Re: [PEN-L] Queery about Greenspan and productivity

not sure about these examples, Jim. People like having their hamburgers handed to them in their cars (rather than having to get out of their cars to pick them up) and they like shopping in supermarkets (rather than little shops where everything is behind a counter). You don't have to be a busines

Re: [PEN-L] Queery about Greenspan and productivity

no but Shane is right that in Marx, financial services don't produce value; nearly all financial services can be analysed as either loans (which aren't productive; they're just part of the arrangement of production) or insurance (which is a redistribution of already produced surplus). On the other

Re: [PEN-L] Queery about Greenspan and productivity

>>You bring up a very interesting question -- at least, interesting to me. What would be the economic effect of buying too many PopTarts? << Unambiguously positive for GDP - they would count as "inventory building" when you bought them, then they would sit around in a warehouse for a while, then y

Re: [PEN-L] Queery about Greenspan and productivity

I think the remaining critique - Doug is right that the pro-boost side has basically won this argument - is that the productivity gains seemed to be very heavily weighted to retail and to financial services, which are the two sectors where it's most difficult to separate productivity and value-adde

Re: [PEN-L] query: Keynes and Dentistry.

yes he did - it's the final sentence of "Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren". It actually has an exclamation mark at the end. http://www.eco.utexas.edu/~hmcleave/368keynesgrandchildren.html best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim D

Re: [PEN-L] Hedge Fund Clones

I did mean hedge funds. A few points: 1) it is really odd to be citing David Swensen in support of the viewpoint that nobody, not even hedge funds can beat the market, because a) he is famous because of having put together a track record of beating the market over a long period and b) he is also

Re: [PEN-L] Hedge Fund Clones

al Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 10 September 2007 21:36 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: Hedge Fund Clones On Sep 10, 2007, at 4:27 PM, Daniel Davies wrote: > much cheaper fees basically. it's a product for people who want

Re: [PEN-L] Hedge Fund Clones

treet Worcester, MA 01610 -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Davies Sent: Monday, September 10, 2007 3:56 PM To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Hedge Fund Clones yeah, me. what do you wanna know? It's a somewhat fashionable i

Re: [PEN-L] Hedge Fund Clones

yeah, me. what do you wanna know? It's a somewhat fashionable idea at the moment. The theory is that you can replicate the performance of the hedge fund indices to within a reasonable error with a fairly simple regression model, trading futures to replicate hedge fund performance on the cheap. t

[PEN-L] RE: ‘Market can solve subprime crisis’

crazy. foreclosure *is* the market's solution to a problem (the problem of a delinquent borrower). It's not a further problem in itself, for the bank. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 05 September 2007 23:30 To: PEN-L@SUS

Re: [PEN-L] Galbraith's new paper

>Is there any evidence that the Fed does think in class struggle terms? At least one speech from Greenspan strongly suggests this - Doug will remember which one better than me. >Bernanke is on record claiming that full employment and low inflation >are complementary rather than tradeoffs. His rea

Re: [PEN-L] Q & A on credit crisis

There is no credit crisis. If you work for a medium-size nonfinancial company, try phoning up your banker and asking for an overdraft. If he says no, that would be a credit crisis. He will say yes. Phone up a mortgage broker and ask if he can get you a standard mortgage. He'll say yes. There

Re: [PEN-L] uncle sam's banker

/become/ another colonial power? China was a colonial power back in the days when my people still thought that the trick with giant stone calendars was a pretty cool thing to do. best dd === The absolute best thing China can do with those reserves is to give it away to the indebted A

Re: [PEN-L] uncle sam's banker

for god knows how long, what's the *point* in being world hegemon if you don't inflate your debts away once in a while?). best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jayson Funke Sent: 10 August 2007 01:46 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re:

Re: [PEN-L] uncle sam's banker

I always find these discussions a bit surreal. I think there's a fundamental mistake here in assuming that the Chinese state is remotely the same kind of economic actor as a normal investor or speculator. I'd analyse the situation thus: 1. To a very great extent, even if those T-Bills all went

Re: [PEN-L] Rebirth of Socialism

I can get us on the guest list at Socialdemocratista, which is much the same except the DJ only plays ABBA remixes and all the drinks are watered down. best dd PS: silly joke about a similar club in Camden a few months ago http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2007/05/patria-o-muerte-theres-new-re

Re: [PEN-L] From a satisfied customer

I don't know if this was the intention, but I'm rather happy that Crooked Timber served the purpose of introducing someone to Louis' site. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Louis Proyect Sent: 20 July 2007 23:52 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU S

Re: [PEN-L] A question on the ethics of complicated econometric estimations

-Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Julio Huato Sent: 18 July 2007 15:56 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: A question on the ethics of complicated econometric estimations Michael Perelman wrote: > Julio, give me an example of an > econometric stu

Re: [PEN-L] A question on the ethics of complicated econometric estimations

I am with Julio on this one. All these critiques of econometrics remind me of Paul Davidson's assertions of pervasive nonergodicity. In that, it just seems to ignore the fact that, most of the time, sampling works. So does a lot of econometrics. A world in which this hardcore critique of estima

Re: [PEN-L] Gene theory challenge

For example, > pesticides have come back with this idea DDT saved lives from malaria, > and when it was banned the environmentalist killed millions. So the > 'argument' of logic is widespread of cause and effect that still has > great popular support in how knowledge in public information is > g

Re: [PEN-L] Sicko: Heavily Doctored?

I don't know anything about Canada or Cuba, but this summary isn't very accurate about the UK or France. All the UK horror stories are at least five years old, and the one thing that the Blair government has shown is that it's possible to get rid of those waiting lists very quickly if you throw mo

Re: [PEN-L] Rampage Across Athens

I am not at all sure about this bit Jim. In the first place it would not be terribly usual for a bank branch to have insurance against being attacked - it would be quite expensive insurance and banks are usually quite well-armoured and guarded anyway. Banks aren't typically insured against robber

Re: [PEN-L] Announcing Muhammad Yunus' Candidacy to Head the World Bank

Could I have the paper please Patrick? I've been suspicious of Yunus for a long time, ever since that great Heather Boushey article in Left Business Observer. I notice that these days most "Microcredit" loans are for amounts around $500-1000, which really isn't a micro credit at all. best dd PS

Re: [PEN-L] research help, please

ase Belatedly - the data comes from 1990-94, and shows a significant negative stock price reaction to layoff announcements, which is highly counterintuitive, and not what Michael expected. Doug On May 21, 2007, at 6:49 PM, Daniel Davies wrote: > this one? > > http://links.jstor.org/si

Re: [PEN-L] Kucinich's wife and the American Monetary Institute

and when you've done all that, what do you know? The same people still own the means of production, they still aren't you and you have to go to work in the morning. Only difference is that there is now a recession. best dd -Original Message- > > How do you suggest doing this? > -ragh

Re: [PEN-L] research help, please

this one? http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0143-2095(199712)18%3A11%3C879%3AACAOLA%3E2 .0.CO%3B2-N -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: 21 May 2007 23:10 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: research help, please I recently saw a

Re: [PEN-L] Neo-Cons Driving Iran Divestment Campaign

Divestment campaigns are almost a clear sign of someone who doesn't know what they're talking about. I meant to pass this on earlier this week; hedge fund manager Cody Willard talking about the Darfur divestment thing. Some of it will be rather grating to a pen-l audience in that he is quite unsen

Re: [PEN-L] crop rotation [was: More on Transition, Brenner, Allen, Productivity]

the question of crop rotation would surely have been rather academic in countries where rice was the staple grain, as a) crops other than rice do not grow in paddies and b) the annual flooding of the paddies would replace the soil, meaning that crop rotation would be pointless as the problem it was

Re: [PEN-L] Securitizations II

in principle no, but in practice if you're going to all this trouble anyway it seems daft to pass up the chance to dodge a bit of tax. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jayson Funke Sent: 10 May 2007 21:20 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: R

Re: [PEN-L] The responsibilities of [Western] intellectuals

PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 09 May 2007 20:40 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: The responsibilities of [Western] intellectuals On May 9, 2007, at 2:56 PM, Daniel Davies wrote: > I hate to say this, particularly given the context, but the obvious > counterexample to this i

Re: [PEN-L] The responsibilities of [Western] intellectuals

Yoshie wrote: >>Leftists in the North basically act as if "criticisms" of parties, movements, and governments of the South are just a matter of pointing out this or that is wrong, which doesn't help activists in the South, most of whom already know _that_.<< I hate to say this, particularly given

Re: [PEN-L] Private Equity, Intellectual Property, Tax Manipulation

David is broadly right here. The point is that if we say P&G wants to raise $1bn to finance something or other, then they have two choices: 1) borrow it in the normal way 2) come up with some sort of rinkydink brand licensing scheme. Assuming that the cashflows are the same, the shareholders are

Re: [PEN-L] Private Equity, Intellectual Property, Tax Manipulation

> Doug Henwood asks: > > "Why should some chump buy bonds based on that intangible value > alone when you can buy P&G paper?" > Because they would have a higher yield, the cost of which would be paid for by divvying up a chunk of the income that P&G is saving from the taxman. best dd

Re: [PEN-L] query

quite possibly in some seminar in King's College and it came second hand through someone else - she is queen of the apocryphal quote. -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: 02 May 2007 19:35 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: query where

Re: [PEN-L] limbo in limbo

true, although the Mongolian Communist Party once exiled the Mongolian equivalent of the Dalai Lama to the astral plane: http://bloodandtreasure.typepad.com/blood_treasure/2006/08/this_government.h tml best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim De

Re: [PEN-L] Populism?

jim wrote: >>is it possible to describe William Jennings Bryan -- the most famous US populist -- as a "demagogue"? << is it possible to describe him any other way? perhaps as a non-American I am missing something here, but this question to me has the flavour of "is it possible to describe Tiger

Re: [PEN-L] Cheap shots and a hot tirade

Ian Bone? as in, the editor of "Class War"? when was this - while I was on holiday? His autobiography "Bash the Rich" is a cracking read. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of ravi Sent: 20 April 2007 00:09 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re

Re: [PEN-L] Goldman_Sachs

yes but one shouldn't talk about "who you know" as being utterly valueless; we can argue about whether this factor of production is overpaid or not, but a man who has the phone number of a miller is a useful chap for a farmer to know and so on. The business of bringing together suppliers and deman

Re: [PEN-L] Differential games

I'd very much like a copy of the paper - [EMAIL PROTECTED] btw, PEN-L posts no longer contain the sender's email - is this a new thing? best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Julio Huato Sent: 18 April 2007 17:23 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject

Re: [PEN-L] Debt-free_money

JK Galbraith once noted that almost all monetary radicals are political conservatives (viz, Milton Friedman) - they want to make radical changes to the monetary system in order to avoid making them anywhere else. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf

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

[PEN-L] RE: Michael Bérubé: amateur red-baiter

>>Crooked Timber, a group blog that he joined recently and that was made to order for him. This is a gang of underachieving liberal academics with socialist pretensions<< ouch! actually the underachieving liberal tendency is only part of the Crooked Timber mix. We also have a couple of bitter ol

Re: [PEN-L] what's the flaw?

As a piece of economics, the flaw is that there's no production in this model economy - the money just comes from nowhere in unequal amounts and then goes into the bar. As a piece of politics, the flaw is that the rich guy is now drinking on his own, with no buddies and quite likely to get himself

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

less than you'd think. For the most part, industrial managers "make" wealth in the meaning of the word implied by m-c-m'. The job of financial managers has more to do with making sure that the "m" element can actually be spent; a good industrial manager can help you turn labour and capital into s

Re: [PEN-L] Rethinking Mutual Aid

The KKK was so ubiquitous at its height (something like 25% of adult males in Indiana, for example) that it could hardly have avoided having a large proportion of its support coming from the working class. Need to distinguish, by the way, between the original 19th century KKK, the one in "Gone Wit

Re: [PEN-L] Rethinking Mutual Aid

or the Supreme Tribe of Ben-Hur! http://d-squareddigest.blogspot.com/2007/02/irregular-secret-society-bloggin g.html The Ku Klux Klan revival in the 1920s was largely a result of an extremely successful PR campaign carried out by a firm that specialised in helping insurance lodges to recruit memb

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

David is surely right on this - the good that they did was that they put up the cash when Ford needed it; we can all sit around saying that it's easy to load a company up with debt and flip it for a quick turn, but these were the people who were prepared to actually place the cash on the barrelhead

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

hashi Sent: 23 March 2007 23:48 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: Financiers' activities and wealth creation On 3/23/07, Daniel Davies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I don't know why so many of us claim to > be "allocating capital" as if we were the equivalent of

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

2007, at 1:25 PM, Daniel Davies wrote: > I would probably still do it though because it is fun. In Frank Partnoy's FIASCO, he recounts asking his colleagues in the derivatives-selling business if they'd do the work if it weren't so well-paid. Unanimously they said no. One said he

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

speaking as one ... what do we do? financiers contribute to wealth creation, a bit. We help provide liquidity to people who have investments (which are of necessity in long-term projects) but who want the cash now. We also provide consulting services to people wanting to carry out corporate mer

Re: [PEN-L] Policy regarding "Death" to a thread

actually, since I have recently been chucked off a conspiracy mailing list, I am rather up for the idea of managing a list specifically for the sensible discussion of parapolitics. If anyone is interested, send me a mail. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECT

Re: [PEN-L] 911 considered/reconsidered -- a radical intervention

replying from a point of view substantially more favourable to the conspiracy point of view than most list subscribers, but still with the basic message to the 9/11 truth community "give up on this, it's a blind alley": 1. There is an interesting point here; there is reasonable work that has been

Re: [PEN-L] Question for Henwood

if all the neoliberal economists in California were laid end to end ... -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 03 March 2007 23:53 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: Question for Henwood On Mar 3, 2007, at 6:36 PM, Michael Perelman

Re: [PEN-L] shadow government statistics

hmmm not completely fair there Doug. The household survey does at least in principle capture corporate births and deaths, which the payroll survey has to deal with via an ad hoc adjustment. And the point he makes about the sampling error is actually a good one; the accuracy of the household surve

Re: [PEN-L] smashing freakonomics

here's a working paper version http://arielrubinstein.tau.ac.il/articles/FreakFreakonomics.pdf reminds me I need to get on with my own review best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: 27 January 2007 23:22 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU

Re: [PEN-L] book cover help

a cartoon of a hand in a pinstripe sleeve grabbing Uncle Sam by the bollocks. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: 25 January 2007 23:42 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: book cover help Palgrave wants suggestions for a

Re: [PEN-L] Socialism and Islam

I think this is quite dependent on a specifically theological definition of "fundamentalists". Not all Islamists are particularly conservative theologically - not surprising given that Islamism has its root in Egypt - but they are all pretty conservative. There are absolutely no Islamists who are

Re: [PEN-L] Lenin's Tomb nails the prowar "left"

you'd be surprised. They still for the most part have their newspaper columns and so on. If anyone is going to keep Gordon Brown on track with US foreign policy when he takes over, the Decents will play their part. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Be

Re: [PEN-L] gas prices

if you were a big integrated oil company which wanted to make a load of money using your market power, you would not manipulate the price of barrel of crude. You'd use your quasi-monopolist position in the markets for refined petroleum products, which are local, fragmented and characterised by sm

Re: [PEN-L] funny!

ntific nor more faith-based than the standard textbooks. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: 28 November 2006 18:30 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: funny! The lessons learned Daniel Davies [pen-lurker] November 28, 200

Re: [PEN-L] Formula for disaster

I would second Neftci as probably the least painful way to go about this if you really have to, but I personally prefer "Financial Calculus" by Baxter and Rennie. It's less thorough than Neftci but it introduces all the concepts in a much more intuitive way (by dealing with the discrete versions o

Re: [PEN-L] Formula for disaster

CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901 www.michaelperelman.wordpress.com -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Davies Sent: Saturday, November 25, 2006 7:11 AM To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Formula for disaster rgh! alg

Re: [PEN-L] Formula for disaster

rgh! algorithmic trading is completely misunderstood and articles claiming it's "a computer to pick stocks" are the problem. It's algorithmic *trading*. The algorithms aren't used to pick the stocks, they're used to minimise the "slippage" in placing the trades. The point is that if you dec

Re: [PEN-L] Ruling class?

it depends on whether the "cognitive elite" are so defined in terms of what they know, or who they know. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 14 November 2006 20:13 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: Ruling class? On Nov

Re: [PEN-L] Divisions in US Capital?

You say that as if it wasn't the sort of thing that happens all the time. Shareholders can be an extremely passive bunch. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Mark Lause Sent: 13 November 2006 22:01 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: Divisio

Re: [PEN-L] a possible pen-l principle

I really don't think that the occasional problems we have on PEN-L (which, by the way, are far fewer than on most other lists I'm involved in, including conspiracy theory lists) have much to do with those three words. How about we do something realy radical and decide that we all have to be ad

Re: [PEN-L] Response to Stan Goff

I'm still interested too. dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of raghu Sent: 26 October 2006 00:45 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: Response to Stan Goff On 10/25/06, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This discussion now seems to be

Re: [PEN-L] Stan Goff on fascism - 62% South say invade against 34% North . . .Why?

oh hell. the context is a quote explaining that an economist is in principle interested in the relationship between the price of tomatoes and the price of ketchup, but a financial economist is the guy who tells you that a gallon of ketchup sells for the same price as eight pints and thinks he's to

Re: [PEN-L] Response to Stan Goff

I'm a Western leftist (of an admittedly rather odd sort) and surely the main, the only reason for being opposed to Western imperialist wars is that they kill people, in their hundreds of thousands, for no good purpose whatever. I would and have spoken in favour of the cause of not invading some of

Re: [PEN-L] Microcredit, microresults

thanks very much Patrick. I have a piece coming up on the Guardian blog tomorrow called "Three microcheers for microcredit" trying to cast some vague aspersions on the subject, but I didn't feel like I had enough material to really go in studs-up. This is very good stuff. best dd PS: presumably

Re: [PEN-L] Darfur activism?

This is an important point upon which I'd like to have some sort of argument outside of the normal world of posturing media. Louis is correct to (implicitly) point out that a lot of the "Save Darfur" crowd are acting in incredible bad faith (in particular, the original Colin Powell "genocide" spee

Re: [PEN-L] Build it Now

this is all very jolly folks but is there actually any way for those of us without American Express to buy the book? I am quite keen on taking advantage of the low dollar; is it going to be available through (spit) Amazon or similarly such. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [

Re: [PEN-L] Study claims outsourcing raises U.S. wages

in fairness this is the sort of thing you'd find out by reading the paper - how and whether they dealt with this problem. Which is why it might be a good idea to read it if you don't have fundamental methodological problems with the entire concept of "productivity" as used in the neoclassical lite

Re: [PEN-L] Study claims outsourcing raises U.S. wages

t: 27 August 2006 03:35 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: Study claims outsourcing raises U.S. wages On Aug 26, 2006, at 9:36 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > Daniel Davies wrote: >> >> I am with Michael here. Surely it is the whole point of abstracts >> to allow >> one to

Re: [PEN-L] Study claims outsourcing raises U.S. wages

I am with Michael here. Surely it is the whole point of abstracts to allow one to make exactly this sort of triage? dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: 26 August 2006 23:14 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: Study claims

Re: [PEN-L] A gloomy Brad DeLong

k money is important and let a prices & incomes policy do the rest. dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: 03 August 2006 19:55 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: A gloomy Brad DeLong On 8/3/06, Daniel Davies <[EMAIL PROTEC

Re: [PEN-L] A gloomy Brad DeLong

In fairness, if you peek to the end of Paul Davidson's books, you find that the policy prescription of the keeper of the flame of pur-sang Post-Keynesian economics is ... a k% money supply rule. He just thinks that k should be a very high number. best dd -Original Message- Brad deL had

Re: [PEN-L] NC econ

worth remembering that the vast majority of so called "neo classical economics" is just normal results of the mathematics of optimal control theory.  Kolmogorov and his companions at the Soviet Mathematical Institute managed to invent a lot of the neoclassical results without making any of t

Re: [PEN-L] Cole on Lebanon: Hizbullah winning?

I think we can be pretty clear on the subject of whether Hezbollah are ever going to be our mates or not; I think the answer is that they aren't and if one of them ever subscribes to PEN-L I will make a point of asking him some hard questions about sharia law and about his relationship with Iran.

Re: [PEN-L] anti-GM is bad?

. These are my principles, if you don't like them I have others. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: 23 July 2006 00:37 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: anti-GM is bad? Daniel Davies has the following blog on the Guardia

Re: [PEN-L] a modest blog

don't do it Michael! you know that fantastic indexing tool you have, which helps you to maintain an extraordinary rate of productivity? A blog is the opposite. best dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Michael Perelman Sent: 20 July 2006 04:50 To: P

Re: [PEN-L] Lebanon news from Juan Cole

nope; standard Ricardian argument from comparative advantage. Israel finds it cheap to produce Arab hostages but cannot produce Israeli hostages at all. Hizbollah can't produce Arab hostages and can only produce Israeli hostages at very high cost. Therefore, the terms of trade suggest an exchang

Re: [PEN-L] Volatility trading

I hate to say it, but you can already trade VIX options, and one of the things you would need to know in order to price them, would be the volatility of the VIX index.   I hate this nomenclature, btw; what the VIX measures is the average price of option premium.  That is the underlying fact

Re: [PEN-L] The Contribution Of Economists To Military Intelligence During World War II

god I hope so. That period was the high-water mark of economics. It was the last moment when economists were regularly, publicly, making important predictions which were right (cf Keynes "Essays In Persuasion"). If there can be a film abut John Nash that wins Oscars, surely to Christ it is not b

Re: [PEN-L] Zidane Apparently Called "Dirty Terrorist"

Jim wrote: - In any event, one person's angry response, no matter how noble, is absolutely nothing compared to a mass movement against racism and the like. Perhaps Zidane's response will help to evoke a mass movement or to encourage the already-existing one? -- Not impossible actually; the UK

Re: [PEN-L] Blast from Palast

these guys are bloody animals. Here is my solution to the analogous problem: 1. Carry a proper suitcase 2. Don't let anyone send you on a marketing trip longer than a week, or ten days absolute max dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Devine S

Re: [PEN-L] Netflix

Presumably it is a second-order issue and not one that would put anybody off, but they are, AFAICS, the biggest and quite possibly only advertiser on "Pajamas Media". dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Jim Devine Sent: 08 June 2006 16:30 To: PEN-L@S

Re: [PEN-L] Nicholas Kristof, Joan Robinson and sweatshops

Kristoff is always on his travels managing to find burly construction workers whose ambition is to work on sewing machines. He found some in Cambodia too, and I seem to recall calling qualified "bullshit" then. Check out the hands of someone who's worked a few years on the sites, and then imagine

Re: [PEN-L] Neocons making a comeback

Even the liberal David Rieff of even the liberal New Republic is beginning to put two and two together on this one btw; quite a good piece from him on Darfur: http://platform.blogs.com/passionofthepresent/2006/05/moral_blindness.html best dd

Re: [PEN-L] Is Krugman right here?

Fred Brooks' "The Mythical Man Month" has a lot about this in the specific context of software. His point is that the number of two-way conversations that need to take place in a big complicated project rises with the square of the number of employees. So in order to "double" your managerial inpu

Re: [PEN-L] Factoid: Can Iran Build A 'Nuke'?

not sure of this. If you can enrich uranium at all, you can enrich it to 80% if you have enough time and enough uranium. There isn't any further conceptual or technical barrier, which is why everyone was so keen on not getting the Iranians on the track to enriching their own uranium. -Ori

Re: [PEN-L] J.K. Galbraith

I'm sure that a lot of people on this list would like to send condolences to Jamie Galbraith, but I guess we don't want to bother him senseless with email messages. Would it make sense to do something collectively, or would that create its own set of problems? -Original Message- From: PEN

Re: [PEN-L] Ecofascism?

>> Despite its name, this group was never the official party recognized by the Kremlin but a new group launched by young people trying to "go back to Lenin", it would appear. << Is that what they're saying these days ...? CPGB have a "rock family trees" connection to the original, Moscow-sponsore

Re: [PEN-L] Nationalism,Growth And Debt

by this definition, Soros would not be a hedge fund; nor would Tiger, nor would Tudor, nor would Gartmore, Vega, GAM, SAC, or Caxton. Nor would LTCM, except a very small part of its fund. Purely quantitative funds are a very small part of the overall space and always have been; the category "hdeg

Re: [PEN-L] strange planefellows

I have all sorts of comments to make about this, but they are ungallant. The general rumour that there is something going on between Straw and Rice is pretty commonplace in the wine bars of London, based mainly on his ludicrous puppyish demeanour when around her. He also ditched his glasses for co

[PEN-L] Sraffa biographical query

Sorry to bother the list, but can anybody help me out on what might be an urban myth? Basically, is it true that Sraffa bought Japanese bonds the day after Hiroshima in anticipation of making a big profit? Specifically, does anyone know if this anecdote of heartless economists is true, or whether

Re: [PEN-L] more from Daniel Davies

To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: more from Daniel Davies DD writes: >Obviously, the managers of a successful criminal enterprise can, if they launder them, invest their profits in the legitimate economy, but that is not the same thing. In particular, it appears to me as if there is no genuine ac

Re: [PEN-L] The consequences of "humanitarian intervention"

he's held a grudge against Shatz for years because Shatz once panned a book on Vietnam by the almost-as-odious Paul Berman. I am in the process of writing a long and abusive book review of "Terror and Liberalism" by Paul Berman and, unlike some of my other blog projects, I will reme

Re: [PEN-L] Stupid stuff

I think it might be more practical than you think to move sweatshops from China to Vietnam more or less overnight; Wal-Mart doesn't actually own many production facilities, so it's a matter of switching the supply contracts rather than actually shifting plant. Obviously the Vietnamese garment indu

Re: [PEN-L] forwarded from Mike Lebowitz

it correlates (positively) quite well with government expenditure as %GDP, rather embarrassingly for its compilers. dd -Original Message- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Doug Henwood Sent: 12 March 2006 17:15 To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Subject: Re: forwarded from Mike

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