Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

But now he is saying loudly that a new industrial revolution -- communication technology that allows services to be delivered electronically from afar -- will put as many as 40 million American jobs at risk of being shipped out of the country in the next decade or two. That warning is justified.

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

Gernot Koehler wrote: > > there is a weakness in Marx(ian)(ist) > literature with respect to the theory of job creation in capitalist > economies, as opposed to theory of job destruction. (Or, which pieces of > literature did I miss?) > GK You expect too much of theory. Is it a weakness in quantum

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

>But now he is saying loudly that a new industrial revolution >-- communication technology that allows services to be delivered >electronically from afar -- will put as many as 40 million American >jobs at risk of being shipped out of the country in the next decade or two. Gernot Koehler wrote:

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

Jim is correct that Marx talks a lot about job destruction rather than job creation, but he does speak about the need to replenish the reserve army of the unemployed, which presumes that a rhythm of job destruction and job creation exists. Even so, the weight seems to fall on job destruction.

Re: [PEN-L] Economists' Challenge: Is the Surge "Efficient"?

I wonder if we could make more hay of this somehow? I was thinking of offering a reward for any economist who would come forward and defend this as efficient. Wherein it is suggested that, according to the official numbers, the cost of saving a life in Iraq by following the President's policies

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

one of the things is that job destruction (re)creates the reserve army (as MP says). That in turn is the basis for new accumulation and new hiring. On 3/29/07, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Jim is correct that Marx talks a lot about job destruction rather than job creation, but he

[PEN-L] The California Democrats should themselves in the foot again

The Democratic legislature was so intent on being able to put off their own personal term limits for a couple years that they agreed with Arnold to hold a early primaries next year. The deal was that the Democrats would get their term limits and Arnold would get a vote on redistricting. The wa

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

Jim, My point in making the original post was not about the prediction but about who was making it. Alan Blinder is a Princeton economist, was on the Federal Reserve Board, and is the personification of a mainstream economist. When he says that trade is going to cost jobs, that is news.

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

right. I wasn't responding to your original message but to GK. I too was amazed at the source. On 3/29/07, Eugene Coyle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Jim, My point in making the original post was not about the prediction but about who was making it. Alan Blinder is a Princeton economist, w

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

On Mar 29, 2007, at 11:36 AM, Jim Devine wrote: Back when the NAFTA (and similar trade bills) were passed, people warned of job loss. The trouble with this prediction is that it misses the point. The _real_ issue is labor wages (relative to labor productivity). Which is complicated by the fact

[PEN-L] Pictures and left realism

Greetings Economists, On my flickr site here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/doyle_saylor/ I am presenting some visual arguments developing over time about the nature of contemporary realism in Developed country cultures. What is economic about this thesis is how to understand production of visual

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

I though we discussed his Foreign Affairs paper here a few months ago. On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 09:40:33AM -0700, Eugene Coyle wrote: > Jim, > My point in making the original post was not about the prediction > but about who was making it. Alan Blinder is a Princeton economist, > was on th

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

Raghu writes: >> Agreed that "good" is not a black-and-white concept, but it is best >> not to avoid such "normative" questions. In this case surely we can >> agree that huge unearned profits is not "good" for society. At the >> very least you have to admit that the Hertz case shows that there is

Re: [PEN-L] Scitovsky

Jim Devine writes: >> He argues that we can't simply look at what people choose in order to >> discover what's best for them. That makes sense to me. What is the alternative? By definition, would not any alternative be elitist? David Shemano

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

At 11:36 29/03/2007, jim devine wrote: Marx's theory in CAPITAL (volume 1) is mostly about job destruction. This focuses on a representative industry, i.e., one that represents the abstract general laws of accumulation. But there are also processes of job creation in Marx: if aggregate accumulat

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

David, the current buyout craze is setting the stage for a boom in your business. On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 11:07:43AM -0700, David B. Shemano wrote: > > What is an unearned profit? To the extent it is a product of rent-seeking, I > agree that it is a bad thing. The Hertz transaction was not a p

[PEN-L] daycare's woeful effects

Misbehavior Linked To Day Care A recent study showed that children who attended day care for a year or longer were more likely to be disruptive in grade school. What do you think? Eugene Liu, Cardiologist "This just goes to show you that day-care centers don't do enough to break the spirits of to

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

Charles Brown writes: >> What is the logic supporting the idea that interest should be paid for money >> lent ? I believe many or most mortgages have more interest paid than >> principle. In part this is done by payments being allocated to interest >> payments before being allocated to principle p

Re: [PEN-L] Scitovsky

Jim Devine writes: >> He [Scitovsky] argues that we can't simply look at what people choose in order to >> discover what's best for them. That makes sense to me. here's a summary of Scitovsky's theory, adding bullet points and explanations: "I have proposed four different explanations to recon

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

I wrote: > Back when the NAFTA (and similar trade bills) > were passed, people warned of job loss. The trouble with this > prediction is that it misses the point. The _real_ issue is labor > wages (relative to labor productivity). Doug Henwood wrote: Which is complicated by the fact that the 5

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

historically, compound interest (which is the phenomenon that leads to the loading of mortgage payments in interest rather than principal) first appears in the Code of Hammurabi, and is based on the yield on seed corn. If I lend you some of my seed corn over a period of ten years, I have to charge

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

Charles Brown writes: >> CB: If your money is secured by the house, why are you taking any risk at >> all ? Charles -- read the paper. Sub-prime mortgage lenders are falling like cards. Home lending is not risk-free. Even in the prime market, there are defaults. Foreclosure is not inexpensi

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

If the investor invested in the typewriters, we know in hindsight that the money would have essentially been thrown down the drain with a net loss to society compared to the investment in portable computers. The decision to invest is not made blindly by investors. They do due diligence and provi

[PEN-L] Home, Sweet Home

Louis Proyect Behind Foreclosures, Ruined Credit and Hopes For Quintin Fields, it may take a miracle to keep his house; he owes nearly as much in late payments as he will earn all year. ?Everything is closing in on me right now,? Mr. Fields said. ^^^ CB: Late payment penalties and man

[PEN-L] meanwhile back at the war...

today, SLATE's news summary says: The LA [Times] and NY [Times] also front the war of words between Democrats and Bush, who warned, "the American people will know who to hold responsible," if there is a delay in funding for the troops. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called on Bush to "calm down with

[PEN-L] The Host

As long-standing fans of horror movies, I was looking forward to the new Korean movie "The Host," which supposedly was a mixture of "Jaws" and "Alien". Although it is a much more modest film than these Hollywood blockbusters, it is just as entertaining. In some ways, it is like a number of the Kor

Re: [PEN-L] 40 million US Jobs ar risk from trade

On 3/29/07, michael a. lebowitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Remember that Marx assumes that the standard of necessity is given for a given country, era, etc. Thus, by that assumption, increased productivity cannot lead to rising real wages. If we relax that assumption (all other things equal), pro

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

David B. Shemano wrote: The logic of interest ultimately goes back to the principle that human beings would rather consume today then consume tomorrow (i.e. they value the present more highly than the future). If I offered you a dollar now, or offered you a dollar next year, would you t

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

On 3/29/07, David B. Shemano <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: What is an unearned profit? To the extent it is a product of rent-seeking, I agree that it is a bad thing. I am pleased that we are making a lot of progress in finding significant points of agreement :) If it wasn't so risky, there w

Re: [PEN-L] Arundhati Roy on India and Its Maoists

On 3/28/07, Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On India's Growing Violence: 'It's Outright War and Both Sides are Choosing Their Weapons' by Arundhati Roy The following is an interview with Arundhati Roy, conducted by Shoma Chaudhury of Tehelka. given the parallels between China and

[PEN-L] socialism from below [was: Samuel Farber, the state capitalists and Cuba]

I wrote: On the other hand, someone who believes in socialism from below (and stayed true to the [socialism from below] principle) would never ally with the top of the AFL-CIO, or in fact any officials in that organization (or C2W, for that matter). The effort would be to reach and organize the

[PEN-L] Circuit City firing 3,400 workers to replace them with lower-paid substitutes

Circuit City is hardly the first corporation to do this, but they are unusually frank about it. http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8O5FJE80.htm -raghu. --snip A new plan for layoffs at Circuit City is openly targeting better-paid workers, riskin

Re: [PEN-L] Circuit City firing 3,400 workers to replace them with lower-paid substitutes

What does this say about the theory of sticky wages? On Thu, Mar 29, 2007 at 03:48:07PM -0700, raghu wrote: > Circuit City is hardly the first corporation to do this, but they are > unusually frank about it. > http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8O5FJE80.htm > -raghu. > > -

Re: [PEN-L] Circuit City firing 3,400 workers to replace them with lower-paid substitutes

On 3/29/07, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: What does this say about the theory of sticky wages? my version of the sticky wages theory isn't hurt, so I'll stick to it (as it were). the theory was that there's a wage ratchet effect: workers resist (nominal) wage cuts while accepting

[PEN-L] The Soviet Union and Muslim Guerrilla Wars, 1920-1981

Has anyone read this? -- Yoshie The Soviet Union and Muslim Guerrilla Wars, 1920-1981: Lessons for Afghanistan By: Alexandre Bennigsen This Note presents an historical analogy that explains, to a large degree, the apparent inability of the Soviet-backed

Re: [PEN-L] The Soviet Union and Muslim Guerrilla Wars, 1920-1981

I just realized that Rand makes a free PDF copy of this available online: . On 3/29/07, Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Has anyone read this? -- Yoshie The Soviet Union and Muslim Guerrilla Wa

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

Louis Project writes: >> The real problem is disincentives to invest. What do you do when >> there is no incentive to invest, such as was the case during the >> 1930s? Granted, the post-WWII economy has made such problems appear a >> thing of the past--at least for the USA, Western Europe and Japa

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

I would like to understand your point, but I am not getting it. Why do you think Africa is different than all of the positive regions you mentioned? At one point you are saying too little capitalism, and at the other point too much capitalism. David Shemano Well, it is not just Africa. It is

[PEN-L] self-promotion

I just wanted to alert those interested in issues related to Korea, East Asia, Marxism, and development theory --to a recently published book called Marxist Perspectives on South Korea in the Global Economy. It is edited by Martin Hart-Landsberg, Seongjin Jeong, and Richard Westra, and published

Re: [PEN-L] Financiers' activities and wealth creation

On 3/29/07, Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: utterly irrelevant to somebody in the Congo. Or in Uganda. Or in the Philippines. Or Pakistan. Or Indonesia. Etc., etc., etc. Understanding what Ward Churchill meant when he used the phrase 'little Eichman', and a Goldman Sachs account exec

Re: [PEN-L] Arundhati Roy on India and Its Maoists

On 3/29/07, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: On 3/28/07, Yoshie Furuhashi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On India's Growing Violence: 'It's Outright War and Both Sides are > Choosing Their Weapons' > by Arundhati Roy > > The following is an interview with Arundhati Roy, conducted by Shoma > C