflecting the strong pressure of its supporters, says it will leave Iraq, analysts interviewed in today’s Wall Street Journal are sceptical it will do so. The US has been working behind the scenes with Germany and other European states to effect a no

Re: Spanish spectre

2004-03-15 Thread Marvin Gandall
Hey, we agree. :) - Original Message - From: "Louis Proyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 11:13 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Spanish spectre > Marvin Gandall wrote: > > means -- any US government, including a Gree

Re: Spanish spectre

2004-03-15 Thread Marvin Gandall
oyect" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, March 15, 2004 10:41 AM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Spanish spectre > Marvin Gandall wrote: > > A large turnout of Democratic Party and independent American voters angry at > > having been lied to about Iraq

Spanish spectre

2004-03-15 Thread Marvin Gandall
The Socialist Party victory in Spain has sent political shock waves around the world, changed the European power balance, and is ominous news for George Bush, according to an analysis in today’s Asia Times. The election has drawn Spain closer to France and Germany, further isolating Tony Blair i

Re: Derivatives

2004-03-14 Thread Marvin Gandall
Thanks. This is more what I was looking for. I wouldn't discount efforts towards some form of self-regulation in the overall self-interest of investors, however, and especiially by the big banks who are forced to take a bath to take when heavily leveraged big players like LTCM bet wrong and can't c

Derivatives

2004-03-14 Thread Marvin Gandall
Sabri Oncu provided some unhelpful comments about my queries on derivatives. 1) If he were advising the government of Cuba would he immediately recommend it drop its sugar derivatives program -- and, by extension, advise other poor countries to do the same in relation to their own resources? 2) I

Lukewarm Wall Street

2004-03-13 Thread Marvin Gandall
Wall Street is not as enamoured of George Bush as might be supposed and some think a John Kerry presidency would be better for the economy, reports the American financial weekly, Barron’s. “Wall Street…is pretty much divided on the two candidates”, writes Jim McTague. In essence, as individual i

Re: An essay on economic basis of bourgeois risk and gambling culture - parasitism as derivatives, options, swaps, hedge funds etc.

2004-03-13 Thread Marvin Gandall
I didn't ask the question to be provocative. Someone raised it with me in a discussion. Your answer seems to be "maybe they work for hedging purposes, but they still represent a potential source of catastrophic instability". That's essentially what I replied, wondering whether I'd missed any "intri

Re: An essay on economic basis of bourgeois risk and gambling culture - parasitism as derivatives, options, swaps, hedge funds etc.

2004-03-12 Thread Marvin Gandall
atives, options, swaps, hedge funds etc. > Marvin Gandall: > > > Hungarian, but a good essay nonetheless. :) > > No! It is not a good essay. > > It is a wonderful demonstration of lack of > understanding of derivatives, as the following > statement of its author demo

Re: An essay on economic basis of bourgeois risk and gambling culture - parasitism as derivatives, options, swaps, hedge funds etc.

2004-03-12 Thread Marvin Gandall
- Original Message - From: "Sabri Oncu" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 9:42 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] An essay on economic basis of bourgeois risk and gambling culture - parasitism as derivatives, options, swaps, hedge funds e

Re: Russia-China: Putin's next term

2004-03-12 Thread Marvin Gandall
I read somewhere the Chinese felt betrayed when the Russians agreed to let the Japanese, late entrants, divert the proposed West Siberian oil pipeline from Daqing to Nakhodka for trans-shipment across the Sea of Japan to Japan and beyond -- presumably to the US West Coast. The Chinese evidently tho

Re: An essay on economic basis of bourgeois risk and gambling culture - parasitism as derivatives, options, swaps, hedge funds etc.

2004-03-11 Thread Marvin Gandall
Hungarian, but a good essay nonetheless. :) - Original Message - From: "Jurriaan Bendien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, March 11, 2004 6:31 PM Subject: [PEN-L] An essay on economic basis of bourgeois risk and gambling culture - parasitism as derivatives, optio

Re: [Marxism] A tactical debate

2004-03-10 Thread Marvin Gandall
Louis Proyect wrote: "This is an interesting question. Kerry insists that he voted for the war because he was misled. He based his vote on the "documentation" furnished by the CIA. If he has stated somewhere that he would have voted differently if he knew back then what he knows now (as even Colin

Re: Question on public choice theory

2004-03-10 Thread Marvin Gandall
Maybe liberal social attitudes. But what do the surveys show about the relationship between income/education and attitudes to taxes and social programs, for example? Is it not the case the higher up the education and income ladder you go, the greater receptivity there is to cutting taxes and progra

A tactical debate

2004-03-10 Thread Marvin Gandall
An interview with John Kerry in the latest Time, and an article in today ’s Wall Street Journal article on current US foreign policy, illustrate that Democratic and Republican differences primarily turn on the alliance with Europe. As the Journal reports, the Bush administration recognizes the nee

More on Argentina

2004-03-10 Thread Marvin Gandall
I’m not that knowledgeable as others on this list about these matters, but an interesting sidelight for me has been the reported role played by the Bush administration which has, in effect, inadvertently (or perhaps not so inadvertently) “run interference” for the Argentineans. North American foot

Argentinean hardball

2004-03-09 Thread Marvin Gandall
Argentina is showing how a poor country can use a debt default to relieve its obligations to foreign creditors – a tactic that has infuriated the big banks and split the IMF, report the Financial Times and the Guardian. The country is suffering under a crushing $100 billion debt burden, and has be

Crisis at the peak

2004-03-08 Thread Marvin Gandall
The world will be plunged into crisis long before it runs out of oil – in as little as 10-15 years when production will likely peak, according to energy analyst Paul Roberts in the Los Angeles Times. Oil optimists think the world won’t run out of reserves until at least mid-century, by which time

Fear of polarization

2004-03-07 Thread Marvin Gandall
The conservative US News and World Report is worried by data showing the worsening condition of US workers, and the growing prospect of class polarization threatening corporate America and the Republican party. Working class Americans are “living on the edge of a decline very different from the tr

Chalabi and Sistani

2004-03-06 Thread Marvin Gandall
Today’s Independent examines the widespread public influence of Iraqi cleric Ali Sistani, but less well known is the hidden power being amassed by Pentagon favourite Ahmed Chalabi reported by the conservative Washington Times. Times columnist Arnaud de Borchgrave says “Ahmad Chalabi is rapidly eme

Re: The Teixeira thesis

2004-03-05 Thread Marvin Gandall
There's a vast jurisprudence which has been built up by labour boards to define who is a worker. The definition has arisen out of the innumerable conflicts between labour and management concerning which employees are eligible for inclusion in a new bargaining unit in union certification cases. Whil

The Teixeira thesis

2004-03-05 Thread Marvin Gandall
The population of college-educated workers, women, minorities, and young people who support the Democratic Party is growing quickly, and will lead it to dominate American politics, argues Ruy Teixeira in the latest issue of Britain’s Prospect magazine. Teixeira first propounded the thesis with co-

Haiti's repression begins

2004-03-02 Thread Marvin Gandall
Jean-Bertrand Aristide may have been allowed to leave, but middle class vigilantes and police loyal to the rebels have entered Port-au-Prince’s slums to hunt and kill his supporters, according to the Washington Post. Residents of the slum quarter of La Saline told the Post uniformed police and arm

Re: Estanblished Trade Unions & Left Politics, was Re: He does have a point

2004-02-29 Thread Marvin Gandall
andall - Original Message - From: "Carrol Cox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 1:04 PM Subject: [PEN-L] Estanblished Trade Unions & Left Politics, was Re: He does have a point > Marvin Gandall wrote: > > > > I

Re: He does have a point

2004-02-29 Thread Marvin Gandall
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote (02/27/04 6:13 PM) > The Green Party needs to run a presidential candidate, especially in > war times, since it is the executive branch of the federal government > that determines foreign policy, making life-and-death decisions on > matters of war and peace. Running candida

Re: declaration of war?

2004-02-27 Thread Marvin Gandall
Maybe not so stupid. It's called "laying pipe" -- preparing the American public for the deep cuts in social programs which are going to follow the election to deal with the deficit. I expect Bush and the Republicans to devote more than a little time talking about diverting social security payroll t

Post-election, Korea?

2004-02-25 Thread Marvin Gandall
Today’s Financial Times says the Bush administration is going through the motions of negotiating with North Korea, and will push for economic sanctions which could lead to war after the US election. FT reporter Andrew Ward says the US needs to bring the Chinese and South Koreans onboard, but “both

Re: Secret Pentagon report on global warming

2004-02-22 Thread Marvin Gandall
Details of this report first appeared in Fortune magazine last month. Today's Observer article is a more sensational recycling of the already sensational story which Fortune reporter David Stipp broke last month. And the Observer account misses the main point of the exercise. As reported by Fortun

The jobless issue

2004-02-21 Thread Marvin Gandall
The Bush administration’s many critics are hoping the current “jobless recovery” will turn the US working class against it, but a review of the job market in the latest Economist suggests this is unlikely. American workers are conservative because the US economy continues to furnish them with job

The hijab controversy

2004-02-15 Thread Marvin Gandall
Today’s Toronto Star has a piece by Haroon Siddiqui outlining the reasons he and other liberal democrats are troubled by the French ban on the hijab – a stance which reveals how much the influence of religion has waned in modern urban society. Religious values and institutions are not the dominati

Re: The economy - a new era?

2004-02-11 Thread Marvin Gandall
This is true, but I think the classical socialist movement favoured concentration for mostly economic rather than political reasons -- ie., like bourgeois economics, Marxists and social democrats saw concentration as "historically progressive" because it yielded economies of scale, and large-scale

America's benefactors

2004-02-11 Thread Marvin Gandall
Asian financing of the US economy to keep it afloat as its largest export market is “the biggest aid programme of all time”, and Europe is paying the price, writes Martin Wolf in today’s Financial Times. As is been widely known, Asian central banks – notably in Japan, China, and Taiwan – have been

Re: Response:Bush and the F 102

2004-02-09 Thread Marvin Gandall
Fascinating stuff, Jim Craven. Never knew the details. Is it all documented in one place? - Original Message - From: "Craven, Jim" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 5:32 PM Subject: [PEN-L] Response:Bush and the F 102 Bush and the Texas Guard fle

Re: Psychoanalysis Re: "happiness is a transitory state"

2004-02-09 Thread Marvin Gandall
And if you want to take it even further -- that capitalism has been able to deliver, despite episodic crises, a modest but steady improvement in living standards and working conditions for the mass of Western wage- and salary-earners, despite Marx's belief that it had "exhausted its historic potent

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