From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 1 04:16:06 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 19:16:06 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A note sent to Marxmial Message-ID: What a clusterfuck that would be. About the only thing the handful of 'writers' could agree on would be how brilliant they are (but they would be too dumb to realize they were actually agreeing so they would then argue). Then Hudson and Perelman would try to get at least 5 more people to buy their latest tome. Meanwhile Macdonald 'Don't call me mac' Stainsby would want something in there about peak oil. Then you and Jim 'Raving Lunatic' Craven could discuss MLK's sex life. And so it would go and go and go. And only the usual handful of list voyeurs would even read the title. There, I've made my contribution to it. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 1 04:19:03 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 19:19:03 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Then: was 600, 000 workers. Now: 50, 000 General Motors In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>Well, 48 years ago - say half a century ago, America was a very different country, from several points of view. Part of the conclusion of this article states: >> Yeah, that was my point. I knew that conclusion in 1979 when I graduated high school. CJ From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Oct 1 08:24:23 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 10:24:23 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Then: was 600, 000 workers. Now: 50, 000 General Motors Message-ID: :In a message dated 10/1/2008 6:19:17 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, _jannuzi at gmail.com_ (mailto:jannuzi at gmail.com) writes: >>Well, 48 years ago - say half a century ago, America was a very different country, from several points of view. Part of the conclusion of this article states: >> Yeah, that was my point. I knew that conclusion in 1979 when I graduated high school. CJ ******************* Comment 1960? 48 years ago is 1960. In my opinion the social struggles of the year 1960 in America were very different than the crisis of today and consequently the literature and agitation of that period was very different than of today. In the year 1960 the struggles of the working class in all its sectors (union and non-union) and the struggle of the blacks against Jim Crow segregation, were so many struggle for inclusion into the system - economy, as it expanded. In 1960 the economy and wages were still expanding in America. One could still speak of national capitalists trading with one another across the breath and depth of America, possesses a distinct sector class interest. The minimum wage as compared to today's minimum wage was high. Defined pension benefits was expanding rather than contracting. Vacuum tube technology was still cutting edge. Many folks have not forgotten 1960 America. The salient feature of the social struggle had shifted to the battle against Jim Crow in the context of an expanding economy. In terms of development of instruments of production the shift was to the expansion of white collar workers. That is to say there were no modern computers and the industrial system of production was going through its last quantitative boundary. There were sharp contract struggles erupting dating back to the wildcat strikes of 1955, protesting speed up, and fringe benefits. The restructuring and retooling in the auto industry between 1958-1961, seemed like a depression to the workers in metropolitan Detroit directly working in the industry. In the 1958-61 period, the character of the cyclical lay-offs, often lasting longer than a year, was different than the wave of layoff after 1979. My vision in 1979 - when you graduated from high school, was undergoing a shift from my vision in 1971, when I was hired at Chrysler Motors. There is a wealth of on line material available speaking of Detroit and auto in this period. I believe the question is was the workforce and wages in auto and its related industries, expanding or declining in the relative and absolute meaning in 1960? The proposition being presented to a new generation of proletarians and militants is the following: "The ties that once bound American workers to their employers and the capitalist system of production in the past are now in the process of being broken forever." This was not the case in 1960. Consider the following: "One of the major concerns of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers was the deteriorating working conditions at the point of production. In 1946 some 550,000 autoworkers had produced a little over three million vehicles, but in 1970 some 750,000 autoworkers had produced a little over eight million vehicles. Management credited this much higher productivity per worker to its improved managerial techniques and new machinery. Workers, on the other hand, claimed the higher productivity was primarily a result of their being forced to work harder and faster under increasingly unsafe and unhealthy conditions. The companies called their methods automation; black workers in Detroit called them 'niggermation.'" _http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/glaberman_black_cats.html_ (http://www.geocities.com/cordobakaf/glaberman_black_cats.html) The period between 1965 and 1979 was very different than the social struggle of today. It seems to me that the Chrysler bailout of 1979/1980 is am important juncture. This is so given the tendency of capital to apply new technology and better production processes at the bottom of a down turn and this application is what more than less allowed the rapid recovery of profitability. Hindsight makes it easier to talk about events of this period. During the 1979/80 downturn - (actually beginning in 1976/8), auto workers applied for and won monetary allowed for being laid off due to imports. This was possible due to the Trade Readjustment Act as modified in 1974. The social safety net had not yet been unraveled and there was still talk and visions of the "Great society" and helping the poor. The social struggle and clashes between company and the union was fundamentally different in 1960 as compared to today, and then in 1979 than what is taking place today. In 1979/80, with Chrysler going down the toilet and failing to meet its obligations in the bond market, there was no systemic pressure for Chrysler workers or any auto workers to reduce wages by 50%. Earlier this year, American Axle workers in Detroit settled a contract where their wages were cut in half - 50%. I salute your farsightedness. In 1960 and in 1979, I could not and did not foresee such an event. In fact I did not and could not predict the impact of Reagan coming to office in 1980 and what became called the "Reagan Revolution." Many of us understood that something structural was taking place in capital, but the literature of the time indicates that very few - me in particular, understood or articulated what today is a modern non-banking financial architecture, more than less detached from value production. That is to say, capital accumulation that does not require an outlay of capital or capital as a notional value. Specifically: "Finance capitalism is operating with less and less reliance on capital. Capital has become a notional value in structured finance. Credit is no longer anchored by equity but by circular hedges. Debt-to-equity ratio is no longer a relevant consideration. Practically all US major businesses nowadays, with their high debt leverage based on an unprecedented asset bubble, would have negative real equity if the price/earning (P/E) ratio were to return to historical norms. Blue-chip corporations are being shut out of the unsecured short-term commercial paper market as their credit ratings are downgraded. Corporate credit ratings have been inflated by exorbitant market capitalization value, which in turn reflects irrational P/E ratios. Even now, during what many on Wall Street contend to be a savage bear market, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index yields 25 times earnings. It would have to fall by another 41 percent to reach the median valuation prevailing since 1957. When that happens, the derivative defaults will hit the financial system like a tsunami." August 1, 2002 _http://henryckliu.com/page142.html_ (http://henryckliu.com/page142.html) What is taking place is not an abstract rationalization of production but a revolution in production as profound as the industrial revolution. Modern speculation is an expression and reflection of the impact of the current revolution in production. Speculation is old, as is money and coins, however modern speculation is roughly two decades (20) old. Modern speculation and the modern credit markets, as is modern finance, not the exact things that Marx wrote about. In 1960 and 1970 capital did not operate as a notional value in structured finance, dominating and writing the agenda - political and economic, for the world total capital. In other words capital as a notional value express and mirrors a proletarian mass operating as a notional value or a growing proletarian mass permanently detached from value production. WL **************Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001) From Waistline2 at aol.com Wed Oct 1 08:35:35 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 10:35:35 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A note sent to Marxmial Message-ID: In a message dated 10/1/2008 6:16:18 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jannuzi at gmail.com writes: What a clusterfuck that would be. About the only thing the handful of 'writers' could agree on would be how brilliant they are (but they would be too dumb to realize they were actually agreeing so they would then argue). Then Hudson and Perelman would try to get at least 5 more people to buy their latest tome. Meanwhile Macdonald 'Don't call me mac' Stainsby would want something in there about peak oil. Then you and Jim 'Raving Lunatic' Craven could discuss MLK's sex life. And so it would go and go and go. And only the usual handful of list voyeurs would even read the title. There, I've made my contribution to it. CJ Comment Might you consider that all the above mentioned people might be making an earnest effort to describe the events unfolding in front and around us. Specifically, I have found Hudson's recent interviews to be extremely enlightening and informative, especially for a new mass of people in America trying to make "heads" or "tails" of the "crisis." It seems to me that there is a more than less spontaneous shift to try and explain the ills of capital and articulate the path forward to our working class. These attempts may be feeble, but one must start somewhere. Let's not get stuck in the struggle of two and three years ago. WL **************Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 1 13:23:23 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:23:23 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Comrade Picasso Message-ID: <48E395EB.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> But party criticism of a portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic cooled Picasso?s interest in communist politics, though he remained a loyal member of the Communist Party until his death. In a 1945 interview with Jerome Seckler, Picasso stated: ?I am a Communist and my painting is Communist painting. ? But if I were a shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or anything else, I would not necessarily hammer my shoes in a special way to show my politics.?[ Political views Pablo Picasso, Massacre in Korea, 1951 Picasso remained neutral during World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and World War II, refusing to fight for any side or country. Some of his contemporaries felt that his pacifism had more to do with cowardice than principle. An article in The New Yorker called him ?a coward, who sat out two world wars while his friends were suffering and dying?.[9] As a Spanish citizen living in France, Picasso was under no compulsion to fight against the invading Germans in either World War. In the Spanish Civil War, service for Spaniards living abroad was optional and would have involved a voluntary return to the country to join either side. While Picasso expressed anger and condemnation of Francisco Franco and fascists through his art, he did not take up arms against them. He also remained aloof from the Catalan independence movement during his youth despite expressing general support and being friendly with activists within it. In 1944 Picasso joined the French Communist Party, attended an international peace conference in Poland, and in 1950 received the Stalin Peace Prize from the Soviet government.[10] But party criticism of a portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic cooled Picasso?s interest in communist politics, though he remained a loyal member of the Communist Party until his death. In a 1945 interview with Jerome Seckler, Picasso stated: ?I am a Communist and my painting is Communist painting. ? But if I were a shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or anything else, I would not necessarily hammer my shoes in a special way to show my politics.?[11] He was against the intervention of the United Nations and the United States[12] in the Korean civil war and he depicted it in Massacre in Korea. In 1962, he received the International Lenin Peace Prize. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 1 14:09:06 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:09:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A scenario Message-ID: <48E3A0A2.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From: Michael Hudson Willem Buiter's FT comment, Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad : What is likely to happen next? With a bit of luck, the House will be frightened by its own audacity and will reverse itself. If a substantively similar bill (or a better bill that addresses not just the problem of valuing toxic assets and getting them off the banks? books, but also the problem of recapitalising the US banking sector) is passed in the next day or so, the damage can remain limited. If the markets fear that the nays have thrown their toys out of the pram for the long term, the following scenario is quite likely: The US stock market tanks. Bank shares collapse, as do the valuations of all highly leveraged financial institutions. Weaker versions of this occur in Europe, in Japan and in the emerging markets. CDS spreads for banks explode, as will those of all highly leveraged financial institutions. Credits spreads generally take on loan-shark proportions, even for reputable borrowers. Again the rest of the world will experience a slightly milder version of this. No US bank will lend to any other US bank or any other highly leveraged institution. The same will happen elsewhere. Remaining sources of external finance for banks, other than the facilities created by the central banks and the Treasuries, will dry up. Banks and other highly leveraged institutions will try to unload assets at fire-sale prices in illiquid markets. Even assets not viewed as toxic before will become unsaleable at any price. The interaction of a growing lack of funding liquidity and increasing market illiquidity will destroy the banks? business models. Banks will stop providing credit to households and to non-financial enterprises. Banks will collapse, both through balance sheet insolvency and through liquidity insolvency. No bank will be safe, not even the household names for whom the crisis has thus far brought more opportunities than disasters. Other highly leveraged financial institutions collapse on a large scale. Households and non-financial businesses revert to financial autarky, among wide-spread defaults and insolvencies. Consumer demand and investment demand collapse. Unemployment shoots up. The government suspends all trading in financial stocks until further notice. The government nationalises all US banks and other highly leveraged financial institutions. The shareholders get nothing up front and have to wait for an eventual re-privatisation or liquididation to find out whether they are left with anything at all. Holders of bank debt get a sizeable haircut ?up front? on the face value of the debt and have part of the remainder converted into equity that shares the fate of the old equity. We have the Great Depression of the 2010s. None of this is unavoidable, provided the US Congress grows up and adopts forthwith something close to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act as a first, modest but necessary step towards re-establishing functioning securitisation markets and restoring financial health to the banking sector. Cutting off your nose to spite your face is not a sensible alternative. In response to today's vote, central banks around the world are pumping billions of dollars into the financial system to ease credit markets as banks continue to stop lending to each other: The Federal Reserve on Monday [Sept. 29] prepared to pour an extra $630bn (?437bn, ?350bn) into the global financial system in coordination with other central banks around the world, in a massive effort to curb extreme stress in international money markets. The move is designed to reinforce the impact of the $700bn bail-out bill proceeding through the US Congress and directly relieve market stress in the near term, before the new government fund can start operating. I am getting this sick feeling in my stomach that they are pushing on a string. The freeze in credit markets is more troubling than any plunge in stock prices. If payrolls aren't met, you will see true panic and fear grip Main Street and Wall Street. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 1 14:19:37 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:19:37 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Wall Street Meltdown Primer Message-ID: <48E3A319.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: "A-List" Subject: [A-List] Wall Street Meltdown Primer From: "Tony B." Date: Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:02:23 -0400 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----- Original Message ----- From: Tony B. Sent: Tuesday, September 30, 2008 9:50 PM Subject: Wall Street Meltdown Primer Bello is mostly on here, though his accounting of the 1997 Asian financial crisis may need some revision, i.e. There is substantial evidence that the 'crisis' was a purely US state-manufactured one: The Clinton Administration was demanding that Thailand and Indonesia fully open their financial markets to US finance and capital sectors. When they objected, Clinton's Commerce Secretary, Robert Rubin, instructed America's giant hedge funds to launch a speculative attack on the Thai baht. The devastation then spread to Indonesia and then South Korea. Lesson learned. Tony Published on Friday, September 26, 2008 by Foreign Policy in Focus Wall Street Meltdown Primer by Walden Bello Many on Wall Street and the rest of us are still digesting the momentous events of the last 10 days. Between one and three trillion dollars worth of financial assets have evaporated. Wall Street has been effectively nationalized. The Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department are making all the major strategic decisions in the financial sector and, with the rescue of the American International Group (AIG), the U.S. government now runs the world's biggest insurance company. At $700 billion, the biggest bailout since the Great Depression is being desperately cobbled together to save the global financial system. The usual explanations no longer suffice. Extraordinary events demand extraordinary explanations. But first... Is the worst over? No. If anything is clear from the contradictory moves of the last week - allowing Lehman Brothers to collapse while taking over AIG, and engineering Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch - there's no strategy to deal with the crisis, just tactical responses. It's like the fire department's response to a conflagration. The $700 billion buyout of banks' bad mortgaged-backed securities is mainly a desperate effort to shore up confidence in the system, preventing the erosion of trust in the banks and other financial institutions and avoiding a massive bank run such as the one that triggered the Great Depression of 1929. Did greed cause the collapse of global capitalism's nerve center? Good old-fashioned greed certainly played a part. This is what Klaus Schwab, the organizer of the World Economic Forum, the yearly global elite jamboree in the Swiss Alps, meant when he said in an interview earlier this year: "We have to pay for the sins of the past." Was this a case of Wall Street outsmarting itself? Definitely. Financial speculators outsmarted themselves by creating more and more complex financial contracts like derivatives that would securitize and make money from all forms of risk - including such exotic futures instruments as "credit default swaps" that enable investors to bet on the odds that the banks' own corporate borrowers would not be able to pay their debts! This is the unregulated multi-trillion dollar trade that brought down AIG. On December 17, 2005, when International Financing Review (IFR) announced its 2005 Annual Awards - one of the securities industry's most prestigious awards programs - it had this to say: "[Lehman Brothers] not only maintained its overall market presence, but also led the charge into the preferred space by...developing new products and tailoring transactions to fit borrowers' needs...Lehman Brothers is the most innovative in the preferred space, just doing things you won't see elsewhere." No comment. Was it lack of regulation? Yes. Everyone acknowledges by now that Wall Street's capacity to innovate and turn out more and more sophisticated financial instruments had run far ahead of government's regulatory capability. This wasn't because the government was incapable of regulating but because the dominant neoliberal, laissez-faire attitude prevented government from devising effective regulatory mechanisms. But isn't there something more that is happening? We're seeing the intensification of one of the central crises or contradictions of global capitalism: the crisis of overproduction, also known as overaccumulation or overcapacity. In other words, capitalism has a tendency to build up tremendous productive capacity that outruns the population's capacity to consume owing to social inequalities that limit popular purchasing power, thus eroding profitability. But what does the crisis of overproduction have to do with recent events? Plenty. But to understand the connections, we must go back in time to the so-called Golden Age of Contemporary Capitalism, the period from 1945 to 1975. This was a time of rapid growth both in the center economies and in the underdeveloped economies - one that was partly triggered by the massive reconstruction of Europe and East Asia after the devastation of World War II, and partly by the new socio-economic arrangements institutionalized under the new Keynesian state. Key among the latter were strong state controls over market activity, aggressive use of fiscal and monetary policy to minimize inflation and recession, and a regime of relatively high wages to stimulate and maintain demand. So what went wrong? This period of high growth came to an end in the mid-1970s, when the center economies were seized by stagflation, meaning the coexistence of low growth with high inflation, which wasn't supposed to happen under neoclassical economics. Stagflation, however, was but a symptom of a deeper cause: the reconstruction of Germany and Japan and the rapid growth of industrializing economies like Brazil, Taiwan, and South Korea added tremendous new productive capacity and increased global competition. Meanwhile social inequality within countries and between countries globally limited the growth of purchasing power and demand, thus eroding profitability. The massive increase in the price of oil aggravated this trend in the 1970s. How did capitalism try to solve the crisis of overproduction? Capital tried three escape routes from the conundrum of overproduction: neoliberal restructuring, globalization, and financialization. What was neoliberal restructuring all about? Neoliberal restructuring took the form of Reaganism and Thatcherism in the North and structural adjustment in the South. The aim was to invigorate capital accumulation, and this was to be done by 1) removing state constraints on the growth, use, and flow of capital and wealth; and 2) redistributing income from the poor and middle classes to the rich on the theory that the rich would then be motivated to invest and reignite economic growth. This formula redistributed income to the rich and gutted the incomes of the poor and middle classes. It thus restricted demand while not necessarily inducing the rich to invest more in production. In fact, neoliberal restructuring, which was generalized in the North and South during the 1980s and 1990s, had a poor record in terms of growth: global growth averaged 1.1% in the 1990s and 1.4% in the 1980s, whereas it averaged 3.5% in the 1960s and 2.4% in the 1970s, when state interventionist policies were dominant. Neoliberal restructuring couldn't shake off stagnation. How was globalization a response to the crisis? The second escape route global capital took to counter stagnation was "extensive accumulation" or globalization. This was the rapid integration of semi-capitalist, non-capitalist, or precapitalist areas into the global market economy. Rosa Luxemburg, the famous German revolutionary economist, saw this long ago as necessary to shore up the rate of profit in the metropolitan economies: by gaining access to cheap labor, by gaining new, albeit limited, markets, by gaining new sources of cheap agricultural and raw material products, and by bringing into being new areas for investment in infrastructure. Integration is accomplished via trade liberalization, removing barriers to the mobility of global capital and abolishing barriers to foreign investment. China is, of course, the most prominent case of a non-capitalist area that was integrated into the global capitalist economy over the last 25 years. To counter their declining profits, many Fortune 500 corporations have moved a significant part of their operations to China to take advantage of the so-called "China Price" - the cost advantage of China's seemingly inexhaustible cheap labor. By the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, roughly 40-50% of the profits of U.S. corporations were derived from their operations and sales abroad, especially China. Why didn't globalization surmount the crisis? This escape route from stagnation has exacerbated the problem of overproduction because it adds to productive capacity. A tremendous amount of manufacturing capacity has been added in China over the last 25 years, and this has had a depressing effect on prices and profits. Not surprisingly, by around 1997, the profits of U.S. corporations stopped growing. According to one index, the profit rate of the Fortune 500 went from 7.15% in 1960-69 to 5.3% in 1980-90 to 2.29% in 1990-99 to 1.32% in 2000-2002. What about financialization? Given the limited gains in countering the depressive impact of overproduction via neoliberal restructuring and globalization, the third escape route became very critical for maintaining and raising profitability: financialization. In the ideal world of neoclassical economics, the financial system is the mechanism by which the savers or those with surplus funds are joined with the entrepreneurs who have need of their funds to invest in production. In the real world of late capitalism, with investment in industry and agriculture yielding low profits owing to overcapacity, large amounts of surplus funds are circulating and being invested and reinvested in the financial sector. The financial sector has thus turned on itself. The result is an increased bifurcation between a hyperactive financial economy and a stagnant real economy. As one financial executive notes, "there has been an increasing disconnect between the real and financial economies in the last few years. The real economy has grown...but nothing like that of the financial economy - until it imploded." What this observer doesn't tell us is that the disconnect between the real and the financial economy isn't accidental. The financial economy has exploded precisely to make up for the stagnation owing to overproduction of the real economy. What were the problems with financialization as an escape route? The problem with investing in financial sector operations is that it is tantamount to squeezing value out of already created value. It may create profit, yes, but it doesn't create new value. Only industry, agricultural, trade, and services create new value. Because profit is not based on value that is created, investment operations become very volatile and the prices of stocks, bonds, and other forms of investment can depart very radically from their real value. For instance, in the 1990s, prices of stock in Internet startups skyrocketed, driven mainly by upwardly spiraling financial valuations rooted in theoretical expectations of future profitability. Share prices crashed in 2000 and 2001 when this strategy got completely out of hand. Profits then depend on taking advantage of upward price departures from the value of commodities, then selling before reality enforces a "correction." Corrections are really a return to more realistic values. The radical rise of asset prices far beyond any credible value is what what fosters financial bubbles. Why is financialization so volatile? With profitability depending on speculative coups, it's not surprising that the finance sector lurches from one bubble to another, or from one speculative mania to another. And because it's driven by speculative mania, finance-driven capitalism has experienced scores of financial crises since capital markets were deregulated and liberalized in the 1980s. Prior to the current Wall Street meltdown, the most explosive of these were the string of emerging markets crises and the U.S.tech stock bubble's implosion in 2000 and 2001. The emerging markets crises primarily included the Mexican financial crisis of 1994-95, the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, the Russian financial crisis in 1998, and the Argentine financial collapse that occurred in 2001 and 2002, but they also rocked other countries including Brazil and Turkey. One of President Bill Clinton's Treasury Secretaries, Wall Streeter Robert Rubin, predicted five years ago that "future financial crises are almost surely inevitable and could be even more severe." How do bubbles form, grow, and burst? Let's first use the Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, as an example. First, capital account and financial liberalization took place Thailand and other countries at the urging of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the U.S. Treasury Department. Then came the entry of foreign funds seeking quick and high returns, meaning they went to real estate and the stock market. This overinvestment made stock and real estate prices fall, leading to the panicked withdrawal of funds. In 1997, $100 billion fled the East Asian economies over the course of just a few weeks. That capital flight led to an IMF bailout of foreign speculators. The resulting collapse of the real economy produced a recession throughout East Asia in 1998. Despite massive destabilization, international financial institutions opposed efforts to impose both national and global regulation of financial system on ideological grounds. What about the current bubble? How did it form? The current Wall Street collapse has its roots in the technology-stock bubble of the late 1990s, when the price of the stocks of Internet startups skyrocketed, then collapsed in 2000 and 2001, resulting in the loss of $7 trillion worth of assets and the recession of 2001-2002. The Fed's loose money policies under Alan Greenspan encouraged the technology bubble. When it collapsed into a recession, Greenspan, to try to counter a long recession, cut the prime rate to a 45-year low of one percent in June 2003 and kept it there for over a year. This had the effect of encouraging another bubble - in real estate. As early as 2002, progressive economists such as Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy Research were warning about the real estate bubble and the predictable severity of its impending collapse. However, as late as 2005, then-Council of Economic Adviser Chairman and now Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke attributed the rise in U.S. housing prices to "strong economic fundamentals" instead of speculative activity. Is it any wonder that he was caught completely off guard when the subprime mortgage crisis broke in the summer of 2007? And how did it grow? According to investor and philanthropist George Soros: "Mortgage institutions encouraged mortgage holders to refinance their mortgages and withdraw their excess equity. They lowered their lending standards and introduced new products, such as adjustable mortgages (ARMs), 'interest-only' mortgages, and promotional teaser rates." All this encouraged speculation in residential housing units. House prices started to rise in double-digit rates. This served to reinforce speculation, and the rise in house prices made the owners feel rich; the result was a consumption boom that has sustained the economy in recent years." The subprime mortgage crisis wasn't a case of supply outrunning real demand. The "demand" was largely fabricated by speculative mania on the part of developers and financiers that wanted to make great profits from their access to foreign money that has flooded the United States in the last decade. Big-ticket mortgages were aggressively sold to millions who could not normally afford them by offering low "teaser" interest rates that would later be readjusted to jack up payments from the new homeowners. But how could subprime mortgages going sour turn into such a big problem? Because these assets were then "securitized" with other assets into complex derivative products called "collateralized debt obligations" (CDOs). The mortgage originators worked with different layers of middlemen who understated risk so as to offload them as quickly as possible to other banks and institutional investors. These institutions in turn offloaded these securities onto other banks and foreign financial institutions. When the interest rates were raised on the subprime loans, adjustable mortgage, and other housing loans, the game was up. There are about six million subprime mortgages outstanding, 40% of which will likely go into default in the next two years, Soros estimates. And five million more defaults from adjustable rate mortgages and other "flexible loans" will occur over the next several years. These securities, the value of which run into the trillions of dollars, have already been injected, like virus, into the global financial system. But how could Wall Street titans collapse like a house of cards? For Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Bear Stearns, the losses represented by these toxic securities simply overwhelmed their reserves and brought them down. And more are likely to fall once their books - since lots of these holdings are recorded "off the balance sheet" - are corrected to reflect their actual holdings. And many others will join them as other speculative operations such as credit cards and different varieties of risk insurance seize up. The American International Group (AIG) was felled by its massive exposure in the unregulated area of credit default swaps, derivatives that make it possible for investors to bet on the possibility that companies will default on repaying loans. According to Soros, such bets on credit defaults now make up a $45 trillion market that is entirely unregulated. It amounts to more than five times the total of the U.S. government bond market. The huge size of the assets that could go bad if AIG collapsed made Washington change its mind and intervene after it let Lehman Brothers collapse. What's going to happen now? There will be more bankruptcies and government takeovers. Wall Street's collapse will deepen and prolong the U.S. recession. This recession will translate into an Asian recession. After all, China's main foreign market is the United States, and China in turn imports raw materials and intermediate goods that it uses for its U.S. exports from Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Globalization has made "decoupling" impossible. The United States, China, and East Asia in general are like three prisoners bound together in a chain-gang. In a nutshell...? The Wall Street meltdown is not only due to greed and to the lack of government regulation of a hyperactive sector. This collapse stems ultimately from the crisis of overproduction that has plagued global capitalism since the mid-1970s. The financialization of investment activity has been one of the escape routes from stagnation, the other two being neoliberal restructuring and globalization. With neoliberal restructuring and globalization providing limited relief, financialization became attractive as a mechanism to shore up profitability. But financialization has proven to be a dangerous road. It has led to speculative bubbles that produce temporary prosperity for a few but ultimately end up in corporate collapse and in recession in the real economy. The key questions now are: How deep and long will this recession be? Does the U.S. economy need another speculative bubble to drag itself out of this recession? And if it does, where will the next bubble form? Some people say the military-industrial complex or the "disaster capitalism complex" that Naomi Klein writes about will be the next bubble. But that's another story. Copyright ? 2008, Institute for Policy Studies This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 1 14:26:38 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:26:38 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Bailout We Don't Need Message-ID: <48E3A4BE.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> A Bailout We Don't Need James K. Galbraith Washington Post September 25, 2008 Now that all five big investment banks - Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Lehman+Brothers+Inc.?tid=informline , Goldman Sachs http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Goldman+Sachs+Group+Inc.?tid=informline and Morgan Stanley http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/related/topic/Morgan+Stanley?tid=informline - have disappeared or morphed into regular banks, a question arises. Is this bailout still necessary? The point of the bailout is to buy assets that are illiquid but not worthless. But regular banks hold assets like that all the time. They're called "loans." With banks, runs occur only when depositors panic, because they fear the loan book is bad. Deposit insurance takes care of that. So why not eliminate the pointless $100,000 cap on federal deposit insurance and go take inventory? If a bank is solvent, money market funds would flow in, eliminating the need to insure those separately. If it isn't, the FDIC has the bridge bank facility to take care of that. Next, put half a trillion dollars into the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. fund - a cosmetic gesture - and as much money into that agency and the FBI as is needed for examiners, auditors and investigators. Keep $200 billion or more in reserve, so the Treasury can recapitalize banks by buying preferred shares if necessary - as Warren Buffett did this week with Goldman Sachs. Review the situation in three months, when Congress comes back. Hedge funds should be left on their own. You can't save everyone, and those investors aren't poor. With this solution, the systemic financial threat should go away. Does that mean the economy would quickly recover? No. Sadly, it does not. Two vast economic problems will confront the next president immediately. First, the underlying housing crisis: There are too many houses out there, too many vacant or unsold, too many homeowners underwater. Credit will not start to flow, as some suggest, simply because the crisis is contained. There have to be borrowers, and there has to be collateral. There won't be enough. In Texas, recovery from the 1980s oil bust took seven years and the pull of strong national economic growth. The present slump is national, and it can't be cured that way. But it could be resolved in three years, rather than 10, by a new Home Owners Loan Corp., which would rewrite mortgages, manage rental conversions and decide when vacant, degraded properties should be demolished. Set it up like a draft board in each community, under federal guidelines, and get to work. The second great crisis is in state and local government. Just Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced $1.5 billion in public spending cuts. The scenario is playing out everywhere: Schools, fire departments, police stations, parks, libraries and water projects are getting the ax, while essential maintenance gets deferred and important capital projects don't get built. This is pernicious when unemployment is rising and when we have all the real resources we need to preserve services and expand public investment. It's also unnecessary. What to do? Reenact Richard Nixon's great idea: federal revenue sharing. States and localities should get the funds to plug their revenue gaps and maintain real public spending, per capita, for the next three to five years. Also, enact the National Infrastructure Bank, making bond revenue available in a revolving fund for capital improvements. There is work to do. There are people to do it. Bring them together. What could be easier or more sensible? Here's another problem: the wealth loss to near-retirees and the elderly from a declining stock market as things shake out. How about taking care of this, with rough justice, through a supplement to Social Security? If you need a revenue source, impose a turnover tax on stocks. Next, let's think about what the next upswing should try to achieve and how it should be powered. If the 1960s were about raising baby boomers and the '90s about technology, what should the '10s and '20s be about? It's obvious: energy and climate change. That's where the present great unmet needs are. So, let's use the next few years to plan, mapping out a program of energy conservation, reconstruction and renewable power. Let's get the public sector and the universities working on it. And let's prepare the private sector so that when the credit crunch finally ends, we'll have the firms, the labs, the standards and the talent in place, ready to go. Some will ask if we can afford it. To see the answer, don't look at budget projections. Just look at interest rates. Last week, in the panic, the federal government could fund itself, short term, for free. It could have raised money for 30 years and paid less than 4 percent. That's far less than it cost back in 2000. No country in this situation is broke, or insolvent, or even in much trouble. For once, Wall Street's own markets speak the truth. The financially challenged customer isn't Uncle Sam. He's up on Wall Street, where deregulation, greed and fraud ran wild. James K. Galbraith is the author of "The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too" This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 1 14:42:57 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:42:57 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Micheal Moore - Coup Averted for Three Days Message-ID: <48E3A892.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Congratulations, Corporate Crime Fighters! Coup Averted for Three Days! By Michael Moore Friends, 30/09/08 "Common Dreams" -- - Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan's finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run. But what they didn't know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves. The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens. A lot of people are wondering why the right wing of the Republican Party joined with the left wing of the Democratic Party in voting down the thievery. Forty percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans voted against the bill. Here's what happened: The presidential race may still be close in the polls, but the Congressional races are pointing toward a landslide for the Democrats. Few dispute the prediction that the Republicans are in for a whoopin' on November 4th. Up to 30 Republican House seats could be lost in what would be a stunning repudiation of their agenda. The Republican reps are so scared of losing their seats, when this "financial crisis" reared its head two weeks ago, they realized they had just been handed their one and only chance to separate themselves from Bush before the election, while doing something that would make them look like they were on the side of "the people." Watching C-Span yesterday morning was one of the best comedy shows I'd seen in ages. There they were, one Republican after another who had backed the war and sunk the country into record debt, who had voted to kill every regulation that would have kept Wall Street in check -- there they were, now crying foul and standing up for the little guy! One after another, they stood at the microphone on the House floor and threw Bush under the bus, under the train (even though they had voted to kill off our nation's trains, too), heck, they would've thrown him under the rising waters of the Lower Ninth Ward if they could've conjured up another hurricane. You know how your dog acts when sprayed by a skunk? He howls and runs around trying to shake it off, rubbing and rolling himself on every piece of your carpet, trying to get rid of the stench. That's what it looked like on the Republican side of the aisle yesterday, and it was a sight to behold. The 95 brave Dems who broke with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were the real heroes, just like those few who stood up and voted against the war in October of 2002. Watch the remarks from yesterday of Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Dennis Kucinich. They spoke the truth. The Dems who voted for the giveaway did so mostly because they were scared by the threats of Wall Street, that if the rich didn't get their handout, the market would go nuts and then it's bye-bye stock-based pension and retirement funds. And guess what? That's exactly what Wall Street did! The largest, single-day drop in the Dow in the history of the New York Stock exchange. The news anchors last night screamed it out: Americans just lost 1.2 trillion dollars in the stock market!! It's a financial Pearl Harbor! The sky is falling! Bird flu! Killer Bees! Of course, sane people know that nobody "lost" anything yesterday, that stocks go up and down and this too shall pass because the rich will now buy low, hold, then sell off, then buy low again. But for now, Wall Street and its propaganda arm (the networks and media it owns) will continue to try and scare the bejesus out of you. It will be harder to get a loan. Some people will lose their jobs. A weak nation of wimps won't last long under this torture. Or will we? Is this our line in the sand? Here's my guess: The Democratic leadership in the House secretly hoped all along that this lousy bill would go down. With Bush's proposals shredded, the Dems knew they could then write their own bill that favors the average American, not the upper 10% who were hoping for another kegger of gold. So the ball is in the Democrats' hands. The gun from Wall Street remains at their head. Before they make their next move, let me tell you what the media kept silent about while this bill was being debated: 1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street's spending of the $700 billion; 2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal any of the people's money; 3. It did NOTHING to force banks and lenders to rewrite people's mortgages to avoid foreclosures -- this bill would not have stopped ONE foreclosure!; 4. It had NO teeth anywhere in the entire piece of legislation, using words like "suggested" when referring to the government being paid back for the bailout; 5. Over 200 economists wrote to Congress and said this bill might actually WORSEN the "financial crisis" and cause even MORE of a meltdown. Put a fork in this slab of pork. It's over. Now it is time for our side to state very clearly the laws WE want passed. I will send you my proposals later today. We've bought ourselves less than 72 hours. Yours, Michael Moore MMFlint at xxxxxxx - MichaelMoore.com This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 2 03:49:03 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 18:49:03 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A note sent to Marxmial In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What is depressing about events around the legislation is this. If I remember correctly, something like 90% of Americans supported the Bushwa's attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, and something like 90% are against this bailout legislation. Clearly you want to tap into a different phenomena here in terms of the politics of the populace of the US and I predict with that rhetoric--HCKL circa 2002 in full flow (big deal I said in 1998 the bubbles would unwind sooner or later)--you will not even be noticed. That's dismaying because one does sense a vacuum--a vacuity in mainstream thinking. I would suggest it will lend itself well to right-wing populism only. And that the national security state is going to dig in and try to stay in Iraq til kingdom come. CJ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 2 07:22:10 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:22:10 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] In the Sarah Palin debate, patriotism comes 1st, then feminism Message-ID: <48E492C4.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> In the Sarah Palin debate, patriotism comes 1st, then feminism BY ROCHELLE RILEY ? FREE PRESS COLUMNIST ? October 2, 2008 My efforts to convince Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to withdraw from the presidential race drew passionate dissents -- and a lot of hate mail -- from women in the movement. Eighty-eight years after women finally got the right to vote, many women now rightly push for more at every opportunity. And to them, Sarah Palin represents an opportunity. I call it "Suffrage Plus." And it's real. "We are sorely underrepresented in our government. Governor Sarah Palin may not be your choice but it is historic that a woman has been nominated as a Vice President in the republican party," one feminist wrote to me from Sherman Oaks, Calif. "To trash her is a terrible thing to do and a poor message to America's girls." Full: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081002/COL10/810020420 Join the conversation at www.freep.com/rochelleriley. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Oct 2 08:51:09 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 10:51:09 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A note sent to Marxmial - nationalization of banks Message-ID: In a message dated 10/2/2008 5:49:22 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, jannuzi at gmail.com writes: >>What is depressing about events around the legislation is this. If I remember correctly, something like 90% of Americans supported the Bushwa's attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq, and something like 90% are against this bailout legislation. Clearly you want to tap into a different phenomena here in terms of the politics of the populace of the US and I predict with that rhetoric--HCKL circa 2002 in full flow (big deal I said in 1998 the bubbles would unwind sooner or later)--you will not even be noticed. That's dismaying because one does sense a vacuum--a vacuity in mainstream thinking. I would suggest it will lend itself well to right-wing populism only. And that the national security state is going to dig in and try to stay in Iraq til kingdom come. << CJ Comment These are strange days with spokespersons of capital calling for nationalization of the banks under the banner of centralization of credit. Without question millions of people in America are in political motion. How communists and Marxist impact sections of the population is going to make a difference. I do agree that the current situation lends itself to a right wing populism. The problem for me is that the historic division called the "left wing of the bourgeoisie" and "the right wing of the bourgeoisie" seems to be collapsing as each wing turns into the other. What is missing is a distinct communist polarity. If history - American history, is a guide, the last great populist movement set the stage for political reaction and the overthrown of the Reconstruction government in the South. I do recall that in the 1960's and 70's, George Wallace, (before his repudiation of white chauvinism), rallied against Wall Street and the banks and the point headed intellectuals as his brand of phony populism. I am convinced that what is taking place in the financial architecture cannot and should not be understood as the historic demand (need) or tendency towards centralization of credit; and that the demands for nationalization of the banks are nothing more than warmed over social democracy in our era of history. When Marx and Engel's spoke of centralization of credit in Section 2 of the Communist Manifesto, their context is after the proletariat had won state power. Further, the programmatic demands in Section 2 are advanced in an entirely different historical context. I for one do not support the demand for nationalization of the banking system. In fact I support a demand for abolition of the banking system and credit markets IN RELATIONSHIP TO DISTRIBUTION OF SOCIALLY NECESSARY MEANS OF LIFE. Senator Obama and McCain calls for various programs of putting America back to work in a way making it possible for the American working class to compete against the low cost producers of the world. The only way American workers can compete against the low wages of the workers in China is by sinking lower into poverty than these workers. Today, we can actually talk about a vision of economic communism and it should be done in a way that the working class think tings out. WL **************Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001) From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Oct 2 08:57:56 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 10:57:56 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] nationalization of banks/centralization of credit - Marx Message-ID: We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy. The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible. Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production. These measures will, of course, be different in different countries. Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable. 1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes. 2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax. 3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance. 4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels. 5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly. 6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State. 7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan. 8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture. 9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country. 10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children? s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c. When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organise itself as a class, if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class. _http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm_ (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm) **************Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001) From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Oct 2 09:00:59 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008 11:00:59 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] nationalization/centralization of credit - 1872 preface Message-ID: "However much that state of things may have altered during the last twenty-five years, the general principles laid down in the Manifesto are, on the whole, as correct today as ever. Here and there, some detail might be improved. The practical application of the principles will depend, as the Manifesto itself states, everywhere and at all times, on the historical conditions for the time being existing, and, for that reason, no special stress is laid on the revolutionary measures proposed at the end of Section II. That passage would, in many respects, be very differently worded today. In view of the gigantic strides of Modern Industry since 1848, and of the accompanying improved and extended organization of the working class, in view of the practical experience gained, first in the February Revolution, and then, still more, in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details been antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, viz., that ?the working class cannot simply lay hold of ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes.? (See The Civil War in France: Address of the General Council of the International Working Men? s Assocation, 1871, where this point is further developed.) Further, it is self-evident that the criticism of socialist literature is deficient in relation to the present time, because it comes down only to 1847; also that the remarks on the relation of the Communists to the various opposition parties (Section IV), although, in principle still correct, yet in practice are antiquated, because the political situation has been entirely changed, and the progress of history has swept from off the earth the greater portion of the political parties there enumerated." _http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.h tm_ (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm) **************Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 2 09:54:49 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:54:49 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?___Labor=E2=80=99s_recovery_plan=3A?= Message-ID: <48E4B68A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Labor?s recovery plan: http://www.ourfuture.org/page/2008093923/bailout-call-common-sense This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 2 10:45:45 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:45:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] German Finance Chief: US to Blame for Economic Crisis Message-ID: <48E4C27A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> "German Finance Chief: U.S. to Blame for Economic Crisis" http://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/german_finance_minister/2008/09/29/135626.html seems to me to summarise well, how government policies of cheap credit after 9/11 in the conditions of the USA particularly encouraged a culture of complex secondary and tertiary credit instruments that were not in themselves illegal, or fraudulent, but the viability of which depended on the USA being able to ride out the maco-economic jolts on a wave of deficit-financed consumerism. Up to a point that was true. ___ "Germany's finance minister, Peer Steinbr?ck, says the United States clearly bears much of the responsibility for the mammoth, global credit crisis. "The source and focus of the problems are clearly in the United States," he told Spiegel magazine. "There are many causes. After 9/11, a great deal of cheap money was tossed into the market. Apparently some of that money went to people with poor creditworthiness. This led to the growth of the real estate bubble," Steinbr?ck said. "The banks embarked on a race over profit margins. Then speculation spun completely out of control." Steinbr?ck went on to say that the current financial mess is clearly the worst in decades, although he stopped short of comparing it to 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. "One thing is clear: After this crisis, the world will no longer be the same. The financial architecture will change globally," Steinbr?ck said. "There will be shifts in terms of the importance and status of New York and London as the two main financial centers." "State-owned banks and funds, as well as commercial banks from Europe, China, Russia and the Arab world will close the gaps, creating new centers of power in the financial world." Spiegel's interview in full http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,581201,00.html This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 2 11:01:03 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 13:01:03 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Real Great Depression Message-ID: <48E4C610.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The Chronicle of Higher Education The Chronicle Review http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i08/08b09801.htm From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 2 12:23:01 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 14:23:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Is the bailout "Marxist"? Message-ID: <48E4D947.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Is the bailout "Marxist"? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: PEN-L list From: Louis Proyect -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (As soon as I get a chance, I am going to refute this bullshit about Henry Paulson's "socialist" measures.) http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/09/29/bailout-marks-karl-marx-s-comeback.aspx Marx?s Proposal Number Five seems to be the leading motivation for those backing the Wall Street bailout By Martin Masse In his Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, Karl Marx proposed 10 measures to be implemented after the proletariat takes power, with the aim of centralizing all instruments of production in the hands of the state. Proposal Number Five was to bring about the ?centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.? If he were to rise from the dead today, Marx might be delighted to discover that most economists and financial commentators, including many who claim to favour the free market, agree with him. Indeed, analysts at the Heritage and Cato Institute, and commentators in The Wall Street Journal and on this very page, have made declarations in favour of the massive ?injection of liquidities? engineered by central banks in recent months, the government takeover of giant financial institutions, as well as the still stalled US$700-billion bailout package. Some of the same voices were calling for similar interventions following the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2001. ?Whatever happened to the modern followers of my free-market opponents?? Marx would likely wonder. At first glance, anyone who understands economics can see that there is something wrong with this picture. The taxes that will need to be levied to finance this package may keep some firms alive, but they will siphon off capital, kill jobs and make businesses less productive elsewhere. Increasing the money supply is no different. It is an invisible tax that redistributes resources to debtors and those who made unwise investments. So why throw this sound free-market analysis overboard as soon as there is some downturn in the markets? The rationale for intervening always seems to centre on the fear of reliving the Great Depression. If we let too many institutions fail because of insolvency, we are being told, there is a risk of a general collapse of financial markets, with the subsequent drying up of credit and the catastrophic effects this would have on all sectors of production. This opinion, shared by Ben Bernanke, Henry Paulson and most of the right-wing political and financial establishments, is based on Milton Friedman?s thesis that the Fed aggravated the Depression by not pumping enough money into the financial system following the market crash of 1929. It sounds libertarian enough. The misguided policies of the Fed, a government creature, and bad government regulation are held responsible for the crisis. The need to respond to this emergency and keep markets running overrides concerns about taxing and inflating the money supply. This is supposed to contrast with the left-wing Keynesian approach, whose solutions are strangely very similar despite a different view of the causes. But there is another approach that doesn?t compromise with free-market principles and coherently explains why we constantly get into these bubble situations followed by a crash. It is centered on Marx?s Proposal Number Five: government control of capital. For decades, Austrian School economists have warned against the dire consequences of having a central banking system based on fiat money, money that is not grounded on any commodity like gold and can easily be manipulated. In addition to its obvious disadvantages (price inflation, debasement of the currency, etc.), easy credit and artificially low interest rates send wrong signals to investors and exacerbate business cycles. Not only is the central bank constantly creating money out of thin air, but the fractional reserve system allows financial institutions to increase credit many times over. When money creation is sustained, a financial bubble begins to feed on itself, higher prices allowing the owners of inflated titles to spend and borrow more, leading to more credit creation and to even higher prices. As prices get distorted, malinvestments, or investments that should not have been made under normal market conditions, accumulate. Despite this, financial institutions have an incentive to join this frenzy of irresponsible lending, or else they will lose market shares to competitors. With ?liquidities? in overabundance, more and more risky decisions are made to increase yields and leveraging reaches dangerous levels. During that manic phase, everybody seems to believe that the boom will go on. Only the Austrians warn that it cannot last forever, as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises did before the 1929 crash, and as their followers have done for the past several years. Now, what should be done when that pyramidal scheme starts crashing to the floor, because of a series of cascading failures or concern from the central bank that inflation is getting out of control? It?s obvious that credit will shrink, because everyone will want to get out of risky businesses, to call back loans and to put their money in safe places. Malinvestments have to be liquidated; prices have to come down to realistic levels; and resources stuck in unproductive uses have to be freed and moved to sectors that have real demand. Only then will capital again become available for productive investments. Friedmanites, who have no conception of malinvestments and never raise any issue with the boom, also cannot understand why it inevitably leads to a crash. They only see the drying up of credit and blame the Fed for not injecting massive enough amounts of liquidities to prevent it. But central banks and governments cannot transform unprofitable investments into profitable ones. They cannot force institutions to increase lending when they are so exposed. This is why calls for throwing more money at the problem are so totally misguided. Injections of liquidities started more than a year ago and have had no effect in preventing the situation from getting worse. Such measures can only delay the market correction and turn what should be a quick recession into a prolonged one. Friedman - who, contrary to popular perception, was not a foe of monetary inflation, but simply wanted to keep it under better control in normal circumstances - was wrong about the Fed not intervening during the Depression. It tried repeatedly to inflate but credit still went down for various reasons. This is a key difference in interpretation between the Austrian and Chicago schools. As Friedrich Hayek wrote in 1932, ?Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion. ... To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about ...? The confusion of Chicago school economics on monetary issues is so profound as to lead its adherents today to support the largest government grab of private capital in world history. By adding their voices to those on the left, these confused free-marketeers are not helping to ?save capitalism?, but contributing to its destruction. Martin Masse is publisher of the libertarian webzine Le Qu?b?cois Libre and a former advisor to Industry minister Maxime Bernier. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 2 13:28:36 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:28:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Leaflet Message-ID: <48E4E8A6.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> _Click here: AFL-CIO NOW BLOG ? Print ? Philadelphia Building and Construction Trades Leaflet Worksites_ (http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/10/01/philadelphia-building-and-construction-trades-worksite-leaflet/print/) in solidarity jim This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 2 13:31:55 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:31:55 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Finite-time singularity in the dynamics of the world population, economic and financial indices Message-ID: <48E4E96D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0002075 This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Oct 2 22:28:33 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 00:28:33 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Voting for Obama - yep. Message-ID: I watched the Vice Presidential debate with my wife in its entirety. Govern Palin is scary and revealed her fascist streak in suggesting the expansion of the Vice President's role beyond the executive branch into the legislative function of government. I thought at first that she misunderstood the question. Let me back up a little. My wife passionately dislikes George W., and his administration. I of course believe Bush W. to be a home grown American fascist. The reaction of my wife to Govern Palin's demeanor and answer to virtually every question was the "she spoke with a snicker and was extremely inappropriate." The wife objected strenuously everything Governor Palin injected her family member into the debate, in an apparently attempt to connect with the audience. Wife basic attitude was why won't this woman talk about and focus on economic issues and political liberties. When Governor Palin spoke about the American people using the slogan of "Joe Six pack" and "Hockey Mom's" my wife was outraged and considered the designation "hockey mom" as a racist code designation and "Joe Six Pack" as degrading. Hockey? If Senator Obama's wife made an appeal to all the "basketball mom's" many folks in America would consider this a direct appeal to only black moms. On the other hand if one appealed to all the "football mom's" this would have no race connotation given our actual history and the makeup of football teams. "Country First" is a not so subtle appeal to white racism. "America First" would be a slogan somewhat different than "Country First." McCain's "Country First" slogan is no different than Nixon's slogan of "law and order" and everyone my age and of my peer group understands such slogans express national and white chauvinism. Really. Wife also stated that Senator Biden was far to polite towards Palin in the debate. Based on how Biden answered several questions, she considered Palin to be a liar and outright lying about Senator Obama's record. Wife also felt that Palin was cold hearted and without sympathy when Biden spoke of being a single parent. Given the disgust most Americans feel towards the war in Iraq and wanting to end the war quickly, Governor Palin stating that ending the war quickly means "waving the white flag" reminded me that that was the exact same things the supporters of the war against the people of Vietnam stated. I will probably vote for Senator Obama for President, knowing clearly that he is a bourgeois politician. There is in my opinion a real - material, difference between the Republican and Democratic Party at their base of support. For at least the last 50 years the Republican Party has been the party of reaction, segregationists and outright fascists. In other words the Republican Party has been the party of reaction based in the reactionary Southern political structures. Everyone knows that the Republican Party has been and remains the party of billionaire "old white men," every since the Goldwater led defection of the Southern Democrats to the Republican Party. More than that the majority of voting Americans consider the Republican Party to be against broad sections of the real working class in America. A McCain-Palin victory in November is scary to me and judging by all the polls, to the majority of voting Americans also. On another note, I was deeply surprised that the McCain campaign is closing down its apparatus and ad campaign in Michigan. But then again I was surprised that Senator Obama could defeat Senator Clinton and surprised that his candidacy could and would electrify America as it has done. Is voting for Obama against communist principles? Not in my mind. I am adding my vote with other folks down here in Florida who recently came out in their thousands for Obama. WL. **************Looking for simple solutions to your real-life financial challenges? Check out WalletPop for the latest news and information, tips and calculators. (http://www.walletpop.com/?NCID=emlcntuswall00000001) From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Fri Oct 3 04:57:05 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 06:57:05 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Voting for Obama - yep. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I was going to skip it, but someone made me watch it. Hitherto, I had avoided Gov. Paleface. I was astounded at what an idiot she is. She could be a contestant on The Price Is Right; I can't imagine her as president. (Then again, we've had a retarded monkey in the White House for 8 years.) She is white womanhood at its most obnoxious. Vapid, insipid, smug, a shameless liar and spouter of empty slogans the likes of which I have not seen since I suffered through Armstrong Williams on America's Black Forum. Her demeanor and way of expressing herself could not be less presidential, or even vice-presidential. The smug smirking and her irritating voice would be enough for me to pack up and emigrate to wherever they would have me. The country is full of dumbass white people just like Palin, but I wonder how many will be taken in this time around. Indeed, were Obama white, he'd be a shoe-in. The Republican Party has been the party of reaction in one way or another since 1933, but the Democratic Party was the Jim Crow party. So as an engine of revanchism, I don't remember exactly when the Republican Party became what it is today. I was too young to know much about how Goldwater got to be the candidate, but he was unpopular even within Republican ranks, and got his ass whupped. It seems to me that Nixon in 1968 was the turning point, the point man for backlash. It is a given that any high-level candidate, certainly a presidential candidate, is a bourgeois politician. That the left would even debate whether to argue against a candidate because he represents bourgeois interests is silly. That is a given. But within the framework allowed by bourgeois politics, one can be better or worse. The problem is not so much supporting one candidate over another, but the depletion of one's resources, monetarily and otherwise, by throwing one's support behind a particular candidate, and then having to lie and whore for the Democratic Party instead of speaking frankly about the state of the nation. The empty Obama hype about hope and change, when there are prospects for neither, is depressing, but clearly as a man he has the mental capacity and sagacity to be a competent and relatively sane neoliberal public official. Under the horrid circumstances that prevail, the choice is a no-brainer. The Republicans are just straight-up gangsters. At 12:28 AM 10/3/2008, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote: >I watched the Vice Presidential debate with my wife in its entirety. > >Govern Palin is scary and revealed her fascist streak in suggesting the >expansion of the Vice President's role beyond the executive branch into the >legislative function of government. I thought at first that >she misunderstood the >question. > >Let me back up a little. > >My wife passionately dislikes George W., and his administration. I of course >believe Bush W. to be a home grown American fascist. The reaction of my >wife to Govern Palin's demeanor and answer to virtually >every question was the >"she spoke with a snicker and was extremely inappropriate." The >wife objected >strenuously everything Governor Palin injected her family member into the >debate, in an apparently attempt to connect with the audience. > >Wife basic attitude was why won't this woman talk about and focus on >economic issues and political liberties. When Governor Palin spoke about the >American people using the slogan of "Joe Six pack" and "Hockey >Mom's" my wife was >outraged and considered the designation "hockey mom" as a racist code >designation and "Joe Six Pack" as degrading. > >Hockey? If Senator Obama's wife made an appeal to all the "basketball mom's" >many folks in America would consider this a direct appeal to only black >moms. On the other hand if one appealed to all the "football >mom's" this would >have no race connotation given our actual history and the makeup of football >teams. > >"Country First" is a not so subtle appeal to white racism. "America First" >would be a slogan somewhat different than "Country First." McCain's "Country >First" slogan is no different than Nixon's slogan of "law and order" and >everyone my age and of my peer group understands such slogans >express national and >white chauvinism. > >Really. > >Wife also stated that Senator Biden was far to polite towards Palin in the >debate. Based on how Biden answered several questions, she >considered Palin to >be a liar and outright lying about Senator Obama's record. Wife also felt >that Palin was cold hearted and without sympathy when Biden spoke of being a >single parent. > >Given the disgust most Americans feel towards the war in Iraq and wanting to >end the war quickly, Governor Palin stating that ending the war quickly >means "waving the white flag" reminded me that that was the exact >same things the >supporters of the war against the people of Vietnam stated. > >I will probably vote for Senator Obama for President, knowing clearly that >he is a bourgeois politician. > >There is in my opinion a real - material, difference between the Republican >and Democratic Party at their base of support. For at least the last 50 >years the Republican Party has been the party of reaction, >segregationists and >outright fascists. > >In other words the Republican Party has been the party of reaction based in >the reactionary Southern political structures. Everyone knows that the >Republican Party has been and remains the party of billionaire "old >white men," >every since the Goldwater led defection of the Southern Democrats to the >Republican Party. More than that the majority of voting Americans >consider the >Republican Party to be against broad sections of the real working class in >America. > >A McCain-Palin victory in November is scary to me and judging by all the >polls, to the majority of voting Americans also. > >On another note, I was deeply surprised that the McCain campaign is closing >down its apparatus and ad campaign in Michigan. > >But then again I was surprised that Senator Obama could defeat Senator >Clinton and surprised that his candidacy could and would electrify >America as it >has done. > >Is voting for Obama against communist principles? Not in my mind. I am >adding my vote with other folks down here in Florida who recently >came out in >their thousands for Obama. > >WL. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 07:33:12 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:33:12 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Shorter work week with no cut in pay Message-ID: <48E5E6DB.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Shorter work week with no cut in pay Constitutional Amendment for a right to a job or income. To: "Progressive Economics" Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Problem with Dean Baker's "The Bailout Round II: Adult Version?" From: Sandwichman Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2008 17:43:39 -id:date:from:to:subject:in-reply-to:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-dispositio -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 1:10 PM, Eugene Coyle > A third policy tool, to add to the > fiscal and monetary policy we enshrine as job sources, is cutting working > hours while maintaining income at the pre-cut level. This is a > confrontation between labor and capital. Let's get on with it rather than > continuing on the treadmill that can only end in environmental destruction. Hear! Hear! Cutting working hours was put forward by Keynes as the ultimate solution to full employment. It was proclaimed by Marx as the essential prerequisite for social improvement and emancipation. The 19th century movement for the eight hour day was the incubator for the working class movement in the US. Can we PLEASE have a bit more interest in this vital policy issue from progressive economists? -- Sandwichman This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 07:42:52 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:42:52 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's the total amount of money in the whole world ? Message-ID: <48E5E91F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> What's the total amount of money in the whole world ? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Progressive Economics From: Laurent GUERBY Date: Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:02:25 +0200 http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2008w39/msg00210.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Thu, 2008-10-02 at 15:02 -0400, Charles Brown wrote: > CB: I'm trying to think of what is the social utility of the whole Wall > Street banking sector. How is it in the best interest of society as a > whole for the Wall Street bankers to hold such gigantic amounts of money > ? or funny money ? or "debt-money" ? fictional capital or value ? Is it > really in the best interest of most of us to "credit" the creditors with > owning such a large proportion of the total wealth or the total amount > of money ? Do their activities really contribute so much to the > commonweal such that they should be credited with holding so much of the > total wealth of society ? You have a nice graph of financial vs non financial profits breakdown by "Jerome a Paris" in the first article on the "Anglo disease" on eurotrib.com: http://www.eurotrib.com/story/2007/6/18/12325/4352 List of articles on this topic: http://www.eurotrib.com/?op=displaystory;sid=2008/4/8/65846/86979 Laurent This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 07:47:05 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:47:05 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Where Did The Money Go and Will Jobs Also Disappear? Message-ID: <48E5EA1B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> I just posted my third Crisis Commentary http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2008/10/03/crisis-commentary-third-installment/ -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Where Did The Money Go and Will Jobs Also Disappear? On Monday, September 29 the stock market lost more than $1 trillion, about as much money as the Gross Domestic Product for an entire month. The next day, two thirds of the value suddenly reappeared. Yet, for the most part the tumult left most people unaffected, at least for the moment. More important, will the evaporation of all of this wealth affect ordinary people? These wild swings reflect the lifecycle of fictitious capital, a subject described earlier. Here: http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/notes-on-fictitious-capital/ http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2008/09/15/thoughts-on-fictitious-capital/ and here: http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2008/09/16/notes-on-fictitious-capital/ Wall Street uses a somewhat related term, leverage, to describe the ability to magnify potential profits by investing borrowed money. When the economy begins leveraging, business borrows money to invest -- not necessarily in productive assets. Leveraging can continue as long as people feel confident enough to finance these investments. The government's modest limits on leverage have been systematically weakened, to the point where investment banks would be putting up as little as 3 cents, and even less, for each dollar invested. The riskiness of such practice should be obvious. A 3% drop in the investment would wipe out the bank's own share of the investment. The Federal Reserve also promoted increased leverage by holding interest rates low. Wall Street investors also played a role in increasing leverage and risk. Investors prefer companies with high profits. Few are willing to take the time or have the expertise to understand the risks that might make profits high today. Companies that choose the path of lower profits and lower risks are written off as stodgy and old-fashioned. Their stocks will flounder, reducing executive' bonuses. In Wall Street-talk, increasing leverage works so long as investors maintain a balance between fear and greed. By fear, Wall Street means a reluctance to take on too much risk. Although Wall Street normally applauds greed, it associates excess greed with a foolhardy approach toward risk. During euphoric times when fear of risk subsides, people put money in ridiculous schemes. In his delightful book, Charles Mackay, related tales of shady operators bilking early investors. "One projector set up a company to profit from a wheel for perpetual motion. Another projector proposed "A company for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is." "Next morning, at nine o'clock, this great man opened an office in Cornhill. Crowds of people beset his door, and when be shut up at three o'clock, he found that no less than one thousand shares had been subscribed for, and the deposits paid. He was thus, in five hours, the winner of 2000 pounds. He set off the same evening for the Continent. He was never heard of again." [Mackay, Charles. 1852. Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds] The newfound wealth during times of growing leverage can create more demand, which can increase jobs and wages. As noted in the previous commentaries, such has not been the case. Speculative wealth has not produced growth in wages for ordinary people or any significant growth in jobs. In fact, cutting jobs has been a major factor in sustaining the boom. A few years ago, the business press described this practice as financial engineering. One factor that contributed to the lopsided economic growth without jobs, which characterized the recent decades, was the practice of leveraged buyouts. Private equity companies, as they are known, buy up other companies using borrowed money, often based on the assets of the target companies. The private equity companies claim that they can bring on managerial efficiencies, making their takeover look attractive to potential investors. In reality, they charge their targets exorbitant fees. These takeovers generally put a significant burden on labor, cutting both wages and jobs, and often extracting significant value from pension plans. They turn around and sell these supposedly rejuvenated companies to an unsuspecting public, which fail to see the similarity between such investments and the perpetual motion machine that Mackay described. In describing the necessity of a bailout for finance, the alarmists, who are not necessarily wrong, point to the job losses associated with the corporate restructurings that will follow bankruptcies. The bailout, however, will also facilitate a continuation of the destructive financial practices have also caused significant hardship to labor. Obviously, a collapse will also harm workers and other ordinary people, but in the wake of a collapse the country will stand a better chance to restore some sanity to the economy. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 08:18:14 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:18:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] "economic growth" [was: Problem with Dean Baker's "The Bailout Round II: Adult Version?"] Message-ID: <48E5F169.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Problem with Dean Baker's "The Bailout Round II: Adult Version?"] From: Eugene Coyle This thread veered off into the merits of GDP vs. GPI and so on. I want to put the conversation on a different track. Jim set me up with the following sentence copied from his final paragraph below: In the end, I think we should see "true" economic growth as being the growth of technical and scientific knowledge, which allows us to produce more with our labor. Yes, it "allows" us to produce more, but we (i.e. the US economy) won't produce more unless somebody buys more. If producing 500 cars took 100 workers before 2% productivity gains changed that to needing only 98 workers, two people are newly unemployed. Say's Law said they wouldn't be, and until about 40 years ago a rough (not fair) sharing of gains kept demand growing to keep up with productivity improvements. For the last several decades, more borrowing has replaced more income as the basis of offsetting productivity gains. Credit cards, student loans, easier mortgages, home improvement loans, six year car loans, etc. have been a desperate and now failed attempt to keep the buying growing. Productivity gains kill jobs. So growth needs, and is about, consumption. Growing consumption. But growing consumption is destroying the environment in multiple dimensions. Fish are disappearing, but the "democratization of sushi" expands. We can prattle all we want about the Genuine Progress Indicator (not that it isn't a useful discussion tool) but the idea of dematerializing consumption as a way to save both the economy and the environment at the same time is utopian. Utopian as in unattainable. So, what is it? More fiscal and monetary policy to power the treadmill to the end of the world, or offsetting gains in productivity (whether from "technical and scientific knowledge" or learning by doing) with shorter working time? Gene Coyle http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/pen-l/2008w39/msg00184.htm This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 08:25:54 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:25:54 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Voting for Obama - yep. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48E5F335.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> 1 Wife also felt that Palin was cold hearted and without sympathy when Biden spoke of being a single parent. ^^^ CB: What was Palin's problem saying that Biden's wife had worked as a teacher for 30 years and "I guess her reward will be in heaven " ? What kind of condescending insult was that ? Why wouldn't there be a reward on earth for teaching children ? This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From shmage at pipeline.com Fri Oct 3 08:29:31 2008 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 10:29:31 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Voting for Obama - yep. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Oct 3, 2008, at 6:57 AM, Ralph Dumain wrote: > > It is a given that any high-level candidate, certainly a presidential > candidate, is a bourgeois politician. That the left would even > debate whether to argue against a candidate because he represents > bourgeois interests is silly. That is a given. But within the > framework allowed by bourgeois politics, one can be better or > worse. and Waistline: >> >> I will probably vote for Senator Obama for President, knowing >> clearly that >> he is a bourgeois politician. >> >> There is in my opinion a real - material, difference between the >> Republican >> and Democratic Party at their base of support... Nobody intelligent is suggesting voting against a candidate because he's labeled "bourgeois." The issue at stake is the "One party with two right wings"(Gore Vidal) capitalist duopoly. Both parties have the same base of support--the giant corporations. Their union sacr?e for the bailout swindle, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, nuclear power, the embargo against Cuba, the war threat against Iran, The Zionist colonizers, "clean" coal, etc., etc. Not even mentioning the biggest issue of all--the brobdinagian fascist trillion-dollar "national security" expenditures on military-police-surveillance-spying-covert action etc. The one purpose of political activity today must be to mobilize as big as possible a citizens' movement against the corporate power elite. Continuing through and after the election. That is what Nader/Gonzalez is about. Left sectarians may yap about their own perfect candidates. Left opportunists may yap about the lesser evil (embacing thus the "evil of two lessers"). The dogs bark, the caravan passes. The intelligent left, what there is of it, recognizes that in this election the only ticket with any potential for a meaningful vote is Nader/Gonzalez. Shane Mage "It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want--and get it." (Gene Debs) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 08:39:01 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 10:39:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Voting for Obama - yep. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48E5F648.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> Shane Mage On Oct 3, 2008, at 6:57 AM, Ralph Dumain wrote: > > It is a given that any high-level candidate, certainly a presidential > candidate, is a bourgeois politician. That the left would even > debate whether to argue against a candidate because he represents > bourgeois interests is silly. That is a given. But within the > framework allowed by bourgeois politics, one can be better or > worse. and Waistline: >> >> I will probably vote for Senator Obama for President, knowing >> clearly that >> he is a bourgeois politician. >> >> There is in my opinion a real - material, difference between the >> Republican >> and Democratic Party at their base of support... Nobody intelligent is suggesting voting against a candidate because he's labeled "bourgeois." The issue at stake is the "One party with two right wings"(Gore Vidal) ^^^^^^^ Notice today is Gore Vidal's birthday. Actually,today is my birthday too . ^^^^Gore Vidal From Wikipedia,(December 2007) Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. Gore Vidal in 1948. Photo by Carl Van Vechten. Born Eugene Luther Vidal Jr.[1] October 3, 1925 (1925-10-03) (age 83) West Point, New York State, United States Occupation Novelist, Essayist , Playwright Nationality American Genres Drama, fictional prose, essay, literary criticism Literary movement Postmodernism Influences[show] Petronius, Apuleius, Thomas Mann, Henry James, Mark Twain, Montaigne Influenced[show] William Kennedy, Clive James, Christopher Hitchens, Truman Capote Gore Vidal (born October 3, 1925; pronounced /?g??r v??d??l/ or /v??d?l/) is an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, essayist, short story writer and politician. Early in his career he wrote the ground-breaking The City and the Pillar (1948) that outraged mainstream critics as the first major American novel to feature unambiguous homosexuality. Contents [hide] 1 Early years 2 Personal life 3 Writing career 3.1 Fiction 3.2 Essays and memoirs 4 Acting and popular culture 5 Political views and activities 5.1 Vidal vs. Buckley 5.2 Other controversies 5.3 Views on September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States 6 Bibliography 6.1 Essays and non-fiction 6.2 Plays 6.3 Novels 6.4 Screenplays 6.5 Under pseudonyms 6.6 Film appearances and interviews 7 See also 8 Notes 9 External links [edit] Early years Vidal was born Eugene Luther Vidal Jr.[2] in West Point, New York, the only child of Lieutenant Eugene Luther Vidal (1895?1969) and Nina S. Gore (1903?1978). He was born in the Cadet Hospital of the United States Military Academy, where his father was the first aeronautics instructor, and was christened by the headmaster of St. Albans preparatory school, his future alma mater.[3] According to "West Point and the Third Loyalty", an article Vidal wrote for The New York Review of Books (October 18, 1973),[2] he disliked his birth name and as a teenager, decided to be called Gore in honor of his maternal grandfather, Thomas Gore, Democratic senator from Oklahoma. Vidal's father, a West Point all-American quarterback who was director of Commerce Department's Bureau of Air Commerce (1933?1937) in the Roosevelt administration,[4] was one of the first Army Air Corps pilots and, according to biographer Susan Butler, was the great love of Amelia Earhart's life.[5] In the 1920s and 1930s, he was a co-founder of three American airlines: the Ludington Line, which merged with others and became Eastern Airlines, Transcontinental Air Transport (TAT, which became TWA), and Northeast Airlines, which he founded with Earhart, as well as the Boston and Maine Railroad. The elder Vidal was also an athlete in the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics (seventh in the decathlon; U.S. pentathlon team coach).[6][7] Gore Vidal's mother was an actress and socialite who had her Broadway debut in Sign of the Leopard in 1928.[8] She married Gene Vidal in 1922[9] and divorced him in 1935. She later married twice more; one husband was Hugh D. Auchincloss (stepfather of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) and, according to Gore Vidal, she had "a long off-and-on affair" with actor Clark Gable.[10] She was an alternate delegate to the 1940 Democratic National Convention.[11] Vidal had four half-siblings from his parents' later marriages (the Rev. Vance Vidal, Valerie Vidal Hewitt, Thomas Gore Auchincloss, and Nina Gore Auchincloss Steers Straight) and five stepbrothers from his mother's third marriage to Army Air Corps major general Robert Olds, who died in 1943, ten months after marrying Vidal's mother.[12] Vidal's nephew Burr Steers is a writer and film director, and nephew Hugh Auchincloss Steers (1963?1995) was a painter whose work is in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Walker Art Center, and the Denver Art Museum. Vidal was raised in Washington, D.C., where he attended Sidwell Friends School, then St. Albans School. Since Senator Gore was blind, the boy Vidal read aloud to him and was his guide. The senator's steadfast isolationism contributed a major principle of Gore Vidal's political philosophy, which is critical of foreign and domestic policies shaped by American imperialism.[13] In 1943, on graduating from Phillips Exeter Academy, Vidal joined the U.S. Army Reserve. Gore Vidal in 2008 at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. [edit] Personal life Although Vidal had a relationship with the bisexual writer Ana?s Nin, described in his memoir, Palimpsest, and in her memoir, The Diary of Ana?s Nin, Vidal himself dismisses the idea of a romantic or sexual relationship in Palimpsest (pages 105-114 in particular). In his two autobiographical books, Palimpsest (1995) and Point to Point Navigation (2006), Vidal described affairs with women such as actress Diana Lynn. He also has mentioned the possibility of having fathered a daughter out of wedlock.[14] Vidal had been briefly engaged to actress Joanne Woodward prior to her marriage to Paul Newman. They shared a house with Vidal in Los Angeles for a short time. In 1950, he met his lifetime companion, Howard Austen.[15] For most of the late twentieth century, Vidal lived in Ravello, Italy, and Los Angeles, California. In 2003, he sold the 5,000-square-foot (460 m?) Italian villa, La Rondinaia (The Swallow's Nest), and moved to Los Angeles. Austen died in November 2003 and, in February 2005, was buried in a plot for himself and Vidal at Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D.C. [edit] Writing career [edit] Fiction Vidal, whom a Newsweek critic has called "the best all-around man of letters since Edmund Wilson",[16] began his writing career at nineteen, with the publication of the military novel Williwaw, based upon his Alaskan Harbor Detachment duty. The novel was successful and chronologically the first of the war novels about World War II.[17] A few years later, The City and the Pillar caused a furor for its dispassionate presentation of homosexuality. The New York Times refused to review his next five books.[18] The novel was dedicated to "J.T." After a magazine published rumors about J.T.'s identity, Vidal confirmed they were the initials of his St. Albans-era love, Jimmie Trimble,[citation needed] who was killed in the Battle of Iwo Jima on June 1, 1945;[19] later saying Trimble was the only person he had ever loved.[20] Subsequently he wrote plays, films, and television series as a scriptwriter. Two plays, The Best Man and Visit to a Small Planet, were both Broadway and film successes.[citation needed] In the early 1950s he also wrote under the pseudonym "Edgar Box", producing three mystery novels featuring public relations man "Peter Cutler Sargeant II".[21] In 1956, Vidal was hired as a contract screenwriter for Metro Goldwyn Mayer.[citation needed] In 1959, director William Wyler needed script doctors to re-write the Ben-Hur script, originally written by Karl Tunberg. Vidal collaborated with Christopher Fry, reworking the screenplay on condition that MGM release him from the last two years of his contract. Producer Sam Zimbalist's death complicated the screenwriting credit. The Screen Writers Guild resolved the matter by listing Tunberg as sole screenwriter, denying credit to both Vidal and Fry. This decision was based on the WGA screenwriting credit system which favors original authors. Vidal later claimed that in order to explain the animosity between Ben-Hur and Messala, he had inserted a gay subtext suggesting that the two had had a prior relationship, but that actor Charlton Heston was oblivious.[22] Heston denied that Vidal contributed significantly to the script.[23] In the 1960s, Vidal wrote three highly successful[citation needed] novels. The first, the meticulously researched[citation needed] Julian (1964) dealt with the apostate Roman emperor, while the second, Washington, D.C. (1967) focused on a political family during the Franklin D. Roosevelt era. Vidal's third novel in the '60s was the satirical transsexual comedy Myra Breckinridge (1968), a variation on familiar Vidalian themes of sex, gender, and popular culture. In the novel, Vidal showcased his love of the American films of the '30s and '40s, and he resurrected interest in the careers of the forgotten players of the time including, for example, the late Richard Cromwell, who, he wrote, "was so satisfyingly tortured in The Lives of a Bengal Lancer." After two commercially unsuccessful[citation needed] plays, Weekend (1968) and An Evening With Richard Nixon (1972), and the largely unappreciated novel Two Sisters (1970),[24] Vidal focused on essays and two distinct strains in his fiction. The first strain comprises novels dealing with American history, specifically with the nature of national politics. Critic Harold Bloom wrote, "Vidal's imagination of American politics...is so powerful as to compel awe." This series' Narratives of Empire titles include Burr (1973), 1876 (1976), Lincoln (1984), Empire (1987), Hollywood (1990), The Golden Age (2000), and another excursion into the ancient world Creation (1981, published in expanded form 2002). The second strain consists of the comedic "satirical inventions": Myron (1974, a sequel to Myra Breckinridge), Kalki (1978), Duluth (1983), Live from Golgotha: the Gospel according to Gore Vidal (1992), and The Smithsonian Institution (1998). Vidal occasionally returned to scriptwriting cinema and television, including the television movie Gore Vidal's Billy the Kid with Val Kilmer and the mini-series Lincoln. He also wrote the original draft for the controversial film Caligula, but later had his name removed because director Tinto Brass and actor Malcolm McDowell re-wrote the script, changing the tone and themes significantly. The producers later made an attempt to salvage some of Vidal's vision in the film's post-production.[citation needed] [edit] Essays and memoirs Contrary to his wishes, Vidal is ? at least in the U.S. ? more respected as an essayist than as a novelist.[25] The critic John Keates praised him as "[the twentieth] century's finest essayist." Even an occasionally hostile critic like Martin Amis admits, "Essays are what he is good at...[h]e is learned, funny and exceptionally clear-sighted. Even his blind spots are illuminating." For six decades, Gore Vidal has applied himself to a wide variety of sociopolitical, sexual, historical, and literary themes. In 1987, Vidal wrote the essays titled Armageddon?, exploring the intricacies of power in contemporary America. He pilloried the incumbent president Ronald Reagan as a "triumph of the embalmer's art." In 1993, he won the National Book Award for his collection of essays, United States (1952?1992),[26] the citation noting: "Whatever his subject, he addresses it with an artist's resonant appreciation, a scholar's conscience, and the persuasive powers of a great essayist." A subsequent collection of essays, published in 2000, is The Last Empire. Since then, he has published such self-described "pamphlets" as Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, and Imperial America, critiques of American expansionism, the military-industrial complex, the national security state, and the current administration. Vidal also wrote an historical essay about the U.S.'s founding fathers, Inventing A Nation. In 1995, he published a memoir Palimpsest, and in 2006 its follow-up volume, Point to Point Navigation. Earlier that year, Vidal also published Clouds and Eclipses: The Collected Short Stories. Because of his matter-of-fact treatment of homosexual relations in such books as The City and The Pillar, Vidal is often seen as an early champion of sexual liberation.[citation needed] Sexually Speaking: Collected Sex Writings, a representative sampling of his views, contains literary and cultural essays. Focusing on, in his view, the anti-sexual heritage of Judaeo-Christianity, irrational and destructive sex laws, feminism, heterosexism, homophobia, gay liberation and pornography, the essays frequently return to a favorite Vidal motif: the fluidity of sexual identity.[citation needed] Vidal argues that "although our notions about what constitutes correct sexual behavior are usually based on religious texts, those texts are invariably interpreted by the rulers in order to keep control over the ruled." In repudiating what he sees as rigid, narrow moralism, Vidal argues that "sex is a continuum" made up of "different phases along life?s way" and thus "everyone is potentially bisexual." He explains that "the human race is divided into male and female. Many human beings enjoy the sexual relations with their own sex, many don't; many respond to both. The plurality is the fact of our nature and not worth fretting about." Therefore, "there are no homosexual people, only homosexual acts." Given the diversity of human desire, Vidal resists any effort to categorize him as exclusively "homosexual"?either as writer or human being?and instead celebrates this polymorphous eroticism as natural and inevitable.[citation needed] In 2005, Jay Parini was appointed as Vidal's literary executor.[3] [edit] Acting and popular culture In the 1960s, Vidal moved to Italy; he was cast as himself in Federico Fellini's film Roma. In 1992, Vidal appeared in the film Bob Roberts (starring Tim Robbins) and has appeared in other films, notably Gattaca, With Honors, and Igby Goes Down. Vidal has voiced himself on both The Simpsons and Family Guy. On his 2007 lecture tour, Vidal claimed that the idea for the film Night at the Museum was taken from one of his writings.[citation needed] [edit] Political views and activities Besides his politician grandfather, Vidal has other connections with the Democratic Party: his mother Nina married Hugh D. Auchincloss, Jr., who later was stepfather of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy. Gore Vidal is a fifth cousin of Jimmy Carter, and a distant cousin of Al Gore.[27] Gore Vidal in the 2005 film Why We Fight.As a political activist, in 1960, Gore Vidal was an unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Congress (running as Eugene Gore), losing an election in New York's 29th congressional district, a traditionally Republican district on the Hudson River, encompassing all of Columbia, Dutchess, Greene, Schoharie, and Ulster Counties to J. Ernest Wharton, by a margin of 57% to 43%.[28] Campaigning with a slogan of "You'll get more with Gore", he received the most votes any Democrat in 50 years received in that particular district. Among his supporters were Eleanor Roosevelt, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward; the latter two, longtime friends of Vidal's, campaigned for him and spoke on his behalf.[29] From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 09:06:01 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:06:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Racist scapegoating in financial crisis Message-ID: <48E5FC9B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Another reform won from Democrats. Charles ^^^^^ a 31-year-old law passed during the Carter administration by a Democratic Congress, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, "intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with safe and sound operations." Racist scapegoating in financial crisis -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: PEN-L From: Louis Proyect (Windows/20080914) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Huffington Post, October 2, 2008 Conservatives Seek To Shift Blame For Crisis Onto Minority Housing Law by Thomas B. Edsall Blame for the current economic crisis has been laid on many doorsteps, including the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999; credit default swaps; hedge funds; the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000; Alan Greenspan; and Phil and Wendy Gramm. But it has fallen to right-wing pundit Ann Coulter to blaze a truly simple path through the maze of credit derivatives, collateralized loan obligations, tranches, securitization transactions, and Thomson Financial League Tables. This gentle lady spells out the source and origin of the current economic crisis: "THEY GAVE YOUR MORTGAGE TO A LESS QUALIFIED MINORITY!" Coulter is putting forward an argument popular (who could be surprised?) among besieged conservatives, that "social engineering" is the root cause of the current economic crisis -- in the form of a 31-year-old law passed during the Carter administration by a Democratic Congress, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, "intended to encourage depository institutions to help meet the credit needs of the communities in which they operate, including low- and moderate-income neighborhoods, consistent with safe and sound operations." In Coulter's words, traditional yardsticks of a mortgage applicant's ability to make payments were replaced with "nontraditional measures of credit-worthiness, such as having a good jump shot or having a missing child named 'Caylee';" the result, Coulter continues, is that "middle-class taxpayers are going to be forced to bail out the Democrats' two most important constituent groups: rich Wall Street bankers and welfare recipients." To make sure her meaning is clear, Coulter echoes a line from the famous anti-affirmative action "White Hands" commercial Jesse Helms used in his 1990 campaign against black challenger Harvey Gantt. The ad shows a pair of white hands crumpling a job rejection slip as the voiceover intones, "You needed that job, you were the best qualified. But they have to give it to a minority because of a racial quota." Coulter is in the forefront of a concerted drive to shift the partisan consequences of the collapse on Wall Street from helping Democrats to favoring the GOP. To this end, conservatives have initiated a racially explosive argument, shifting the blame for the current economic crisis to legislation designed up improve access to mortgage financing for African Americans, other minorities and residents of low-income neighborhoods generally. Story continues below The campaign is being conducted by such leading advocates of the right as Charles Krauthammer, Mona Charen, Jeff Jacoby, television hosts like Lou Dobbs, and the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal, Investors Business Daily and the Washington Times. Krauthammer, for example, makes the case that, "For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- who in turn pressured banks and other lenders -- to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity." For those inclined to blame Democratic liberals, this argument is appealing. Neither Krauthammer nor Charen quotes any sources to back up their respective cases, and the only expert cited by Boston Globe columnist Jacoby is Loyola College economist Thomas DiLorenzo. DiLorenzo is most famous as a defender of the Confederacy and for his anti-Abraham Lincoln books, including The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War and Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe. The Community Reinvestment Act has, however, received some attention from more mainstream economists, including Robert Litan of the Brookings Institution. Litan told the Washington Post that when banks sought to merge, "they had to show they were making a conscious effort to make loans to subprime borrowers....If the CRA had not been so aggressively pushed, it is conceivable things would not be quite as bad. People have to be honest about that." There are a host of experts who sharply dispute that blame for the current Wall Street crisis should be directed at the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA). Janet L. Yellen, President and CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, made the following case in a March 31 speech: "There has been a tendency to conflate the current problems in the subprime market with CRA-motivated lending, or with lending to low-income families in general. I believe it is very important to make a distinction between the two. Most of the loans made by depository institutions examined under the CRA have not been higher-priced loans, and studies have shown that the CRA has increased the volume of responsible lending to low- and moderate-income households. We should not view the current foreclosure trends as justification to abandon the goal of expanding access to credit among low-income households, since access to credit, and the subsequent ability to buy a home, remains one of the most important mechanisms we have to help low-income families build wealth over the long term." University of Michigan Law Professor Michael Barr, a specialist in banking and finance law, flatly rejected claims that the CRA was "a significant factor in the current crisis. CRA was enacted more than 30 years ago. It would be quite odd if this 30-year old law suddenly caused an explosion in bad subprime loans from 2002-2007....Subprime mortgages were mostly made by mortgage brokers and lenders and securitized by investment banks -- institutions not covered by CRA," he told the Huffington Post, adding, "CRA only covers banks and thrifts, and these institutions mostly have not suffered to the same extent or kind from bad lending as the non-CRA-covered institutions at the core of the current crisis. The problem here is not CRA. It is what the late former Fed Governor Ned Gramlich called 'the giant hole in the supervisory safety net' -- bad lending by firms outside the banking sector's rules for prudential supervision, capital requirements, consumer protection and yes, the CRA." Along similar lines, University of Oregon economist Marc Thoma also cited for the Huffington Post the long delay between enactment of CRA and the current crisis and the fact that only 20 percent of subprime loans were made by CRA-regulated lenders, adding two other points: that "subprime loans grew twice as fast in institutions that did not have to meet the conditions of the CRA" and that the scope of coverage of CRA was reduced in 2004 under the Bush administration, "but even though fewer banks were subject to CRA restrictions, the growth of the subprime market continued unabated." This idea of faulting the CRA originated in the anti-regulation wing of the far right, and the goal is to blame government intervention for the current economic meltdown, and to score political points by blaming Democrats. While the preponderance of evidence suggests that the role of the CRA in the current meltdown was modest at most, that does not prevent it from becoming a useful wedge issue for a Republican presidential candidate on the ropes, and there is already some evidence that McCain could well be tempted to pounce on it. In an April interview with Larry Kudlow, the two had the following exchange: KUDLOW: Would you consider, by the way, rolling back the Community Reinvestment Act, which a lot of people say triggered this, mandating banks and other lenders to make substandard loans in the first place, and the creator of the subprime mortgages back in the middle '90s? Is it time to take a look at the Community Reinvestment Act? McCAIN: Absolutely, Larry. There were people who predicted that the Community Reinvestment Act might lead to reckless and unsound lending practices just to sort of fill a--you know, a amount of--I don't like to use the word "quota," but certain percentages of a--of a home--of the bank's lending practices. Yes, it has to be re-examined, it has to be judged by its effect, and we need to find out how this particular system affected the overall insolvency of the subprime lending issue. And I think it--I'm not saying it needs to be repealed, but it certainly needs to be re-examined and what its effects have been. And we'll be able to figure that out. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 09:32:45 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Ralph Nader on deregulation and the financial crisis Message-ID: <48E602E0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Ralph Nader on deregulation and the financial crisis -------------------------------------------------------------- Counterpunch, October 2, 2008 Bailing Out the Casino Soulmates in Deregulation By RALPH NADER The current finger pointing by the deregulation crowd in Congress and their ideological soul mates in the media reminds me of the 1939 film classic The Wizard of Oz. It is as though these spin masters want us to pay no attention to the government officials behind the deregulation curtain. Indeed, the right-wing pundits and the revisionists in Congress are spending an inordinate amount of time falsely claiming that our nation?s current financial disaster stems from the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed by Congress and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. The primary purpose of this modest law is to require banks to report on where and to whom they are making loans. Community organizations have used the data produced as a result of this law to determine if banks were meeting their lending obligations in the minority and lower-income communities in which they do business. Congress passed this law because too many lenders were discriminating against minority borrowers. ?Redlining? was the name given to the practice by banks of literally drawing a red line around minority areas and then proceeding to deny people within the red border home loans ? even if they were otherwise qualified. The law has been in place for 30 years, but the right-wing fringe claims it somehow is responsible for predatory lending practices that date back just to the beginning of this decade. Notice what these revisionists are not mentioning. No ?thank you? to former Senator Phil Gramm for pushing the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act.. This law was passed in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929 - and designed to separate banking from securities activities. In 1999, when Congress passed the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act and in so doing repealed Glass-Steagall the banks strayed into rough waters by looking for fast money from risky investments in securities and derivatives. As predatory lending mushroomed out of control, the regulators -- key among them, the Federal Reserve and the Office of Comptroller of Currency -- sat on their hands. The Federal Reserve took exactly three formal actions against subprime lenders from 2002 to 2007. Bloomberg news service found that the Office of Comptroller of the Currency, which has authority over almost 1,800 banks, took three consumer-protection enforcement actions from 2004 to 2006. No ?tip of the hat? to the Bush Administration for preempting state regulators and Attorneys General from using state consumer laws to crack down on predatory and sub-prime lending by national banks. And, let us not forget the folks at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Imagine allowing these two government sponsored enterprises--that were weakly regulated by HUD--to claim they were meeting the national housing goals by counting the purchase of subprime loans. Back in May of 2000, our associate Jonathan Brown warned that it would be inappropriate and counterproductive to encourage Fannie and Freddie to meet the housing goals by purchasing subprime loans. Too bad our members of Congress and the regulators at HUD were infected with deregulatory zeal. Former Texas Senator and current UBS executive Phil Gramm -- would-be President John McCain's Treasury Secretary-in-waiting -- pushed through the Commodities Futures Modernization Act of 2000, which deregulated the derivatives market. With help from his wife, Wendy, the former head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who went on to a post on the Enron board of directors, Gramm removed the controls on Wall Street so it could innovate all sorts of exotic financial instruments. Instruments far riskier than advertised, and now at the core of the financial meltdown. The SEC, through its "consolidated supervised entities" program, decided that voluntary regulation would work for the investment banking sector. Not surprisingly, this was a scheme cooked up by Wall Street itself. The investment banks were permitted to double, triple and go 20 times (and more) down on their bets by using lots of borrowed money. They made minimal disclosures to the SEC about what they were doing, and the SEC didn't bother to review those disclosures adequately. Too bad for the investment banks -- and the rest of us -- they made lots of bad bets. The SEC has now closed the voluntary program, though now there aren't any major investment banks left (the two remaining ones have converted themselves into conventional banks). It is time to start paying very close attention to government officials behind the deregulation curtain. Let your Members of Congress know you are not willing to bailout the gamblers on Wall Street with a no-strings attached pile of taxpayer dollars. The time for regulation is upon us. Ralph Nader is running for president as an independent This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Fri Oct 3 09:42:20 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 11:42:20 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Racist scapegoating in financial crisis In-Reply-To: <48E5FC9B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48E5FC9B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: 11 Racist Lies Conservatives Tell to Avoid Blaming Wall Street for the Financial Crisis By Sara Robinson, Campaign for America's Future. Posted October 2, 2008. Conservative pundits and politicians have piled onto the excuse like shipwreck victims clinging to a passing log: The real blame for the current economic crisis, conservatives would have you believe, lies not with anything they did, but rather with the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act -- a successful Carter-era program designed to get banks to stop covert discrimination, and encourage them to invest their money in low-income neighborhoods. It's always easy to tell when the cons are completely lost at sea. The lies get more absurdly preposterous -- and also more transparently self-serving. But when they go so far as to openly and unapologetically latch onto race and class as an excuse for their woes (which this is, at its heart), you know they're taking on water fast -- and scared of going under entirely. You can hear the conservative commentators burbling this CRA fable from the Wall Street Journal to the National Review; from Rush to YouTube. Neil Cavuto put the essence of the argument right out there on Fox News: "Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster." See! It's all the liberals' fault for insisting on social justice! Conservatives are twisting the facts beyond the breaking point to support their revisionist history. But don't be fooled: the financial crisis was caused by conservative financial follies and bankers run amok and nothing more. Here are the basic myths they're trying to push about the CRA -- and the facts that will enable you to fire back. 1. The CRA was a liberal boondoggle designed to con banks into funding housing for undeserving, unqualified minorities. False. The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 was the result of decades of disinvestment in poor and working-class neighborhoods. It was designed to put an end to "red-lining" -- a widespread practice in which banks refused to write mortgages for houses in certain neighborhoods, no matter who was applying or how creditworthy they were. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 had made it illegal for real estate agents and banks to discriminate against homeowners on the basis of race. Red-lining soon emerged as a not-so-subtle way to continue this discrimination, by declaring, ahem, certain neighborhoods as unfit to invest in. By 1977, the results of this practice were becoming all too obvious, so Congress stepped and gave lenders a choice: if you want the FDIC to insure your deposits, you need to knock off the redlining. The CRA didn't force lenders to make riskier loans than they would have otherwise. It simply required that they take each applicant on his or her own merits, and give people in poorer neighborhoods the same fair chance at a mortgage that everybody else in town was getting. It wasn't about preferential treatment. It was just about basic equality. 2. The CRA forced banks to lower their standards and make loans to all low-income families and people with poor credit -- and find banks that refused to comply. No. The CRA has encouraged banks to lend fairly and responsibly for over 30 years. It does not impose fines. It does periodically examine FDIC-backed banks, and issues them a CRA compliance rating. A highly-rated bank must meet the financing needs of as many community members as possible, and must not discriminate against racial and ethnic groups or certain neighborhoods. However, a bank will not receive a high rating unless it is also maintains "safe and sound banking practices." In other words, the CRA requires banks to lend to working-class families and people of color -- but only when those people have been deemed as creditworthy as anyone else. 3. The housing bubble burst when too many people with home loans mandated by the Community Reinvestment Act failed to make their mortgage payments. False. The CRA only applies to FDIC member banks and thrifts. Back in the 1970s, these institutions were responsible for most of the country's mortgage lending. But starting in the 80s and on up to the present, we saw a huge boom in lending businesses-- such as finance companies like Countrywide -- that weren't banks, and didn't take deposits that required FDIC insurance. Thus, they didn't have any obligation to the CRA. And they were free to set their own lending standards, which were often far less cautious than those required of FDIC-insured banks. 4. The bulk of the "junk" loans that have been packaged into mortgage-based securities are CRA loans. False. An analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data in the country's 15 biggest metropolitan areas found that 84.3% of the high-cost loans made in 2006 were originated by non-CRA lenders -- including 83% of high-cost loans to low- and moderate-income individuals. The Federal Reserve notes that, across the country, non-CRA lenders were twice as likely as CRA lenders to issue subprime loans to vulnerable borrowers. Furthermore, the Fed also reports that responsible mortgages made by CRA lenders have about the same low rate of foreclosure as other traditional mortgages. 5. If the government had just set the lenders free to do their thing, the market would have prevented this. It's just another example of how government oversight always leads to market failure. Wrong again, buckaroo. As explained just above, up to four-fifths of these loans were issued by financial institutions that operated with little or no federal regulatory oversight. In fact, in 2006, only one of the top 25 subprime lenders was a CRA institution. A few others were mortgage/finance company affiliates of CRA-covered lenders; but even these were separate businesses that didn't operate under CRA rules (including Countrywide, CitiMortgage, and Wells Fargo Home Mortgage). Likewise: the vast majority of the top 20 issuers of risky interest-only and option ARM loans were not CRA-affiliated lenders. If anything, the CRA example proves -- once again -- that government oversight not only works; it's essential to maintain safe and sane capital markets. 6. The CRA is just another failed liberal handout program. No. The benefits of CRA have been substantial. Robert Rubin recently estimated that the law has channeled upwards of $1 trillion into distressed neighborhoods across the country -- including both inner cities and rural areas without much access to investment funds -- without putting up any taxpayer money beyond what it takes to operate the CRA itself. In these areas, home ownership is up -- and with it, the local tax base, which means more parks, more cops, more street repairs, and so on. There's more decent rental housing, too, because landlords can get loans for upgrades and improvements. Small business ownership is also up. Low-income communities have become more attractive to outside investors, and more able to support community redevelopment efforts. And in places where people once cashed their paychecks at the convenience store and depended on payday loans, there are now full-service bank branches offering the same affordable financial services people in better neighborhoods take for granted. The cons like to talk about the "ownership society." There is no ownership without access to capital. For 30 years, the CRA has been making private capital available to qualified people who want to bootstrap themselves into home and business ownership, and a secure place in the middle class. 7. OK -- if it works so well, why do we still need it? Haven't the banks finally figured by now out that redlining was a stupid idea? If only. The very fact that the conservatives are trying to blame the mess on the CRA is, in itself, ample proof that we still need anti-redlining laws on the books. Fifty years into the civil rights era, and they're still arguing that it should be acceptable to permanently exclude people from the capital markets on the basis of race and class. Different millennium, same ugly story: "See? This is what happens when you give money to minorities and poor people. You end up wrecking the country!" In other words: no, they haven't learned their lesson; and yes, they still believe in red-lining as much as they ever did. Racism is alive and well, and there are still plenty of Americans who would bring back housing discrimination in a heartbeat if the law allowed them to. Which is precisely why we can't allow them to. 8. If we can't blame the CRA, then who can we blame? How about the federal banking agencies, which outright told banks to go ahead and adopt risky lending practices? In particular, a 1992 Boston Federal Reserve Bank publication, Closing the Credit Gap: A Guide to Equal Opportunity Lending, told the banks that it was OK to adopt unsound lending practices. Nice try, but still wrong. According to the National Community Reinvestment Association, the document cited above offered three new guidelines to lenders -- none of which are applicable to the current subprime crisis. The first guideline was that the lack of proper credit history shouldn't be counted as a negative factor for potential homebuyers. Banks could use other evidence to assess the borrower's payment habits, including the timely payment of rent, utility bills, and other scheduled loans. Borrows still need to prove that they're reliable; they're just allowed to use documentation besides a credit report. The second was to remind bankers that some households with debt ratios above the standard 28/36 criteria might still qualify for home loans. This guideline is very conservative by today's standards. Many problematic subprime loans were granted to borrowers with debt-to-income ratios above 50 percent, which was in no way sanctioned by the 1992 guidance document. The third was that lenders could count Social Security, second jobs, and other verifiable income streams as valid sources of income when evaluating loan applications. But most subprime loans failures aren't related to alternative income sources. The real problem has been with "liars' loans," in which the reported income streams are never verified at all. 9. Well, then...it must be Bill Clinton's fault, right? In 1995, Clinton changed the Community Reinvestment Act to allow the securitization of CRA and subprime mortgages. That's what started all this. Talking point regurgitation at its worst. The 1995 revisions to the CRA only changed the way in which a bank's CRA compliance is evaluated. They made no mention of mortgage securitization at all. Under the 1995 rules, banks are rewarded only for making mortgages in their communities, not for re-selling mortgages as securities. 10. OK, then -- it's the Democratic Congress's fault! President Bush and Senator McCain tried to stop the subprime mortgage crisis, but Democrats blocked their efforts. It's not lying. It's a gift for fiction. This one's actually made it into a TV ad. The claim is that Bush and McCain supported the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, which would have created a new government agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and other federal housing programs. However, there's no pony in this manure pile. This bill would have done nothing to stop the rash of subprime lending that preceded the housing bubble. It only provided oversight for Fannie and Freddie -- but it said nothing at all about the companies that issued subprime mortgages. 11. No serious conservative economist would have ever approved of the CRA. False. In March 2007, Federal Board Chairman Bernanke -- no liberal he -- noted that CRA has helped institutions discover and enter new markets that may have been previously under-served and ignored by insured depositories. These myths are floating around everywhere this week -- a Big Lie that's being repeated so often that Americans may well start to believe it. The real objective of the "blame the CRA" campaign is to pre-emptively discredit any future progressive proposals that involve using government regulation to make the capital markets behave -- and to get the free-market fundamentalist faithful back in the fold. Time to fire back, and replace the Big Lie with some real truth. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 11:42:01 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 13:42:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Michigan Association of REALTORS International Local Council Luncheon Message-ID: <48E6212B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> 11:30 a.m. ? 2:00 p.m. Michigan Association of REALTORS International Local Council Luncheon @ The Renaissance Club, 200 Renaissance Center, Suite 3600 Comment: Joyce RSVP on 9/11/08 to Amy daunt or Lindsay Macomber at the MAR offices at 517-372-8890. The event is sponsored by Bank of America. The luncheon is expected to bring together various local, state, and international leaders who have had an impact on the business community in Michigan and abroad. The Council promotes international real estate education, practices, and the development of technical standards and information exchanges?SE input 9/11/08. ^^^ Bank of America rep said B of Am is still selling same mortgage products it did in recent times This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 12:14:05 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 14:14:05 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Draft leaflet Message-ID: <48E628B0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Leaflet on financial turmoil Page history last edited by Anthony Boynton 2 days, 2 hours ago No Bail Out! Why not buy the banks? The country is mad as hell at the bailout of the banks being pushed down our throats by George W., John McCain, Barak Obama and the leaders of the Democratic and Republican Parties. But what's the alternative? Just let private enterprise sort things out for the rest of us? Just let the markets melt down while the real economy continues to grind to a halt? Free enterprise does not seem to be doing a very good job at providing jobs, affordable housing, decent pay, medical care ...and things are getting worse by the day. What should be done? The government could start by simply buying up the shares of the banks which are bankrupt, are about to go bankrupt. For starters the tax payers get a bargain! The prices of bank stocks are near zero! Next the government could put a moratorium on all foreclosures. Then the government could regulate real estate prices, and the government owned banks could provide zero interest loans to people who need homes, and even to businesses having problems keeping open. Does this sound like socialism to you? Pretty good idea, don't you think? U.S. FINANCIAL MELTDOWN SPOTLIGHTS PROFIT SYSTEM'S ENDEMIC EXPIRATION AND THE IMPERATIVE OF ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY The collapse of the financial sectors is indicative of the abject failure of the capitalist economy. The inherent need of capitalist firms to expand their market shares, and accumulate new outlets for exploitation, has reached a point where capital concentration has created a roadblock to satisfying the system's own all-consuming needs. In seeking to prevent any reduction in their extraordinary profit margins or the implosion of the system itself, capitalist firms have sought to drastically increase their rate of exploitation of labor, natural resources, and public assets. Concurrently, they've come to rely on the sheer market manipulation of financial assets, which must ultimately rely on investment in new sources of exploitation or public resource dispossession, in order to represent any genuine value of their own. In the most recent culmination of this trajectory, the nation's top financial firms now seek a return on the fictitious assets they've invested in enormous campaign contributions to federal politicians, through a taxpayer bailout of hundreds of billions of dollars. In recent years, the leading recipients of the proposed bailout have attempted to domestically and internationally justify their "Washington consensus" on decimating social safety-nets, massive cuts to wages and benefits, and privatization of public services, in the name of mercilessly strict adherence to the "tough love" and "sacrifice" of the "free market." At the current point at which their ruthless dispossession of our resources through "free market" austerity has halted even their own capabilities to exploit and accumulate all they need for profitability, American workers are now called upon to forget the principles that the banks and robber barrens of advanced capitalism have so callously imposed upon working people in continuous escalation since the Reagan/Thatcher era. In demonstrating the cynical facade behind the unwaivering economic ideology they've peddled for decades, these same Wall Street power brokers who demanded the near complete de-regulation of the financial sector under "free market" principles, are now calling upon all tax-paying U.S. workers to "come together as Americans" and take "collective responsibility" for their boundless greed and ultimate financial failure under the very standards they themselves imposed. Congressional Democrats, through continuous pledges to reach a "bipartisan" solution to the financial meltdown, have predictably fallen over themselves to reaffirm their reliable role as one of the two great parties of capital. As Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi proclaimed on September 26th, "We will not leave until legislation is passed that will be signed by the president. The markets [sic] need a message from us that we're acting." Barack Obama, whose $25 million dollars in campaign contributions from the financial industry in this election has exceeded the amount received by John McCain, has likewise urged bipartisan passage of the bailout package, "in the spirit of cooperation on behalf of the American people." Whether through the form of accumulating greater portions of the tax revenues paid by working people (bail-outs, corporate welfare, imperialist war, social-service cut-backs, privatization); through debt entrapment (predatory lending, adjustable-rate mortgages, loan-sharking impoverished nations); or through direct profit gouging at the point of production (wage/benefit/pension cuts, attacks on overtime and organized labor, race-to-the-bottom capital flight); the American ruling class has now become far too concentrated and far too desperate to apportion its various sources of surplus value or to give consideration to the consequences of its unmitigated macro-extraction. Following this exposure of decades of ruling class sophistry, there can no longer be any rational debate on the question of pursuing the "free market" as an alternative to the compelling urgency of economic democracy. The needs of the largest capitalist firms to wipe out competition has today led already to an effectively socialized centralization of economic power, but in the form of private ownership of an increasingly reckless and completely unaccountable ruling class of professional speculators. If we the people are now to publicly socialize the costs of our ruling class' disastrous practices, as our corporate politicians demand, what earthly justification can be given for handing the very pillars of our economic security back to their private and unaccountable ownership, once resurrected? The essential political question left to working people is whether to allow this ruling class to maintain its control and personal entitlement to every stratum of both the means and products of our livelihoods. Our fundamental choice comes down to whether we wish to maintain this cycle of catastrophic consequences from a system of production and finance based on socialized costs for working people and private profits for a ruling oligarchy - or whether the time has come to establish a publicly accountable system to take social ownership of such economic institutions themselves, based on democratic economic planning and controlled by the great majority of the population who work for a living and comprise the real economy in society. During the recent housing boom, speculators offered deceptively low interest rate loans on mortgages. As a result, millions bought houses they could not actually afford. Much of the funding for these loans came from some of the largest and most powerful financial institutions in the United States, and the world. For a brief moment, lending institutions and banks made huge profits, but then, as usual, the bubble burst, leaving the housing market, and, with it, the entire economy, incomplete disarray. With many of the largest banks and financial institutions on the brink of collapse, the proposed gigantic bail-out that could very well cost taxpayers over half a trillion dollars. This staggering giveaway will bring higher taxes and further cuts in essential social services, no matter which of the corporate candidates becomes president. Once again, working people are being coerced into rescuing the wealthy few from the disastrous consequences of their own insatiable rapaciousness. We reject the bail-out plan. Instead, we propose that the government take over the financial sector, and then delegate the distribution of home loans to a decentralized network of non-profit credit unions. These institutions are far less likely to push bogus loans than the financial institutions controlled by our corporate rulers. The federal government would also assume responsibility or forgiveness for defaulting mortgages while imposing a universal five year moratorium on all home foreclosures in the United States. In the short-run, the costs of this debacle would be borne by those who benefited from the scam. To accomplish this, we propose: 1.a steeply graduated income tax, and an estate tax levied at a rate of 90% for inheritances worth more than a million dollars. 2. An immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a drastic cut in military spending. These two proposals will provide the funds to prevent a financial collapse while also ensuring the needed expansion of vital social services, but such a program to counter the immediate crisis is not enough. Housing is too important to be left in the hands of avaricious speculators and developers. The federal government should begin building millions of units of low-density, high-quality low-cost housing, integrated ethnically and across income levels. These housing units should be constructed by a unionized and ethnically and gender integrated workforce, designed to be energy efficient, and located near mass transit. These projects should be owned by the state, but should be operated by resident councils with the authority to set policy and to elect, re-call, and supervise managers. We need to move rapidly to a socialist society, one in which housing is provided to all as a basic right, the financial sector and commanding heights of the economy are made publicly accountable through social ownership and worker control of the economy, and production is oriented toward the needs of working people, rather than maximizing the parasitic profits of an obsolete ruling class of multi-millionaires and billionaires. We, the majority who work for a living, can no larger afford to produce and relinquish all that maintaining the private profits for our ruling class entails! This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From phil at pwalden.fsnet.co.uk Fri Oct 3 13:12:18 2008 From: phil at pwalden.fsnet.co.uk (Phil Walden) Date: Fri, 3 Oct 2008 20:12:18 +0100 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Draft leaflet In-Reply-To: <48E628B0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <20081003191221.ZCHS29597.aamtaout03-winn.ispmail.ntl.com@pwalden> No it (below) certainly does not sound like socialism to me, for the very simple reason that it is not about putting the working class in control, but is rather about easing the crisis for the bourgeoisie and therefore increasing the power of the bourgeoisie. In order to talk about socialism you would have to put forward the demand for the nationalisation of all banks UNDER WORKERS CONTROL, and explain why this is necessary and is the ONLY solution to the crisis that humanity has. I have no idea where your purported communism has gone Charles, if you ever had any. You seem to be just for helping the bourgeoisie to feel better. You are utterly dominated by fear. Phil Walden -----Original Message----- From: marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Charles Brown Sent: 03 October 2008 19:14 To: a-list at lists.econ.utah.edu; marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Draft leaflet Leaflet on financial turmoil Page history last edited by Anthony Boynton 2 days, 2 hours ago No Bail Out! Why not buy the banks? The country is mad as hell at the bailout of the banks being pushed down our throats by George W., John McCain, Barak Obama and the leaders of the Democratic and Republican Parties. But what's the alternative? Just let private enterprise sort things out for the rest of us? Just let the markets melt down while the real economy continues to grind to a halt? Free enterprise does not seem to be doing a very good job at providing jobs, affordable housing, decent pay, medical care ...and things are getting worse by the day. What should be done? The government could start by simply buying up the shares of the banks which are bankrupt, are about to go bankrupt. For starters the tax payers get a bargain! The prices of bank stocks are near zero! Next the government could put a moratorium on all foreclosures. Then the government could regulate real estate prices, and the government owned banks could provide zero interest loans to people who need homes, and even to businesses having problems keeping open. Does this sound like socialism to you? Pretty good idea, don't you think? U.S. FINANCIAL MELTDOWN SPOTLIGHTS PROFIT SYSTEM'S ENDEMIC EXPIRATION AND THE IMPERATIVE OF ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY The collapse of the financial sectors is indicative of the abject failure of the capitalist economy. The inherent need of capitalist firms to expand their market shares, and accumulate new outlets for exploitation, has reached a point where capital concentration has created a roadblock to satisfying the system's own all-consuming needs. In seeking to prevent any reduction in their extraordinary profit margins or the implosion of the system itself, capitalist firms have sought to drastically increase their rate of exploitation of labor, natural resources, and public assets. Concurrently, they've come to rely on the sheer market manipulation of financial assets, which must ultimately rely on investment in new sources of exploitation or public resource dispossession, in order to represent any genuine value of their own. In the most recent culmination of this trajectory, the nation's top financial firms now seek a return on the fictitious assets they've invested in enormous campaign contributions to federal politicians, through a taxpayer bailout of hundreds of billions of dollars. In recent years, the leading recipients of the proposed bailout have attempted to domestically and internationally justify their "Washington consensus" on decimating social safety-nets, massive cuts to wages and benefits, and privatization of public services, in the name of mercilessly strict adherence to the "tough love" and "sacrifice" of the "free market." At the current point at which their ruthless dispossession of our resources through "free market" austerity has halted even their own capabilities to exploit and accumulate all they need for profitability, American workers are now called upon to forget the principles that the banks and robber barrens of advanced capitalism have so callously imposed upon working people in continuous escalation since the Reagan/Thatcher era. In demonstrating the cynical facade behind the unwaivering economic ideology they've peddled for decades, these same Wall Street power brokers who demanded the near complete de-regulation of the financial sector under "free market" principles, are now calling upon all tax-paying U.S. workers to "come together as Americans" and take "collective responsibility" for their boundless greed and ultimate financial failure under the very standards they themselves imposed. Congressional Democrats, through continuous pledges to reach a "bipartisan" solution to the financial meltdown, have predictably fallen over themselves to reaffirm their reliable role as one of the two great parties of capital. As Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi proclaimed on September 26th, "We will not leave until legislation is passed that will be signed by the president. The markets [sic] need a message from us that we're acting." Barack Obama, whose $25 million dollars in campaign contributions from the financial industry in this election has exceeded the amount received by John McCain, has likewise urged bipartisan passage of the bailout package, "in the spirit of cooperation on behalf of the American people." Whether through the form of accumulating greater portions of the tax revenues paid by working people (bail-outs, corporate welfare, imperialist war, social-service cut-backs, privatization); through debt entrapment (predatory lending, adjustable-rate mortgages, loan-sharking impoverished nations); or through direct profit gouging at the point of production (wage/benefit/pension cuts, attacks on overtime and organized labor, race-to-the-bottom capital flight); the American ruling class has now become far too concentrated and far too desperate to apportion its various sources of surplus value or to give consideration to the consequences of its unmitigated macro-extraction. Following this exposure of decades of ruling class sophistry, there can no longer be any rational debate on the question of pursuing the "free market" as an alternative to the compelling urgency of economic democracy. The needs of the largest capitalist firms to wipe out competition has today led already to an effectively socialized centralization of economic power, but in the form of private ownership of an increasingly reckless and completely unaccountable ruling class of professional speculators. If we the people are now to publicly socialize the costs of our ruling class' disastrous practices, as our corporate politicians demand, what earthly justification can be given for handing the very pillars of our economic security back to their private and unaccountable ownership, once resurrected? The essential political question left to working people is whether to allow this ruling class to maintain its control and personal entitlement to every stratum of both the means and products of our livelihoods. Our fundamental choice comes down to whether we wish to maintain this cycle of catastrophic consequences from a system of production and finance based on socialized costs for working people and private profits for a ruling oligarchy - or whether the time has come to establish a publicly accountable system to take social ownership of such economic institutions themselves, based on democratic economic planning and controlled by the great majority of the population who work for a living and comprise the real economy in society. During the recent housing boom, speculators offered deceptively low interest rate loans on mortgages. As a result, millions bought houses they could not actually afford. Much of the funding for these loans came from some of the largest and most powerful financial institutions in the United States, and the world. For a brief moment, lending institutions and banks made huge profits, but then, as usual, the bubble burst, leaving the housing market, and, with it, the entire economy, incomplete disarray. With many of the largest banks and financial institutions on the brink of collapse, the proposed gigantic bail-out that could very well cost taxpayers over half a trillion dollars. This staggering giveaway will bring higher taxes and further cuts in essential social services, no matter which of the corporate candidates becomes president. Once again, working people are being coerced into rescuing the wealthy few from the disastrous consequences of their own insatiable rapaciousness. We reject the bail-out plan. Instead, we propose that the government take over the financial sector, and then delegate the distribution of home loans to a decentralized network of non-profit credit unions. These institutions are far less likely to push bogus loans than the financial institutions controlled by our corporate rulers. The federal government would also assume responsibility or forgiveness for defaulting mortgages while imposing a universal five year moratorium on all home foreclosures in the United States. In the short-run, the costs of this debacle would be borne by those who benefited from the scam. To accomplish this, we propose: 1.a steeply graduated income tax, and an estate tax levied at a rate of 90% for inheritances worth more than a million dollars. 2. An immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a drastic cut in military spending. These two proposals will provide the funds to prevent a financial collapse while also ensuring the needed expansion of vital social services, but such a program to counter the immediate crisis is not enough. Housing is too important to be left in the hands of avaricious speculators and developers. The federal government should begin building millions of units of low-density, high-quality low-cost housing, integrated ethnically and across income levels. These housing units should be constructed by a unionized and ethnically and gender integrated workforce, designed to be energy efficient, and located near mass transit. These projects should be owned by the state, but should be operated by resident councils with the authority to set policy and to elect, re-call, and supervise managers. We need to move rapidly to a socialist society, one in which housing is provided to all as a basic right, the financial sector and commanding heights of the economy are made publicly accountable through social ownership and worker control of the economy, and production is oriented toward the needs of working people, rather than maximizing the parasitic profits of an obsolete ruling class of multi-millionaires and billionaires. We, the majority who work for a living, can no larger afford to produce and relinquish all that maintaining the private profits for our ruling class entails! This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 3 13:41:18 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 03 Oct 2008 15:41:18 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] recapitalization Message-ID: <48E63D21.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> For folks on this list not versed in the ways of finance: recapitalization means adding solid money to a bank's deposit base. Deposits are a tiny chunk of a bank's assets; loans are always much, much bigger, because that's what banks do - borrow short and lend long. That's why nationalization is a Good Thing (TM, Pat. Pending) - it means you add to the deposit base (shore up the dam) instead of bailing out bad debt (trying to drain the ocean). -- DRR ___________________________________ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From karl.dallas at gmail.com Sat Oct 4 02:22:35 2008 From: karl.dallas at gmail.com (Karl Dallas) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 09:22:35 +0100 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Comrade Picasso Message-ID: The point about Picasso's Stalin portrait is not that it was non-realistic - given Picasso's brilliance as a draughtsman, the fact that it looked nothing like its subject can't have been accidental - but that it is a very poor piece of work.His peace dove became an icon of the world-wide peace movement (though his "dove in flight" successor was rather less successful, as an image), showing that our Pablo could produce good agit-prop when he felt moved to do so. Actually the flying dove has more in common with his Korea and Guernica works, because all three are rhetorical, rather than graphical. The concept is more powerful than its representation. Though his Guernica is widely loved, this has probably more to do with empathy for the victims of this fascist massacre from the air than appreciation of its artistic merit. If one compares the Korea piece with Goya's similar depictions of judicial murders, then Picasso's weakness becomes self-evident. The French party wasn't a bunch of philistines. The fact that it was only this work which attracted top-level criticism, rather than his "less political" work, shows that it wasn't his political stance (or, as he himself maintained, his lack of it), that offended them. But undoubtedly, when the left throughout the world was mourning Stalin's death, to commemorate him with this weird piece of kitsch, was a provocative act on his behalf. And he cannot have been surprised at the response it provoked. KARL DALLAS On Thu, Oct 2, 2008 at 7:00 PM, wrote: > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Wed, 01 Oct 2008 15:23:23 -0400 > From: "Charles Brown" > Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Comrade Picasso > To: > Message-ID: <48E395EB.84C9.00BF.0 at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > But party criticism of a portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic > cooled Picasso?s interest in communist politics, though he remained a loyal > member of the Communist Party until his death. In a 1945 interview with > Jerome Seckler, Picasso stated: ?I am a Communist and my painting is > Communist painting. ? But if I were a shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or > anything else, I would not necessarily hammer my shoes in a special way to > show my politics.?[ > > > Political views > > > Pablo Picasso, Massacre in Korea, 1951 > Picasso remained neutral during World War I, the Spanish Civil War, and > World War II, refusing to fight for any side or country. Some of his > contemporaries felt that his pacifism had more to do with cowardice than > principle. An article in The New Yorker called him ?a coward, who sat out > two world wars while his friends were suffering and dying?.[9] As a Spanish > citizen living in France, Picasso was under no compulsion to fight against > the invading Germans in either World War. In the Spanish Civil War, service > for Spaniards living abroad was optional and would have involved a voluntary > return to the country to join either side. While Picasso expressed anger and > condemnation of Francisco Franco and fascists through his art, he did not > take up arms against them. He also remained aloof from the Catalan > independence movement during his youth despite expressing general support > and being friendly with activists within it. > In 1944 Picasso joined the French Communist Party, attended an > international peace conference in Poland, and in 1950 received the Stalin > Peace Prize from the Soviet government.[10] But party criticism of a > portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic cooled Picasso?s interest in > communist politics, though he remained a loyal member of the Communist Party > until his death. In a 1945 interview with Jerome Seckler, Picasso stated: ?I > am a Communist and my painting is Communist painting. ? But if I were a > shoemaker, Royalist or Communist or anything else, I would not necessarily > hammer my shoes in a special way to show my politics.?[11] He was against > the intervention of the United Nations and the United States[12] in the > Korean civil war and he depicted it in Massacre in Korea. In 1962, he > received the International Lenin Peace Prize. > > > > This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. > www.surfcontrol.com > > > > ------------------------------ > > From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Oct 4 10:13:58 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 12:13:58 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Voting for Obama - yep. Message-ID: In a message dated 10/3/2008 10:29:01 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, _shmage at pipeline.com_ (mailto:shmage at pipeline.com) writes: >> Nobody intelligent is suggesting voting against a candidate because he's labeled "bourgeois." The issue at stake is the "One party with two right wings" (Gore Vidal) capitalist duopoly. Both parties have the same base of support--the giant corporations. Their union sacr?e for the bailout swindle, the Afghanistan and Iraq Wars, nuclear power, the embargo against Cuba, the war threat against Iran, The Zionist colonizers, "clean" coal, etc., etc. Not even mentioning the biggest issue of all--the brobdinagian fascist trillion-dollar "national security" expenditures on military-police-surveillance-spying-covert action etc. The one purpose of political activity today must be to mobilize as big as possible a citizens' movement against the corporate power elite. Continuing through and after the election. That is what Nader/Gonzalez is about. Left sectarians may yap about their own perfect candidates. Left opportunists may yap about the lesser evil (embacing thus the "evil of two lessers"). The dogs bark, the caravan passes. The intelligent left, what there is of it, recognizes that in this election the only ticket with any potential for a meaningful vote is Nader/Gonzalez. << Comment With all due respect, it is not my opinion or thinking that the issue at stake is "One party with two right wings." Nor is it my contention that Obama and the Democratic Party represent the lesser of two evils, as a rationale for voting for Obama. I would agree that both parities have their economic/political/class basis - taproot, in the bourgeoisie. However, in the real world the social/political basis of the Democratic Party, as expressed through the Obama candidacy and campaign, is fundamentally different than the social/political basis of the Republican Party. The social basis of the Democratic Party is not the Bible Belt or the historically reactionary southern political establishment, at least for the pass 40 years. A vote for Obama in Florida, and swinging Florida over to Obama is a serious political blow to historic Southern political reaction in the real world. From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Oct 4 10:15:56 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 12:15:56 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Draft leaflet Message-ID: In my way of thinking the draft leaflet is way to long. WL. **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out! (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000001) From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Oct 4 10:20:17 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 12:20:17 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The military budget is way out of hand Message-ID: If Only We Didn't Waste It on The Defense Budget by Chalmers Johnson TomDispatch via Countercurrents (September 29 2008) There has been much moaning, air-sucking, and outrage about the $700 billion that the US government is thinking of throwing away on rich New York bankers who have been ripping us off for the past few years and then letting greed drive their businesses into a variety of ditches. In fact, we dole out similar amounts of money every year in the form of payoffs to the armed services, the military-industrial complex, and powerful senators and representatives allied with the Pentagon. On Wednesday, September 24th, right in the middle of the fight over billions of taxpayer dollars slated to bail out Wall Street, the House of Representatives passed a $612 billion defense authorization bill for 2009 without a murmur of public protest or any meaningful press comment at all. (The New York Times gave the matter only three short paragraphs buried in a story about another appropriations measure.) The defense bill includes $68.6 billion to pursue the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is only a down-payment on the full yearly cost of these wars. (The rest will be raised through future supplementary bills.) It also included a 3.9% pay raise for military personnel, and $5 billion in pork-barrel projects not even requested by the administration or the secretary of defense. It also fully funds the Pentagon's request for a radar site in the Czech Republic, a hare-brained scheme sure to infuriate the Russians just as much as a Russian missile base in Cuba once infuriated us. The whole bill passed by a vote of 392-39 and will fly through the Senate, where a similar bill has already been approved. And no one will even think to mention it in the same breath with the discussion of bailout funds for dying investment banks and the like. This is pure waste. Our annual spending on "national security" - meaning the defense budget plus all military expenditures hidden in the budgets for the departments of Energy, State, Treasury, Veterans Affairs, the CIA, and numerous other places in the executive branch - already exceeds a trillion dollars, an amount larger than that of all other national defense budgets combined. Not only was there no significant media coverage of this latest appropriation, there have been no signs of even the slightest urge to inquire into the relationship between our bloated military, our staggering weapons expenditures, our extravagantly expensive failed wars abroad, and the financial catastrophe on Wall Street. The only Congressional "commentary" on the size of our military outlay was the usual pompous drivel about how a failure to vote for the defense authorization bill would betray our troops. The aged Senator John Warner (R-Va), former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, implored his Republican colleagues to vote for the bill "out of respect for military personnel". He seems to be unaware that these troops are actually volunteers, not draftees, and that they joined the armed forces as a matter of career choice, rather than because the nation demanded such a sacrifice from them. We would better respect our armed forces by bringing the futile and misbegotten wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to an end. A relative degree of peace and order has returned to Iraq not because of President Bush's belated reinforcement of our expeditionary army there (the so-called surge), but thanks to shifting internal dynamics within Iraq and in the Middle East region generally. Such shifts include a growing awareness among Iraq's Sunni population of the need to restore law and order, a growing confidence among Iraqi Shiites of their nearly unassailable position of political influence in the country, and a growing awareness among Sunni nations that the ill-informed war of aggression the Bush administration waged against Iraq has vastly increased the influence of Shiism and Iran in the region. The continued presence of American troops and their heavily reinforced bases in Iraq threaten this return to relative stability. The refusal of the Shia government of Iraq to agree to an American Status of Forces Agreement - much desired by the Bush administration - that would exempt off-duty American troops from Iraqi law is actually a good sign for the future of Iraq. In Afghanistan, our historically deaf generals and civilian strategists do not seem to understand that our defeat by the Afghan insurgents is inevitable. Since the time of Alexander the Great, no foreign intruder has ever prevailed over Afghan guerrillas defending their home turf. The first Anglo-Afghan War (1838-1842) marked a particularly humiliating defeat of British imperialism at the very height of English military power in the Victorian era. The Soviet-Afghan War (1979-1989) resulted in a Russian defeat so demoralizing that it contributed significantly to the disintegration of the former Soviet Union in 1991. We are now on track to repeat virtually all the errors committed by previous invaders of Afghanistan over the centuries. In the past year, perhaps most disastrously, we have carried our Afghan war into Pakistan, a relatively wealthy and sophisticated nuclear power that has long cooperated with us militarily. Our recent bungling brutality along the Afghan-Pakistan border threatens to radicalize the Pashtuns in both countries and advance the interests of radical Islam throughout the region. The United States is now identified in each country mainly with Hellfire missiles, unmanned drones, special operations raids, and repeated incidents of the killing of innocent bystanders. The brutal bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, on September 20 2008, was a powerful indicator of the spreading strength of virulent anti-American sentiment in the area. The hotel was a well-known watering hole for American Marines, Special Forces troops, and CIA agents. Our military activities in Pakistan have been as misguided as the Nixon-Kissinger invasion of Cambodia in 1970. The end result will almost surely be the same. We should begin our disengagement from Afghanistan at once. We dislike the Taliban's fundamentalist religious values, but the Afghan public, with its desperate desire for a return of law and order and the curbing of corruption, knows that the Taliban is the only political force in the country that has ever brought the opium trade under control. The Pakistanis and their effective army can defend their country from Taliban domination so long as we abandon the activities that are causing both Afghans and Pakistanis to see the Taliban as a lesser evil. One of America's greatest authorities on the defense budget, Winslow Wheeler, worked for 31 years for Republican members of the Senate and for the General Accounting Office on military expenditures. His conclusion, when it comes to the fiscal sanity of our military spending, is devastating: "America's defense budget is now larger in inflation-adjusted dollars than at any point since the end of World War II, and yet our Army has fewer combat brigades than at any point in that period; our Navy has fewer combat ships; and the Air Force has fewer combat aircraft. Our major equipment inventories for these major forces are older on average than any point since 1946 - or in some cases, in our entire history." This in itself is a national disgrace. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars on present and future wars that have nothing to do with our national security is simply obscene. And yet Congress has been corrupted by the military-industrial complex into believing that, by voting for more defense spending, they are supplying "jobs" for the economy. In fact, they are only diverting scarce resources from the desperately needed rebuilding of the American infrastructure and other crucial spending necessities into utterly wasteful munitions. If we cannot cut back our longstanding, ever increasing military spending in a major way, then the bankruptcy of the United States is inevitable. As the current Wall Street meltdown has demonstrated, that is no longer an abstract possibility but a growing likelihood. We do not have much time left. _____ Chalmers Johnson is the author of three linked books on the crises of American imperialism and militarism. They are Blowback (2000), The Sorrows of Empire (2004), and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (2006). All are available in paperback from Metropolitan Books. _http://www.countercurrents.org/johnson290908.htm_ (http://www.countercurrents.org/johnson290908.htm) _http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com_ (http://www.billtotten.blogspot.com) _http://www.ashisuto.co.jp_ (http://www.ashisuto.co.jp) **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out! (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000001) From rasherrs at eircom.net Sat Oct 4 15:22:25 2008 From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett) Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 22:22:25 +0100 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list In-Reply-To: <48E602E0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48E602E0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <000101c92667$4c44e400$e4ceac00$@net> Hi Hans sent me an email informing me that he is going to close down the communism list. Already at least ten of its subscribers have expressed their view that it should be left open. One of the reasons by him for closing it down is the fact that the word communism is in its name. He says that this is or could be a liability. He also said that the archives are only open to subscribers is another difficulty. I would not be surprised if Hans intends to close thaxis down too. I urge you to make your views known on the issue of closing the communism list down. This resembles the Spoon situation some years ago. The Marxism lists were all closed down by Spoon --another university. Paddy Hackett Moderator of communism list From ehrbar at lists.econ.utah.edu Sat Oct 4 15:53:00 2008 From: ehrbar at lists.econ.utah.edu (ehrbar) Date: Sat, 04 Oct 2008 15:53:00 -0600 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list In-Reply-To: <000101c92667$4c44e400$e4ceac00$@net> (rasherrs@eircom.net) References: <48E602E0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> <000101c92667$4c44e400$e4ceac00$@net> Message-ID: There is no danger that I will close down marxism-thaxis. Hans. From rasherrs at eircom.net Sun Oct 5 10:01:46 2008 From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 17:01:46 +0100 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list In-Reply-To: References: <48E602E0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> <000101c92667$4c44e400$e4ceac00$@net> Message-ID: <003101c92703$ab93dff0$02bb9fd0$@net> Perhaps you only say this Hans because I have highlighted what may be the hidden strategy. Get rid of the smallest mailing lists then proceed to the bigger ones. It is strange that you should want to close down the Communism List at a period when there is a global financial crisis and the probable prospects of more individuals questioning capitalism. The Communism List has existed for years and has been a quiet list for some time years now yet you never in all that time, except now, questioned the validity of the lists. If I recall correctly Spoon initially got rid of a specific Marxist list and then eliminated others so that there were none left. Yet they left that strange Foucault List its server. This is Duke University --I think. Paddy -----Original Message----- From: marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of ehrbar Sent: 04 October 2008 22:53 To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Cc: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list There is no danger that I will close down marxism-thaxis. Hans. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From farmelantj at juno.com Sun Oct 5 10:50:33 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 12:50:33 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list Message-ID: <20081005.125035.3740.1.farmelantj@juno.com> On Sun, 5 Oct 2008 17:01:46 +0100 "Paddy Hackett" writes: > Perhaps you only say this Hans because I have highlighted what may be > the > hidden strategy. Get rid of the smallest mailing lists then proceed > to the > bigger ones. It is strange that you should want to close down the > Communism > List at a period when there is a global financial crisis and the > probable > prospects of more individuals questioning capitalism. Perhaps we should let Hans, if he is so inclined detail the reasons that he might have for wanting to close down the Communism List. Concerning list names, if communism is a liability for a list name, then wouldn't the same be true for Marxism? I doubt that very many red baiters would be likely to draw fine distinctions between Marxism and communism. As to the issue of whether a list's archives should be publicly available, there are arguments that can be made for either side of the question. As Hans well knows, we have had at least a couple of occasions when former posters to the Thaxis list wanted their old posts to the list archives removed or modified, so the authors could no longer be identified. Hans has acceded to these requests, which I think he was correct to do given the circumstances. But the whole thing makes me a bit uneasy since too much of that sort of thing would undermine the integrity of the list archives, in which case why bother to have public archives for the list. (And for anybody out who doesn't know this already, all posts to Thaxis are publicly archived, and they do get picked up by search engines like Google_. > The Communism > List has > existed for years and has been a quiet list for some time years now > yet you > never in all that time, except now, questioned the validity of the > lists. > If I recall correctly Spoon initially got rid of a specific Marxist > list and > then eliminated others so that there were none left. Yet they left > that > strange Foucault List its server. This is Duke University --I > think. Actually, that was the University of Virginia. Back in the early 1990s they set up the Spoons lists for the sake of the humanities departments at the university. These lists were mainly devoted to various postmodern thinkers and concerns, but since it is impossible to discuss postmodernism without reference to certain Marxist thinkers like Althusser, they decided to include a Marxism list to round things out, with the intention that list would simply be limited to discussions of academic Marxism. What they didn't expect to happen would be that the list would start drawing people who were activists or ex-activists in various groups. Thus, over time that list began drawing Maoists, Trotskyists, ex-Trotskyists etc. to it. And these people brought with them many of their old squabbles which led to many heated discussions. Over time, what was just one Marxism list became several different lists, which came to include a Marxism-International List, a Marxism-Science list, a Marxism-Feminism list, a Marxism-General list, as well as this list. Several of these lists featured some very bitter infighting which drove the members of the Spoon Collective to distraction, until they decided to unload themselves of the whole thing back in 1998. > > Paddy > > -----Original Message----- > From: marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu > [mailto:marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of > ehrbar > Sent: 04 October 2008 22:53 > To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > Cc: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list > > > There is no danger that I will close down marxism-thaxis. > > Hans. > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > > > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > > ____________________________________________________________ Click here to find the right stock, bonds, and mutual funds. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3mJ0SrI334YfVcrWuhyDfRVEbrAAGKekAS3nxgKFucwx3ZDL/ From rasherrs at eircom.net Sun Oct 5 15:08:03 2008 From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett) Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2008 22:08:03 +0100 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list In-Reply-To: <20081005.125035.3740.1.farmelantj@juno.com> References: <20081005.125035.3740.1.farmelantj@juno.com> Message-ID: <003801c9272e$7a7f1ee0$6f7d5ca0$@net> Jim Interesting piece by you I was not able to recall many of the details re. Spoons Lists. Was just relying on my memory and am open to correction Paddy -----Original Message----- From: marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu [mailto:marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of Jim Farmelant Sent: 05 October 2008 17:51 To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list On Sun, 5 Oct 2008 17:01:46 +0100 "Paddy Hackett" writes: > Perhaps you only say this Hans because I have highlighted what may be > the > hidden strategy. Get rid of the smallest mailing lists then proceed > to the > bigger ones. It is strange that you should want to close down the > Communism > List at a period when there is a global financial crisis and the > probable > prospects of more individuals questioning capitalism. Perhaps we should let Hans, if he is so inclined detail the reasons that he might have for wanting to close down the Communism List. Concerning list names, if communism is a liability for a list name, then wouldn't the same be true for Marxism? I doubt that very many red baiters would be likely to draw fine distinctions between Marxism and communism. As to the issue of whether a list's archives should be publicly available, there are arguments that can be made for either side of the question. As Hans well knows, we have had at least a couple of occasions when former posters to the Thaxis list wanted their old posts to the list archives removed or modified, so the authors could no longer be identified. Hans has acceded to these requests, which I think he was correct to do given the circumstances. But the whole thing makes me a bit uneasy since too much of that sort of thing would undermine the integrity of the list archives, in which case why bother to have public archives for the list. (And for anybody out who doesn't know this already, all posts to Thaxis are publicly archived, and they do get picked up by search engines like Google_. > The Communism > List has > existed for years and has been a quiet list for some time years now > yet you > never in all that time, except now, questioned the validity of the > lists. > If I recall correctly Spoon initially got rid of a specific Marxist > list and > then eliminated others so that there were none left. Yet they left > that > strange Foucault List its server. This is Duke University --I > think. Actually, that was the University of Virginia. Back in the early 1990s they set up the Spoons lists for the sake of the humanities departments at the university. These lists were mainly devoted to various postmodern thinkers and concerns, but since it is impossible to discuss postmodernism without reference to certain Marxist thinkers like Althusser, they decided to include a Marxism list to round things out, with the intention that list would simply be limited to discussions of academic Marxism. What they didn't expect to happen would be that the list would start drawing people who were activists or ex-activists in various groups. Thus, over time that list began drawing Maoists, Trotskyists, ex-Trotskyists etc. to it. And these people brought with them many of their old squabbles which led to many heated discussions. Over time, what was just one Marxism list became several different lists, which came to include a Marxism-International List, a Marxism-Science list, a Marxism-Feminism list, a Marxism-General list, as well as this list. Several of these lists featured some very bitter infighting which drove the members of the Spoon Collective to distraction, until they decided to unload themselves of the whole thing back in 1998. > > Paddy > > -----Original Message----- > From: marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu > [mailto:marxism-thaxis-bounces at lists.econ.utah.edu] On Behalf Of > ehrbar > Sent: 04 October 2008 22:53 > To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > Cc: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list > > > There is no danger that I will close down marxism-thaxis. > > Hans. > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > > > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > > ____________________________________________________________ Click here to find the right stock, bonds, and mutual funds. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3mJ0SrI334YfVcrWuhyDfRVEbr AAGKekAS3nxgKFucwx3ZDL/ _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From jannuzi at gmail.com Mon Oct 6 02:10:22 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 17:10:22 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] recapitalization Message-ID: In banking accounting, deposits are liabilities (payable to account holders on demand) and loans are assets, the profits from which, in part, pay shareholders of the bank. 'Shareholders' are account holders in credit unions and credit cooperatives, so 'profits' should go to makes loans cheaper and interest on accounts higher (but Demoncrats and Repugnicans in effect passed legislation back in the 90s making credit unions more like banks, so banks could compete with them). The banks have to be recapitalized in order to be able to borrow money again in the US's and global systems. That means they will be forced to hold more deposits (money they borrow, including from account holders) in proportion to their loan portfolios, while loans that are not paying have to be stripped from them and put elsewhere. The hope also will be that with these deposits, the banks will be able to lend more--which is what the whole bubble economy depended on in the first place. Borrowing and leveraging. On the other side of things, as post-bubble Japan shows, you can't force people and firms to borrow once they go into 'hunker down' mode. So stagnation is almost sure to follow. The usual finance capitalists (private equity, private equity arms of listed companies, surviving investment banks, etc.) will be interested in the so-called 'toxic' debt because they will hope that it is the rainbox that leads to all sorts of under-valued treasures. They will even hope that there will be governments that pay them to take over the assets, so they can make even more money off them. The US's banking system might be nationalized if banks became credit unions and the US government acted as an umbrella for them. They could also nationalize those parts of the private banking system that fail or already failed by putting them under a national bank. The problem with the US is it has not got very much already in existence to get started. In the case of Japan, the national postal savings and insurance systems could be used as an umbrella company to put failed banks and insurance companies under. However, the catch there is that the freemarket ideologues have led the charge to privatize, sell off and float on the already long sunk Tokyo Stock Exchange the postal savings and insurance. On the other hand, Japan also has the agricultural cooperatives and these too could be formed into a national banking system in the event of a private banking collapse. However, once again, the ideologues who run the government and the two major parties have no place in their belief system for something like unless rightwingers were allowed to declare some sort of national emergency requiring immediate salvation. I suspect the US is already at that point, but it also lacks (as already stated) existing entities by which to pull off a nationalization (even one that is done largely to reflate the financial capitalists's bubbles). As for why this time is different, that brings me back to 1979. So much of the working class and the economy in which they survive is and has long been --non-union --minimum (even sub-minimum wage) --part-time --temporary --no health insurance --no real retirement They have been hardest hit by the high price of gas, but they already survive in a world that WL seems to want to predict. I would say the financial system's issues go back 35 years, and the economy that it helps determine almost that long. So for financial reforms that determine our world, go back to Nixon. For the socio-economic reality, go back to Carter. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Mon Oct 6 02:14:38 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 17:14:38 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] recapitalization In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>will be interested in the so-called 'toxic' debt because they will hope that it is the rainbox that leads to all sorts of under-valued treasures<< Sorry my metaphor got messed up. The financial capitalists will hpe that the toxic debt stripped out of banks will yield the 'treasure at the end of the rainbow'. Which brings me back to the ultimate nature of such crises. Ultimately, companies are accounting black boxes so long as they make money--and make more money this quarter than the last. If they can't do that, then the black box gets opened up. Additionally, what does it tell you about so-called financial giants that they couldn't survive 'runs on their stock'? Killed by the very same things they did to others. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Mon Oct 6 02:30:20 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 17:30:20 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The military budget is way out of hand Message-ID: Chalmers Johnson? Why not just cite a yahoonews story about the spending getting passed? Chalmers actually understates the amount anyway. It's about a trillion dollars a year and no accountability except the rogue state within a state runs the state. The populist resentment over the 'bailout' seems to have two aspects: 1. 'People' think fat cat bankers and Wall Street types (and their shareholders--maybe) shouldn't get any government help. 2. 'People' think that debt or mortgage relief will go to people who don't deserve it, or go to (as with so many federal programs) a select few. The current crisis seems to come from the same parts of the political economy as the previous one (only this crisis is fully global, post-big-bang). Savings and loans were the sort of financial institutions that made unscrupulous loans, according to popular accounts of 'what went wrong'. And the junk bond scandal of the same era was local governments and companies floating debt under the guise of 'securities'. And I remember how the business press tried to give all this a 'black face' too. The media wanted you to believe that S&L were for shady financial institutions serving urban slum dwellers. Junk bonds were used by local governments and school districts with poor black urban tax bases. Etc. Blame the victims--it always works. And make the poor white victims feel better by putting a black face on those who get blamed. There's your backlash. That's America. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Mon Oct 6 04:42:10 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 19:42:10 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The military budget is way out of hand In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The DoD has its Africa Command in place. Meanwhile Demoncratic operatives are out and about in the media, hinting that all promises can not be fulfilled (i.e., BO's limited health care will be even MORE limited). Meanwhile, Pres. Barrage Obomber steadies himself, preparing to take command and INCREASE military spending. I think the best thing people could do is simply not vote. Imagine if all Americans just stayed home and did not vote. Then perhaps 500,000 voting for Ralph Nader could vote him into office. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/usel-o06.shtml On Thursday, the Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joseph Biden, used the debate with McCain's running mate, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, to espouse an even more aggressive foreign policy than the Republicans. While making a spurious pledge that Obama would "end the war" in Iraq, to appease antiwar sentiment, Biden called for increased US military intervention in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a more aggressive pro-Israeli policy than that conducted by Bush. He also defended past US military interventions in the Balkans, and suggested a new US military role in Sudan. The same day, Obama's top national security adviser, Richard Danzig, who was secretary of the navy in the Clinton administration, told a press gathering that an Obama administration would increase military spending over the gargantuan levels already established under Bush. He said that he did not "see defense spending declining in the first years of an Obama administration," adding, "There are a set of demands there that are very severe, very important to our national well-being." Danzig went out of his way to praise the current Pentagon chief, Robert Gates, saying that many of his policies "are things that Senator Obama agrees with and I agree with." He said that Obama recognized the need for a smooth transition between the outgoing and incoming administrations, particularly in the two war zones, Iraq and Afghanistan. Asked if this meant that Gates might be retained, Danzig replied that Gates was a good defense secretary, and "He'd be an even better one in an Obama administration." These developments demonstrate that whether Obama, as now appears likely, wins the election November 4, or McCain makes an unexpected comeback, the next US president will continue, in all essentials, the policies of the Bush administration. This political fact is all the more remarkable given that the same polls that show Obama pulling away give the Bush administration the lowest ratings for any US government in modern history. One study found that only 9 percent of those interviewed thought the United States was on the right track, while Bush's approval/disapproval numbers rival those of Richard Nixon in the weeks before he was forced to resign the presidency. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 07:35:02 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:35:02 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Invite: Bruce Springsteen in Ypsilanti Today Message-ID: <48E9DBC5.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> We call Ypsilantii, Ypsitucky. John Henry Charles, This afternoon, please join the Obama campaign for a Vote for Change rally featuring a special acoustic appearance by Bruce Springsteen. Here are the details: Vote for Change Rally with Bruce Springsteen Oestrike Stadium Eastern Michigan University Ypsilanti, MI Monday, October 6th Gates Open: 3:00 p.m. Program Starts: 4:30 p.m. RSVP: http://mi.barackobama.com/springsteenMI The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required; however an RSVP is strongly encouraged. For security reasons, do not bring bags and limit personal items. No signs or banners are permitted. Thanks, Obama for America This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 07:52:07 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 09:52:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Left's Bailout Statement Mentioned in Wall Street Journal Message-ID: <48E9DFC6.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Ruthless Critic of All that Exists -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Is the Rescue Plan Socialism? The Far Left Says, 'No Way, Comrade' Wall Street Journal - USA During a transport workers union protest on Wall Street this week, members of the Socialist Party USA handed out fliers that screamed "NO to the Banker ... This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 10:57:44 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:57:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] U.S. Command for Africa Established Message-ID: <48EA0B46.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> U.S. Command for Africa Established "But concerns remain that whatever arena the Pentagon enters, it has more money, more personnel and more power than any other government organization, American or foreign." By THOM SHANKER October 5, 2008 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/world/africa/05command.html?ref=world WASHINGTON ? For decades, Africa was rarely more than an afterthought for the Pentagon. Responsibilities for American military affairs across the vast African continent were divided clumsily among three regional combat headquarters, those for Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East. Commanders set priorities against obvious threats, whether the old Soviet Union and then a resurgent Russia, a rising China or a nuclear North Korea, or adversaries along the Persian Gulf. If deployment of fighting forces is an indicator, that historic focus north of the equator endures. But since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a new view has gained acceptance among senior Pentagon officials and military commanders: that ungoverned spaces and ill-governed states, whose impoverished citizens are vulnerable to the ideology of violent extremism, pose a growing risk to American security. Last week, in a small Pentagon conference hall, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, inaugurated the newest regional headquarters, Africa Command, which is responsible for coordinating American military affairs on the continent. There are barely 2,000 American combat troops and combat support personnel based in Africa, and the new top officer, Gen. William E. Ward of the Army, pledges that Africa Command has no designs on creating vast, permanent concentrations of forces on the continent. ?Bases? Garrisons? It?s not about that,? General Ward said in an interview. ?We are trying to prevent conflict, as opposed to having to react to a conflict.? Already, though, analysts at policy advocacy organizations and research institutes are warning of a militarization of American foreign policy across Africa. Mr. Gates said the new command was an example of the Pentagon?s evolving strategy of forging what he called ?civilian-military partnerships,? in which the Defense Department works alongside and supports the State Department and the Agency for International Development, as well as host nations? security and development agencies. ?In this respect, Africom represents yet another important step in modernizing our defense arrangements in light of 21st-century realities,? Mr. Gates said. ?It is, at its heart, a different kind of command with a different orientation, one that we hope and expect will institutionalize a lasting security relationship with Africa, a vast region of growing importance in the globe.? Mr. Gates and General Ward said that this work to complement and support American security and development policies would include missions like deploying military trainers to improve the abilities of local counterterrorism forces, assigning military engineers to help dig wells and build sewers, and sending in military doctors to inoculate the local population against diseases. While that thinking has influenced the work of all of the military?s regional war-fighting commands, it is the central focus of Africa Command. And over the past two years, it has quietly become the central focus of the military?s Southern Command, once better known for the invasions of Grenada and Panama, but now converting itself to a headquarters that supports efforts across the United States government and within host nations to improve security and economic development in Latin America. A number of specialists in African and Latin American politics at nongovernmental organizations express apprehension, however, that the new emphasis of both these commands represents an undesirable injection of the military into American foreign policy, a change driven by fears of terrorists or desires for natural resources. Officials at one leading relief organization, Refugees International, warned of the risk that Africom ?will take over many humanitarian and development activities that soldiers aren?t trained to perform.? In a statement, Kenneth H. Bacon, the president of Refugees International, said that the creation of Africa Command was ?a sign of increased U.S. attention to Africa.? But he also said that it was ?important that Africom focus on training peacekeepers and helping African countries build militaries responsive to civilian control and democratic government.? Mr. Bacon, a Pentagon spokesman in the Clinton administration, added, ?The military should stick to military tasks and let diplomats and development experts direct other aspects of U.S. policy in Africa.? Refugees International released statistics showing that the percentage of development assistance controlled by the Defense Department had grown to nearly 22 percent from 3.5 percent over the past 10 years, while the percentage controlled by the Agency for International Development dropped to 40 percent from 65 percent. General Ward rejected criticisms that Africa Command would result in a militarization of foreign policy, and he said it was specifically structured for cooperative efforts across the agencies of the United States government. For example, a deputy commander at Africom is Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates, a career Foreign Service officer. And General Ward himself previously served in a combined diplomatic and military role, as director of efforts to help reform the Palestinian security services. But concerns remain that whatever arena the Pentagon enters, it has more money, more personnel and more power than any other government organization, American or foreign. ?If we can bring a capability that can be an assist to one of our interagency partners, then I think we ought to do that,? General Ward said. ?But I draw a distinction between leading that effort and supporting that effort. We don?t create policy. This is not the job of a unified command. We implement those aspects of policy that have military implications. And we support others.? Planners abandoned early intentions to base Africa Command in Africa, perhaps with a major headquarters and regional satellite offices. Owing to local sensitivities, security concerns and simple logistics of moving around the vast continent, which often requires routing through Europe, the command will for now have its headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. General Ward said that in creating the Africa Command, he had been in close contact with his counterpart atop the military?s Southern Command, Adm. James G. Stavridis, who has received high marks from Pentagon leaders for converting the military presence in Central and South America. Where previously Southern Command emphasized direct military action, it now focuses on programs to train and support local forces, and assist economic development, health services and counternarcotics efforts. ?The more I look at this region over the two years I have been at Southcom,? Admiral Stavridis said in an interview, ?the more convinced I am that the approach we need to take for U.S. national security in the region is really an interagency approach. ?Think of the problems that afflict this region ? natural disasters, poverty, the narcotics trade, lack of medical care,? he said. ?Our thought at Southcom is, How can we be supportive of an interagency approach? How can we partner with other interagency actors, and then tie that together with our international partners?? Admiral Stavridis said Southern Command was ?very directly and consciously not taking the lead.? ?We are trying to be part of the team, to be a facilitator,? he added. But George Withers, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit research and human-rights advocacy organization, said in a statement that ?while improved delivery of U.S. assistance is certainly an admirable goal,? putting Southern Command into a coordinating role on issues like corruption, crime or poverty ?drains authority from the State Department and resources from the Defense Department.? This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 11:17:36 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:17:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A global downturn in the power of the west Message-ID: <48EA0FEF.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> A global downturn in the power of the west By Dominique Mo?si Published: October 5 2008 18:21 | Last updated: October 5 2008 18:21 It is not too early to assess the first geopolitical lessons of the current financial maelstrom. As the crisis unfolds, trends are emerging. The near _collapse of financial capitalism_ (http://www.ft.com/indepth/global-financial-crisis) both confirms and accelerates a revolution that was already under way in international politics. Who are the losers and who are likely to be the winners - that is, those who lose the least - in the present mess? In the language of Wall Street, the west is down and the state is up. Moreover, democracy itself risks falling into disrepute if solutions are not found to the crisis. First, the shock reinforces the relative decline of the US and the passage from a unipolar to a multipolar world. Whoever is its next president, America will not only have to face more diverse and complex challenges but will have fewer means with which to confront them. The interaction between the infectious greed of its financial class and its politicians? dereliction of duty has impoverished the country. The torch of history seems to be passing from west to east. It is true that China and India are also affected by the financial turmoil; _less so Japan_ (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/932f7720-8be0-11dd-8a4c-0000779fd18c.html) , a country whose financial conservatism is the product of bitter experience 20 years ago. But to paraphrase French President Fran?ois Mitterrand: growth is in the east and debts are in the west. Furthermore, fear is in the west and hope is in the east, so we are equipped in very different ways to face this crisis. The meltdown has also revealed the depth of an identity crisis, not just in America but also in Europe. Nationalisation may have been the initial American response to the crisis. But it is nationalism that is the main obstacle facing Europe. The temptation of the ?to each his own? mindset was present in Europe in the good times, but has become irresistible in bad times. Nicolas Sarkozy, French president of the European Union, may be mounting a brave and gallant fight to produce a ?European answer?, but his activism is not sufficient to hide deep divisions among member states. The gold medal for selfishness may once more be given to the Irish, who have followed the ingratitude of their No vote on the Lisbon treaty with absolute contempt towards the _search for a collective solution_ (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b514c10a-8f2e-11dd-946c-0000779fd18c.html) to the financial crisis. The European spirit is low and a ? European political will? is lacking. The financial crisis has also shaken Russia and demonstrated the gap between its ambition to recover cold war superpower status and its true means as a country whose wealth is solely based on energy. By contrast, thanks to the diversity of its resources, Brazil is likely to come out of the present morass stronger. Though they are affected too, the Emirates might engage in a shopping spree on the devalued jewels of western capitalism. On the African continent, only the energy-rich countries may emerge relatively unaffected, while the rest risk falling further. When the rich become less rich, the poor tend to become even poorer. As the west withers, the state is on the rise. On the eve of the last World Economic Forum in Davos in January, its president and founder Klaus Schwab asked ?what business can do to save the world?. The question has been reversed today: ?What can the state do to save the business of finance?? The present crisis has much more to do with the 1907 bankers? panic in America than with the Great Depression. At that time, the solution was found by John Pierpont Morgan, who convinced other bankers to provide a backstop for the crisis. Today it is the state that is called upon as the ultimate saviour of capitalism. However, while citizens of the western world are expressing their need for state protection, they are also increasingly cynical towards politics and politicians. Their fear is growing as their trust is diminishing. If state intervention were unsuccessful, the comments made by many African leaders - comparing the stability of authoritarian regimes with the chaotic condition of democratic ones - would be raised too in many western countries. The 1929 stock market crisis led to the second world war. If we fail to resolve it, the 2008 financial crisis will accelerate the comparative decline of the west as a force today and as a model for the rest of the world tomorrow. The writer is a senior adviser at France?s Institute for International Relations and author of the forthcoming ?The Geopolitics of Emotion?, to be published in Britain by Bodley Head This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 11:25:12 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:25:12 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] On Raymond Williams Message-ID: <48EA11B7.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> LRB http://www.lrb.co.uk/ 31 July 2008 Upwards and Onwards http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n15/coll01_.html Stefan Collini Raymond Williams: A Warrior's Tale by Dai Smith When Raymond Williams died suddenly, aged 66, in January 1988, estimations of him were sharply divided. There were those who regarded him as a deservedly influential literary and cultural critic, a major socialist theorist and an exemplary instance of the union of intellectual seriousness and political purpose. There were others who thought he had for too long enjoyed an inflated reputation, that he was a muddy thinker and verbose writer who had been swept to a form of cultural celebrity by the vogue for working-class sentimentalism in the 1960s and lefter-than-thou self-righteousness in the 1970s. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n15/coll01_.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 11:27:00 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:27:00 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bad decision Message-ID: <48EA1222.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Russia's last emperor Nicholas II October 1, 2008 Last tsar's family rehabilitated http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31214 Russia's Supreme Court has ruled that the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family were victims of political repression and should be rehabilitated. http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/31214 This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 13:38:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:38:51 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] From Subprime to Slump? Message-ID: <48EA310A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From Subprime to Slump? By Jon Amsden The collapse of Lehman Brothers has got the mainstream media hitting the panic button and talking of systemic crisis. But the crisis isn't just spreading to the real economy, it began there, argues Jon Amsden In May of this year, Brian Marks made a valiant attempt to tie together inflation, the current crisis in financial markets, and struggles of the world working class. Marks wrote: "The food and energy crises are key ways capital is trying to displace the costs of devaluation onto the working class. (Foreclosures, the manipulation of interest rates, and the outright bailout of banks with public money are other important measures). The transfer of workers' wealth through energy and food costs to the energy sector is then conveyed in a concentrated form to save (by buying up) the banks in crisis. That is where primitive accumulation meets fictitious capital." Marks argued that inflation is a special form of ?looting' whereby the capitalist class attempts to appropriate ?the wealth of the workers', for the purpose of ?propping up fictitious capital'. In a discussion on the Meltdown mailing list Ben Seymour queried Marks' logic on this point, noting that since inflation essentially devalues the workers' portion, at least in monetary terms, such would not be a particularly effective form of ?looting'. For Seymour, the very thing that is supposed by Marks to constitute an accelerated ?looting' of the working class, ?an escalation of the ongoing compulsion of work' which presumably increases the rate of surplus value extraction, is at the same time undermining or cancelling out the value extracted. Thus, crisis can increase the economic pressure on the working class, but the actual rate of exploitation is offset by the devaluation of the currency which measures the product and price of their labour power. We will visit the ?increased economic pressure' that inflation places on the working class a bit later on. In one respect, however, inflation can, in fact, be favorable to that part of the working class who may be net debtors. For example, Joe Sixpack has an outstanding credit card balance of $9,000 US. As the real value of this figure is diminished by inflation, Joe will have to contribute less value to pay it back than he received (on credit) in the first place. full: http://www.metamute.org/en/content/from_subprime_to_slump This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 13:52:02 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 15:52:02 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Shorter working hours Message-ID: <48EA3421.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Technological unemployment (was "economic growth" (was: Problem with Dean Baker's "The Bailout Round II: Adult Version?")) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Fri, Oct 3, 2008 at 12:40 PM, Jim Devine wrote: > the very simple Harrod model of growth (a.k.a. Harrod-Domar) says that > all else constant, technological change leads to falling employment. > Thus, the real GDP needs to grow to absorb the unemployed. Well, yes, "all else constant" that makes sense. Technology leads to falling unemployment. However, expanding real GDP is not the only conceivable way of absorbing the unemployed. Back in the day when the OLD conventional wisdom (in its original incarnation) still prevailed, Ira Steward proposed a very different solution than simply growth of real GDP -- although economic growth would indeed have been one of the end results of the approach. That approach began with cutting the hours of work. Keynes had the same idea during the second world war. Marx got the same idea from an anonymous 1821 pamphlet, the Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties. Growth doesn't happen by itself. The conventional prescription for growth starts from debt. What is debt? In banking terms it is a WITHDRAWAL from a bank that occurs in anticipation of future deposits. In effect, it creates something from nothing. What is reduced working time? It is a WITHDRAWAL from labor activity in anticipation of future work at an increased level of productivity. Both debt and SWT share a future orientation -- the present withdrawals underwrite the future deposits -- but with debt it is capital that receives the interest payment for the future creation of value; with SWT, that interest accrues to labor. -- Sandwichman This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 14:10:11 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:10:11 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's the total amount of money in the whole world ? Message-ID: <48EA3861.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From: "Julio Huato" < Chris wrote: > Whatever the measures, which can proliferate, > and interact in complex ways, > they are related to labor and the productivity of labor. > In the world. That relation is highly mediated, but you're right it's good to see through the mediations. I described in a recent post an exercise I used to conduct with my international finance students at Ramapo on the first day of class. That first day was my only chance to help the students see that producing wealth "the hard way" underlay the financial superstructure. After that, we'd go into arbitrage-derived parity conditions, forex derivatives, exposure, etc. So, without this discussion, the students would just take the trees for the forest. I just posted an edited version of this story on my blog: http://juliohuato.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/on-life-and-financial-markets/ _______________________________________________ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 14:12:40 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:12:40 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?What=E2=80=99s_the_total_amount_of_mon?= =?utf-8?q?ey_in_the_whole_world_=3F?= Message-ID: <48EA38F7.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> What?s the total amount of money in the whole world ? - From: "Julio Huato" -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sabri wrote: > Firstly, money has never been infinite and will never be. Because it > can be destroyed as easily as it can be created, and given the complex > financial system we are surrounded by, this has nothing to do with the > labor productivity. By lending and borrowing, Chris and I can create > money between the two of us with no difficulty, as long as the debtor > between the two of us is credible, that is, it is believed that the > debtor can make good on his debt, so that the creditor can use the > debt he owns to buy other stuff. > > Notice that I am talking about beliefs, not realities. Labor and > productivity are about realities, not about beliefs. > > When beliefs change and credibility is lost, money gets destroyed. In a sense, what Sabri says is correct. Money's creation and destruction (i.e. its flow or change in its stock) is unrelated to labor productivity, in that it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with whether productivity goes up or down or stays the same. However, that's not what I'm talking about. The existing stock of money at a point in time is not unrelated to the existing amount of wealth in the economy. There's a *definite* economic relationship between them, which is captured by the notion of purchasing power, or its reciprocal (prices). And the existing amount of wealth in the economy is related to labor productivity. Sabri and I are emphasizing two different things. Sabri is saying that the dynamics of money (or, more generally, debt creation) follows its own logic. I'm saying yes, but financial assets are ultimately claims over real wealth (or its change, income). In a potluck party, people cannot eat (or waste) more than they collectively bring to the party. The relationship between the real wealth the assets claim and the assets themselves is captured by their prices. Those prices can never be infinite. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 14:14:00 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:14:00 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What's the total amount of money in the whole world ? Message-ID: <48EA3946.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> What's the total amount of money in the whole world ? -------------------------------------------------------------- From: Sandwichman : As Benjamin Franklin explained, "time is money." The question that needs to be asked, then, is: "how much money and time is there in the whole world." On Sat, Oct 4, 2008 at 7:39 AM, Julio Huato wrote: > Chris wrote: > >> Whatever the measures, which can proliferate, >> and interact in complex ways, >> they are related to labor and the productivity of labor. >> In the world. > > That relation is highly mediated, but you're right it's good to see > through the mediations. I described in a recent post an exercise I > used to conduct with my international finance students at Ramapo on > the first day of class. That first day was my only chance to help the > students see that producing wealth "the hard way" underlay the > financial superstructure. After that, we'd go into arbitrage-derived > parity conditions, forex derivatives, exposure, etc. So, without this > discussion, the students would just take the trees for the forest. > > I just posted an edited version of this story on my blog: > > http://juliohuato.wordpress.com/2008/10/04/on-life-and-financial-markets/ > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 14:21:53 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:21:53 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] ... applying the scientific approach to economics. Message-ID: <48EA3B20.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> .. applying the scientific approach to economics. The New York Times / October 1, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor This Economy Does Not Compute By MARK BUCHANAN Notre-Dame-de-Courson, France A FEW weeks ago, it seemed the financial crisis wouldn't spin completely out of control. The government knew what it was doing ? at least the economic experts were saying so ? and the Treasury had taken a stand against saving failing firms, letting Lehman Brothers file for bankruptcy. But since then we've had the rescue of the insurance giant A.I.G., the arranged sale of failing banks and we'll soon see, in one form or another, the biggest taxpayer bailout of Wall Street in history. It seems clear that no one really knows what is coming next. Why? Well, part of the reason is that economists still try to understand markets by using ideas from traditional economics, especially so-called equilibrium theory. This theory views markets as reflecting a balance of forces, and says that market values change only in response to new information ? the sudden revelation of problems about a company, for example, or a real change in the housing supply. Markets are otherwise supposed to have no real internal dynamics of their own. Too bad for the theory, things don't seem to work that way. Nearly two decades ago, a classic economic study found that of the 50 largest single-day price movements since World War II, most happened on days when there was no significant news, and that news in general seemed to account for only about a third of the overall variance in stock returns. A recent study by some physicists found much the same thing ? financial news lacked any clear link with the larger movements of stock values. Certainly, markets have internal dynamics. They're self-propelling systems driven in large part by what investors believe other investors believe; participants trade on rumors and gossip, on fears and expectations, and traders speak for good reason of the market's optimism or pessimism. It's these internal dynamics that make it possible for billions to evaporate from portfolios in a few short months just because people suddenly begin remembering that housing values do not always go up. Really understanding what's going on means going beyond equilibrium thinking and getting some insight into the underlying ecology of beliefs and expectations, perceptions and misperceptions, that drive market swings. Surprisingly, very few economists have actually tried to do this, although that's now changing ? if slowly ? through the efforts of pioneers who are building computer models able to mimic market dynamics by simulating their workings from the bottom up. The idea is to populate virtual markets with artificially intelligent agents who trade and interact and compete with one another much like real people. These "agent based" models do not simply proclaim the truth of market equilibrium, as the standard theory complacently does, but let market behavior emerge naturally from the actions of the interacting participants, which may include individuals, banks, hedge funds and other players, even regulators. What comes out may be a quiet equilibrium, or it may be something else. For example, an agent model being developed by the Yale economist John Geanakoplos, along with two physicists, Doyne Farmer and Stephan Thurner, looks at how the level of credit in a market can influence its overall stability. Obviously, credit can be a good thing as it aids all kinds of creative economic activity, from building houses to starting businesses. But too much easy credit can be dangerous. In the model, market participants, especially hedge funds, do what they do in real life ? seeking profits by aiming for ever higher leverage, borrowing money to amplify the potential gains from their investments. More leverage tends to tie market actors into tight chains of financial interdependence, and the simulations show how this effect can push the market toward instability by making it more likely that trouble in one place ? the failure of one investor to cover a position ? will spread more easily elsewhere. That's not really surprising, of course. But the model also shows something that is not at all obvious. The instability doesn't grow in the market gradually, but arrives suddenly. Beyond a certain threshold the virtual market abruptly loses its stability in a "phase transition" akin to the way ice abruptly melts into liquid water. Beyond this point, collective financial meltdown becomes effectively certain. This is the kind of possibility that equilibrium thinking cannot even entertain. It's important to stress that this work remains speculative. Yet it is not meant to be realistic in full detail, only to illustrate in a simple setting the kinds of things that may indeed affect real markets. It suggests that the narrative stories we tell in the aftermath of every crisis, about how it started and spread, and about who's to blame, may lead us to miss the deeper cause entirely. Financial crises may emerge naturally from the very makeup of markets, as competition between investment enterprises sets up a race for higher leverage, driving markets toward a precipice that we cannot recognize even as we approach it. The model offers a potential explanation of why we have another crisis narrative every few years, with only the names and details changed. And why we're not likely to avoid future crises with a little fiddling of the regulations, but only by exerting broader control over the leverage that we allow to develop. Another example is a model explored by the German economist Frank Westerhoff. A contentious idea in economics is that levying very small taxes on transactions in foreign exchange markets, might help to reduce market volatility. (Such volatility has proved disastrous to countries dependent on foreign investment, as huge volumes of outside investment can flow out almost overnight.) A tax of 0.1 percent of the transaction volume, for example, would deter rapid-fire speculation, while preserving currency exchange linked more directly to productive economic purposes. Economists have argued over this idea for decades, the debate usually driven by ideology. In contrast, Professor Westerhoff and colleagues have used agent models to build realistic markets on which they impose taxes of various kinds to see what happens. So far they've found tentative evidence that a transaction tax may stabilize currency markets, but also that the outcome has a surprising sensitivity to seemingly small details of market mechanics ? on precisely how, for example, the market matches buyers and sellers. The model is helping to bring some solid evidence to a debate of extreme importance. A third example is a model developed by Charles Macal and colleagues at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois and aimed at providing a realistic simulation of the interacting entities in that state's electricity market, as well as the electrical power grid. They were hired by Illinois several years ago to use the model in helping the state plan electricity deregulation, and the model simulations were instrumental in exposing several loopholes in early market designs that companies could have exploited to manipulate prices. Similar models of deregulated electricity markets are being developed by a handful of researchers around the world, who see them as the only way of reckoning intelligently with the design of extremely complex deregulated electricity markets, where faith in the reliability of equilibrium reasoning has already led to several disasters, in California, notoriously, and more recently in Texas. Sadly, the academic economics profession remains reluctant to embrace this new computational approach (and stubbornly wedded to the traditional equilibrium picture). This seems decidedly peculiar given that every other branch of science from physics to molecular biology has embraced computational modeling as an invaluable tool for gaining insight into complex systems of many interacting parts, where the links between causes and effect can be tortuously convoluted. Something of the attitude of economic traditionalists spilled out a number of years ago at a conference where economists and physicists met to discuss new approaches to economics. As one physicist who was there tells me, a prominent economist objected that the use of computational models amounted to "cheating" or "peeping behind the curtain," and that respectable economics, by contrast, had to be pursued through the proof of infallible mathematical theorems. If we're really going to avoid crises, we're going to need something more imaginative, starting with a more open-minded attitude to how science can help us understand how markets really work. Done properly, computer simulation represents a kind of "telescope for the mind," multiplying human powers of analysis and insight just as a telescope does our powers of vision. With simulations, we can discover relationships that the unaided human mind, or even the human mind aided with the best mathematical analysis, would never grasp. Better market models alone will not prevent crises, but they may give regulators better ways for assessing market dynamics, and more important, techniques for detecting early signs of trouble. Economic tradition, of all things, shouldn't be allowed to inhibit economic progress. Mark Buchanan, a theoretical physicist, is the author, most recently, of "The Social Atom: Why the Rich Get Richer, Cheaters Get Caught and Your Neighbor Usually Looks Like You." Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 14:39:53 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:39:53 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] 'Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Message-ID: <48EA3F58.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The New York Times has an interesting article about the way that the subprime mortgage industry pressured Fannie Mae into approving questionable loans. The article has 2 throw-away lines giving the Democrats some responsibility. Is there anything to this accusation? Duhigg, Charles. 2008. "Pressured to Take More Risk, Fannie Hit a Tipping Point." New York Times (5 October). http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/business/05fannie.html?_r=1&hp=&oref=slogin&pagewanted=print Here are the two points in question: Congress was demanding that Mr. Mudd help steer more loans to low-income borrowers. Capitol Hill bore down on Mr. Mudd as well. The same year he took the top position, regulators sharply increased Fannie?s affordable-housing goals. Democratic lawmakers demanded that the company buy more loans that had been made to low-income and minority homebuyers. ?When homes are doubling in price in every six years and incomes are increasing by a mere one percent per year, Fannie?s mission is of paramount importance,? Senator Jack Reed , a Rhode Island Democrat, lectured Mr. Mudd at a Congressional hearing in 2006. ?In fact, Fannie and Freddie can do more, a lot more.? Here is the entire text: ?Almost no one expected what was coming. It?s not fair to blame us for not predicting the unthinkable.?- Daniel H. Mudd, former chief executive, Fannie Mae When the mortgage giant Fannie Mae recruited Daniel H. Mudd, he told a friend he wanted to work for an altruistic business. Already a decorated marine and a successful executive, he wanted to be a role model to his four children - just as his father, the television journalist Roger Mudd, had been to him. Fannie, a government-sponsored company, had long helped Americans get cheaper home loans by serving as a powerful middleman, buying mortgages from lenders and banks and then holding or reselling them to Wall Street investors. This allowed banks to make even more loans - expanding the pool of homeowners and permitting Fannie to ring up handsome profits along the way. But by the time Mr. Mudd became Fannie?s chief executive in 2004, his company was under siege. Competitors were snatching lucrative parts of its business. Congress was demanding that Mr. Mudd help steer more loans to low-income borrowers. Lenders were threatening to sell directly to Wall Street unless Fannie bought a bigger chunk of their riskiest loans. So Mr. Mudd made a fateful choice. Disregarding warnings from his managers that lenders were making too many loans that would never be repaid, he steered Fannie into more treacherous corners of the mortgage market, according to executives. For a time, that decision proved profitable. In the end, it nearly destroyed the company and threatened to drag down the housing market and the economy. Dozens of interviews, most from people who requested anonymity to avoid legal repercussions, offer an inside account of the critical juncture when Fannie Mae?s new chief executive, under pressure from Wall Street firms, Congress and company shareholders, took additional risks that pushed his company, and, in turn, a large part of the nation?s financial health, to the brink. Between 2005 and 2008, Fannie purchased or guaranteed at least $270 billion in loans to risky borrowers - more than three times as much as in all its earlier years combined, according to company filings and industry data. ?We didn?t really know what we were buying,? said Marc Gott, a former director in Fannie?s loan servicing department. ?This system was designed for plain vanilla loans, and we were trying to push chocolate sundaes through the gears.? Last month, the White House was forced to orchestrate a $200 billion rescue of Fannie and its corporate cousin, Freddie Mac . On Sept. 26, the companies disclosed that federal prosecutors and the Securities and Exchange Commission were investigating potential accounting and governance problems. Mr. Mudd said in an interview that he responded as best he could given the company?s challenges, and worked to balance risks prudently. ?Fannie Mae faced the danger that the market would pass us by,? he said. ?We were afraid that lenders would be selling products we weren?t buying and Congress would feel like we weren?t fulfilling our mission. The market was changing, and it?s our job to buy loans, so we had to change as well.? Dealing With Risk When Mr. Mudd arrived at Fannie eight years ago, it was beginning a dramatic expansion that, at its peak, had it buying 40 percent of all domestic mortgages. Just two decades earlier, Fannie had been on the brink of bankruptcy. But chief executives like Franklin D. Raines and the chief financial officer J. Timothy Howard built it into a financial juggernaut by aiming at new markets. Fannie never actually made loans. It was essentially a mortgage insurance company, buying mortgages, keeping some but reselling most to investors and, for a fee, promising to pay off a loan if the borrower defaulted. The only real danger was that the company might guarantee questionable mortgages and lose out when large numbers of borrowers walked away from their obligations. So Fannie constructed a vast network of computer programs and mathematical formulas that analyzed its millions of daily transactions and ranked borrowers according to their risk. Those computer programs seemingly turned Fannie into a divining rod, capable of separating pools of similar-seeming borrowers into safe and risky bets. The riskier the loan, the more Fannie charged to handle it. In theory, those high fees would offset any losses. With that self-assurance, the company announced in 2000 that it would buy $2 trillion in loans from low-income, minority and risky borrowers by 2010. All this helped supercharge Fannie?s stock price and rewarded top executives with tens of millions of dollars. Mr. Raines received about $90 million between 1998 and 2004, while Mr. Howard was paid about $30.8 million, according to regulators. Mr. Mudd collected more than $10 million in his first four years at Fannie. Whenever competitors asked Congress to rein in the company, lawmakers were besieged with letters and phone calls from angry constituents, some orchestrated by Fannie itself. One automated phone call warned voters: ?Your congressman is trying to make mortgages more expensive. Ask him why he opposes the American dream of home ownership.? The ripple effect of Fannie?s plunge into riskier lending was profound. Fannie?s stamp of approval made shunned borrowers and complex loans more acceptable to other lenders, particularly small and less sophisticated banks. Between 2001 and 2004, the overall subprime mortgage market - loans to the riskiest borrowers - grew from $160 billion to $540 billion, according to Inside Mortgage Finance, a trade publication. Communities were inundated with billboards and fliers from subprime companies offering to help almost anyone buy a home. Within a few years of Mr. Mudd?s arrival, Fannie was the most powerful mortgage company on earth. Then it began to crumble. Regulators, spurred by the revelation of a wide-ranging accounting fraud at Freddie, began scrutinizing Fannie?s books. In 2004 they accused Fannie of fraudulently concealing expenses to make its profits look bigger. Mr. Howard and Mr. Raines resigned. Mr. Mudd was quickly promoted to the top spot. But the company he inherited was becoming a shadow of its former self. ?You Need Us? Shortly after he became chief executive, Mr. Mudd traveled to the California offices of Angelo R. Mozilo , the head of Countrywide Financial, then the nation?s largest mortgage lender. Fannie had a longstanding and lucrative relationship with Countrywide, which sold more loans to Fannie than anyone else. But at that meeting, Mr. Mozilo, a butcher?s son who had almost single-handedly built Countrywide into a financial powerhouse, threatened to upend their partnership unless Fannie started buying Countrywide?s riskier loans. Mr. Mozilo, who did not return telephone calls seeking comment, told Mr. Mudd that Countrywide had other options. For example, Wall Street had recently jumped into the market for risky mortgages. Firms like Bear Stearns , Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs had started bundling home loans and selling them to investors - bypassing Fannie and dealing with Countrywide directly. ?You?re becoming irrelevant,? Mr. Mozilo told Mr. Mudd, according to two people with knowledge of the meeting who requested anonymity because the talks were confidential. In the previous year, Fannie had already lost 56 percent of its loan-reselling business to Wall Street and other competitors. ?You need us more than we need you,? Mr. Mozilo said, ?and if you don?t take these loans, you?ll find you can lose much more.? Then Mr. Mozilo offered everyone a breath mint. Investors were also pressuring Mr. Mudd to take greater risks. On one occasion, a hedge fund manager telephoned a senior Fannie executive to complain that the company was not taking enough gambles in chasing profits. ?Are you stupid or blind?? the investor roared, according to someone who heard the call, but requested anonymity. ?Your job is to make me money!? Capitol Hill bore down on Mr. Mudd as well. The same year he took the top position, regulators sharply increased Fannie?s affordable-housing goals. Democratic lawmakers demanded that the company buy more loans that had been made to low-income and minority homebuyers. ?When homes are doubling in price in every six years and incomes are increasing by a mere one percent per year, Fannie?s mission is of paramount importance,? Senator Jack Reed , a Rhode Island Democrat, lectured Mr. Mudd at a Congressional hearing in 2006. ?In fact, Fannie and Freddie can do more, a lot more.? But Fannie?s computer systems could not fully analyze many of the risky loans that customers, investors and lawmakers wanted Mr. Mudd to buy. Many of them - like balloon-rate mortgages or mortgages that did not require paperwork - were so new that dangerous bets could not be identified, according to company executives. Even so, Fannie began buying huge numbers of riskier loans. In one meeting, according to two people present, Mr. Mudd told employees to ?get aggressive on risk-taking, or get out of the company.? In the interview, Mr. Mudd said he did not recall that conversation and that he always stressed taking only prudent risks. Employees, however, say they got a different message. ?Everybody understood that we were now buying loans that we would have previously rejected, and that the models were telling us that we were charging way too little,? said a former senior Fannie executive. ?But our mandate was to stay relevant and to serve low-income borrowers. So that?s what we did.? Between 2005 and 2007, the company?s acquisitions of mortgages with down payments of less than 10 percent almost tripled. As the market for risky loans soared to $1 trillion, Fannie expanded in white-hot real estate areas like California and Florida. For two years, Mr. Mudd operated without a permanent chief risk officer to guard against unhealthy hazards. When Enrico Dallavecchia was hired for that position in 2006, he told Mr. Mudd that the company should be charging more to handle risky loans. In the following months to come, Mr. Dallavecchia warned that some markets were becoming overheated and argued that a housing bubble had formed, according to a person with knowledge of the conversations. But many of the warnings were rebuffed. Mr. Mudd told Mr. Dallavecchia that the market, shareholders and Congress all thought the companies should be taking more risks, not fewer, according to a person who observed the conversation. ?Who am I supposed to fight with first?? Mr. Mudd asked. In the interview, Mr. Mudd said he never made those comments. Mr. Dallavecchia was among those whom Mr. Mudd forced out of the company during a reorganization in August. Mr. Mudd added that it was almost impossible during most of his tenure to see trouble on the horizon, because Fannie interacts with lenders rather than borrowers, which creates a delay in recognizing market conditions. He said Fannie sought to balance market demands prudently against internal standards, that executives always sought to avoid unwise risks, and that Fannie bought far fewer troublesome loans than many other financial institutions. Mr. Mudd said he heeded many warnings from his executives and that Fannie refused to buy many risky loans, regardless of outside pressures . ?You?re dealing with massive amounts of information that flow in over months,? he said. ?You almost never have an ?Oh, my God? moment. Even now, most of the loans we bought are doing fine.? But, of course, that moment of truth did arrive. In the middle of last year it became clear that millions of borrowers would stop paying their mortgages. For Fannie, this raised the terrifying prospect of paying billions of dollars to honor its guarantees. Sustained by Government Had Fannie been a private entity, its comeuppance might have happened a year ago. But the White House, Wall Street and Capitol Hill were more concerned about the trillions of dollars in other loans that were poisoning financial institutions and banks. Lawmakers, particularly Democrats, leaned on Fannie and Freddie to buy and hold those troubled debts, hoping that removing them from the system would help the economy recover. The companies, eager to regain market share and buy what they thought were undervalued loans, rushed to comply. The White House also pitched in. James B. Lockhart, the chief regulator of Fannie and Freddie, adjusted the companies? lending standards so they could purchase as much as $40 billion in new subprime loans. Some in Congress praised the move. ?I?m not worried about Fannie and Freddie?s health, I?m worried that they won?t do enough to help out the economy,? the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Barney Frank , Democrat of Massachusetts, said at the time. ?That?s why I?ve supported them all these years - so that they can help at a time like this.? But earlier this year, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. grew concerned about Fannie?s and Freddie?s stability. He sent a deputy, Robert K. Steel, a former colleague from his time at Goldman Sachs, to speak with Mr. Mudd and his counterpart at Freddie. Mr. Steel?s orders, according to several people, were to get commitments from the companies to raise more money as a cushion against all the new loans. But when he met with the firms, Mr. Steel made few demands and seemed unfamiliar with Fannie?s and Freddie?s operations, according to someone who attended the discussions. Rather than getting firm commitments, Mr. Steel struck handshake deals without deadlines. That misstep would become obvious over the coming months. Although Fannie raised $7.4 billion, Freddie never raised any additional money. Mr. Steel, who left the Treasury Department over the summer to head Wachovia bank, disputed that he had failed in his handling of the companies, and said he was proud of his work . As the housing crisis worsened, Fannie and Freddie announced larger losses, and shares continued falling. In July, Mr. Paulson asked Congress for authority to take over Fannie and Freddie, though he said he hoped never to use it. ?If you?ve got a bazooka and people know you?ve got it, you may not have to take it out,? he told Congress. Mr. Mudd called Treasury weekly. He offered to resign, to replace his board, to sell stock, and to raise debt. ?We?ll sign in blood anything you want,? he told a Treasury official, according to someone with knowledge of the conversations. But, according to that person, Mr. Mudd told Treasury that those options would work only if government officials publicly clarified whether they intended to take over Fannie. Otherwise, potential investors would refuse to buy the stock for fear of being wiped out. ?There were other options on the table short of a takeover,? Mr. Mudd said. But as long as Treasury refused to disclose its goals, it was impossible for the company to act, according to people close to Fannie. Then, last month, Mr. Mudd was instructed to report to Mr. Lockhart?s office. Mr. Paulson told Mr. Mudd that he could either agree to a takeover or have one forced upon him. ?This is the right thing to do for the economy,? Mr. Paulson said, according to two people with knowledge of the talks. ?We can?t take any more risks.? Freddie was given the same message. Less than 48 hours later, Mr. Lockhart and Mr. Paulson ended Fannie and Freddie?s independence, with up to $200 billion in taxpayer money to replenish the companies? coffers. The move failed to stanch a spreading panic in the financial world. In fact, some analysts say, the takeover accelerated the hysteria by signaling that no company, no matter how large, was strong enough to withstand the losses stemming from troubled loans. Within weeks, Lehman Brothers was forced to declare bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was pushed into the arms of Bank of America , and the government stepped in to bail out the insurance giant the American International Group . Today, Mr. Paulson is scrambling to carry out a $700 billion plan to bail out the financial sector, while Mr. Lockhart effectively runs Fannie and Freddie. Mr. Raines and Mr. Howard, who kept most of their millions, are living well. Mr. Raines has improved his golf game. Mr. Howard divides his time between large homes outside Washington and Cancun, Mexico, where his staff is learning how to cook American meals. But Mr. Mudd, who lost millions of dollars as the company?s stock declined and had his severance revoked after the company was seized, often travels to New York for job interviews. He recalled that one of his sons recently asked him why he had been fired. ?Sometimes things don?t work out, no matter how hard you try,? he replied. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 14:53:45 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:53:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Two flyers Message-ID: <48EA4298.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Mark Lause Voting records on what the pirates put to a vote. Cool. Ya got anything on their astrological signs? ML ^^^^^ CB: Yeah. Your sign is not rising. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 15:03:56 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:03:56 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher Message-ID: <48EA44FB.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Ruthless Critic of All that Exists Sartre had horrible (Stalinist) political views, actually. ^^^ CB: Actually, no he had pretty good ones. Opposed French imperialism and colonialism. And his support of the SU was, of course, another political position. His politics were much better than these clowns. ^^^^ Why are you calling Badiou an anti-Marxist, by the way? ^^^ CB: Ok the other ones. What kind of Marxism does Badiou have ? Oh I see you have some below. I'll have to check it out ^^^^ *An Essential Philosophical Thesis: "It Is Right to Rebel against the Reactionaries" ^^^^ CB: Well, uh, yeah. True ^^^ * by Alain Badiou Translated by Alberto Toscano We are familiar with Mao Zedong's formula: "Marxism comprises many principles, but in the final analysis they can all be brought back to a single sentence: it is right to rebel against the reactionaries." This phrase, which appears so simple, is at the same time rather mysterious: how is it conceivable that Marx's enormous theoretical enterprise, with its ceaselessly and scrupulously reworked and recast analyses, can be concentrated in a single maxim: "It is right to rebel against the reactionaries"? ^^^^ CB: I'm not sure Marxism can be condensed to this quite. ^^^ And what is this maxim? Are we dealing with an observation, summarizing the Marxist analysis of objective contradictions, the ineluctable confrontation of revolution and counterrevolution? Is it a directive oriented toward the subjective mobilization of revolutionary forces? Is Marxist truth the following: one rebels, one is right?1 Or is it rather: one must rebel? The two, perhaps, and even more the spiraling movement from the one to the other, real rebellion (objective force) being enriched and returning on itself in the consciousness of its rightness or reason (subjective force). ^^^^^ CB: Well, ...uh... lets examine this more closely. ^^^^ ** ** *A. Practice, Theory, Knowledge* We are already handed something essential here: every Marxist statement is-in a single, dividing movement-observation and directive. As a concentrate of real practice, it equals its movement in order to return to it. Since all that is draws its being only from its becoming, equally, theory as knowledge of what is has being only by moving toward that of which it is the theory. Every knowledge is orientation, every description is prescription. The sentence, "it is right to rebel against the reactionaries," bears witness to this more than any other. In it we find expressed the fact that Marxism, prior to being the full-fledged science of social formation, is the distillate of what rebellion demands: that one consider it right, that reason be rendered to it. Marxism is both a taking sides and the systematization of a partisan experience. The existence of a science of social formations bears no interest for the masses unless it reflects and concentrates their real revolutionary movement. Marxism must be conceived as the accumulated wisdom of popular revolutions ^^^^ CB: That's seems a good thought. ^^^^^ , the reason they engender, the fixation and detailing of their target. Mao Zedong's sentence clearly situates rebellion as the originary place of correct ideas, and reactionaries as those whose destruction is legitimated by theory. Mao's sentence situates Marxist truth within the unity of theory and practice. ^^^^ CB: Hear, hear ^^^^ Marxist truth is that from which rebellion draws its rightness, its reason, to demolish the enemy. It repudiates any equality in the face of truth. In a single movement, which is knowledge in its specific division into description and directive, it judges, pronounces the sentence, and immerses itself in its execution. Rebels possess knowledge, according to their aforementioned essential movement, their power and their duty: to annihilate the reactionaries. Marx's Capital does not say anything different: the proletarians are right to violently overthrow the capitalists. Marxist truth is not a conciliatory truth. It is, in and of itself, dictatorship and, if need be, terror. [clipped] ^^^^^ CB: This is discussion for the underground party (smile) This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 6 15:07:45 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:07:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Post on crisis Message-ID: <48EA45E0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> bauerly The deregulation of the financial sector ? begun under Reagan and the first Bush, and completed under Clinton ? has led to the mushrooming of financial derivatives (hedge funds, mortgage-backed bonds, etc.) with little foundation in real capital invested in buildings, machinery, equipment and stocks of goods and services (the ?real economy?). ^^^^ CB: And the most important form of capital, labor , or variable capital This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Mon Oct 6 15:35:48 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:35:48 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher In-Reply-To: <48EA44FB.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48EA44FB.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: What a useless piece of shit Badiou is. His politics are even more worthless than his philosophy. As for Sartre, there are others on the anti-Stalinist left who bear a grudge against him for his erstwhile apologetics for the Communist Party. Some might wonder what he was doing with Maoist students. As for Sartre's philosophy, the philosophy he is known for seems to me a failure. I think one would have to read Critique of Dialectical Reason in search of a lasting contribution. At 05:03 PM 10/6/2008, Charles Brown wrote: >Ruthless Critic of All that Exists > > >Sartre had horrible (Stalinist) political views, actually. > >^^^ >CB: Actually, no he had pretty good ones. Opposed French imperialism >and colonialism. And his support of the SU was, of course, another >political position. His politics were much better than these clowns. > >^^^^ > >Why are you calling Badiou an anti-Marxist, by the way? > >^^^ >CB: Ok the other ones. >What kind of Marxism does Badiou have ? Oh I see you have some below. >I'll have to check it out > >^^^^ > >*An Essential Philosophical Thesis: "It Is Right to Rebel against the >Reactionaries" > >^^^^ >CB: Well, uh, yeah. True > >^^^ >* >by Alain Badiou >Translated by Alberto Toscano > > >We are familiar with Mao Zedong's formula: "Marxism comprises many >principles, but in the final analysis they can all be brought back to >a >single sentence: it is right to rebel against the reactionaries." This >phrase, which appears so simple, is at the same time rather mysterious: >how >is it conceivable that Marx's enormous theoretical enterprise, with >its >ceaselessly and scrupulously reworked and recast analyses, can be >concentrated in a single maxim: "It is right to rebel against the >reactionaries"? > >^^^^ >CB: I'm not sure Marxism can be condensed to this quite. > >^^^ > > And what is this maxim? Are we dealing with an observation, >summarizing the Marxist analysis of objective contradictions, the >ineluctable confrontation of revolution and counterrevolution? Is it a >directive oriented toward the subjective mobilization of revolutionary >forces? Is Marxist truth the following: one rebels, one is right?1 Or >is it >rather: one must rebel? The two, perhaps, and even more the spiraling >movement from the one to the other, real rebellion (objective force) >being >enriched and returning on itself in the consciousness of its rightness >or >reason (subjective force). > >^^^^^ >CB: Well, ...uh... lets examine this more closely. > >^^^^ > >** >** >*A. Practice, Theory, Knowledge* >We are already handed something essential here: every Marxist >statement >is-in a single, dividing movement-observation and directive. As a >concentrate of real practice, it equals its movement in order to return >to >it. Since all that is draws its being only from its becoming, equally, >theory as knowledge of what is has being only by moving toward that of >which >it is the theory. Every knowledge is orientation, every description is >prescription. >The sentence, "it is right to rebel against the reactionaries," bears >witness to this more than any other. In it we find expressed the fact >that >Marxism, prior to being the full-fledged science of social formation, >is the >distillate of what rebellion demands: that one consider it right, that >reason be rendered to it. Marxism is both a taking sides and the >systematization of a partisan experience. The existence of a science >of >social formations bears no interest for the masses unless it reflects >and >concentrates their real revolutionary movement. Marxism must be >conceived as >the accumulated wisdom of popular revolutions > >^^^^ >CB: That's seems a good thought. > >^^^^^ >, the reason they engender, the >fixation and detailing of their target. Mao Zedong's sentence clearly >situates rebellion as the originary place of correct ideas, and >reactionaries as those whose destruction is legitimated by theory. >Mao's >sentence situates Marxist truth within the unity of theory and >practice. > >^^^^ >CB: Hear, hear > >^^^^ > >Marxist truth is that from which rebellion draws its rightness, its >reason, >to demolish the enemy. It repudiates any equality in the face of truth. >In a >single movement, which is knowledge in its specific division into >description and directive, it judges, pronounces the sentence, and >immerses >itself in its execution. Rebels possess knowledge, according to their >aforementioned essential movement, their power and their duty: to >annihilate >the reactionaries. Marx's Capital does not say anything different: the >proletarians are right to violently overthrow the capitalists. Marxist >truth >is not a conciliatory truth. It is, in and of itself, dictatorship and, >if >need be, terror. [clipped] > >^^^^^ >CB: This is discussion for the underground party (smile) From farmelantj at juno.com Mon Oct 6 19:04:59 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 21:04:59 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher Message-ID: <20081006.210459.780.3.farmelantj@juno.com> On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:35:48 -0400 Ralph Dumain writes: > What a useless piece of shit Badiou is. His politics are even more > worthless than his philosophy. > > As for Sartre, there are others on the anti-Stalinist left who bear > a > grudge against him for his erstwhile apologetics for the Communist > Party. Some might wonder what he was doing with Maoist students. I can answer that as follows: Sartre's involvement with the Maoists came when the Gaullist government in France initiated a crackdown on the Maoists in 1970. Jean-Pierre Le Dantec, who was editor-in-chief of the newspaper, La Cause du peuple - published by the Maoist group Proletarian Left was arrested and his paper seized. He was immediately replaced by a new editor, Michel Le Bris, who was then arrested ten days later. In other words, the French government was most intent on suppressing the Maoist press at that time. Since the government had made it clear that it would arrest anybody who would take charge of the paper, the Maoists decided to turn to Sartre. So on April 28, 1970, Sartre after meeting with a number of leading Maoists including Benny Levy (then known as Pierre Victor) accepted the post of editor-in-chief. Later that year Sartre accepted the same position at several other Maoist papers that were also facing suppression by the French government. In the meantime,the French National Assembly passed legislation restricting demonstrations, which gave the minister of the interior the power to dissolve the Proletarian Left, which he ordered on May 27, 1970. Sartre's acceptance of the post of editor-in-chief with several Maoist papers lent his name, his prestige and indeed his active participation to the campaign against the attempts by the government to suppress the Maoists. For this Sartre was attacked by most of the bourgeois press which charged him with grandstanding and self-promotion, while the Communist paper, L'Humanite, attacked him for endorsing the "vulgar provocations" of the Maoists. Only Le Monde was in any way supportive. When the cases of the two arrested editors of La Cause du peuple was taken to the courts, the decision to outlaw the paper was revoked but the editors were still found guilty of violating the law. That verdict was followed by outbreaks of violent demonstrations. In June, Sartre and his friends founded the Association of the Friends of "La Cause du peuple," with Simone de Beauvoir and Liliane Siegel as fronts. They organized public distributions of the paper in Paris with Sartre, Beauvoir, and many leading intellectuals and journalists publicly hawking the paper. Sartre, no stranger to publicity, made sure that there was a photographer from Gallimard to photograph the whole thing. Sartre was arrested, questioned by the police, then released. Following that incident Sartre who had been called as a witness in the trial of a Maoist leader, Alain Geismar, refused to come to the court. Instead, he harangued the workers at the Renault Billancourt plants where he called upon the workers to support Geismar's cause. Most of the workers ignored his speech. Sartre was widely ridiculed in the French press. Sartre's active involvement with the Maoists continued until 1973. His relations with them were often quite stormy but his involvement did help beat back the government's attempts to suppress or censor the radical press in France. ____________________________________________________________ Scan, remove and block Spyware. Click now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3mEy9tiVwXHSzjnWhyNGsipNemgEg6SeNpBrKwTFEAuX3h53/ From farmelantj at juno.com Mon Oct 6 19:27:36 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 21:27:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher Message-ID: <20081006.212737.780.6.farmelantj@juno.com> On Mon, 06 Oct 2008 17:35:48 -0400 Ralph Dumain writes: > What a useless piece of shit Badiou is. His politics are even more > worthless than his philosophy. > > As for Sartre, there are others on the anti-Stalinist left who bear > a > grudge against him for his erstwhile apologetics for the Communist > Party. Some might wonder what he was doing with Maoist students. > Sartre's involvement with the Maoists came when the Gaullist government in France initiated a crackdown on the Maoists in 1970. Jean-Pierre Le Dantec, who was editor-in-chief of the newspaper, La Cause du peuple - published by the Maoist group Proletarian Left was arrested and his paper seized. He was immediately replaced by a new editor, Michel Le Bris, who was then arrested ten days later. In other words, the French government was most intent on suppressing the Maoist press at that time. Since the government had made it clear that it would arrest anybody who would take charge of the paper, the Maoists decided to turn to Sartre. So on April 28, 1970, Sartre after meeting with a number of leading Maoists including Benny Levy (then known as Pierre Victor) accepted the post of editor-in-chief. Later that year Sartre accepted the same position at several other Maoist papers that were also facing suppression by the French government. In the meantime,the French National Assembly passed legislation restricting demonstrations, which gave the minister of the interior the power to dissolve the Proletarian Left, which he ordered on May 27, 1970. Sartre's acceptance of the post of editor-in-chief with several Maoist papers lent his name, his prestige and indeed his active participation to the campaign against the attempts by the government to suppress the Maoists. For this Sartre was attacked by most of the bourgeois press which charged him with grandstanding and self-promotion, while the Communist paper, L'Humanite attacked him for endorsing the "vulgar provocations" of the Maoists. Only Le Monde was in any way supportive. When the cases of the two arrested editors of La Cause du peuple was taken to the courts, the decision to outlaw the paper was revoked but the editors were still found guilty of violating the law. That verdict was followed by outbreaks of violent demonstrations. In June, Sartre and his friends founded the Association of the Friends of "La Cause du peuple," with Simone de Beauvoir and Liliane Siegel as fronts. They organized public distributions of the paper in Paris with Sartre, Beauvoir, and many leading intellectuals and journalists publicly hawking the paper. Sartre, no stranger to publicity, made sure that there was a photographer from Gallimard to photograph the whole thing. Sartre was arrested, questioned by the police, then released. Following that incident Sartre who had been called as a witness inthe trial of a Maoist leader, Alain Geismar, refused to come to the court. Instead, he harangued the workers at the Renault Billancourt plants where he called upon the workers to support Geismar's cause. Most of the workers ignored his speech. Sartre was widely ridiculed in the French press. Sartre's active involvement with the Maoists continued until 1973. His relations with them were often quite stormy but his involvement did help beat back the government's attempts to suppress or censor the radical press in France. ____________________________________________________________ Click here for a free directory of employee development and training solutions. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3l7kP1O4ctdR8whsruNoLbit0n6zQ6oEjvIAsywU8Drbj3jz/ From rasherrs at eircom.net Tue Oct 7 07:58:14 2008 From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 14:58:14 +0100 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Economic Downturn Message-ID: <000101c92884$c62271b0$52675510$@net> Hi The growing recessionary conditions pertaining in the global capitalist economy will be used as a feeble pretext by the bourgeoisie to make sharp cut-backs of all sorts in order to increase the exploitation of the working class. The working class is to be made pay for the downturn in the global economy. The working class have now to pay for the bloated returns made by many elements among the bourgeoisie. The working class needs to politicize and organize itself in order to be able to successfully resist attempts to solve the downturn at the expense of the working class. The working class must on the basis of communist politics develop an action programme around which to engage in combat against the ruling class. Paddy Hackett From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Oct 7 09:59:09 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 11:59:09 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Steel Workers President: Against racism - in support of Obama, Video Message-ID: www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/04/union-president-defends-o_n_131954.html **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 7 10:31:36 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:31:36 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rachel Maddow Message-ID: <48EB56A8.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Rachel Maddow Born Rachel Anne Maddow April 1, 1973 (1973-04-01) (age 35) Occupation Radio host TV host Partner Susan Mikula Rachel Anne Maddow (born April 1, 1973) is an American television host, radio personality, and liberal political pundit. She is the host of The Rachel Maddow Show on Air America Radio and a television show of the same name on MSNBC.[1] [edit] Education A graduate of Castro Valley High School in Castro Valley, California, Maddow later obtained a degree in public policy from Stanford University in 1994.[2] She then received a Rhodes Scholarship in 1995 and used it to obtain a D.Phil. in political science from Lincoln College, Oxford University.[3] Maddow was the first openly gay American to win a Rhodes scholarship.[4] [edit] Radio career Maddow got her first radio hosting job at WRNX (100.9 FM, Holyoke, Massachusetts) when the station held a contest for a new on-air personality.[5] She was hired to co-host WRNX's then premier morning show, The Dave in the Morning Show. She later went on to host Big Breakfast on WRSI, in Northampton, Massachusetts, for two years. She left the show to join the newly created Air America in March 2004.[3] There she hosted Unfiltered along with Chuck D and Lizz Winstead until its cancellation on March 31, 2005.[6] Two weeks later (April 14), her own two-hour-long program, The Rachel Maddow Show, began airing; it was expanded to three hours on March 10, 2008. It aired live from New York from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET on weekdays, with David Bender filling in the third hour for the call-in section when Maddow is on TV assignment. On September 8, 2008, TRMS returned to a two-hour format as Maddow began her nightly MSNBC show. [edit] Television career Maddow was a regular panelist on MSNBC's Tucker. During and after the November 2006 election, she was a frequent guest on CNN's Paula Zahn Now, which has since been discontinued. In January 2008, Maddow was given the position of MSNBC political analyst and was a regular panelist MSNBC's Race for the White House with David Gregory and MSNBC's election coverage, as well as a frequent contributor on Countdown with Keith Olbermann.[3] On April 4, 2008, Maddow was the substitute host for Countdown with Keith Olbermann, her first time hosting a program on MSNBC. Maddow described herself on air as "nervous," but Keith Olbermann complimented her work and she was brought back to host "Countdown" on May 16, 2008. That day, Countdown was the highest rated news program in the key 25?54 year old demographic.[7] For her success, Olbermann awarded Maddow the 3rd ranking in his regular segment, "World's Best Persons" on the following Monday, calling her "World's Best Pinch-Hitter."[8] Maddow filled in again on Countdown for eight-and-a-half broadcasts while Olbermann was on vacation in July 2008 (including the latter half of the July 21 show).[9] Maddow has also filled in for David Gregory as host of Race for the White House.[3] It was announced on August 19, 2008, that Maddow would take over the 9 pm ET time slot on MSNBC on September 8, 2008, replacing Dan Abrams.[10] The name of her show is The Rachel Maddow Show.[11] Since its debut, the show has drawn strong ratings, even topping Countdown to be the highest rated show on MSNBC on several occasions.[12][13] [edit] Personal life Maddow lives in Manhattan and Western Massachusetts with her partner, artist and accountant Susan Mikula.[14][15] The couple met in 1999, when Mikula hired Maddow, who was then working on her doctoral dissertation, for yard work at her home.[14] Maddow says that she does not own a television.[16] [edit] References This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 7 10:32:45 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:32:45 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/ Message-ID: <48EB56ED.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.therandirhodesshow.com/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Oct 7 10:33:24 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 12:33:24 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] UKRAINE not IRAN, THE NEXT FLASH POINT? Message-ID: Zavtra No. 40 October 2, 2008 MAIN AXIS OF ADVANCE Ukraine as the focus of the United States' attention in the post-Soviet zone Author: Sergei Glaziev UKRAINIAN CARD IN AMERICA'S GEOPOLITICAL GAME: WILL UKRAINE INSTEAD OF IRAN BECOME THE NEXT FLASH POINT? Fomenting severance of ties between Ukraine and Russia has traditionally been the main axis of American politics in the post- Soviet zone. Unfortunately, the Russian leadership grossly underestimated seriousness of Washington's maniacal obsession with the idea of driving a wedge between Moscow and Kiev. Moscow never even bothered to compose a strategy of dealing with Ukraine despite critical importance of some Ukrainian enterprises for the Russian industry. With the exception of a single clumsy attempt to interfere with a presidential campaign in Kiev, the Russian leadership remains unforgivably passive with regard to Ukraine, its interest in the neighbor state limited to purely commercial projects of oil and gas transportation. Unlike Moscow, Washington spares neither time nor effort to win the Ukrainian leadership over. Career intelligence officers, analysts, political technologists using the US Embassy in Ukraine as cover, foundations and trusts sponsoring Ukrainian intellectual elite, agents of influence in the upper echelons of state never permit the anti-Russian campaign to lose momentum. Undisguised, constant, and deep interference with Ukrainian domestic affairs couldn't help being productive (or disruptive). American secret services control secretariat of the Ukrainian president and the president himself. They essentially run the Ukrainian Security Service and foreign and defense ministries. They wield clout with the Ukrainians in key positions making economic decisions of paramount importance. What with the crisis of the global financial system fomented by the collapse of the American financial structure, Washington objectively needs escalation of international tension to retain its global leadership. The United States has never hesitated to launch regional wars to secure its own positions. It did so in Yugoslavia when Europe was introducing the euro and in Iraq during the previous financial crisis when Arab oil exporters threatened to convert their dollar assets into other hard currencies. Despite what experts might be thinking, it is Ukraine and not Iran that may become another flash point on the map of the world. First, Iran is too strong for the Pentagon at this point. Second, American aggression against Iran may stir an anti-American revolution throughout the Islamic world. Third, a conflict in Ukraine will serve as a constant irritant for Russia whose weakening is the prime objective of American politics. Last but not the least, this latent aggression has been the main axis of American advance into the post-Soviet zone for literally years. Its escalation into an open form will only require a formal excuse, something like Victor Yuschenko's hollering for help in the midst of a financial and political crisis. Even inciting a civil war in Ukraine, the United States itself will run no risks at all. On the contrary, a conflict between Ukraine and Russia will become another step towards realization of Zbigniew Brzezinski's geopolitical strategy, that of reducing Russia's role in international affairs to that of a regional power at best. Also conveniently, it will allow Washington to apply even more pressure to the European Union. With the Crimea (and perhaps some other regions of Ukraine) going up in flames of a conflict, European powers will be compelled to back the United States with its policy - and that will give NATO the much needed second breath. Even if Ukraine disintegrates, Washington will only benefit from it by forcing another conflict on Europe and isolating Russia from the European Union. Like in Georgia, presidential power in Ukraine is controlled from Washington and this state of affairs offers the US Administration a perfect opportunity for organization of a controllable conflict. The United States is absolutely safe even though the scope and consequences of this conflict may exceed those of the Georgian or even Yugoslavian escapades. Regardless of what Ukraine comes to - civil war, disintegration, and so on - Washington will be spared any losses. It will employ the services of the Ukrainians themselves, Poles, Turks, and other Russophobes. Like in the Balkans several years ago, Washington will force its European allies to meet the bill and deal with the resulting mess. As for the Ukrainian leadership, it has its own motives to escalate tension. Yuschenko's chances to retain presidency are essentially nonexistent. Never a man to blanch from dirty tricks in power struggle, he will certainly do everything to remain in the driver's seat. Yuschenko needs but an excuse to stage a coup and usurp state power, something that will be easily accepted by his NATO patrons and a certain part of the Ukrainian establishment. Political destabilization augmented by the financial crisis may become his alibi. The shape of Ukraine's external account serves as mute evidence of an inevitable crisis of the national financial system fomented by the rapid growth of the trade balance deficit. Official Kiev has been using foreign credits to recompense for it until recently but this option is no longer available. The situation being what it is, the grivna strengthening policy the Ukrainian authorities promote cannot help fomenting a financial crisis within the following six months. It will devalue the grivna, leave major banks in Ukraine broke, cause a stock market crash, send inflation soaring sky-high, and make a laugh of the population's real income. Socioeconomic deterioration and the forthcoming presidential election will force on the Ukrainian leadership some dramatic and radical moves aimed at usurpation of state power. If the Rada is dissolved, Yuschenko will certainly try to wreck the early parliamentary election in order to proclaim presidential dictatorship which the United States will hail and back. Yuschenko's political adversaries will be condemned as traitors who provoked the crisis in the first place. The crisis itself will be chalked off to high gas tariffs to enable Washington to don the mantle of savior through getting the International Monetary Fund to give Ukraine a stabilization loan. In return for Ukraine's commitment to join NATO and hand over its foreign, financial, and defense policy to Washington, of course. As for the discontent of the population and protests of the opposition, official Kiev will channel the former into an anti- Russian campaign and crush the latter. To legitimize this mistreatment of the opposition, the Ukrainian authorities won't even hesitate to provoke ethnic conflicts with some casualties - somewhere in the Crimea, the Carpathian Mountains, or in Odessa. Some provocations in Sevastopol should be expected as well, anything to draw the Russian Armed Forces into the conflict. Putschists will do what they can to make the conflict as vicious as possible to justify their inevitable decision to proclaim martial law in the Crimea and other regions of Ukraine, crush the opposition, arrange a referendum to amend the Constitution, and keep presidency in Yuschenko's hands. Organizers of the putsch will need aid from NATO to crush the opposition and stifle protests. To elicit this aid, they will arrange provocations to force the Russian Black Sea Fleet to react or at least do something that may be presented to the sympathetic West as the Russians' inadequate reaction. The Americans may recommend their Ukrainian pals to sink a couple of ships with all hands and pin the blame on the Russian Black Sea Fleet. Or they will come up with something else to create the illusion of the Russian military invasion into the Crimea to annex the peninsula. With the Rada dissolved, Yuschenko will invite American and NATO contingents into Ukraine claiming that so dramatic a development is necessitated by the grave emergency. There are no doubts at all that the United States and Europe will use the crisis to tighten their grip on Ukraine and take over. Expansion of foreign capitals into Ukraine will be smooth and easy, facilitated by the conditions already set in place. Leading Ukrainian banks and enterprises cannot survive without foreign credits anymore. Ukraine will lose economic sovereignty in return for new loans necessary to finance state expenditures and develop a thoroughly anti-Russian army. Economic depression will settle for years, accompanied by spreading impoverishment and mass immigration. Ukraine's return to Russia on the other hand will put into motion a wholly different scenario. Cheap oil and gas and Russian credits will make the worst consequences of the crisis easier to negotiate, shorten duration of the crisis itself, and ease the way out of it. This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from _http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Oct 7 10:43:50 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 12:43:50 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama and terrorist friendship charge: Who is Bill Ayer? April 2008 article Message-ID: Ayers, 63, spent 10 years as a fugitive in the 1970s when he was part of the "Weather Underground," an anti-Vietnam War group that protested U.S. policies by bombing the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol and a string of other government buildings. Nobody was hurt in the attacks by the defunct organization, which the FBI labeled a "domestic terrorist group." Today, Ayers and his wife -- fellow former Weather Underground fugitive Bernardine Dohrn -- live in Hyde Park, where they moved after surrendering in 1980. Federal charges against the two were dropped because of improper surveillance, so they avoided prison. Ayers and Dohrn have raised two sons of their own and adopted a third boy whose parents were Weather Underground members who went to prison. They've built stellar reputations as professors: Dohrn at Northwestern's law school, Ayers as an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Along the way, they met a rising political star named Barack Obama, who lived in their neighborhood. The Ayers-Obama relationship became a hot topic in Wednesday's Democratic presidential debate. It is "an issue certainly Republicans will be raising" should Obama be the Democratic nominee for president, Obama rival Hillary Clinton said. In the mid-1990s, Ayers and Dohrn hosted a meet-and-greet at their house to introduce Obama to their neighbors during his first run for the Illinois Senate. In 2001, Ayers contributed $200 to Obama's campaign. Ayers also served alongside Obama between December 1999 and December 2002 on the board of the not-for-profit Woods Fund of Chicago. That board met four times a year, and members would see each other at occasional dinners the group hosted. Reached by the Sun-Times on her cell phone, Dohrn declined to comment. Ayers, who was traveling, did not return messages. But friends like Chicago political strategist Marilyn Katz said Ayers should not be a campaign issue. Katz met Ayers when he was 17 and they were members of Students for a Democratic Society, a group from which the Weather Underground splintered. She noted Ayers' work with Mayor Daley to overhaul the Chicago Public Schools and likened him to Black Panther-turned-U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush. "What Bill Ayers and Bobby Rush ... did 40 years ago has nothing to do with" the presidential campaign, Katz said. Ayers "has a national reputation. He lectures at Harvard and Vassar. He writes the textbooks that are the standard for innovative approaches to reaching inner-city youth." Ayers, a Glen Ellyn native who became active in SDS while attending the University of Michigan, is the son of late Commonwealth Edison CEO Thomas G. Ayers. Ayers has praised his dad for standing by him while he was on the lam. A book Ayers penned about those years, Fugitive Days, landed him in hot water on Sept. 11, 2001. That morning, the New York Times ran a story about the book in which Ayers said, "I don't regret setting bombs. I feel we didn't do enough." Ayers' statement was made before the World Trade Center attacks, but its timing led some to believe it was in response. "My book is in fact a condemnation of terrorism in all its forms -- individual, group and official," Ayers later said in a letter to the Chicago Tribune. Ayers has a Web site, billayers.org, in which he blogs about politics and other subjects. He lets friends and foes post comments. In response to an Ayers posting, "End the War," a reader wrote, "You are an anti-American communist and a terrorist. I hope you get what you deserve over and over and over." full _http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/902213,CST-NWS-ayers18.article_ (http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/902213,CST-NWS-ayers18.article) **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Oct 7 11:05:40 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 13:05:40 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama and terrorist friendship charge: Bill Ayer Message-ID: The Internet is wonderful. Anyone desiring to know the basis and substance of the charges against Senator Obama concerning Mr. Bill Ayer, can simply look up the facts on the Internet. I went to billayer.org and several other avenues of information available on line. As a communist more than less, for the pat 40 years - American brand, I always felt that doctrines of bomb throwing was an expression of the inability to win the proletarian masses over to the cause of communism. Apparently, Mr. Ayer reformed his views and over the past 40 years has built up an impressive resume of activity. No doubt that many of us active in the social movement for four decades have found ourselves in meeting will all kinds of individuals, with all kinds of doctrines, ideology and ideas about how to change our society for the better. I for one do not condemn Mr. Ayers - the individual, in 2008, although the groups I was involved with in the 60's and 70's did not embrace bomb throwing. Seems to me that all the evidence available indicates that Mr. Ayer long ago reformed his views and actions. I do recalled one Black Panther leader speaking of "bombing the workers out of the plants," . . . . something Mr. Ayer did not advocate based on the material I have read concerning his history. "bombing the workers out of the plants" scared the crap out of me because this meant me getting blown up. Katherine Cleaver made this statement and today I do not seriously think she would advocate such a view. Can a person be fore given for views and actions they have come to repudiate? Of course. WL **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Oct 7 11:43:36 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 13:43:36 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] 'Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Message-ID: ???When homes are doubling in price in every six years and incomes are increasing by a mere one percent per year, Fannie???s mission is of paramount importance,??? Senator Jack Reed , a Rhode Island Democrat, lectured Mr. Mudd at a Congressional hearing in 2006. ???In fact, Fannie and Freddie can do more, a lot more.??? Here is the entire text: ???Almost no one expected what was coming. It???s not fair to blame us for not predicting the unthinkable.???- Daniel H. Mudd, former chief executive, Fannie Mae Comment Of course it is your fault. It damn sure is not my freaking fault or the fault of anyone else I know and live amongst. The so-called mortgage crisis, which is understood as one of the foundations of the current financial crisis, is really part of the Housing crisis the working class has faced since the rise to dominance of the capitalist mode of producing. The question is first of all housing and the twenty year non-stop growth of homelessness in America. American communists of all shades advocate that housing - living quarters, be available to all members of our society as a birth right. We can afford to house America. The capitalist way of viewing the Housing Question starts from the point of view of making housing affordable after the capitalist have made profits from rent of all kinds and housing starts (building). This financial crisis of the system does not hinge on mortgages, but is rooted in the new non-banking financial architecture, which makes it possible for capital to realize a profit based of gambling rather than investing in the productive forces or "growing the real economy." The only way the real economy can consistently expand is by expanding consumption and this requires raising wages. Capitalism drives down wages and is the inner barrier to expansion of the real economy. In an environment where wages have been falling for over 30 years, the housing bubble was cheered by the capitalists as the way to increase profit making and consumption based on the workers refinancing their homes as the bubble price of their property kept rising. The solution to the Housing Question is to make housing available to everyone, even those without income. By establishing this bottom line safety net our society will make it impossible for anyone - (especially better paid workers facing falling wages), to fall into homelessness. This means expanding section 8 to cover anyone in need. Does this mean everyone in our society is entitled to a mansion? Of course not. Basic housing in America should be a birth right and we can always figure out how to pay for necessities of life. Consider that no less than $10 billion a week is spent just on the war against the people of Iraq. War does not grow the economy on any level and the argument that war production grow the economy is not valid. We can pay for universal housing - not universal mansions, the same way we are paying for the war against the people of Iraq. Such is the basic economic program of American communism. WL. **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 7 11:54:35 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 13:54:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism Message-ID: <48EB6A1B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism ^^^^^ CB: Well, that's partly right. ^^^^^ http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/the-magazine/features/2172131/face-it-marx-was-partly-right-about-capitalism.thtml The Spectator Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism Rowan Williams Wednesday, 24th September 2008 Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, says that the financial world needs fresh scrutiny and regulation. In our attitude to the market, we run the risk of idolatry Readers of Anthony Trollope will remember how thoughtless and greedy young men in the Victorian professions can be lured into ruin by accepting ?accommodation bills? from their shifty acquaintances. They make themselves liable for the debts of others; and only too late do they discover that they are trapped in a web of financial mechanics that forces them to pay hugely inflated sums for obligations or services they have had nothing to do with. Their own individual credit-worthiness, their own circumstances, even their own personal choices are all irrelevant: the debt has acquired a life of its own, quite independent of any real transaction they are involved in. A prescient student of Trollope would have seen that he is identifying an endemic feature of the world of borrowing and lending. A lender takes a calculated risk in offering the use of their money to someone else, and rates of interests express the recognition of this - and the rewards that may be secured for taking such a risk. But it is not too difficult to see how the notional gain involved here can be used as security against a further risk. And so the transaction moves further and further from the original transaction with its realistic assessment of levels of risk within the context of measurable standards of credit-worthiness. Any face-to-face element, any direct calculation of what and who is reasonably worth trusting (which assumes some common frame of reference), fades away. Like Trollope?s hapless young clerics and feckless young landowners, individuals find that their own personal financial decisions and calculations have nothing to do with what is happening to their resources, in a process for which a debt is simply someone else?s wholly disposable asset. It is a sort of one-syllable nursery parable of what the last couple of weeks have illustrated in the world of global finance and, of course, a reminder that what we have been witnessing is not just the product of a couple of irresponsible decades. Trading the debts of others without accountability has been the motor of astronomical financial gain for many in recent years. Primitively, a loan transaction is something which enables someone to do what they might not otherwise be able to do - start a business, buy a house. Lenders identify what would count as reasonable security in the present and the future (present assets, future income) and decide accordingly. But inevitably in complex and large-scale transactions, one person?s debt becomes part of the security which the lender can offer to another potential customer. And a particularly significant line is crossed when the borrowing and lending are no longer to do with any kind of equipping someone to do something specific, but exclusively about enabling profit - sometimes, as with the now banned practice of short-selling, by effectively betting on the failure of a partner in the transaction. This crisis exposes the element of basic unreality in the situation - the truth that almost unimaginable wealth has been generated by equally unimaginable levels of fiction, paper transactions with no concrete outcome beyond profit for traders. But while we are getting used to this sudden vision of the Emperor?s New Clothes, there are one or two questions that, in government as in society at large, we at last have a chance to ask. Some of these are elementary and practical. Given that the risk to social stability overall in these processes has been shown to be so enormous, it is no use pretending that the financial world can maintain indefinitely the degree of exemption from scrutiny and regulation that it has got used to. To grant that without a basis of some common prosperity and stability, no speculative market can long survive is not to argue for rigid Soviet-style centralised direction. Insecure or failed states may provide a brief and golden opportunity for profiteering, but cannot sustain reliable institutions. Without a background of social stability everyone will eventually suffer, including even the most resourceful, bold and ingenious of speculators. The question is not how to choose between total control and total deregulation, but how to identify the points and practices where social risk becomes unacceptably high. The banning of short-selling is an example of just such a judgment. Governments should not lose their nerve as they look to identify a few more targets. Behind all this, though, is the deeper moral issue. We find ourselves talking about capital or the market almost as if they were individuals, with purposes and strategies, making choices, deliberating reasonably about how to achieve aims. We lose sight of the fact that they are things that we make. They are sets of practices, habits, agreements which have arisen through a mixture of choice and chance. Once we get used to speaking about any of them as if they had a life independent of actual human practices and relations, we fall into any number of destructive errors. We expect an abstraction called ?the market? to produce the common good or to regulate its potential excesses by a sort of natural innate prudence, like a physical organism or ecosystem. We appeal to ?business? to acquire public responsibility and moral vision. And so we lose sight of the fact that the market is not like a huge individual consciousness, that business is a practice carried on by persons who have to make decisions about priorities - not a machine governed by inexorable laws. And this is part of the same mindset that turns the specific, goal-related transactions of borrowing and lending into a process producing pseudo-things, paper assets - but pseudo-things that (when matters do not go well) cause real and crippling damage to actual persons and institutions. The biggest challenge in the present crisis is whether we can recover some sense of the connection between money and material reality - the production of specific things, the achievement of recognisably human goals that have something to do with a shared sense of what is good for the human community in the widest sense. Of course business is not philanthropy, securing profit is a legitimate (if not a morally supreme) motivation for people, and the definition of what?s good for the human community can be pretty widely drawn. It?s true as well that, in some circumstances, loosening up a financial regime to allow for entrepreneurs and innovators to create wealth is necessary to draw whole populations out of poverty. But it is a sort of fundamentalism to say that this alone will secure stable and just outcomes everywhere. Fundamentalism is a religious word, not inappropriate to the nature of the problem. Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves; he was right about that, if about little else. And ascribing independent reality to what you have in fact made yourself is a perfect definition of what the Jewish and Christian Scriptures call idolatry. What the present anxieties and disasters should be teaching us is to ?keep ourselves from idols?, in the biblical phrase. The mythologies and abstractions, the pseudo-objects of much modern financial culture, are in urgent need of their own Dawkins or Hitchens. We need to be reacquainted with our own capacity to choose - which means acquiring some skills in discerning true faith from false, and re-learning some of the inescapable face-to-face dimensions of human trust. _______________________________________________ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Oct 7 12:08:04 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 14:08:04 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Theory of Revolution Message-ID: 2) And he (along with the "Stalinists") left a terrible heritage -- the delusion that there could be a general theory of revolution. There cannot be. Every revolution is separate and only in the most banal ways will resemble any other revolution. Each requires New Thought. ^^^^ CB: Yes, although Lenin wrote that some features of the Soviet Rev had general significance for other revolutions. Revolutions are probably _not_ all utterly unique and distinct from each other. We should draw upon other revolutionary experience in developing the revolutionary theory particular to our concrete situation. See below Vladimir Lenin???s Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In What Sense we can Speak of the International Significance of the Russian Revoluion -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Comment The above was taken from Marxmail. Karl Marx general theory of revolution was spelled out in his famous preface to A Contribution to A Critique of Political Economy. Not just Marxists, but virtually all thinking people in all countries on earth agree that qualitative changes in the productive forces - (tools, instruments, machinery and energy source), must lead to changes or revolution in society. The Industrial Revolution was a revolution because it ushered in a new form of production that demanded that society change to conform to the new technology. Below is the general theory of revolution espoused by Marx and Engels. Quote "In the social production of their life, men enter into definite relations that are indispensable and independent of their will, relations of production which correspond to a definite stage of development of their material productive forces. The sum total of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which rises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in general. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary, their social being that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of their development, the material productive forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of production, or ??? what is but a legal expression for the same thing ??? with the property relations within which they have been at work hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. " full: _http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface-abs.htm_ (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1859/critique-pol-economy/preface-abs.htm) WL. **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 7 12:50:34 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:50:34 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Majority shareholders Message-ID: <48EB773B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> "I wonder how he sleeps at night." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: "Progressive Economics" (Waistline2@aol.com's message of "Tue, 7 Oct 2008 13:05:40 EDT") References: Message-ID: <877i8k9cf1.fsf@t22.Belkin> Waistline2 at aol.com writes: > Can a person be fore given for views and actions they have come to repudiate? > > Of course. Apparently so, I'm reading that Ayers is a respected member of the Academic community in Chicago, even among Republicans. Obama's Links To Ex-Radical Examined(NPR) [...] "It was never a concern by any of us in the Chicago school reform movement that he had led a fugitive life years earlier," said former Illinois state Republican Rep. Diana Nelson, who worked with both Obama and Ayers over the years. "It's ridiculous. There is no reason at all to smear Barack Obama with this association. It's nonsensical, and it just makes me crazy. It's so silly." [...] http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95442902 From Waistline2 at aol.com Tue Oct 7 20:44:14 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 22:44:14 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Presidential debate 2: Obama falters McCain the winner Message-ID: Well, the wife said and I agree with it, that Obama stumbled and falter and seemed like an amateur. The most disheartening answer both candidates offered was their reply to the question "should health car be treated as a commodity?" Both candidates refused to answer the question and opted to explain their own health program. My wife stated that she was still going to vote for Obama but Senator McCain outright won round two in the Presidential debate. WL **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out! (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000001) From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Tue Oct 7 21:04:21 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2008 23:04:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Presidential debate 2: Obama falters McCain the winner In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I was bored shitless and my attention lapsed, but here's my reaction: McCain acts like he needs to be put out of his misery. Obama's most conspicuous deficit is his stuttering, which weakens his image. But McCain was so lame, Obama would be president tomorrow morning if he were white. Also noticeable were McCain's black plants in the audience, which I assume were there to offset the racist image of the Republican Party. At 10:44 PM 10/7/2008, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote: >Well, the wife said and I agree with it, that Obama stumbled and falter and >seemed like an amateur. > >The most disheartening answer both candidates offered was their reply to the >question "should health car be treated as a commodity?" Both candidates >refused to answer the question and opted to explain their own >health program. > >My wife stated that she was still going to vote for Obama but Senator McCain >outright won round two in the Presidential debate. > > >WL From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 8 02:51:43 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 17:51:43 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner Message-ID: RD>>I was bored shitless and my attention lapsed, but here's my reaction: McCain acts like he needs to be put out of his misery. Obama's most conspicuous deficit is his stuttering, which weakens his image. But McCain was so lame, Obama would be president tomorrow morning if he were white.<< I was riveted in an almost bored shitless way. I couldn't believe I was watching it to the end instead of getting up and doing something at least marginally more useful, like washing the breakfast dishes. I think BO supporters will say it wasn't a victory because he didn't finish off the ugly old man. I think McCain supporters will say it was a McCain loss because he didn't trip BO up enough to dent opinion. The debate format this time visually favored BO because he is taller and moved more fluidly--I could almost imagine him up in front of a class of law students bullshitting his way around constitutional law. McCain looked like an old man and moved like Bob Dole. Earlier when the Democratic primaries were going I said it seemed to me that BO was the next Kerry. He had found out how to win the Democratic Party but had no clue how to take on the Republicans. But I also gave the edge to BO to win the election. Even as that prediction looked to falter, the economy totally tanked, collapsed into panic. All those guys in NYC and London with their computers and charts were at a loss as to what to do. It was worse than 5 Katrinas hitting east coast cities. And by default it was worse for the Republicans. The only thing I could see hurting a BO win would be that he has surged with newly registered voters, but if you extend that to 'young voters' in general, it is young voters who often turn into ghosts on election day. And low turnouts favor Republicans because they turn out the faithful and the electoral college (like the Senate) is skewed to red states. But what to call BO now? Well it seems to me the US backed into the Reagan era with Carter , and it is now backing out with Obama. And they both have a claim to be different categorically. BO because of his phenotype. And Carter because he declared he was a born again Christian (seriously, it's how he got Wallace supporters to vote for him). Both Obama and Carter appear to me as somewhat well-intentioned milquetoast neoliberals, although it looks like Carter now has more enlightened views about the ME (a bit--enough to get him branded anti-semitic by the usual zionist crowd). I thought McCain moving to shake hands with the retired Navy vet was the most calculated to look uncalculated move he made--more than the black Republican plants asking questions. McCain, a 22 year vet of the Navy as an officer to the epaulets born, patronized the retiree (who was enlisted) by saying he learned everything he needed to know about the Navy from a chief petty officer (sure, and what he didn't say was that was things like how to get lower enlisted to make your coffee without pissing in it). Despite the mail in ballot / absentee ballot and purged roll surprises the Republicans are sure to pull off in the next month, I still predict a BO victory. Popular vote 52 to 48 percent, with an electoral array that looks something like what brought Clinton to office the second time around. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 8 03:28:13 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 18:28:13 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>Both Obama and Carter appear to me as somewhat well-intentioned > milquetoast neoliberals,<< Which brings to mind that this would be a good point on which to address their real flaws. BO has committed to withdrawing from Iraq (eventually) and scaling up the Afghan adventure. The problem for that with the DoD is they don't really want to hold Afghanistan with a major base complex (it's a landlocked country for crying out loud); they really do want to hold Iraq with a major base complex. A major base complex requires the infrastructure to support that, including ports. The Afghanistan invasion and occupation only got accomplished because Pakistan, Iran and Russia allowed it. So BO will find it very difficult to put together the leadership to get the DoD under his control. The only way they would enthusiastically sign on to a renewed bogus adventure in Afghanistan would be if the military budgets were significantly increased (which BO's people have promised) and Pakistan was somehow part of the new campaign. Meanwhile, they would try to drag out any withdrawal from Iraq to outlast Pres. BO (like Carter) and wait for the next Republican. So it's almost as if BO has defined himself to be the next Carter but also the next Al Gore (the so-called liberal who is pro-Israel, pro-war, pro-military spending increase). However, if the DoD tries to exploit the Pakistan gambit it would be in some way as to allow them to look good while being able to ask for and get more money. Some sort of debacle on the ground is the last thing they would want. So you have to wonder what their Plan B for new permanent super-bases in the ME is now. In the case of McCain, I would surely bet that most in the DoD would prefer him (because he would want them to stay in Iraq forever), but his weakness is he is a Republican likely set to lose the popular vote in enough states to lose the electoral college. You would almost think his best strategy would have been to declare himself an independent in June. CJ From rasherrs at eircom.net Wed Oct 8 01:36:16 2008 From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 08:36:16 +0100 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] UK finances Message-ID: <001201c92918$8c3be820$a4b3b860$@net> Hi The recent developments in the UK, the state's injection of cash into the system, is going to put more heat on the share value of the Irish banks. The share price will fall sharply because of the markets seeking a similar injection of cash into the Irish banks. The problem is that the Irish state may not have the funds to provide that kind of liquidity required for the Irish economy. The coalition government's following the line of David McWilliam's will prove damaging to Irish capitalism -financial rescue on the cheap by nationalising the bankocracy's debts. Paddy Hackett From rasherrs at eircom.net Wed Oct 8 01:53:37 2008 From: rasherrs at eircom.net (Paddy Hackett) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 08:53:37 +0100 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] British Development Message-ID: <002101c9291a$f8de0c40$ea9a24c0$@net> Hi The recent developments in the UK, the state's injection of cash into the system, is going to put more heat on the share value of the Irish banks. The share price of Irish banks will fall sharply because of the markets seeking a similar injection of cash into them. The problem is that the Irish state may not have the funds to provide that kind of liquidity required for the Irish economy. The coalition government's following the line of David McWilliam's will prove damaging to Irish capitalism -financial rescue on the cheap by nationalising the bankocracy's debts. Paddy Hackett From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 07:34:58 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:34:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Presidential debate 2: Obama falters McCain the winner In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48EC7EC3.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> 10/07/2008 10:44 PM >>> Well, the wife said and I agree with it, that Obama stumbled and falter and seemed like an amateur. The most disheartening answer both candidates offered was their reply to the question "should health car be treated as a commodity?" Both candidates refused to answer the question and opted to explain their own health program. My wife stated that she was still going to vote for Obama but Senator McCain outright won round two in the Presidential debate. WL ^^ CB: My mother said Obama won the second debate. **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out! (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000001) _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 07:52:32 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:52:32 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Bailout is a Fraud Message-ID: <48EC82E2.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The Bailout is a Fraud Published 10/03/08 Paul Craig Roberts, former Secretary of the U.S. Treasury - Print Article E-mail - editor at economyincisis.org Editor's Note: The following is by Paul Craig Roberts, and may not reflect the views or opinions of EconomyInCrisis.org. Before Congress passes such a massive bill, they should look at it from different perspectives, such as the one offered here. Feedback is welcome. In my last column I discussed the bailout as it was proposed and noted that the proposal cannot succeed if it impairs the U.S. Treasury's credit standing and/or the combination of mark-to-market and short-selling permits short-sellers to prosper by driving more financial institutions into bankruptcy. A reader's comment and an article by Yale professors Jonathan Kopell and William Goetzmann raise the question whether the Paulson bailout itself might be as big a fraud as the leveraged subprime mortgages. As one reader put it, " We have debt at three different levels: personal household debt, financial sector debt and public debt. The first has swamped the second and now the second is being made to swamp the third. The attitude of our leaders is to do nothing about the first level of debt and to pretend that the third level of debt doesn't matter at all." The argument for the bailout is that the banks will be free of the troubled instruments and can resume lending and that the U.S. Treasury will recover most of the bailout costs, because only a small percentage of the underlying mortgages are bad. Let's examine this argument. In actual fact, the Paulson bailout does not address the core problem. It only addresses the problem for the financial institutions that hold the troubled assets. Under the bailout plan, the troubled assets move from the banks' books to the Treasury's. But the underlying problem--the continuing diminishment of mortgage and home values--remains and continues to worsen. The origin of the crisis is at the homeowner level. Homeowners are defaulting on mortgages. Moving the financial instruments onto the Treasury's books does not stop the rising default rate. The bailout is focused on the wrong end of the problem. The bailout should be focused on the origin of the problem, the defaulting homeowners. The bailout should indemnify defaulting homeowners and pay off the delinquent mortgages. As Koppell and Goetzmann point out, the financial instruments are troubled because of mortgage defaults. Stopping the problem at its origin would restore the value of the mortgage-based derivatives and put an end to the crisis. This approach has the further advantage of stopping the slide in housing prices and ending the erosion of local tax bases that result from foreclosures and houses being dumped on the market. What about the moral hazard of bailing out homeowners who over-leveraged themselves? Ask yourself: How does it differ from the moral hazard of bailing out the financial institutions that securitized questionable loans, insured them, and sold them as investment grade securities? Moreover, note Koppell and Goetzmann, bailing out the financial institutions puts enormous power over the economy into executive branch hands and amounts to "transition to a socialist economy." Socializing the housing market and financial sector is probably too high a price to pay for bailing out private financial institutions. Congress should focus the bailout on refinancing the troubled mortgages as the Home Owners' Loan Corp. did in the 1930s, not on the troubled institutions holding the troubled instruments linked to the mortgages. Congress needs to back off, hold hearings, and talk with Koppell and Goetzmann. Congress must know the facts prior to taking action. The last thing Congress needs to do is to be panicked again into agreeing to a disastrous course. Authors Bio: Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has held numerous academic appointments. He has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law, was published by Random House in March, 2008. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 07:59:13 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 09:59:13 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] michael perelman Message-ID: <48EC8473.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com/2008/10/07/crisis-commentary-overview/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 08:03:44 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:03:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marxism-Thaxis Message-ID: <48EC8582.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Marxism-Thaxis -- Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and the thinkers he inspired About Marxism-Thaxis English (USA) Marxism-Thaxis: An open and (loosely) moderated e-mail based forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised in both the work of Karl Marx and, more generally, the tradition(s) that work has inspired. In keeping with Marx's own attempts to bridge the gap between theory and praxis, Marxism-thaxis encourages participants to explore the theoretical and practical implications of issues raised in this forum. Indeed, we have chosen the neologism "thaxis" precisely to convey our own interest in the integration of theory and praxis. We welcome all new participants. To see the collection of prior postings to the list, visit the Marxism-Thaxis Archives. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 08:06:35 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:06:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] ] Obama falters McCain the winner Message-ID: <48EC862C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The debate format this time visually favored BO because he is taller and moved more fluidly--I could almost imagine him up in front of a class of law students bullshitting his way around constitutional law. McCain looked like an old man and moved like Bob Dole. ^^^ CB: McCain looks and "feels" like a pitbull without lipstick. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 08:12:14 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:12:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher Message-ID: <48EC8780.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Ralph Dumain What a useless piece of shit Badiou is. His politics are even more worthless than his philosophy. As for Sartre, there are others on the anti-Stalinist left who bear a grudge against him for his erstwhile apologetics for the Communist Party. Some might wonder what he was doing with Maoist students. As for Sartre's philosophy, the philosophy he is known for seems to me a failure. I think one would have to read Critique of Dialectical Reason in search of a lasting contribution. ^^^^^ CB: Funny, this reminds of the old Marx/Engels rule of intellectual thumb: Marxism as French politics, British political economy and German philosophy. Sartre, French, has good politics , but not so good philosophy. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 08:19:08 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:19:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner Message-ID: <48EC891D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> CeJ jannuzi -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Which brings to mind that this would be a good point on which to address their real flaws. BO has committed to withdrawing from Iraq (eventually) and scaling up the Afghan adventure. ^^^ CB: No, the distinct characteristic of Obama's position is that he proposes a definite "timetable" for withdrawal as opposed to an indefinite one or "eventually." Amazingly, the Bush Admin now has O's position now: a time definite for withdrawal , but called by a different name. The Iraqi leader has called for the same. As Biden said, McCain is the odd man out with his "eventually" position. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From dhenwood at panix.com Wed Oct 8 08:37:04 2008 From: dhenwood at panix.com (Doug Henwood) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 10:37:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner In-Reply-To: <48EC891D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48EC891D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <1EFA31AF-7B0C-4D7B-8DF0-EE6D2BF89BA0@panix.com> On Oct 8, 2008, at 10:19 AM, Charles Brown wrote: > No, the distinct characteristic of Obama's position is that he > proposes a definite "timetable" for withdrawal as opposed to an > indefinite one or "eventually." Yeah, and he explicitly wants to take the troops withdrawn from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan. Surely you've noticed that. Doug From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 08:42:27 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:42:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] McCain's Michigan Woes May Widen as Economy Hits Working Class Message-ID: <48EC8E94.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> McCain's Michigan Woes May Widen as Economy Hits Working Class By Heidi Przybyla (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=photos&sid=adM8Fq0RTis0) Oct. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Kari Durell, a 38-year-old waitress, had her doubts about Barack Obama after reading wild Internet rumors that he trained with al-Qaeda terrorists as a child. She's voting for him anyway. ``My main issue is health care, and I think a Democrat would do more,'' said Durell, who works at a riverside bar near a _Ford Motor Co._ (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=F:US) -managed stamping plant in southeast Michigan that's about to close. Voters like Durell used to be called ``Reagan Democrats,'' working-class people who embraced _Ronald Reagan_ (http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Ronald+Reagan&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1) in 1980 and every Republican presidential candidate ever since over cultural issues such as abortion, guns and patriotism. Senator _John McCain_ (http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=John+McCain&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1) needs their support in a big way this year. McCain's campaign last week, however, pulled out of Michigan, a state that only a month earlier was one of the Republican presidential nominee's top targets. Interviews with dozens of workers and elderly voters illustrate why: Michigan, whose _8.9 percent jobless rate_ (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=USUSMICH:IND) is the highest in the nation, is filled with economic anxiety, and McCain was gaining no traction there. The trials he faces in places like _Macomb_ (http://www.macombcountymi.gov/index.htm) and _Monroe_ (http://www.co.monroe.mi.us/monroe/default.aspx) counties -- largely white, Catholic enclaves near Detroit where many people make between $40,000 and $60,000 a year -- are mirrored throughout industrial battleground states from Ohio and Pennsylvania to Missouri. _George W. Bush_ (http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=George+W.+Bush&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1) won the support of these firefighters, carpenters, autoworkers, electricians and retirees by a margin of 15 percentage points in each of his two presidential races, exit polls showed. McCain has to do as well. `I'm Not Sure' That won't be easy. Voter thirst for a new economic direction after eight years of Bush is overpowering issues like gun rights, gay marriage and even race that have helped the Republicans run up votes in the past. ``I've been a Republican all my life, but right now I'm not sure,'' said Joyce Moynihan, a retired homemaker and member of _St. Mark Catholic Church_ (http://www.ourchurch.com/member/s/STMARKPARISH/) in Macomb County who's leaning toward Obama. ``Of course, I'm anti-abortion, but you can battle this forever. The economy and the war have got to be addressed'' and ``something dramatic has to happen,'' she said. To be certain, McCain, 72, has pockets of support. Those who plan to vote for the Arizona senator cite concern about what they say is Obama's lack of experience. Some say they see no difference between the two candidates on the economy and plan to continue voting Republican. For a few, the race issue was barely beneath the surface. Avoiding `Race Card' McCain ``has more experience than his opponent, and he's not playing the race card,'' said Ken Benardo, a 49-year-old carpenter from _Flint_ (http://www.cityofflint.com/) who said the country isn't ready for a black president. Brian Bennett, a 25-year-old construction worker from Detroit, said he may begin voting this year, but it won't be for Obama, 47, an Illinois senator. Still, just one voter interviewed, a Republican, mentioned abortion as a main issue. No one cited gun rights or gay marriage, which was such a hot ballot initiative in Ohio in 2004 that it helped Bush carry the state and secure victory. For Cornelia Glowacki, an 81-year-old retired hospital employee who lives in Warren, north of Detroit, morals and values extend beyond issues like abortion to the war in Iraq. ``The big issue with Catholics is the abortion issue, but look at all the young fellas that have lost their lives,'' said Glowacki, who plays cards with Moynihan and other seniors once a week at St. Mark Church in Warren. Economic Survival For most, economic survival is the chief concern. Michigan has _lost 40,000 manufacturing jobs_ (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=BLM0MI01:IND) in the past year. And workers interviewed cited anxiety over the rising cost of fuel and health care, home foreclosures, the disappearance of unions and anticipated cuts in Social Security. Most of them wanted Senator _Hillary Clinton_ (http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Hillary+Clinton&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1) to be the nominee, but now say they'll support any Democrat, including Obama, as the country's economic picture turns grim. They range from a 55-year-old worker at the _Automotive Components Holdings_ (http://media.ford.com/newsroom/release_display.cfm?release=21794) stamping plant in Monroe who is losing his home, to an autoworker, who must drive 100 miles to his plant each day; a sickly, retired pipe fitter, who says there are no good-paying jobs in the state for his children and grandchildren; and a single mother, who recently incurred $50,000 in medical expenses she doubts she'll ever be able to repay. ``We can't afford to drive,'' said Sue Hill, a 43-year-old pipe fitter from nearby Newport who took a $4-an-hour pay cut to work closer to home. Crippling Job Losses Job losses have devastated local families, said Dave Desloover, a 37-year-old counselor to workers at Automotive Components, which is due to close by the end of this year. ``There are a lot of families that are breaking up because of these pressures,'' he said, citing seven divorces out of a few hundred _United Auto Workers union_ (http://www.uaw.org/) members in just the last month. Monroe was once a thriving manufacturing center that provided middle-class lifestyles to generations of immigrants working for companies including Monroe Paper Products Co. and Consolidated Paper Co. and furniture-maker _La-Z-Boy Inc._ (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=LZB:US) The scaling back of the stamping plant and the shutdown of a plastics factory owned by the same company have taken 4,000 jobs in the past year alone, said Royce Maniko, Monroe County planning director. `More Than Two Classes' ``I worked at Ford for 42 years, and my kids won't have that chance, my grandkids won't have that chance,'' said Jim Gross, a 65-year-old retired die maker from Monroe who voted for Reagan and now votes Democratic. ``It's about the middle class. We need to have more than two classes.'' In Monroe, the feeling that the middle class is under siege is so strong that the election has become personal. One worker from a nearby energy plant would only give his first name for fear his plans to vote for McCain would be held against him in the workplace. Around the corner from the plant, at UAW local 723, paper banners decorate the main hall, reading: ``A worker voting Republican is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders'' and ``Out of a job yet? Keep voting Republican.'' In _Warren_ (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=BLM7LJ0C:IND) , home to _Chrysler Corp._ (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=2251Q:US) and _General Motors Corp._ (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=GM:US) plants, economic angst is overshadowing cultural concerns, and the anger and frustration is palpable. `Economy Is Terrible' Bill Lovell is a 37-year-old _National Rifle Association_ (http://www.nra.org/) instructor who voted for Republican _Ron Paul_ (http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Ron+Paul&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:D:S:d1) in this year's primary and now worries about his job as a line worker at a Chrysler truck plant. ``I'm a human, so I'm voting Obama,'' said Lovell. ``The economy is terrible, and we need somebody who actually understands what the working people want.'' Deborah Sanders is a 57-year-old shipping and receiving clerk who frets about the lack of prayer in public schools, talks openly about the role of God in her life and is concerned about Obama's ``background and beliefs.'' Still, she says she's leaning toward him. ``I don't know if our economy and our country can handle another four years of what we've already gone through,'' said Sanders. Her son, a foreman, was unemployed for four years, lost his home and ultimately left the state to find work. Still, Mike Keck, a UAW benefits representative who is working hard to get Obama elected, said it's a challenge to move some workers off the cultural issues. ``We all still have guns. That doesn't change,'' he said. Meantime, ``we're all losing our jobs.'' This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 08:56:12 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 10:56:12 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner In-Reply-To: <1EFA31AF-7B0C-4D7B-8DF0-EE6D2BF89BA0@panix.com> References: <48EC891D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> <1EFA31AF-7B0C-4D7B-8DF0-EE6D2BF89BA0@panix.com> Message-ID: <48EC91CD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> Doug Henwood > No, the distinct characteristic of Obama's position is that he > proposes a definite "timetable" for withdrawal as opposed to an > indefinite one or "eventually." Yeah, and he explicitly wants to take the troops withdrawn from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan. Surely you've noticed that. Doug ^^^^ CB: Surely since you don't allow "conspiracy theories" of 9/11, it is your position that Bin Laden's group did 9/11. Is it your position that Bin Laden's group did 9/11, but the US shan't attack Bin Laden's group ? Given the premise that Bin Laden's group attacked the US on 9/11, I don't know of a legal argument against the US military counterattacking that group. Bin Laden's group is sort of unique in modern US imperialist history. No other "Third World" country or group has actually attacked the US, contrary to US lying propaganda about protecting American "freedom" through wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, Afghanistan-ante (!), etc. Iraq was the opposite. The attack there by the US violates the UN Convention against Crimes Against Peace. As far as imperialism, I don't really think the US wants to set up a colony or neo-colony in Afghanistan. There's not much to exploit there. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 09:16:58 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:16:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Wall Street - Cold, Flat, and Broke Message-ID: <48EC96AC.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Wall Street - Cold, Flat, and Broke October 06, 2008 C R Sridhar http://desicritics.org/2008/10/06/114033.php ?Dreamed about AIG and the stock market, woke up with the urge to stock up on canned goods and shotguns.? - Michele Catalano of Long Island, an angry blogger. The month of September was cruel for Wall Street. Stormy winds blew away the venerable institutions of Wall Street and they collapsed one by one like a pack of cards. Lehman Brothers, the 158-year investment global investment bank, went belly up. Merrill Lynch was swallowed up by Bank of America. American International Group (AIG), a $1 trillion insurance company, had to be rescued by $85 billion dollar deal by the Federal Government on the ground that it was too big to fall. Capturing the mood of panic in Wall Street Mike Whitney, a widely quoted freelance writer, wrote ?Lehman gone; Merrill Lynch swallowed up; AIG Going? Who?s Next for Madam Defarge??1 Madam Defarge and the tumbrels were kept busy while heads rolled in the basket in a grisly fashion. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the biggies of Mortgage lenders, became terminally ill requiring a massive bail out at a cost estimated to be in the region of $5.3 trillion. Washington Mutual went bust followed by Wachovia. Earlier in March, Bear Stearns became insolvent after bad bets turned into bad debts requiring Fed intervention. The concept of Wall Street investment banking was blown sky high when the remaining Goliaths Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs haemorrhaged sustaining huge losses and took the unprecedented step to covert themselves into low risk and tightly regulated commercial banks. The pervasive mood of despair and anger of Main Street was reflected by the black humour on Wall Street, one of the most popular being-?Question-What is the difference between a pigeon and an investment banker? Answer- Only a pigeon can make a deposit on a BMW.? The dour looking, Harvard educated economist Nouriel Roubini was one of the early sceptics to predict the financial meltdown in Wall Street when he dropped the bombshell way back in 2006 that US would be heading towards the most serious financial and banking crisis since the Great Depression. His dark prophecies were met with derision and disbelief earning him the epithet- the prophet of doom. But Roubini had the last laugh when the US financial system melted down as he had predicted and he became an instant celebrity on media channels. A bipartisan blunder One of the contributing factors for the financial meltdown was the reckless financial deregulation that led to financial concentration and inefficient markets. The perception of regulation as hampering the animal magnetism of Wall Street bankers was a dangerous delusion that fostered the irrational drive to take unacceptable risks. As the economist Arthur MacEwan explains-?When financial firms are not regulated, they tend to take on more and more risky activities. When markets are rising, risk does not seem to be very much of a problem; all?or virtually all?investments seem to be making money. So why not take some chances? Furthermore, if one firm doesn?t take particular risk?put money into a chancy operation?then one of its competitors will. So competition pushes them into more and more risky operations.?2 Moreover, the extent of deregulation reached dangerous levels with the repeal of Glass- Steagall Act of 1933, which was passed after the financial debacle of 1929. This act separated investment banking from commercial banking and protected the investors from risky speculation of investment banking. Thus a commercial bank could not be in both insurance and/or investment business. Hectic lobbying for Wall Street by Phil Gramm -the Republican Senator from Texas and the economic advisor for John McCain - and Robert Rubin in the Clinton administration were the guiding forces for the repeal of the act. This repeal became law when it received President Clinton?s assent in 1999. In 2000 another nail was driven in the regulatory coffin when Gramm introduced the Commodity Futures Modernisation Act, which excluded the scrutiny of counter derivatives, credit derivatives, credit defaults, and swaps, by regulatory agencies. Many economists hold the view that the repeal of the Glass ?Steagal Act was instrumental in causing the 2007 subprime mortgage crisis. The crucial point is to note that Wall Street enjoyed the support of both the Republicans and the Democrats for the repeal of the act. Even today both the presidential candidates Obama and McCain receive campaign money from Wall Street bankers and executives. This prompted Ralph Nader, the consumer activist, to acidly comment that there are no significant differences between Democrats and Republicans on major issues pertaining to Wall Street. A flawed business model The reward system is skewed in favour of brokers who make money for their Wall Street employer and not how well the client portfolios perform. As Pam Martens, an insider of Wall Street, says ?A Wall Street broker receives remuneration that rises from approximately 30 to 50 per cent of the gross commission based on their cumulative trading commissions with zero regard to how well the clients? accounts have done.? This attitude is responsible in her words for ? the industry to be irreconcilably incentivized to corruption just as brokers have been socialized to silence.? This is on account of the fact that the broker receives more commission on investing junk bonds in client portfolios rather than investing in safe treasuries. The other questionable practice is housing a trading desk inside the same company that is supposed to give unbiased research to the public. As Pam Martens points out ?For example, let?s say that XYZ Brokerage buys a big stake in ABC Company on its proprietary trading desk (the desk that trades for profits for the firm) on Wednesday afternoon. On Thursday afternoon, it could almost guarantee profits for itself by issuing a research report upgrading the stock. Conversely, it could short the stock on Wednesday and issue a negative report to drive down the price on Thursday, also guaranteeing itself a profit. Other than a fictional Chinese Wall, there is absolutely nothing to stop this type of public looting.?3 Perils of a casino economy While greed, corruption, and an excessively deregulated financial market offer interesting explanations about the systemic collapse of Wall Street, they remain unsatisfactory as they not explain or explore the deeper malaise afflicting the US economy. For a rigorous and conceptually sound analysis, one must turn to the series of extraordinary essays written by Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy in Monthly Review during 1970 and 1980?s. The main thrust of the articles was to show that the general economic tendency of mature capitalism is toward stagnation. The main challenge of capitalist economy is surplus capital, which has diminishing opportunities for profitable investment. Deploying investment in the mature productive economy yields fewer returns as the markets are saturated. A number of strategies such as military spending, government spending, consumer spending, exploitation of third world economies as sources of cheap labour, raw materials and markets are used to counter stagnation in capitalist economies but do not resolve the problem of stagnation. As the authors point out ?The tendency to stagnation is inherent in the system, deeply rooted and in continuous operation. The counter-tendencies, on the other hand, are varied, intermittent, and (most important), self-limiting.?4 The problem of surplus capital finding suitable avenues for profitable return is sometimes solved by key inventions and technologies, which provide economic stimuli. The invention of automobile in the ?early twentieth century led eventually to huge developments that transformed the U.S. economy, even aside from the mass ownership of automobiles: the building of an extensive system of roads, bridges, and tunnels; the need for a network of gas stations, restaurants, automotive parts and repair shops; the efficient and inexpensive movement of goods from any location to any other location.? But the new information technologies such as computers, software, and the Internet do not appear to provide the same epoch making long-term economic stimuli as automobiles did.5 In the productive economy, money is used to purchase raw materials, machines, and labour to produce commodities, which are sold, with the capitalist receiving back money (M-C-M). While in speculation, money makes more money directly, represented as M?M. A significant change in the way banks and financial institutions operate today as opposed to the past lies in the fact that the massive borrowed money goes into speculative finance and very little is invested in the productive economy. There is practically no stimulatory effect on the economy as there are few jobs created as there are relatively fewer people employed in the speculative economy. The profits generated by speculation are rarely invested in factories or the service sector but finds its way for financing more risky financial schemes creating speculative bubbles. This sorry state of affairs is evident when one examines the failed financial institutions of Wall Street. One common denominator linking these institutions is that all were under capitalised and over leveraged. As Mike Whitney points out ?when Bear Stearns went down, it was levered at a ratio of 26 to 1. When Carlyle capital blew up, it was levered at 32 to 1. And when Fannie and Freddie were finally taken over by the US Treasury; the two behemoths were levered at 80 to 1, which is to say that they had a one dollar cushion for every $80 they had loaned out.? With huge quantity of money sloshing around the world and being invested into financial speculation there has been an explosion of speculation. One mind-boggling figure is ?the daily trading on the world currency markets, which has gone from $18 billion a day in 1977, to the current average of $1.8 trillion a day! That means that every twenty-four days the dollar volume of currency trading equals the entire world?s annual GDP!? Moreover, ?Today financial analysts frequently pretend that finance can levitate forever at higher and higher levels independently of the underlying productive economy. Stock markets and currency trading (betting that one nation?s currency will change relative to another) have become little more than giant casinos where the number and values of transactions have increased far out of proportion to the underlying economy.?6 This flight of investment from the productive economy to the casino economy is made worse by the availability of easy credit to persons who are least credit worthy. Many Americans who had little financial stability to buy houses took on mortgages, which were attractive on the face of it but carried a heavy debt burden. As real wages declined for the American household, it took on more debts for meeting the consumption needs. Total household debt stood at the end of March 2006 at 11.8 trillion. Prudence in lending money to credit worthy persons was thrown to the winds as the banks encouraged people to borrow more and spend more. As the report in Wall Street Journal says ?The banks are more aggressive because they rarely keep the loans they make. Instead, they sell them to others, who then repackage, or securitize, the loans and sell them to investors in exotic-sounding vehicles, such as CLOs, or collateralized-loan obligations. Every week brings announcements of billions of dollars in new CLOs, created by traditional money-management and hedge funds, which then sell them to other investors.?7 The toxic power of optimism The belief in alchemy led mankind in the futile quest of converting base metal into gold. The bankers and traders in Wall Street were the practitioners of the alchemy of finance, which was the elusive quest of converting junk bonds into real wealth. There was an incorrigible optimism and conviction that ordinary people were meant to be rich. There was also goodwill for the captains of finance whose investment schemes were magic wands to transport investors to prosperity. Such a feeling of trust, as Galbraith reminds us, is essential for the boom. The media played its role by lulling us into a false feeling of comfort by assuring that the fundamentals of the economy was strong and invincible. Critical views were suppressed in debates as the effusions of malcontents. A financial disaster was merely technical correction and there was more money to be made in depressed stock prices. As the financial pillars collapsed in Wall Street last month, a pie hit the glum faces of the financial analysts. The malcontents were right. As Galbraith again reminds us wisely-?when people are cautious, questioning, misanthropic, suspicious, or mean, they are immune to speculative enthusiasms.?8 In the aftermath of the melt down, the sceptics were rehabilitated quickly and became instant celebrities on talk shows. They taught us an important lesson, which the financier Bernard Baruch learned during the Great Depression: ? Any one taken as a individual is tolerable sensible and reasonable- as a member of a crowd, he at once becomes a blockhead.? Plus ?a change, plus c'est la m?me chose. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 09:18:34 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:18:34 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Community Reinvestment Act at fault -- NOT Message-ID: <48EC970C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Community Reinvestment Act at fault -- NOT From: Slate Magazine / moneybox Subprime Suspects The right blames the credit crisis on poor minority homeowners. This is not merely offensive, but entirely wrong. By Daniel Gross Posted Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008, at 2:08 PM ET We've now entered a new stage of the financial crisis: the ritual assigning of blame. It began in earnest with Monday's congressional roasting of Lehman Bros. CEO Richard Fuld and continued on Tuesday with Capitol Hill solons delving into the failure of AIG. On the Republican side of Congress, in the right-wing financial media (which is to say the financial media), and in certain parts of the op-ed-o-sphere, there's a consensus emerging that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the failed mortgage giants, and the Community Reinvestment Act, a law passed during the Carter administration. The CRA, which was amended in the 1990s and this decade, requires banks-which had a long, distinguished history of not making loans to minorities-to make more efforts to do so. The thesis is laid out almost daily on the Wall Street Journal editorial page, in the National Review, and on the campaign trail. John McCain said yesterday, "Bad mortgages were being backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and it was only a matter of time before a contagion of unsustainable debt began to spread." Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer provides an excellent example, writing that "much of this crisis was brought upon us by the good intentions of good people." He continues: "For decades, starting with Jimmy Carter's Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, there has been bipartisan agreement to use government power to expand homeownership to people who had been shut out for economic reasons or, sometimes, because of racial and ethnic discrimination. What could be a more worthy cause? But it led to tremendous pressure on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-which in turn pressured banks and other lenders-to extend mortgages to people who were borrowing over their heads. That's called subprime lending. It lies at the root of our current calamity." The subtext: If only Congress didn't force banks to lend money to poor minorities, the Dow would be well on its way to 36,000. Or, as Fox Business Channel's Neil Cavuto put it, "I don't remember a clarion call that said: Fannie and Freddie are a disaster. Loaning to minorities and risky folks is a disaster." Let me get this straight. Investment banks and insurance companies run by centimillionaires blow up, and it's the fault of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and poor minorities? These arguments are generally made by people who read the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and ignore the rest of the paper-economic know-nothings whose opinions are informed mostly by ideology and, occasionally, by prejudice. Let's be honest. Fannie and Freddie, which didn't make subprime loans but did buy subprime loans made by others, were part of the problem. Poor Congressional oversight was part of the problem. Banks that sought to meet CRA requirements by indiscriminately doling out loans to minorities may have been part of the problem. But none of these issues is the cause of the problem. Not by a long shot. From the beginning, subprime has been a symptom, not a cause. And the notion that the Community Reinvestment Act is somehow responsible for poor lending decisions is absurd. Here's why. The Community Reinvestment Act applies to depository banks. But many of the institutions that spurred the massive growth of the subprime market weren't regulated banks. They were outfits such as Argent and American Home Mortgage, which were generally not regulated by the Federal Reserve or other entities that monitored compliance with CRA. These institutions worked hand in glove with Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, entities to which the CRA likewise didn't apply. There's much more. As Barry Ritholtz notes in this fine rant, the CRA didn't force mortgage companies to offer loans for no money down, or to throw underwriting standards out the window, or to encourage mortgage brokers to aggressively seek out new markets. Nor did the CRA force the credit-rating agencies to slap high-grade ratings on packages of subprime debt. Second, many of the biggest flameouts in real estate have had nothing to do with subprime lending. WCI Communities, builder of highly amenitized condos in Florida (no subprime purchasers welcome there), filed for bankruptcy in August. Very few of the tens of thousands of now-surplus condominiums in Miami were conceived to be marketed to subprime borrowers, or minorities-unless you count rich Venezuelans and Colombians as minorities. The multiyear plague that has been documented in brilliant detail at IrvineHousingBlog is playing out in one of the least-subprime housing markets in the nation. Third, lending money to poor people and minorities isn't inherently risky. There's plenty of evidence that in fact it's not that risky at all. That's what we've learned from several decades of microlending programs, at home and abroad, with their very high repayment rates. And as the New York Times recently reported, Nehemiah Homes, a long-running initiative to build homes and sell them to the working poor in subprime areas of New York's outer boroughs, has a repayment rate that lenders in Greenwich, Conn., would envy. In 27 years, there have been fewer than 10 defaults on the project's 3,900 homes. That's a rate of 0.25 percent. On the other hand, lending money recklessly to obscenely rich white guys, such as Richard Fuld of Lehman Bros. or Jimmy Cayne of Bear Stearns, can be really risky. In fact, it's even more risky, since they have a lot more borrowing capacity. And here, again, it's difficult to imagine how Jimmy Carter could be responsible for the supremely poor decision-making seen in the financial system. I await the Krauthammer column in which he points out the specific provision of the Community Reinvestment Act that forced Bear Stearns to run with an absurd leverage ratio of 33 to 1, which instructed Bear Stearns hedge-fund managers to blow up hundreds of millions of their clients' money, and that required its septuagenarian CEO to play bridge while his company ran into trouble. Perhaps Neil Cavuto knows which CRA clause required Lehman Bros. to borrow hundreds of billions of dollars in short-term debt in the capital markets and then buy tens of billions of dollars of commercial real estate at the top of the market. I can't find it. Did AIG plunge into the credit-default-swaps business with abandon because Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now members picketed its offices? Please. How about the hundreds of billions of dollars of leveraged loans-loans banks committed to private-equity firms that wanted to conduct leveraged buyouts of retailers, restaurant companies, and industrial firms? Many of those are going bad now, too. Is that Bill Clinton's fault? Look: There was a culture of stupid, reckless lending, of which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the subprime lenders were an integral part. But the dumb-lending virus originated in Greenwich, Conn., midtown Manhattan, and Southern California, not Eastchester, Brownsville, and Washington, D.C. Investment banks created a demand for subprime loans because they saw it as a new asset class that they could dominate. They made subprime loans for the same reason they made other loans: They could get paid for making the loans, for turning them into securities, and for trading them-frequently using borrowed capital. At Monday's hearing, Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., gamely tried to pin Lehman's demise on Fannie and Freddie. After comparing Lehman's small political contributions with Fannie and Freddie's much larger ones, Mica asked Fuld what role Fannie and Freddie's failure played in Lehman's demise. Fuld's response: "De minimis." Lending money to poor people doesn't make you poor. Lending money poorly to rich people does. Daniel Gross is the Moneybox columnist for Slate and the business columnist for Newsweek. You can e-mail him at moneybox at xxxxxxxxxx He is the author of Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy. [are they?? He may have changed his views in light of recent events.] Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2201641/ Copyright 2008 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 09:24:12 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:24:12 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Community Reinvestment Act at fault -- NOT Message-ID: <48EC985D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> there's a somewhat deeper issue here; while blaming the CRA is clearly asinine talking points, in my opinion, the whole project of looking for micro explanations of what was clearly a macro phenomenon is screwed. If you run a current account deficit then (by accounting identity), domestic consumption/investment is growing faster than domestic saving. If domestic consumption/investment is growing faster than domestic saving, then, in nearly any normal situation in the financial sector, banking sector loans will grow faster than banking sector deposits. The financial sector intermediates the current account deficit - that's a large part of its purpose in a globalised financial sector. If you run such a situation in large size and for a prolonged period, banking sector loans will exceed banking sector deposits by a very great amount, and the banking sector will have large balances relative to GDP which are funded on global wholesale markets. Thus far, we've basically established it all via accounting identities or very obvious behavioural equations. The question now is whether you close the model by taking banking sector behaviour as exogenous and saying that the current account deficit is the residual (the result of the banks' decision to expand lending), or whether you close the model by taking the current account as exogenous and saying that the loan and deposit growth is the residual (ie that the debt buildup is the result of the current account deficit). Frankly, it's much more in the tradition of mainstream economics to say that the banking sector is the residual and the model should be closed by looking at the causes of the current account deficit (basically, tax cuts and war). I'm quite surprised that so many people have decided on a very non-standard, somewhat post-Keynesian closure of the model where the decisions of the banking sector drove the whole shebang and shooting match. None of which is to excuse particular individual decisions on lending and structuring, btw; just to say that these are equivalent to the no doubt obvious fact that many of those made unemployed during the Depression were the lazier and less productive workers - that is, it's probably true, but it's missing the point as to why there were so many unemployed. best dd This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From farmelantj at juno.com Wed Oct 8 09:38:58 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 15:38:58 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher Message-ID: <20081008.113858.16721.0@webmail24.vgs.untd.com> I believe that it was CeJ who when detailing Sartre's Stalinist politics, asserted that he supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. But everything I have seen about Sartre's politics indicates that the opposite was the case. That is, he denounced the Soviet invasion of Hungary. In fact, that was one of the first times in the 1950s, where he found himself at loogerheads with the PCF. Within a few years, he was at odds with them again, because of their foot dragging over supporting the Algerian independence struggle, which Sartre avidly and courageously supported, at a time when that was not very popular in France, even on the left. Jim F. -- "Charles Brown" wrote: Ralph Dumain What a useless piece of shit Badiou is. His politics are even more worthless than his philosophy. As for Sartre, there are others on the anti-Stalinist left who bear a grudge against him for his erstwhile apologetics for the Communist Party. Some might wonder what he was doing with Maoist students. As for Sartre's philosophy, the philosophy he is known for seems to me a failure. I think one would have to read Critique of Dialectical Reason in search of a lasting contribution. ^^^^^ CB: Funny, this reminds of the old Marx/Engels rule of intellectual thumb: Marxism as French politics, British political economy and German philosophy. Sartre, French, has good politics , but not so good philosophy. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ____________________________________________________________ Seeking a career in Web Design? Find a school near you. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3oHUEfg1Thcd9GpuWO02PGldZ6phD7cxF7b5GpCeoMovrmy1/ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 09:56:21 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:56:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner In-Reply-To: <48EC91CD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48EC891D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> <1EFA31AF-7B0C-4D7B-8DF0-EE6D2BF89BA0@panix.com> <48EC91CD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <48EC9FE6.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Also, I forgot to mention that best to bog down US military in Afghanistan so the forces there can't be redeployed to Venezuela and Bolivia. CB >>> "Charles Brown" 10/08/2008 10:56 AM >>> >>> Doug Henwood > No, the distinct characteristic of Obama's position is that he > proposes a definite "timetable" for withdrawal as opposed to an > indefinite one or "eventually." Yeah, and he explicitly wants to take the troops withdrawn from Iraq and send them to Afghanistan. Surely you've noticed that. Doug ^^^^ CB: Surely since you don't allow "conspiracy theories" of 9/11, it is your position that Bin Laden's group did 9/11. Is it your position that Bin Laden's group did 9/11, but the US shan't attack Bin Laden's group ? Given the premise that Bin Laden's group attacked the US on 9/11, I don't know of a legal argument against the US military counterattacking that group. Bin Laden's group is sort of unique in modern US imperialist history. No other "Third World" country or group has actually attacked the US, contrary to US lying propaganda about protecting American "freedom" through wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, Afghanistan-ante (!), etc. Iraq was the opposite. The attack there by the US violates the UN Convention against Crimes Against Peace. As far as imperialism, I don't really think the US wants to set up a colony or neo-colony in Afghanistan. There's not much to exploit there. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 09:58:32 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 11:58:32 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher In-Reply-To: <20081008.113858.16721.0@webmail24.vgs.untd.com> References: <20081008.113858.16721.0@webmail24.vgs.untd.com> Message-ID: <48ECA06A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> I believe that it was CeJ who when detailing Sartre's Stalinist politics, asserted that he supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. But everything I have seen about Sartre's politics indicates that the opposite was the case. That is, he denounced the Soviet invasion of Hungary. In fact, that was one of the first times in the 1950s, where he found himself at loogerheads with the PCF. Within a few years, he was at odds with them again, because of their foot dragging over supporting the Algerian independence struggle, which Sartre avidly and courageously supported, at a time when that was not very popular in France, even on the left. Jim F. ^^^^ CB: That's my understanding of the history. Sartre had better positions than the PCF on French colonialism in Algeria (!), making them real good positions. ^^^^ -- "Charles Brown" wrote: Ralph Dumain What a useless piece of shit Badiou is. His politics are even more worthless than his philosophy. As for Sartre, there are others on the anti-Stalinist left who bear a grudge against him for his erstwhile apologetics for the Communist Party. Some might wonder what he was doing with Maoist students. As for Sartre's philosophy, the philosophy he is known for seems to me a failure. I think one would have to read Critique of Dialectical Reason in search of a lasting contribution. ^^^^^ CB: Funny, this reminds of the old Marx/Engels rule of intellectual thumb: Marxism as French politics, British political economy and German philosophy. Sartre, French, has good politics , but not so good philosophy. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ____________________________________________________________ Seeking a career in Web Design? Find a school near you. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3oHUEfg1Thcd9GpuWO02PGldZ6phD7cxF7b5GpCeoMovrmy1/ _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 10:19:06 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:19:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Community R Act Message-ID: <48ECA53C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Isn't singling out the CRA and its mid-90s amendment just another example of selective right-wing demonization? One might just as easily point to the Garn-St. Germain Act of 1982 which deregulated - and annihilated - the S&Ls and further integrated local real estate financing into the global captial markets. Or to the 1968 Congressional legislation that split the FNMA into two entities, and created the GNMA which did much to ramp up the secondary mortgage market, along with the creation of the FHLMC in 1970. Or for that matter, the creation of the FHLB in 1932 or the FHA in 1934. The nauseating line being spewed by right-wing scum on their websites and through their medida organs is the rawest, racist bile and represents a new low, even the proponents of such nonsense. Although . . . . I have to admint that the thought that while no one was paying any attention the wretched of the Earth managed to pull the plug on the Empire of Capital, if only temporarily, is as heartwarming and hopeful as any I've had since the end of the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, it's not true. (by MR) > > This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 10:47:20 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:47:20 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] communism mailing list In-Reply-To: References: <48E602E0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> <000101c92667$4c44e400$e4ceac00$@net><000101c92667$4c44e400$e4ceac00$@net> (rasherrs@eircom.net) Message-ID: <48ECABD9.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Thanks >>> ehrbar 10/04/2008 5:53 PM >>> There is no danger that I will close down marxism-thaxis. Hans. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 11:11:47 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:11:47 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Sarah Palin lowered the standards for female candidates and political discourse | Message-ID: <48ECB195.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Michelle Goldberg: Sarah Palin lowered the standards for female candidates and political discourse | Flirting her way to victory Sarah Palin's farcical debate performance lowered the standards for both female candidates and US political discourse Michelle Goldberg guardian.co.uk, Friday October 03 2008 18:30 BST Sarah Palin winks during the vice-presidential debate on Thursday in St Louis, Missouri. Photograph: J Scott Applewhite/AP At least three times last night, Sarah Palin, the adorable, preposterous vice-presidential candidate, winked at the audience. Had a male candidate with a similar reputation for attractive vapidity made such a brazen attempt to flirt his way into the good graces of the voting public, it would have universally noted, discussed and mocked. Palin, however, has single-handedly so lowered the standards both for female candidates and American political discourse that, with her newfound ability to speak in more-or-less full sentences, she is now deemed to have performed acceptably last night. By any normal standard, including the ones applied to male presidential candidates of either party, she did not. Early on, she made the astonishing announcement that she had no intentions of actually answering the queries put to her. "I may not answer the questions that either the moderator or you want to hear, but I'm going to talk straight to the American people and let them know my track record also," she said. And so she preceded, with an almost surreal disregard for the subjects she was supposed to be discussing, to unleash fusillades of scripted attack lines, platitudes, lies, gibberish and grating references to her own pseudo-folksy authenticity. It was an appalling display. The only reason it was not widely described as such is that too many American pundits don't even try to judge the truth, wisdom or reasonableness of the political rhetoric they are paid to pronounce upon. Instead, they imagine themselves as interpreters of a mythical mass of "average Americans" who they both venerate and despise. In pronouncing upon a debate, they don't try and determine whether a candidate's responses correspond to existing reality, or whether he or she is capable of talking about subjects such as the deregulation of the financial markets or the devolution of the war in Afghanistan. The criteria are far more vaporous. In this case, it was whether Palin could avoid utterly humiliating herself for 90 minutes, and whether urbane commentators would believe that she had connected to a public that they see as ignorant and sentimental. For the Alaska governor, mission accomplished. There is indeed something mesmerising about Palin, with her manic beaming and fulsome confidence in her own charm. The force of her personality managed to slightly obscure the insulting emptiness of her answers last night. It's worth reading the transcript of the encounter, where it becomes clearer how bizarre much of what she said was. Here, for example, is how she responded to Biden's comments about how the middle class has been short-changed during the Bush administration, and how McCain will continue Bush's policies: Say it ain't so, Joe, there you go again pointing backwards again. You preferenced [sic] your whole comment with the Bush administration. Now doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future. You mentioned education, and I'm glad you did. I know education you are passionate about with your wife being a teacher for 30 years, and god bless her. Her reward is in heaven, right? ... My brother, who I think is the best schoolteacher in the year, and here's a shout-out to all those third graders at Gladys Wood Elementary School, you get extra credit for watching the debate. Evidently, Palin's pre-debate handlers judged her incapable of speaking on a fairly wide range of subjects, and so instructed to her to simply disregard questions that did not invite memorised talking points or cutesy filibustering. They probably told her to play up her spunky average-ness, which she did to the point of shtick - and dishonesty. Asked what her achilles heel is - a question she either didn't understand or chose to ignore - she started in on how McCain chose her because of her "connection to the heartland of America. Being a mom, one very concerned about a son in the war, about a special needs child, about kids heading off to college, how are we going to pay those tuition bills?" None of Palin's children, it should be noted, is heading off to college. Her son is on the way to Iraq, and her pregnant 17-year-old daughter is engaged to be married to a high-school dropout and self-described "fuckin' redneck". Palin is a woman who can't even tell the truth about the most quotidian and public details of her own life, never mind about matters of major public import. In her only vice-presidential debate, she was shallow, mendacious and phoney. What kind of maverick, after all, keeps harping on what a maverick she is? That her performance was considered anything but a farce doesn't show how high Palin has risen, but how low we all have sunk. All comments (72) This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com Wed Oct 8 12:19:58 2008 From: andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com (andie nachgeborenen) Date: Wed, 8 Oct 2008 11:19:58 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner In-Reply-To: <48EC91CD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <596362.4024.qm@web50405.mail.re2.yahoo.com> I have no intention of defending BHO's idea of taking the "war on terror" of Afghanistan and, if he deems it necessary, to Pakistan. I'm a knee-jerk, US Out Of _______ anti-interventionist, and even if I were not, the Afghan war is even more lost than the Iraq war, if possible. I think the departing Brit commander acknowledged as much the other day. No one has conquered Afghanistan since Alexander the Great -- a point actually made, astonishingly enough, by McCain in the first debate, who didn't seem to appreciate its force. Mostly that didn't stick when the troops left whatever town they had just taken, although the Afghans, or many of them, paid "tribute," er, blackmail to Alexander while he lived, fortunately for them, not long. To the extent that Alexander's Afghan conquest stuck beyond that it did because he married a Bactrian (Afghan, we'd now say) princess, or chieftain's daughter, Roxanne. I don't think that Michelle Obama would approve of that solution (Roxanne is among other things, suspected of poisoning Alexanders first, Persian wife, Darius; daughter); and unlike today, polygamy was both legal and popular in Alexander's time and constituencies. Be that as it may, what BHO actually says should be noted. He says he wants to send two more brigades" of new troops into Afghanistan. This would be a fairly significant escalation of the war. NATO has about 43,000 personnel (mostly noncombat, ratio these days is roughly 10:1) in Afghanistan, 26,000 of which are US. A US military brigade comprises 1,500 to 4,000 personnel, so this could mean as many as 8,000 new us troops, or a roughly 15% increase in the total number of NATO troops, an increase by a third of the number of US troops. But as a practical matter that is a drop in the bucket. It will not make any military difference whatsoever in a country where the Taliban and the warlords own everything outside three or four major cities. Now BHO is a very smart guy who has highly competent military advice. He has to know this escalation won't do a damn thing militarily, and it's not even significant as an escalation compared to the withdrawal of 140,000 troops (plus, one presumes, a roughly equal number of contractor/mercenaries) from Iraq, even if BHO were to leave a residual force behind. The BHO Afghan escalation proposal, like the threat to go after bin Ladin in Pakistan without asking if they find him (ha!) and the Pakistantis are unable or unwilling to "take him out," is purely for domestic consumption. It is meant to show a US audience that Democrats can be as aggressive and militaristic as Republicans, and to justify withdrawal from Iraq in the context of BHO's suggestion that that is the "wrong" war. It's a play for the US political middle. That doesn't make BHO a wonderful guy and an ideal candidate of the left, although ending the Iraq war would be a real improvement from any sane political perspective. Apart from the young men and women the proposed Afghan escalation would put in harms way and those near them, and the extra Afghan civilians who will be killed by some of those troops, the Afghan idea is not a major military change. What is really scary, though, and what no one I have heard discuss has remarked, is that both candidates, including BHO, want to get the former Soviet Republics, including Ukraine, into NATO. For people -- both McCain and BHO -- who sday they don't want to start a new cold war, that is a pretty strange way to go about it, because that is exactly what surrounding Russia with NATO countries, some of which used to be sister Republics and share extended borders with Russia, would do. I do trust that the Russians will continue to be stable and cool-headed and not start shooting, but they will reignite the arms race, and we, of course, will "have" to respond, and we will back in the pre-perestroika era with the great power politics of the 19th century. That will be extremely expensive for countries that, like us, can't afford it, and extremely dangerous in terms is raising the geopolitical military temperature fought, if people are sane about it, through proxy wars. One doesn't really want top have to start thinking (again)( aboout what it means if they are not sane. --- On Wed, 10/8/08, Charles Brown wrote: > From: Charles Brown > Subject: Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner > To: "Forum for the discussion of theoretical issues raised by Karl Marx and thethinkers he inspired" > Date: Wednesday, October 8, 2008, 9:56 AM > >>> Doug Henwood > > > > No, the distinct characteristic of Obama's > position is that he > > proposes a definite "timetable" for > withdrawal as opposed to an > > indefinite one or "eventually." > > Yeah, and he explicitly wants to take the troops withdrawn > from Iraq > and send them to Afghanistan. Surely you've noticed > that. > > Doug > > ^^^^ > CB: Surely since you don't allow "conspiracy > theories" of 9/11, it is > your position that Bin Laden's group did 9/11. Is it > your position > that Bin Laden's group did 9/11, but the US shan't > attack Bin Laden's > group ? Given the premise that Bin Laden's group > attacked the US on > 9/11, I don't know of a legal argument against the US > military > counterattacking that group. Bin Laden's group is sort > of unique in > modern US imperialist history. No other "Third > World" country or group > has actually attacked the US, contrary to US lying > propaganda about > protecting American "freedom" through wars in > Korea, Viet Nam, > Nicaragua, Afghanistan-ante (!), etc. > > Iraq was the opposite. The attack there by the US violates > the UN > Convention against Crimes Against Peace. > > As far as imperialism, I don't really think the US > wants to set up a > colony or neo-colony in Afghanistan. There's not much > to exploit > there. > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis > > > This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl > plc. www.surfcontrol.com > > _______________________________________________ > Marxism-Thaxis mailing list > Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu > To change your options or unsubscribe go to: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 15:01:14 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:01:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Maverick Message-ID: <48ECE75D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Maverick A maverick is an unbranded range animal, especially a motherless calf; it can also mean a person who thinks independently; a lone dissenter; a non-conformist or rebel. People Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803?1870), Texas cattleman from whom the term maverick originated Samuel Maverick (colonist) (1602?1670), English colonist in Massachusetts Maury Maverick (1895?1954), US congressman from Texas, coined the word "gobbledygook" Maury Maverick, Jr. (1921?2003), Texas politician, activist and columnist Maverick Matt, ring name of Matt Bentley, American professional wrestler Organizations and products Maverick (chocolate), a discontinued chocolate bar manufactured by Nestle in the UK Maverick (magazine), a South African business magazine Maverick (entertainment company), an American entertainment company with several divisions: Maverick Records, a record label Maverick Films, a film production company Maverik Lacrosse, a lacrosse equipment and apparel company, based in Mineola, New York Ford Maverick, the name of 4 different automobiles made by the Ford Motor Company Maverick (cigarette), made by the Lorillard Tobacco Company Maverick REV-6, a Nerf gun in the N-Strike series Sports Dallas Mavericks, an NBA basketball team from Dallas, Texas, US Mid-Missouri Mavericks, a minor league baseball team from Columbia, Missouri, US Mavericks, the mascot of Mesa State College in Colorado, US Mavericks, the mascot of University of Texas at Arlington in Texas, US Mavericks, the mascot of Minnesota State University, Mankato in Minnesota, US Mavericks, the mascot of University of Nebraska, Omaha, US Film and television Maverick (TV series), an American television series from 1957?1962, set in the American Old West starring James Garner and Jack Kelly Maverick (film), a 1994 film based on the television series, starring Mel Gibson, Jodie Foster, and James Garner Maverick, the callsign of the main character in the film Top Gun, played by Tom Cruise Places Maverick (MBTA station), a subway station in Boston, Massachusetts, US Mavericks (location), a famous surfing location in Northern California, US Maverick County, Texas, US Music Maverick (album), by George Thorogood The Mavericks, a country music band Computers MaverickCrunch, a floating point math coprocessor by Cirrus Logic for ARM architectures Maverick Framework, an MVC framework for Java Other uses Maverick (book), an autobiography of Ricardo Semler's Brazilian company Maverick (comics), or David North, a character in Marvel Comics Maverick (roller coaster), at Cedar Point amusement park Maverick (Mega Man), characters in the Mega Man X video game series AGM-65 Maverick, a guided air-to-surface missile This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 8 15:20:56 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 08 Oct 2008 17:20:56 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Moral hazard Message-ID: <48ECEBFA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Moral hazard Moral hazard is the prospect that a party insulated from risk ( e.g. by a bailout-CB) may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not bear the full consequences of its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it otherwise would, leaving another party to bear some responsibility for the consequences of those actions. For example, an individual with insurance against automobile theft may be less vigilant about locking his or her car, because the negative consequences of automobile theft are (partially) borne by the insurance company. Moral hazard is related to information asymmetry, a situation in which one party in a transaction has more information than another. The party that is insulated from risk generally has more information about its actions and intentions than the party paying for the negative consequences of the risk. More broadly, moral hazard occurs when the party with more information about its actions or intentions has a tendency or incentive to behave inappropriately from the perspective of the party with less information. A special case of moral hazard is called a principal-agent problem, where one party, called an agent, acts on behalf of another party, called the principal. The agent usually has more information about his or her actions or intentions than the principal does, because the principal usually cannot perfectly monitor the agent. The agent may have an incentive to act inappropriately (from the viewpoint of the principal) if the interests of the agent and the principal are not aligned. Contents [hide] 1 In finance 2 In insurance 3 In management 4 History of the term 5 See also 6 References 7 External links [edit] In finance Financial bail-outs of lending institutions by governments, central banks or other institutions can encourage risky lending in the future, if those that take the risks come to believe that they will not have to carry the full burden of losses. Lending institutions need to take risks by making loans, and usually the most risky loans have the potential for making the highest return. A moral hazard arises if lending institutions believe that they can make risky loans that will pay handsomely if the investment turns out well but they will not have to fully pay for losses if the investment turns out badly. Taxpayers, depositors, and other creditors have often had to shoulder at least part of the burden of risky financial decisions made by lending institutions.[1] Moral hazard can also occur with borrowers. Borrowers may not act prudently (in the view of the lender) when they invest or spend funds recklessly. For example, credit card companies often limit the amount borrowers can spend using their cards, because without such limits those borrowers may spend borrowed funds recklessly, leading to default. Some believe that mortgage standards became lax because of a moral hazard?in which each link in the mortgage chain collected profits while believing it was passing on risk?and that this substantially contributed to the 2007?2008 subprime mortgage financial crisis.[2] Brokers, who were not lending their own money, pushed risk onto the lenders. Lenders, who sold mortgages soon after underwriting them, pushed risk onto investors. Investment banks bought mortgages and chopped up mortgage-backed securities into slices, some riskier than others. Investors bought securities and hedged against the risk of default and prepayment, pushing those risks further along. [edit] In insurance In insurance markets, moral hazard occurs when the behavior of the insured party changes in a way that raises costs for the insurer, since the insured party no longer bears the full costs of that behavior. Two types of behavior can change. One type is the risky behavior itself, resulting in what is called ex ante moral hazard. In this case, insured parties behave in a more risky manner, resulting in more negative consequences that the insurer must pay for. For example, after purchasing automobile insurance, some may tend to be less careful about locking the automobile or choose to drive more, thereby increasing the risk of theft or an accident for the insurer. After purchasing fire insurance, some may tend to be less careful about preventing fires (say, by smoking in bed or neglecting to replace the batteries in fire alarms). A second type of behavior that may change is the reaction to the negative consequences of risk, once they have occurred and once insurance is provided to cover their costs. This may be called ex post moral hazard. In this case, insured parties do not behave in a more risky manner that results in more negative consequences, but they do ask an insurer to pay for more of the negative consequences from risk as insurance coverage increases. For example, without medical insurance, some may forego medical treatment due to its costs and simply deal with substandard health. But after medical insurance becomes available, some may ask an insurance provider to pay for the cost of medical treatment that would not have occurred otherwise. Sometimes moral hazard is so severe that it makes insurance impossible. Sports players would like to insure against losing games, and students would like to be paid if their exams go poorly. But with insurance, players would play less hard (why risk injury?) and students would have a strong incentive to study less.[3] Deductibles, copayment, and coinsurance reduce the risk of moral hazard since the insured have a financial incentive to avoid making a claim. Moral hazard has been studied by insurers[4] and academics. See works by Kenneth Arrow[5][6][7], Tom Baker[8], and John Nyman. [edit] In management Moral hazard can occur when upper management is shielded from the consequences of poor decision making. This situation can occur under a number of circumstances: When a manager has a sinecure position from which he or she cannot be readily removed. When a manager is protected by someone higher in the corporate structure, such as in cases of nepotism or pet projects. When funding and/or managerial status for a project is independent of the project's success. When the failure of the project is of minimal overall consequence to the firm, regardless of the local impact on the managed division. When there is no clear means of determining who is accountable for a given project. The software development industry has specifically identified this kind of risky behavior as a management anti-pattern, but it can occur in any field. [edit] History of the term According to research by Dembe and Boden,[9] the term dates back to the 1600s, and was widely used by English insurance companies by the late 1800s. Early usage of the term carried negative connotations, implying fraud or immoral behavior (usually on the part of an insured party). Dembe and Boden point out, however, that prominent mathematicians studying decision making in the 1700s used "moral" to mean "subjective", which may cloud the true ethical significance in the term.[10] The concept of moral hazard was the subject of renewed study by economists in the 1960s, and at the time did not imply immoral behavior or fraud; rather, economists use the term to describe inefficiencies that can occur when risks are displaced, rather than on the ethics or morals of the involved parties. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 8 19:09:38 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 10:09:38 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher Message-ID: >>I believe that it was CeJ who when detailing Sartre's Stalinist politics, asserted that he supported the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. But everything I have seen about Sartre's politics indicates that the opposite was the case. That is, he denounced the Soviet invasion of Hungary. In fact, that was one of the first times in the 1950s, where he found himself at loogerheads with the PCF. Within a few years, he was at odds with them again, because of their foot dragging over supporting the Algerian independence struggle, which Sartre avidly and courageously supported, at a time when that was not very popular in France, even on the left.<< Not me. If I did, it must have been a typo with an omitted NOT or something. I may have posted a link to something that asserted that, but I don't remember it. That book about existentialism and Marxism (links to which I posted here) detailed that issue. I speculated on whether or not Sartre knew Althusser in the FCP in the 50s, long before the more famous debates of the 60s. I now speculate on whether or not he knew him through the old school ties, since Althusser was well set on a successful academic career (even before taking on for his own purposes the social scientific structuralism of Claude Levi Strauss. For example, Althusser's status as adviser, supervisor, mentor and friends of Foucault and Derrida were already established (and Sartre didn't have such relationships because, I would argue, he eschewed academia and the academic career). BTW, I admire Sartre's contributions to philosophy, social science and politics. And his relationships with Camus, De Beauvoir and Merleau Ponty have long fascinated me. I think JF you are thinking of someone else on another list, since you contribute on the philsophy of history on those lists while at the same time CB cross-posts from those very same lists to this list (for example this thread on the playboy philosopher, which seems to have sprung up already fully discussed somewhere else). CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 8 19:38:05 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 10:38:05 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama on Afghanistan and Iraq Withdrawal Message-ID: >>CB: No, the distinct characteristic of Obama's position is that he proposes a definite "timetable" for withdrawal as opposed to an indefinite one or "eventually." << Well timetables have been discussed 'concretely' since the invasion and occupation started. I believe they were the brainchild of the Iraqi Resistance (both Sunni and Sadrist). Even Dr. Dean picked up on the idea (however, unlike Obama, he failed to figure out how to crack the caucases -- YEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAW!). But Obama's concrete timetable turns out to be conditional, which opens up 'the eventual' for the DoD and CentCom, who have bet the farm on getting a self-sufficient, base complex in the ME (they have them in Europe, E. Asia, not SE Asia, not S. America, not Africa). The Gulf Arabs would support such a base complex (so long as it removes the US military from their countries)--it would boost their direct sales of fuel and help them to diversify their economies in the way the US military did in places like S. Korea, Japan and Taiwan (because of the huge amounts of procurements). The DoD's best hope for BO presidency: embrace him warmly as a one-term president whom they can outlast. By the time they get around to actually start withdrawing troops according to some timetable given to them (if that even happens), he will be running for a second term. Obama's timetable it turns out is conditional upon such ill-defined concepts as 'progress on the ground' and the 'ability of the Iraqis to take on the responsibilities of running their country' etc etc. He even wants Gates to stay and certify it. >>CB: Surely since you don't allow "conspiracy theories" of 9/11, it is your position that Bin Laden's group did 9/11. << Which is really just another conspiracy theory and a rather poorly explained one at that. The 'after the fact' video has OBL or his lookalike talking about gasoline and steelframe buildings, which means he didn't even watch the news coverage of the fate of the WTC because of its materials (and airplanes don't burn gasoline so far as I know). >> Is it your position that Bin Laden's group did 9/11, but the US shan't attack Bin Laden's group ? Given the premise that Bin Laden's group attacked the US on 9/11, I don't know of a legal argument against the US militarycounterattacking that group.<< It might help if we saw even one coherent criminal trial under constitutional law somewhere that links a conspirator of 9-11 to the larger group. >> Bin Laden's group is sort of unique in modern US imperialist history. No other "Third World" country or group has actually attacked the US, contrary to US lying propaganda about protecting American "freedom" through wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, Afghanistan-ante (!), etc.<< Singing the Marine Corps song, from the shores of Tripoli. There were the Barbary Coast pirates. And then there was the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. I pointed out Pancho Villa on Henwood's list and Carroll Cox then stole it from me. But being the unoriginal dumbass he is, Carroll Cox knew nothing about Pancho Villa's genuine revolutionary politics and actions and thought he was something like the greasy Frito Bandito. >>Iraq was the opposite. The attack there by the US violates the UN Convention against Crimes Against Peace.<< Well many actions the UN itself has taken violates the UN Convention. That is what happens when you have a hegemon like the US (and its evil mini-mes like Israel) throwing their weight around. But at any rate, so would some DoD-concocted causus belli vs. Pakistan in order to inflate the S. Asia occupation budgets of CentCom. >>As far as imperialism, I don't really think the US wants to set up a colony or neo-colony in Afghanistan. There's not much to exploit there.<< There are somethings to exploit there, it just isn't feasible, even on the arrogant, deceitful terms of the US's national security state. Karzai's only hope to get the US and NATO protection racket stabilized were the pipelines that were supposed to link C. Asia with the populous markets of S. Asia. That has fallen through because the US and NATO can't control enough of the countryside through which the pipelines must run. It has also fallen through because there weren't any players like Enron around to get the deals going--and we have seen the venture banks and private equity deals like that dry up--in fact, they dried up a couple years before the current set of multifaceted financial troubles in the news now. An airbase complex in Afghanistan would only make sense though as a somewhat minor complement to a major army base complex in Iraq. That is because Afghanistan is landlocked, and would only be good as a network of airbases that allows the US to extend its 'rapid deployment'--light infantry that flies bascially--to a part of the world that borders world and regional powers. Unless of course the US could successfully occupy Pakistan and get something going there. But a religiously and nationalistically inspired resistance with huge numbers of volunteers is most likely what they would get in Pakistan. And remember basic US military doctrine since Reagan: Never attack a country that can defend itself. Never come to the aid of an ally who can't. With the corollary: create crises and scenarios (such as difficult occupations) in order to lock in a budget that is at least 20% larger than the previous year's (while hiding away funds and militarizing other parts of the budget). CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 8 19:45:58 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 10:45:58 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama on Afghanistan and Iraq Withdrawal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>That has fallen through because the US and NATO can't control enough of the countryside through which the pipelines must run. It has also fallen through because there weren't any players like Enron around to get the deals going--and we have seen the venture banks and private equity deals like that dry up--in fact, they dried up a couple years before the current set of multifaceted financial troubles in the news now.<< It also seems to have fallen through because the US government worried it would benefit Russia or its C. Asia allies rather than the group of anti-Russian countries the US has been trying to cultivate. What's more, the Afghan occupation-light (the country actually got invaded and occupied with the 'forward positioned assets' the US, under Clinton, had been readying for regime change in Iraq) only succeeded because Iran, Russia and Pakistan cooperated. But the US wanted it both ways. It wanted to use its new holdings in the 'great game' against a resurgent Russia. Relations with Iran got worse once Ahmadinejad got elected (instead of a somewhat pro-US 'reformer'). And Pakistan went all awry because it turns out their puppet there had a weaker position than their puppet in Afghanistan. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 9 01:08:24 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 16:08:24 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: See: http://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/phil-rev/dunayev6.htm http://books.google.com/books?id=QtJWagYCAz0C http://books.google.com/books?id=QtJWagYCAz0C&pg=PA163&lpg=PA163&dq=sartre+hungary&source=web&ots=y7OLlsnz3I&sig=vACmv4x31eHEBTkgeuxrlrv1P8U&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 9 04:50:00 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 19:50:00 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>philsophy of history<< I meant history of philosophy. Forgive the inversion--and the typo. CJ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 9 07:51:22 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 09:51:22 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama on Afghanistan and Iraq Withdrawal In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48EDD41A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> CeJ 10/08/2008 9:38 PM >>> >>CB: No, the distinct characteristic of Obama's position is that he proposes a definite "timetable" for withdrawal as opposed to an indefinite one or "eventually." << Well timetables have been discussed 'concretely' since the invasion and occupation started. I believe they were the brainchild of the Iraqi Resistance (both Sunni and Sadrist). Even Dr. Dean picked up on the idea (however, unlike Obama, he failed to figure out how to crack the caucases -- YEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAW!). ^^^^^ I think Dean won the Iowa caucus or did well and then he said Yeeehaaaa, and the media made a really fake thing about his yelling and removed him from the running. ^^ But Obama's concrete timetable turns out to be conditional, which opens up 'the eventual' for the DoD and CentCom, who have bet the farm on getting a self-sufficient, base complex in the ME (they have them in Europe, E. Asia, not SE Asia, not S. America, not Africa). The Gulf Arabs would support such a base complex (so long as it removes the US military from their countries)--it would boost their direct sales of fuel and help them to diversify their economies in the way the US military did in places like S. Korea, Japan and Taiwan (because of the huge amounts of procurements). The DoD's best hope for BO presidency: embrace him warmly as a one-term president whom they can outlast. By the time they get around to actually start withdrawing troops according to some timetable given to them (if that even happens), he will be running for a second term. Obama's timetable it turns out is conditional upon such ill-defined concepts as 'progress on the ground' and the 'ability of the Iraqis to take on the responsibilities of running their country' etc etc. He even wants Gates to stay and certify it. >>CB: Surely since you don't allow "conspiracy theories" of 9/11, it is your position that Bin Laden's group did 9/11. << Which is really just another conspiracy theory and a rather poorly explained one at that. The 'after the fact' video has OBL or his lookalike talking about gasoline and steelframe buildings, which means he didn't even watch the news coverage of the fate of the WTC because of its materials (and airplanes don't burn gasoline so far as I know). ^^^^^ CB: Well, one way or the other, any talk about an alternative conspiracy theory for 9/11 has been rendered substantially inappropriate in mass discourse, like questioning the Warren Commission. A President has to proceed as if bin Laden's group did it. It's somewhere in between a mass murder crime and a "war" or skirmish between a state and a political grouplet. >> Is it your position that Bin Laden's group did 9/11, but the US shan't attack Bin Laden's group ? Given the premise that Bin Laden's group attacked the US on 9/11, I don't know of a legal argument against the US militarycounterattacking that group.<< It might help if we saw even one coherent criminal trial under constitutional law somewhere that links a conspirator of 9-11 to the larger group. ^^^^^ CB: The US has already treated it like a war by invading Afghanistan. Of course, that's very deeply twisted , because the Taliban are a cult coming out of the process in which Reagan and the US treated their "parent" groups as Freedom Fighters, heavily arming some really parochial reactionaries, genuinely backward groups , in the sense of arch-male supremacists. If they were confined to their indigenously developed weaponry, swords and the like, they might not be so uhh whatever, but with US modern weaponry they were real savages. Guns , germs and steel and all that. Didn't the British significantly influence the whole Saudi Arabian sect of Islam ? >> Bin Laden's group is sort of unique in modern US imperialist history. No other "Third World" country or group has actually attacked the US, contrary to US lying propaganda about protecting American "freedom" through wars in Korea, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, Afghanistan-ante (!), etc.<< Singing the Marine Corps song, from the shores of Tripoli. There were the Barbary Coast pirates. ^^^^ CB: They were in Barbary waters , no ? ^^^ And then there was the Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa. I pointed out Pancho Villa on Henwood's list and Carroll Cox then stole it from me. But being the unoriginal dumbass he is, Carroll Cox knew nothing about Pancho Villa's genuine revolutionary politics and actions and thought he was something like the greasy Frito Bandito. ^^^^ CB: Ayyeye yeye Companero Viva Pancho Villa ! Very good point, Of course, Texas, etc. were stolen from Mexico by the US, and that was before the origin of the "Third World". But I take your point. >>Iraq was the opposite. The attack there by the US violates the UN Convention against Crimes Against Peace.<< Well many actions the UN itself has taken violates the UN Convention. That is what happens when you have a hegemon like the US (and its evil mini-mes like Israel) throwing their weight around. But at any rate, so would some DoD-concocted causus belli vs. Pakistan in order to inflate the S. Asia occupation budgets of CentCom. ^^^^^ CB: Of course, Pakistan and the ISI are very complicit with the US in the creation of the heavily armed, counter-revolutionary gangs of "freedom" fighters in Afghanistan who resulted in the Taliban. And Pakistan has nuclear weapons. How could they get them without US approval and help ? >>As far as imperialism, I don't really think the US wants to set up a colony or neo-colony in Afghanistan. There's not much to exploit there.<< There are somethings to exploit there, it just isn't feasible, even on the arrogant, deceitful terms of the US's national security state. ^^^ CB: Well, the mode of production of a lot of the people in the mountains doesn't produce a lot of surplus. There isn't oil or precious metals or strategic metals. Otherwise, somebody would have conquered it since Alexander the Great Conquer. ^^^ Karzai's only hope to get the US and NATO protection racket stabilized were the pipelines that were supposed to link C. Asia with the populous markets of S. Asia. That has fallen through because the US and NATO can't control enough of the countryside through which the pipelines must run. It has also fallen through because there weren't any players like Enron around to get the deals going--and we have seen the venture banks and private equity deals like that dry up--in fact, they dried up a couple years before the current set of multifaceted financial troubles in the news now. An airbase complex in Afghanistan would only make sense though as a somewhat minor complement to a major army base complex in Iraq. That is because Afghanistan is landlocked, and would only be good as a network of airbases that allows the US to extend its 'rapid deployment'--light infantry that flies bascially--to a part of the world that borders world and regional powers. Unless of course the US could successfully occupy Pakistan and get something going there. But a religiously and nationalistically inspired resistance with huge numbers of volunteers is most likely what they would get in Pakistan. And remember basic US military doctrine since Reagan: Never attack a country that can defend itself. ^^^ CB: Iraq had _some_ ability to defend itself in both US wars against it. ^^^^ Never come to the aid of an ally who can't. With the corollary: create crises and scenarios (such as difficult occupations) in order to lock in a budget that is at least 20% larger than the previous year's (while hiding away funds and militarizing other parts of the budget). CJ _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Thu Oct 9 08:11:09 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 10:11:09 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The texts in question are: Philosophy & Revolution (1973) by Raya Dunayevskaya Chapter 6: Jean-Paul Sartre Outsider Looking In Sartre Against Stalinism By Ian H. Birchall See also: "Existentialism: Remarks on Jean-Paul Sartre's L'Etre et le Neant" by Herbert Marcuse "Existentialism" by Georg Luk?cs Raya's essay is very good, discounting certain Rayaisms like the remarks about Lenin's materialism. Her world view is just as schematic, as for her the masses are always revolutionary. Since Raya was in the habit about lying about her previous association with CLR James, a few remarks are in order. James, while acknowledging Sartre's gifts, sharply criticized Sartre since the late '40s or at the beginning of the '50s. This criticism continued in one way or another up to Sartre's death. James criticized Sartre's conception of engaged writing, Sartre's dancing around with the Communist Party, and Sartre's failure to see the masses in action in Hungary in 1956. Raya split with James in 1955, but she must have previously come into contact with some of James's views about Sartre. But my memory is hazy. James corresponded with other leading members of the Johnson-Forest Tendency about his cultural views. I don't recall Raya's involvement in these rounds of correspondence, but I wouldn't swear to it one way or another. In any case, this would not be to deny the originality of her Hegel obsession, but much of her framework came out of the Tendency's common project. At 03:08 AM 10/9/2008, CeJ wrote: >See: > >http://www.marxists.org/archive/dunayevskaya/works/phil-rev/dunayev6.htm > >http://books.google.com/books?id=QtJWagYCAz0C > >http://books.google.com/books?id=QtJWagYCAz0C&pg=PA163&lpg=PA163&dq=sartre+hungary&source=web&ots=y7OLlsnz3I&sig=vACmv4x31eHEBTkgeuxrlrv1P8U&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=8&ct=result From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 9 11:24:44 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:24:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] insty-book on The Crisis References: Message-ID: <48EE061C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >> Doug Henwood : Let me alert you to an 'instant book' from Vox, 'Rescuing our Jobs and Savings: What G7/8 Leaders can do to Solve the Global Credit Crisis': For immediate release, PM Thursday 9 October 2008 RESCUING OUR JOBS AND SAVINGS We are in the throes of what is almost certainly the most serious economic and financial crisis of our lifetimes. The crisis is no longer a US crisis, or even a US and European crisis; it is a global crisis. It has spread from the financial sector to the real economy. It is not just investment portfolios and retirement accounts at risk: continued turmoil will soon start to destroy jobs. There is a need for urgent action. The policy response needs to be decisive. It needs to be global. With this sense of urgency in mind, we have assembled a group of leading economists to offer priorities for crisis response. The authors are: Alberto Alesina, Michael Burda, Charles Calomiris, Roger Craine, Stijn Claessens, J Bradford DeLong, Douglas Diamond, Barry Eichengreen, Daniel Gros, Luigi Guiso, Anil K Kashyap, Marco Pagano, Avinash Persaud, Richard Portes, Raghuram G Rajan, Guido Tabellini, Charles Wyplosz and Klaus Zimmermann. The dozen essays present a remarkable consensus on a few points: we need immediate, coordinated global action that includes recapitalisation of the banks. The book is available for free download here: http://www.voxeu.eu/index.php?q=node/2340 Romesh Vaitilingam ___________________________________ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 9 12:40:16 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:40:16 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bulldog President Message-ID: <48EE17D0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> McCain reminds of a pitbull without lipstick. Palin seems to be inspired by Teddy Roosevelt. TR's Bull Moose Party is where she belongs. Rumor has it she will be going to Africa on a safari next week, to strengthen her foreign policy credentials. The two of them aspire to the bully pulpit as their natural home. Bully for them ! If it was 1908 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldog Popular mascot Main article: List of Bulldog mascots Because of its tenacity, the bulldog is a symbol of the United Kingdom in general and England in particular and is a popular mascot of dozens of universities and high schools throughout the United States of America. The bulldog is the unofficial mascot of the United States Marine Corps. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roosevelt " He was the first U.S. president to call for universal health care and national health insurance.[" Theodore Roosevelt (IPA: /?ro?z?v?lt/;[2] October 27, 1858 ? January 6, 1919), also known as T.R., and to the public (but never to friends and intimates) as Teddy, was the twenty-sixth President of the United States. A leader of the Republican Party and of the Progressive Party, he was a Governor of New York and a professional historian, naturalist, explorer, hunter, author, and soldier. He is most famous for his personality: his energy, his vast range of interests and achievements, his model of masculinity, and his "cowboy" personality. Originating from a story from one of Roosevelt's hunting expeditions, Teddy bears are named after him. As Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Roosevelt prepared for and advocated war with Spain in 1898. He organized and helped command the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry Regiment ? the Rough Riders ? during the Spanish-American War. Returning to New York as a war hero, he was elected governor. An avid writer, his 35 books include works on outdoor life, natural history, the American frontier, political history, naval history, and his autobiography.[3] In 1901, as Vice President, the 42-year-old Roosevelt succeeded President William McKinley after McKinley's assassination by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. He is the youngest person to become President.[4] He was a Progressive reformer who sought to move the dominant Republican Party into the Progressive camp. He distrusted wealthy businessmen and dissolved forty monopolistic corporations as a "trust buster". He was clear, however, to show he did not disagree with trusts and capitalism in principle but was only against corrupt, illegal practices. His "Square Deal" promised a fair shake for both the average citizen (through regulation of railroad rates and pure food and drugs) and the businessmen. He was the first U.S. president to call for universal health care and national health insurance.[5][6] As an outdoorsman, he promoted the conservation movement, emphasizing efficient use of natural resources. After 1906 he attacked big business and suggested the courts were biased against labor unions. In 1910, he broke with his friend and anointed successor William Howard Taft, but lost the Republican nomination to Taft and ran in the 1912 election on his own one-time Bull Moose ticket. He beat Taft in the popular vote and pulled so many Progressives out of the Republican Party that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won in 1912, and the conservative faction took control of the Republican Party for the next two decades. Roosevelt negotiated for the U.S. to take control of the Panama Canal and its construction in 1904; he felt the Canal's completion was his most important and historically significant international achievement. He was the first American to be awarded the Nobel Prize, winning its Peace Prize in 1906, for negotiating the peace in the Russo-Japanese War. Historian Thomas Bailey, who disagreed with Roosevelt's policies, nevertheless concluded, "Roosevelt was a great personality, a great activist, a great preacher of the moralities, a great controversialist, a great showman. He dominated his era as he dominated conversations....the masses loved him; he proved to be a great popular idol and a great vote getter."[7] His image stands alongside Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore. Surveys of scholars have consistently ranked him from third to seventh on the list of greatest American presidents. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From shmage at pipeline.com Thu Oct 9 13:59:27 2008 From: shmage at pipeline.com (Shane Mage) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 15:59:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bulldog President In-Reply-To: <48EE17D0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48EE17D0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <26DCD9FA-1488-412E-9FAC-2498F0BB2062@pipeline.com> On Oct 9, 2008, at 2:40 PM, Charles Brown wrote: > McCain reminds of a pitbull without lipstick. A pitbull (intentionally brutalized Staffordshire Terrier) is not a bulldog. > Palin seems to be inspired by Teddy Roosevelt. "In the 1912 Presidential election there were four candidates: a great man, a mediocre man, a madman, and an evil man. They finished in inverse order." (Tom O'Sullivan) Shane Mage "This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 30 From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 9 14:17:08 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:17:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Pit Bull Message-ID: <48EE2E84.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> "The ancestors of modern Pit Bulls come from the bulldogs and terriers of England. Pit Bull" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pit_bull This article is about the group of breeds commonly called "Pit Bulls." For the specific breed from which the term is derived, see American Pit Bull Terrier or American Staffordshire Terrier. An American Pit Bull Terrier, one of several breeds often categorized as a Pit Bull A Staffordshire Bull Terrier, another breed often included in the Pit Bull CategoryPit Bull is a term commonly used to describe several breeds of dog in the Molosser family that were historically used for dog fighting. The breeds most often placed in this category are the American Pit Bull Terrier, American Staffordshire Terrier and Staffordshire Bull Terrier. In the media the term is vague and may include other breeds with similar physical characteristics, such as the Perro de Presa Canario, Cane Corso, Dogo Argentino, Alano Espanol, Japanese Tosa, Dogue de Bordeaux, Cordoba Fighting Dog, Bull Terrier, Antebellum Bulldog, Alapaha Blue Blood Bulldog, American Bulldog, Boxer, Valley Bulldog, Olde English Bulldogge, Renascence Bulldogge, and Banter Bulldogge. These breeds are rarely listed by name in breed-specific legislation, but they are sometimes included when the term is defined broadly and based on physical appearance.[1] [edit] History Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2007) The ancestors of modern Pit Bulls come from the bulldogs and terriers of England. At one time, every county in England had its own breed of terrier. Many of these still exist; however, some have evolved into new ones. Such is the case for the English White and the Black and Tan terriers, whose descendants include the bull-and-terriers, the Fox Terrier, and the Manchester Terrier. Terriers served an important purpose in England by killing vermin that might otherwise ruin crops, damage property, or spread disease such as the Black Plague. The development of sports such as rat- or badger-baiting further added to the breeds' importance.This is an obedient animal. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 9 14:41:11 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:41:11 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital Message-ID: <48EE3427.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Bowling Alone: America's Declining Social Capital Robert D. Putnam Many students of the new democracies that have emerged over the past decade and a half have emphasized the importance of a strong and active civil society to the consolidation of democracy. Especially with regard to the postcommunist countries, scholars and democratic activists alike have lamented the absence or obliteration of traditions of independent civic engagement and a widespread tendency toward passive reliance on the state. To those concerned with the weakness of civil societies in the developing or postcommunist world, the advanced Western democracies and above all the United States have typically been taken as models to be emulated. There is striking evidence, however, that the vibrancy of American civil society has notably declined over the past several decades. Ever since the publication of Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America, the United States has played a central role in systematic studies of the links between democracy and civil society. Although this is in part because trends in American life are often regarded as harbingers of social modernization, it is also because America has traditionally been considered unusually "civic" (a reputation that, as we shall later see, has not been entirely unjustified). When Tocqueville visited the United States in the 1830s, it was the Americans' propensity for civic association that most impressed him as the key to their unprecedented ability to make democracy work. "Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of disposition," [End Page 65] he observed, "are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand different types--religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very limited, immensely large and very minute. . . . Nothing, in my view, deserves more attention than the intellectual and moral associations in America." 1 Recently, American social scientists of a neo-Tocquevillean bent have unearthed a wide range of empirical evidence that the quality of public life and the performance of social institutions (and not only in America) are indeed powerfully influenced by norms and networks of civic engagement. Researchers in such fields as education, urban poverty, unemployment, the control of crime and drug abuse, and even health have discovered that successful outcomes are more likely in civically engaged communities. Similarly, research on the varying economic attainments of different ethnic groups in the United States has demonstrated the importance of social bonds within each group. These results are consistent with research in a wide range of settings that demonstrates the vital importance of social networks for job placement and many other economic outcomes. Meanwhile, a seemingly unrelated body of research on the sociology of economic development has also focused attention on the role of social networks. Some of this work is situated in the developing countries, and some of it elucidates the peculiarly successful "network capitalism" of East Asia. 2 Even in less exotic Western economies, however, researchers have discovered highly efficient, highly flexible "industrial districts" based on networks of collaboration among workers and small entrepreneurs. Far from being paleoindustrial anachronisms, these dense interpersonal and interorganizational networks undergird ultramodern industries, from the high tech of Silicon Valley to the high fashion of Benetton. full: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/DETOC/assoc/bowling.html This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 9 15:17:03 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:17:03 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Lessons for Today: Bank Panics and the Great Depression Message-ID: <48EE3C8F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> February 15, 2008, 12:27 pm Lessons for Today: Bank Panics and the Great Depression The Great Depression may be ancient history but interest in the subject is enjoying a revival, including at the Federal Reserve, now chaired by self-described ?Great Depression buff? Ben Bernanke. A new research paper by staff economist Mark Carlson tackles a seemingly esoteric topic that could have useful lessons for the current crisis. In his working paper, recently posted on the Fed?s Web site, he investigates whether some of the thousands of banks that failed in the Great Depression could have survived if only they hadn?t been sucked down in a panic. Previous research has found that banks that failed during the Depression started out weaker than banks that survived, suggesting a lot of the bank failures may have been unavoidable. But Mr. Carlson finds that ?many of the banks that failed during the panics appear to have been at least as financially sound as banks that were able to use alternative resolution strategies,? such as merging, or suspending and recapitalizing. When a failed bank was liquidated, its ?assets [were] taken out of the banking system and frozen for extended periods. During a bank merger, the assets stay in the banking system continuously. For banks that suspended temporarily, the median length of suspension in this sample was about 5 months? Thus, to the extent that the panics prevented banks from pursuing less disruptive resolution strategies, then the panics of the early 1930s may well have played a role in prolonging and deepening the Great Depression.? Mr. Carlson defines a panic as a period in which statewide bank failures are relatively elevated and there is ?some clustering of failure-at least three failures or suspensions in the same county or more than one county with at least two suspensions or failures.? Using that method he finds 20 panic periods from 1930 to 1933 in the 21 states for which he has data. Almost a quarter of the more than 6,000 banks in those states failed in that period, and about a fifth of those failures occurred during panics. Comparing the banks that failed during panics to banks that found some other way to survive he found that the two groups were of roughly similar financial health. The reason the first group failed and the second group didn?t was that they were swept under by the panic. ?The financial turbulence associated with the panics may have resulted in some banks being placed in receiverships and liquidated instead of being able to resolve their troubles less disruptively.? These banks represented 30% of all failed banks? assets -- a sizable portion. If any of this sounds familiar to Bernanke watchers, it?s because these issues were central to his own groundbreaking research on the Great Depression, which is duly cited in Mr. Carlson?s paper. Mr. Carlson draws no explicit lessons from his research for the present, but it?s easy to imagine some. Despite their woes, banks are reasonably well capitalized today and a panic seems pretty unlikely, especially with federal deposit insurance covering most of depositors? money. But large swathes of the financial system are outside the deposit insurance safety net - some of it in other parts of banking conglomerates, some of it outside the banks altogether, in mortgage companies, hedge funds, and asset-backed securitization pools. Much like a run on a bank, a generalized investor flight from such institutions could cause some to fail, even if their assets were fundamentally sound. In fact, they don?t even have to fail to affect the economy: they only have to see their capital impaired, or stretched, enough to shut down further lending. That could cause further economic weakness, which feeds back into greater stress on the institutions. Mr. Bernanke and his colleagues have made ever increasing reference to such negative feedback loops. (Actually, they are technically positive feedback loops, in that the initial stress produces responses in the same direction; in a negative feedback loop, the initial stress is followed by a response in the opposite direction, causing it to rapidly peter out. But that?s semantics.) The newfound urgency to Fed rate cuts is driven largely by a belief that, if timely and aggressive enough, such cuts can short-circuit such a feedback loop, and preventing far greater, and unnecessary, economic damage. - Greg Ip Permalink | Trackback URL: http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2008/02/15/lessons-for-today-bank-panics-and-the-great-depression/trackback/ Save & Share: Share on Facebook | Del.icio.us | Digg this | Email This | Print More related content Comments Report offensive comments to blogsadmin at wsj.com A negative feedback loop and a positive feedback loop are not mere ?semantics?. People don?t loosely interchange addition and subtraction in conversation, likewise such cavalier use of those ideas shows little understanding for them. Comment by Lance Pickens - February 15, 2008 at 12:39 pm Interesting post even for those who read econonmics stuff all the time. Comment by halbhh - February 15, 2008 at 1:32 pm Recession has finally arrived.Here?s few tips how to mitigate recession effects: 1. cut down spending on luxury items.Do not spend on credit cards. 2. If you have spare cash, invest them in bonds. Stay away from equities.Remember cash is king. 3. Acquire some new skills. 4. Campaign against companies that outsource IT & other jobs to India & China. Those jobs could be yours provided they are saved from being outsourced. So the next time an Indian IT company comes for body shopping their employees, show them the door. 5. Be patient, until the next boom time comes Comment by Braganza - February 15, 2008 at 2:03 pm blame the banks. Lt them swallow the subprime poison they created for others to swallow. Comment by Anonymous - February 15, 2008 at 2:11 pm tell me about the old great depression how did it go what happened Comment by taylor - February 15, 2008 at 2:34 pm Please, the difference between positive and negative feedback looks is not semantics. If you are not sure, just say feedback loop and then describe its effects. Comment by Engineer - February 15, 2008 at 3:56 pm 1. Cut down posting on WSJ blog sites 2. If you have spare posts, keep them to yourself 3. Acquire some new skills 4. Campaign against websites that let you post the same post over and over again 5. Be patient, wait for 20 more years before posting again Comment by Advice for Braganza - February 15, 2008 at 5:51 pm An important fact that is often overlooked regarding bank failures in the early 1930s is that there were simply too many banks. Most estimates place the number of banks circa 1929-30 at around 25,000. When it was all over, there were about 15,000 banks left standing. So while it is interesting to talk about panic ?clusters? and the madness of crowds taking down good banks with the bad, the banking troubles of the 1930s might be just another rudimentary example of the law of supply and demand. Comment by Max Bucks - February 16, 2008 at 1:14 am Destruction to attitude of low risk is inevitable in the comming few years. 1.Back in 30s the US banking system and the US states were far more decentralised than they are today. System failures and swings will be lot larger and effects wider. 2.Events since 30s are too well recorded to repeat themselves in exactly same fashion. As Fed and bankers have studied it too many times and taking precaution not to repeat exactly same errors. 3.the attitude to risk,leverage has almost been institutionalised through streams of economists. Comment by Comments from Ireland - February 16, 2008 at 4:46 am I?m not worried; i?m already poor! Comment by Burt - February 16, 2008 at 6:41 am Most banks might be relatively well capitalized today, but that is irrelevant if no one will buy the loans they broker. Our system is now utterly dependent upon foreign savers buying our loans. Our system will succeed or fail depending upon whether the trust of foreign savers can be restored. Comment by Capitalized - February 16, 2008 at 10:20 am Banks are ?well capitalized?? . Uh, with what? . Toxic mortgages? How much are those things worth, anyway? . See, this is the fruit of Basel II. You get an ?AAA? rating, you get to treat its ?gearing? at a much higher level for capital purposes. . Ergo, you then construct a model where you pay people to issue you ?AAA? ratings. . Hmmmm? anyone see a problem with this yet? . In point of fact banks are NOT well-capitalized. They are poorly capitalized. Proof is found in the fact that they are averting risk as fast as they can, and refusing to support things like the failed auction-rate securities. . Why? They simply can?t afford it. . In all probability we are very close to one or more major banks violating Tier Capital requirements. . But do we have transparency on this? Of course not. We have lots of ?Level III? alleged assets, many of which are ?AAA? - or so they claim - all bought and paid for. . Are we being told the truth? . And more importantly - if you are a business or individual with more than $100,000 in a bank somewhere - are you REALLY dumb enough to believe ?you can?t lose? because ?they?re too big to fail?? . Ask the people from the 30s how that worked out. . Oh wait - you can?t - they?re all dead. . This, by the way, is why we?re doing it again - all the people who lived through it LAST time have gone to meet St. Peter, so we get to learn about it all over again. . The hard way. . http://tickerforum.org Comment by Karl Denninger - February 16, 2008 at 11:16 am Man? too much yak yak! Keep things ?simple.? Reality check? in a country where the government is a wholly-owned sub of the corporations, there is only one question to ask? one discussion to have? do you believe ANYTHING the corps or govt. say? Right now, it?s a house divided and there will be losers? it?s an election year? yak, yak, yak, yak, yak. Afer the dust settles the losers will still be winners after their lateral or upwards ?shift.? The FED gives the boys free fiat dollars? the percentage boys Ponzi-up the latest bubble? if the Ponzi-boys take a hit, they go to the govt. boys for the bailout? John/Joan Q. American pays the bill? P E R I O D Nothing new here? buy a history book. Like Mr. Gumph said? ?Stupid is as stupid does.? I live in S.E. Asia where money is money, but gold and precious stones are the surefire hedge and a 100% reliable retirement account. Sign this PAPER? get that PAPER? keep signing and keep getting? ?Paper,? a game for children? here today? and, one way or the other, gone tomorrow. Yep? ?Stupid is as stupid does.? Comment by Lafslast - February 18, 2008 at 12:45 am Agree with Lafslast. Comment by Shmuck - February 18, 2008 at 7:58 am I agree w lafslast on the evils of paper money. I am also very concerned about the wheel, all this rolling around is quite dangerous. Im not sure why the corporations in charge allow this kind of thing to happen, they possibly arent as benevolent as I previously thought. I think perhaps they are driven by motives of profit. Perhaps i was fooled by the the near 40% corporate tax rates they pay here in the states, but I guess since they are abondoning the U.S. for all those countries with lower tax rates, maybe the U.S. is a red herring and they really rule Ireland and are the force behind communist China. Big day for me today in the learning department. Comment by newluddite - February 18, 2008 at 8:47 am Fed. is guilty of crime against Amer. they have destroyed savings by debasing the dollar, pumped up speculators and gamblers. Bernanke seems to be Bush cabinet member. Comment by Robert Moore - February 18, 2008 at 9:42 am A great deal of paranoia and speculation abounds given the turbulence in the Marketplace. The last 4 posts ?bear? this out! Comment by Wall Street Warrior - February 18, 2008 at 10:13 am This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 9 15:15:05 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:15:05 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bank run Message-ID: <48EE3C19.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Bank run http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_run A poster for the 1896 Broadway melodrama The War of Wealth depicts a typical 19th-century bank run in the U.S. 2007 bank run on Northern Rock, a UK bankA bank run (also known as a run on the bank) occurs when a large number of bank customers withdraw their deposits because they believe the bank is, or might become, insolvent. As a bank run progresses, it generates its own momentum, in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy: as more people withdraw their deposits, the likelihood of default increases, and this encourages further withdrawals. This can destabilize the bank to the point where it faces bankruptcy.[1] A banking panic or bank panic is a financial crisis that occurs when many banks suffer runs at the same time. A systemic banking crisis is one where all or almost all of the banking capital in a country is wiped out.[2] The resulting chain of bankruptcies can cause a long economic recession.[3] Much of the Great Depression's economic damage was caused directly by bank runs.[4] The cost of cleaning up a systemic banking crisis can be huge, with fiscal costs averaging 13% of GDP and economic output losses averaging 20% of GDP for important crises from 1970 to 2007.[2] Several techniques can help to prevent bank runs. They include temporary suspension of withdrawals, the organization of central banks that act as a lender of last resort, the protection of deposit insurance systems such as the U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation,[1] and governmental bank regulation.[5] These techniques do not always work: for example, even with deposit insurance, depositors may still be motivated by beliefs they may lack immediate access to deposits during a bank reorganization.[6] Contents [hide] 1 Theory 2 Systemic banking crises 3 Prevention 3.1 Individual banks 3.2 Collective prevention 4 History 4.1 Recent incidents 4.2 Examples of systemic banking crises 5 See also 6 References [edit] Theory Main article: Diamond-Dybvig model Banks retain only a fraction of their deposits as cash (see fractional-reserve banking). The remainder is invested in securities and loans. No bank has enough reserves on hand to cope with more than the fraction of deposits being taken out at once. Diamond and Dybvig developed an influential model to explain why bank runs occur and why banks issue deposits that are more liquid than their assets. They view the bank as an intermediary between borrowers who prefer long-maturity loans and depositors who prefer liquid accounts.[7][1] In their model, business investment requires expenditures in the present to obtain returns that take time in coming, for example, spending on machines and buildings now for production in future years. A business or entrepreneur that needs to borrow to finance investment will want to give their investments a long time to generate returns before full repayment, and will prefer long maturity loans, which offer little liquidity to the lender. The households and firms who have the money to lend to these businesses may have sudden, unpredictable needs for cash, so they require fast access to their money in the form of liquid demand deposit accounts, that is, accounts with shortest possible maturity. Since borrowers need money and depositors fear to make these loans individually, banks provide a valuable service by aggregating funds from many individual deposits, portioning them into loans for borrowers, and spreading the risks both of default and sudden demands for cash.[1] If only a few depositors withdraw at any given time, this arrangement works well. Depositors' unpredictable needs for cash are unlikely to occur at the same time; that is, by the law of large numbers banks can expect only a small percentage of accounts withdrawn on any one day because individual expenditure needs are largely uncorrelated. A bank can make loans over a long horizon, while keeping only relatively small amounts of cash on hand to pay any depositors who may demand withdrawals.[1] However, if many depositors withdraw all at once, the bank itself (as opposed to individual investors) may run short of liquidity, and depositors will rush to withdraw their money, forcing the bank to liquidate many of its assets at a loss, and eventually to fail. If such a bank calls in its loans early, this may force businesses to disrupt their production, or individuals to sell their homes, causing further losses to the larger economy.[1] A bank run can occur even when started by a false story. Even depositors who know the story is false will have an incentive to withdraw, if they suspect other depositors will believe the story. The story becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.[1] Indeed, Robert K. Merton, who coined the term self-fulfilling prophecy, mentioned bank runs as a prime example of the concept in his book Social Theory and Social Structure.[8] The Diamond-Dybvig model provides an example of an economic game with more than one Nash equilibrium, where it is logical for individual depositors to engage in a bank run once they suspect one might start, even though that run will cause the bank to collapse.[1] [edit] Systemic banking crises A bank run affects just one bank. A banking panic or bank panic is a financial crisis that occurs when many banks suffer runs at the same time. In a systemic banking crisis, all or almost all of the banking capital in a country is wiped out.[2] Systemic banking crises are associated with substantial fiscal costs and large output losses. Frequently, emergency liquidity support and blanket guarantees have been used to contain these crises, not always successfully. Although fiscal tightening may help contain market pressures if a crisis is triggered by unsustainable fiscal policies, expansionary fiscal policies are typically used. In crises of liquidity and solvency, central banks can provide liquidity to support illiquid banks. Depositor protection can help restore confidence, although it tends to be costly and does not necessarily speed up economic recovery. Intervention is often delayed in the hope that recovery will occur, and this delay increases the stress on the economy.[2] Some measures are more effective than others in containing economic fallout and restoring the banking system after a systemic crisis. These include establishing the scale of the problem, targeted debt relief programs to distressed borrowers, corporate restructuring programs, recognizing bank losses, and adequately capitalizing banks. Speedy intervention appears to substantially decrease stress on the economy. Programs that are targeted, that specify clear quantifiable rules that limit access to preferred assistance, and that contain meaningful standards for capital regulation, appear to be more successful. Government-owned asset management companies are largely ineffective due to political constraints.[2] A silent run occurs when the implicit fiscal deficit from a government's unbooked loss exposure to zombie banks is large enough to deter depositors of those banks. As more depositors and investors begin to doubt whether a government can support a country's banking system, the silent run on the system can gather steam, causing the zombie banks' funding costs to increase. If a zombie bank sells some assets at market value, its remaining assets contain a larger fraction of unbooked losses; if it rolls over its liabilities at increased interest rates, it squeezes its profits along with the profits of healthier competitors. The longer the silent run goes on, the more benefits are transferred from healthy banks and taxpayers to the zombie banks.[9] The cost of cleaning up after a crisis can be huge. In systemically important banking crises in the world from 1970 to 2007, the average net recapitalization cost to the government was 6% of GDP, fiscal costs associated with crisis management averaged 13% of GDP (16% of GDP if expense recoveries are ignored), and economic output losses averaged about 20% of GDP during the first four years of the crisis.[2] [edit] Prevention Several techniques can be used to help prevent bank runs. [edit] Individual banks Some prevention techniques apply to individual banks, independently of the rest of the economy. A bank can take deposits from depositors who do not observe common information that might spark a run. For example, in the days before deposit insurance, it made sense for a bank to have a large lobby and fast service, to prevent a line of depositors from extending out into the street, causing passers-by to infer that a bank run is occurring.[1] A bank can temporarily suspend withdrawals to stop a run. In many cases the threat of suspension prevents the run, which means the threat need not be carried out.[1] Bank regulation or other constraints can impose a reserve ratio requirement, which limits the proportion of deposits which a bank can lend out, making it less likely for a bank run to start.[5] This practice sets a limit on the fraction in fractional-reserve banking; in the extreme and hypothetical case, full-reserve banking requires a reserve ratio of 100%. [edit] Collective prevention Some prevention techniques apply across the whole economy, though they may still allow individual institutions to fail. These techniques create moral hazard, since they reduce incentives for banks to avoid making risky loans; the goal is for the benefits of collective prevention to outweigh the costs of excessive risk-taking.[10] Central banks act as a lender of last resort. To prevent a bank run, the central bank guarantees that it will make short-term loans to banks, to ensure that, if they remain economically viable, they will always have enough liquidity to honor their deposits.[1] Deposit insurance systems insure each depositor up to a certain amount, so that depositors' savings are protected even if the bank fails. This removes the incentive to withdraw one's deposits simply because others are withdrawing theirs.[1] However, depositors may still be motivated by fears they may lack immediate access to deposits during a bank reorganization.[6] [edit] History The run on the Montreal City and District Savings Bank. The Mayor addressing the crowd. Printed in 1872 in the Canadian Illustrated News.Bank runs first appeared as part of cycles of credit expansion and its subsequent contraction. In the 16th century onwards, English goldsmiths issuing promissory notes suffered severe failures due to bad harvests plummeting parts of the country into famine and unrest. Other examples are the Dutch Tulip manias (1634-1637), the British South Sea Bubble (1717-1719), the French Mississippi Company (1717-1720), the "Post Napoleonic Depression" (1815-1830) and the Great Depression (1929-1939). Bank runs have also been used to blackmail individuals or governments; for example in 1830 when the British Government under the Duke of Wellington overturned a majority government under the orders of the king, George IV, to prevent reform (the later 1832 Reform Act), he angered reformers and so a run on the banks was threatened under the rallying cry "To stop the Duke go for gold!". Many of the recessions in the United States were caused by banking panics. The Great Depression contained several banking crises consisting of runs on multiple banks from 1929 to 1933; some of these were specific to regions of the U.S.[3] Much of the Depression's economic damage was caused directly by bank runs,[4] and institutions put into place after the Depression have prevented runs on U.S. commercial banks since the 1930s,[7] even under conditions such as the U.S. savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s.[11] The Depression's bank runs left a lasting mark on the American psyche, exhibited in sometimes disturbing images such as the bleak scenes where the fictional hero George Bailey contemplates suicide in the movie It's a Wonderful Life.[12] [edit] Recent incidents In 1999, a bank run happened in Malaysia where Bank Negara Malaysia (the Malaysian central bank) had to take control of MBf Finance Berhad, the biggest finance company in Malaysia during that time. Many of the finance company's 120 branches saw runs on their deposits, totalling about 17 billion Ringgit (US$4.49 billion).[13] In 2001, during the Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002), a bank run and corralito was experienced in Argentina. There are various theories into the cause.[14] This contributed towards the bank runs in neighbouring Uruguay during the 2002 Uruguay banking crisis. In early August 2007, the American firm, Countrywide Financial suffered a bank run as a consequence of the subprime mortgage crisis.[15] On 13 September 2007, the British bank Northern Rock arranged an emergency loan facility from the Bank of England, which it claimed was the result of short-term liquidity problems. The bank's defenders claimed its cash shortage was the result of over-exposure to the failing US sub-prime mortgage market, while its critics argued that it was the result of Northern Rock's own careless lending practices. A run began the following day, Friday, with reports of its internet banking site being overloaded,[16] and long queues outside branches that day, Saturday morning and the following Monday.[17] News reports on 17 September stated that an estimated ?2 billion GBP of retail deposits had been withdrawn by customers since the bank had applied for emergency funds. [18] On Tuesday, 11 March 2008, a bank run began on the securities and banking firm Bear Stearns. While Bear Stearns was not an ordinary deposit-taking bank, it had financed huge long-term investments by selling short-maturity bonds (Asset Backed Commercial Paper), making it vulnerable to panic on the part of its bondholders. Credit officers of rival firms began to say that Bear Stearns would not be able to make good on its obligations. Within two days, Bear Stearns's capital base of $17 billion had dwindled to $2 billion in cash, and Bear Stearns told government officials that it saw little option other than to file for bankruptcy the next day. By 07:00 Friday, the Federal Reserve decided to lend Bear Stearns money, the first time since the Great Depression that it had lent to a nonbank. Stocks sank, and that day JPMorgan Chase began an effort to buy Bear Stearns as part of a government-sponsored bailout. The deal was arranged by Sunday in an effort to calm markets before overseas markets opened.[19] On 11 July 2008, U.S. mortgage lender IndyMac Bank was seized by federal regulators. IndyMac had been a stressed institution for months[20]. The bank was capital-constrained and possibly heading for regulatory intervention[21]. However, both regulators and the bank itself blamed its troubles on a letter from Sen. Charles E. Schumer questioning its viability.[22][23] Following the public release of the letter on June 26, IndyMac customers withdrew amounts averaging $100 million a day from the bank, or a total of $1.3 billion in cash.[23] The run caused a liquidity crisis which forced IndyMac to announce it was halting new loan submissions, closing its retail and wholesale lending divisions, and laying off 3,800 employees. On 25 September 2008, the Office of Thrift Supervision was forced to shut down Washington Mutual, the largest savings and loan in the United States and the sixth-largest overall financial institution, on a Thursday due to a massive run. Over the previous 10 days, customers had withdrawn $16.7 billion in deposits. This is currently the biggest bank failure in American financial history. Normally, banks are seized on Fridays to allow the FDIC the weekend to prepare the failed bank for takeover by another bank. However, WaMu's size led regulators to shut it down on a Thursday.[6][24][25] On 6 October 2008, Landsbanki, Iceland's second largest bank, was put into government receivership. The Icelandic government used emergency powers to dismiss the board of directors of Landsbanki and took control of the failed institution.[26] Prime Minister Geir Haarde also rushed measures through parliament to give the country's largest bank, Kaupthing, a ?400m loan. In addition, Iceland pleaded with Russia to extend 3bn in credit as western countries refused to help.[27] With over 5bn in savings held by Britains in Landsbanki, the Icelandic collapse threatens private citizens in England as well as companies in Iceland.[28] [edit] Examples of systemic banking crises This article or section may require cleanup because it is in a list format that may be better presented using prose. You can help by converting this section to prose, if appropriate. Editing help is available. (September 2008) Panic of 1907 Great Depression US savings and loan crisis of 1980s-1990s Swedish banking crisis (1990s) Argentine economic crisis (1999-2002) US subprime mortgage crisis of 2008 This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 9 15:20:31 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:20:31 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] History of materialism: The proof of the pudding is in the eating Message-ID: <48EE3D60.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The test of theory is practice or The proof of the pudding is in the eating The proof of the pudding is in the eating is a proverb that means "You will not fully comprehend it until you try it" or "results are what count." It is frequently rendered in the shorter form The proof is in the pudding, which dates back to the 1920s and came into common use in the United States in the 1950s.[1] The American Heritage Dictionary trims it even further, to proof in pudding.[2] [edit] Origins The current phrasing is generally credited to Miguel de Cervantes in Don Quixote (1615)[3], via the popular 1701 translation by Peter Anthony Motteux. Motteux' translation of the book is famously loose.[4] Cervantes' original phrase is al fre?r de los huevos lo ver?, "you will see it when you go to fry the eggs."[5] Motteux also snuck the "eggs in one basket" proverb into the Quixote.[6] Rogers' Dictionary of Cliche and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations date it to the 14th century as "Jt is ywrite that euery thing Hymself sheweth in the tastyng", and William Camden stated it in 1605 in Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine as "All the proofe of a pudding, is in the eating".[7] A 1682 translation of Nicolas Boileau-Despr?aux Le Lutrin (written between 1672 and 1674) renders it "The proof of th' pudding's seen i' the eating." This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 9 15:40:53 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 17:40:53 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Stem Cells Message-ID: <48EE4225.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Thursday, October 9, 2008 Scientists make stem cells from testes cells Karen Kaplan / Los Angeles Times Scientists have converted cells from human testes into stem cells that grew into muscle, nerve cells and other kinds of tissue, according to a study published Wednesday in the online edition of Nature. The stem cells offer another potential alternative to embryonic stem cells for researchers who aim to treat diseases such as diabetes and Parkinson's by replacing damaged or malfunctioning cells with custom-grown replacements. Scientists also have derived flexible adult stem cells from skin, amniotic fluid and menstrual blood. The new cells were created from sperm-making cells obtained from testicular biopsies of 22 men. They are theoretically superior to traditional embryonic stem cells because they can be obtained directly from male patients and used to grow replacement tissues that their bodies won't reject, Sabine Conrad of the University of Tuebingen in Germany and her colleagues wrote. Advertisement The cells also have an ethical advantage in that they do not require the destruction of human embryos. Experiments in mice suggested that reproductive cells were good candidates for making stem cells, said Renee Reijo Pera, director of the Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research Center at Thursday, October 9, 2008 Laura Berman Visionary sets sights on stem cell research Alfred Taubman lends hand, wallet to effort to relax state's laws Alfred Taubman, Bloomfield Hills billionaire, is delivering his own October surprise week. On Tuesday, he delighted the University of Michigan with a $22 million bequest to the Taubman Institute for Medical Research, doubling his original gift during a symposium on stem cell research there. On Friday, Bill Clinton -- the former president -- will appear at a fundraiser at the Taubman Air Terminal at Oakland International Airport -- accepting Taubman's invitation to raise money for Cure Michigan. At 84, he's pulling out all the stops. In the days when he was building his retailing empire, he was known for ferociously high standards, a deliberative style of risk-taking, and an eye for the next fashion or merchandising trend. Advertisement It was Taubman who discovered a jeans store in San Francisco and put The Gap in his malls, extending the company's reach nationwide. It was Taubman who bet on The Limited, then a regional Ohio chain, making it and its offshoots a national brand, and who transformed Sotheby's, a creaky British auction house, into an art world powerhouse. Now, retired from retailing but not the least bit retired from life, the shopping mall pioneer is focused on the medical frontier of embryonic stem cell research. In his eyes, so often visionary, the future is clear: Eliminating the now stringent barriers to such research is vital to Michigan's ability to participate fully in 21st century medical research. You can thank, or curse, Taubman for Proposal 2, the ballot proposal that would remove the severe restrictions on embryonic stem cell research that now require the state's scientists to do such work in other states or not at all -- or face a $10 million fine and up to 10 years in prison. The proposal's backers include Dr. John "Joe" Schwarz, a former Republican congressman and state senator, and other philanthropists, notably Cynthia and Edsel Ford. But it is Taubman whose commitment is matched by his willingness, and ability, to bankroll the successful petition drive for the proposal and, now, to assume much of the burden of the public campaign costs to change Michigan's law. He's not trying to burnish his legacy or wipe out the past, including his 2001 conviction for price-fixing while he was the chairman of Sotheby's. ("I'm not sorry because I didn't do it," he says of the crime. The nine months he spent in prison was "a complete waste.") It's a role that's been assumed in other states by other moguls and philanthropists frustrated by tight federal funding and restrictive research laws. Now, "he's the guyin Michigan," says Sean Erickson, the much-honored scientist who heads the U-M stem cell biology center. "A lot of people have done a lot, there are other names, but I don't think anyone has done as much as Alfred Taubman to make a difference on this issue here." He's convinced that he's involved in a historic moment, equivalent to the discovery of antibiotics, one that will cure disease and forever change the way medicine is practiced. "Before antibiotics, the doctors could treat you with aspirin, and that was it. Antibiotics changed the world. Now, embryonic stem cell research is going to do the same thing." says Taubman. Why is an 84-year-old man so engaged in this issue? He credits his physician, Dr. Eva Feldman, the U-M neurologist, who now heads the Taubman Institute in Ann Arbor. Her brilliance, fierce work ethic, and dedication ("I call her at 5:30 a.m. and she's at work; I call her at 7 p.m., and she's still there.") are part of it. But he's also steeped himself in the science. The opposition, MiCause, is being funded by the Michigan Catholic Conference and Michigan Right-to-Life, both groups who contend that life begins at conception and oppose allowing scientists to develop new stem cell lines. But publicly, they're attacking the ballot issue by suggesting it will raise taxes (the proposal has no such provision) and open the door to cloning. (Cloning is banned by law in Michigan.) "When you cut through the verbiage, which is copious," says Schwarz, the co-chair of the Proposal 2 backers, "the opposition's objections are religious. We're the foot soldiers in the war against disease -- and they're the conscientious objectors in that war." Taubman is not only a foot soldier; he's also funding the war chest. Taubman never was a traditionalist. His home is crowded with the works of 20th century modern masters -- not pretty pictures, but challenging paintings and sculptures by artists who used bold strokes and vivid colors that challenge the viewer. He is, always has been, a man with an eye for the way the world is going -- and that eye has made him a billionaire. "When I look at a chair," he says, nodding at the Josef Hoffman chair in his study, another museum-quality piece, "I see not only how to make it different, but better." The certainty is that stem cell research is mainstream in most of the United States. Restless, ambitious, intellectually curious still, Taubman is betting that he can help Michigan understand that this research will create jobs and cure disease. "It will cure diabetes, heart disease, ALS," he says. "I believe in it." This man, a self-made billionaire from Pontiac, has tried to realize his own potential. In embryonic cells that can be transformed, almost magically, he sees another kind of potential. "I'm betting on it," he says, and laughs. "It's a big bet." You can reach Laura Berman at (248) 647-7221 or lberman at detnews.com. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Oct 9 16:59:14 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 18:59:14 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] America's Right-Wing Zealots Message-ID: America's Right-Wing Zealots Will Not Fade Away Thursday 09 October 2008 by: Steve Weissman, t r u t h o u t | Perspective In 1964, Sen. Barry Goldwater of Arizona ran for president as a rock-ribbed conservative who yearned to roll back both the Soviet Empire and FDR's New Deal. He carried only six states with 52 electoral votes, and Lyndon Johnson remained the commander-in-chief that an entire generation loved to hate. Yet, even after suffering a stunning defeat, the rabidly anti-New Deal Republicans, ultra-right-wing millionaires, evangelical Christian preachers, John Birchers and other extreme anti-communists who backed Barry Goldwater went on to build the modern conservative movement that propelled Ronald Reagan into the White House. In 2008, one of Goldwater's proteges is running for president with the same kind of backers and a similar agenda updated to account for the fall of the Soviet Union, the rise of Islamist jihadists, and unbelievable persistence of the neocons, who are now trying to sell us a new war on Iran. Short of a major terrorist attack or worse, John McCain seems likely to go down to a humiliating defeat. But, as in the 1960's, today's anti-New Deal Republicans, ultra-right wing billionaires, right-wing evangelical preachers, and neocon ideologues will not run off with their tails between their legs. They have no shame, not even after the endless embarrassment of the Bush presidency, Wall Street's worst crisis since the Great Depression, and colonial wars we can never win in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan. The right-wing zealots will, in fact, ratchet up the cliched mantras that led us into most of the current ca-ca. We all know the routine: Leave the free market free of government oversight and regulation. Privatize Social Security and government services. Pursue free trade with no protection for workers or the environment. Expand American control of the world's oil and natural gas, both to benefit Big Oil and as a political weapon to control the behavior of other nations, friend and foe. Talk of spreading democracy while propping up dictators. Give the Pentagon a budget every year the size of the hopefully one-time Wall Street bailout. Leave the military as the heart and soul of our response to militant Islam. Continually break down our constitutionally-mandated separation between government and militant Christianity. These imperatives are the holy writ of the radical Republican revolution once preached by Ronald Reagan and now pursued by John McCain and Sarah Palin. But, sadly, many of the same notions have become the song and dance of prominent Democrats as well - in the Clinton administration, in Congress, and among a large number of advisers now surrounding Barack Obama. full:http://www.truthout.org/100908R **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From farmelantj at juno.com Thu Oct 9 19:08:30 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (Jim Farmelant) Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2008 21:08:30 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher Message-ID: <20081009.210940.356.1.farmelantj@juno.com> On Thu, 9 Oct 2008 10:09:38 +0900 CeJ writes: > > BTW, I admire Sartre's contributions to philosophy, social science > and > politics. And his relationships with Camus, De Beauvoir and > Merleau > Ponty have long fascinated me. I think JF you are thinking of > someone > else on another list, since you contribute on the philsophy of > history > on those lists while at the same time CB cross-posts from those very > same lists to this list (for example this thread on the playboy > philosopher, which seems to have sprung up already fully discussed > somewhere else). I had your posts confused with the individual who posts on Marxmail as "Ruthless Critic of All That Exists". He was the one who got Sartre's position on Hungary. However, that is not to deny that in the early 1950s, had been very much an uncritical supporter of the Soviet Union and Stalin. It was Khrushchev's 1956 speech at the 20th Party Congress on Stalin that seems to have removed the scales from his eyes. In a broader sense Sartre remained something of a Stalinist and this was presumably reflected in his involvement with the Maoists in the early 1970s. Jim F. > > CJ > > _______________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Let great B to B marketing solutions propel your brand to new heights! Click now! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3norQ0K8nZ5D2SXoLIy2vb6J9glOIOowtb4btkdYD4r4VYZb/ From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Thu Oct 9 19:27:47 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 21:27:47 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher In-Reply-To: <20081009.210940.356.1.farmelantj@juno.com> References: <20081009.210940.356.1.farmelantj@juno.com> Message-ID: I believe that in the late '40s Sartre was anti-Stalinist and highly suspicious of the USSR. He tried to found a "third way" movement, which interested Richard Wright, who had recently gone into exile in France. At 09:08 PM 10/9/2008, Jim Farmelant wrote: > >On Thu, 9 Oct 2008 10:09:38 +0900 CeJ writes: > > > > > > BTW, I admire Sartre's contributions to philosophy, social science > > and > > politics. And his relationships with Camus, De Beauvoir and > > Merleau > > Ponty have long fascinated me. I think JF you are thinking of > > someone > > else on another list, since you contribute on the philsophy of > > history > > on those lists while at the same time CB cross-posts from those very > > same lists to this list (for example this thread on the playboy > > philosopher, which seems to have sprung up already fully discussed > > somewhere else). > >I had your posts confused with the individual who >posts on Marxmail as "Ruthless Critic of All >That Exists". He was the one who got Sartre's >position on Hungary. However, that is not >to deny that in the early 1950s, had been >very much an uncritical supporter of the >Soviet Union and Stalin. It was Khrushchev's >1956 speech at the 20th Party Congress >on Stalin that seems to have >removed the scales from his eyes. >In a broader sense Sartre remained >something of a Stalinist and this was >presumably reflected in his involvement >with the Maoists in the early 1970s. > >Jim F. > > > > > CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 9 23:10:22 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:10:22 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner + Re: Obama on Afghanistan and Iraq Withdrawal + OBL Message-ID: >> No one has conquered Afghanistan since Alexander the Great -- a point actually made, astonishingly enough, by McCain in the first debate, who didn't seem to appreciate its force. << I would suggest list members take a review course on the history of the region. You will see it has been ruled just as much as any other country over the last two thousand years and integrated into various political entities, somtimes centered on what is now Afghanistan itself but also Iran and N. India/Pakistan. One of the worse 'power' vacuums it experienced came with the collapse of the Soviet Union. >> Be that as it may, what BHO actually says should be noted. He says he wants to send two more brigades" of new troops into Afghanistan. This would be a fairly significant escalation of the war. NATO has about 43,000 personnel (mostly noncombat, ratio these days is roughly 10:1) in Afghanistan, 26,000 of which are US. A US military brigade comprises 1,500 to 4,000 personnel, so this could mean as many as 8,000 new us troops, or a roughly 15% increase in the total number of NATO troops, an increase by a third of the number of US troops. But as a practical matter that is a drop in the bucket. It will not make any military difference whatsoever in a country where the Taliban and the warlords own everything outside three or four major cities.<< It's a huge country with no ports--landlocked. The sort of numbers BO throws around makes one large division. This is significant in that the 10:1 ratio is spot on. But even more significantly it would all have to go in on airplanes flown by the USAF. Therefore it would be lightly armed--no real tanks, etc. Besides that, even light infantry is poorly equipped and trained to occupy a country. They are bogged down with their own personal kit and can only move by vehicles, which requires an infrastructure. >> Now BHO is a very smart guy who has highly competent military advice. He has to know this escalation won't do a damn thing militarily, and it's not even significant as an escalation compared to the withdrawal of 140,000 troops (plus, one presumes, a roughly equal number of contractor/mercenaries) from Iraq, even if BHO were to leave a residual force behind. The BHO Afghan escalation proposal, like the threat to go after bin Ladin in Pakistan without asking if they find him (ha!) and the Pakistantis are unable or unwilling to "take him out," is purely for domestic consumption. It is meant to show a US audience that Democrats can be as aggressive and militaristic as Republicans, and to justify withdrawal from Iraq in the context of BHO's suggestion that that is the "wrong" war. It's a play for the US political middle.<< The problem with that is the DoD will have to take him up on matter and their 'competent military advice' will be any way they can maintain military spending to the tune of a trillion dollars a year. >>> That doesn't make BHO a wonderful guy and an ideal candidate of the left, although ending the Iraq war would be a real improvement from any sane political perspective. Apart from the young men and women the proposed Afghan escalation would put in harms way and those near them, and the extra Afghan civilians who will be killed by some of those troops, the Afghan idea is not a major military change.<< It's a major military change if the US national security state decides to escalate with Pakistan--in order to justify all that military spending (or in order to get still yet more military spending). It's also a major change if the DoD really does give up on a massive base infrastructure in Iraq, what had already been a fairly developed country (before the US military destroyed so much of it). This means the US has to tell the Gulf States its CentCom is staying there instead, and they aren't going to like that. >> What is really scary, though, and what no one I have heard discuss has remarked, is that both candidates, including BHO, want to get the former Soviet Republics, including Ukraine, into NATO. For people -- both McCain and BHO -- who sday they don't want to start a new cold war, that is a pretty strange way to go about it, because that is exactly what surrounding Russia with NATO countries, some of which used to be sister Republics and share extended borders with Russia, would do.<< Make the connections. That is why Afghanistan is still valuable in the way the DoD carves up the world of influence and the ability to extend military power (while trying to get others to pay for it). They still see it as part of the 'great game' they continued with the Soviet Union and now Russia. >> I think Dean won the Iowa caucus or did well and then he said > Yeeehaaaa, and the media made a really fake thing about his yelling and > removed him from the running.<< I think he polled high initially and came in third, didn't he? Edwards beat him for second, if I remember correctly. I don't feel like bothering to check. But Dean being short, white and with a loud voice looked more like an NCAA basketball coach than a would-be presidential nominee in the eyes of the Democratic Party, who decided the tall Kerry was their choice of choices. > CB: Well, one way or the other, any talk about an alternative > conspiracy theory for 9/11 has been rendered substantially inappropriate > in mass discourse, like questioning the Warren Commission. A President > has to proceed as if bin Laden's group did it. It's somewhere in between > a mass murder crime and a "war" or skirmish between a state and a > political grouplet. You have to get your head straight on conspiracies (I don't mean you CB, it's just a rhetorical you, I could even be talking to myself--which I frequently do, that is why I post to lists like this). There was clearly a criminal conspiracy to plot and pull off the 9-11 attacks. We haven't seen a criminal trial that shows just what the conspiracy was, but it surely was rooted in the US, Canada, UK, Germany, and Saudi Arabia. There seems to have been a conspiracy in the Bush administration to cover up their own incompetence and use 9-11 as excuses to start wars and occupations (which if you look at their own economic interests is self-serving, to say the least). Starting a war without good cause could make Bush a war criminal in US history, but there doesn't seem to be any strong precedents for going after the elected leaders of the hegemon with the term 'war criminal' on the agenda. CB> Of course, that's very deeply twisted , because the Taliban are a cult > coming out of the process in which Reagan and the US treated their > "parent" groups as Freedom Fighters, heavily arming some really > parochial reactionaries, genuinely backward groups , in the sense of > arch-male supremacists. If they were confined to their indigenously > developed weaponry, swords and the like, they might not be so uhh > whatever, but with US modern weaponry they were real savages. Guns , > germs and steel and all that. Actually the Taliban seem to be a Pashtun offshoot of Deobandi Islamist thought (centered in N. India and now Pakistan) are, in a nutshell, comprised a sort of Pashtun salvation front in trying to deal with the ongoing civil war in Afghanistan. OBL might well have used them in the sense that he wanted Afghanistan to be one of the places where the US empire exhausted itself (because he saw himself as being one of the people who helped the Soviet Union waste itself in Afghanistan). > > Didn't the British significantly influence the whole Saudi Arabian > sect of Islam ? Well Turkish nationalists certainly think so. I think they helped create the ruling family and plotted continuously to peel the Arabian peninsula and other chunks of the ME away from the Ottoman Empire. > CB: They were in Barbary waters , no ? I think the complaint was piracy at high seas. > CB: Ayyeye yeye Companero Viva Pancho Villa ! Very good point, Of > course, Texas, etc. were stolen from Mexico by the US, and that was > before the origin of the "Third World". But I take your point. Thanks. > ^^^^^ > CB: Of course, Pakistan and the ISI are very complicit with the US in > the creation of the heavily armed, counter-revolutionary gangs of > "freedom" fighters in Afghanistan who resulted in the Taliban. And > Pakistan has nuclear weapons. How could they get them without US > approval and help ? I think the Taliban in Afghanistan were largely self-motivated and self-created. However, they did receive material help from Pakistan (both officially and unofficially) and much of the money appears to have come from Saudi Arabia (who wants to have strong influence in populous non-Arab Muslim countries like Pakistan). > >>>As far as imperialism, I don't really think the US wants to set up a > colony or neo-colony in Afghanistan. There's not much to exploit > there.<< > > There are somethings to exploit there, it just isn't feasible, even > on the arrogant, deceitful terms of the US's national security state. > ^^^ > CB: Iraq had _some_ ability to defend itself in both US wars against > it. > ^^^^ It had the ability to fight in a defense of Iraq had the US gone in to occupy the cities in the first war against Iraq. However, the US didn't do that. Instead it chose, for example, to destroy much of the Iraqi military after it had fled Kuwait and was going in a convoy back to Iraq. The US air forces (USAF, Marine airwings, Navy, and Army and Marine helicopters) largely shot up and destroyed fleeing convoys, with a HUGE loss of life to the Iraqi side. In the second conflict, Iraq's ability for self-defense was largely gone and, although I'm not clear on what happened behind the scenes, the army never materialized to do battle with the invading forces. It was a cake walk for the US military for the most part. The transport companies took more combat losses way behind the lines of the actual assaults. I'll conclude with something about OBL, since CB wants BO to chase him to the ends of the earth. Didn't OBL make pronouncements post 9-11 about how the US would exhaust and destroy itself in a paroxysm of militarism and consumption and he hoped to be around to see the results. Meanwhile, Bush said, Here come the dollar bombers! Go shopping! Your way of life depends upon it. I won't say OBL is my revolutionary, but history may yet write him a place in the books that says he was something more than what idiots on lists like Marxmal and LBO T said in 2001. Baudrillard, Bush and Osama Bin Laden. Now Barack Obama. I feel an alliterative kenning utterance a coming on. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 9 23:39:10 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:39:10 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Afghanistan history refresher Message-ID: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_conquest_of_Afghanistan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaznavid_Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghurids http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moghul_Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timurid_dynasty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_dynasty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotaki_dynasty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrani_Empire http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Abdali From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 9 23:43:27 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:43:27 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] insty-book on The Crisis Message-ID: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2008-October/022998.html Holy smoke! Prof. Biff Delong and a panel of experts conclude there is a crisis and recommend the same thing Paulson and Bernanke and Gordon Brown do! Glad I can access it all into the ages as archived on the world wide web! We live in exciting times indeed. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 9 23:55:44 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 14:55:44 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama falters McCain the winner + Re: Obama on Afghanistan and Iraq Withdrawal + OBL In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>It's a huge country with no ports--landlocked. The sort of numbers BO throws around makes one large division. This is significant in that the 10:1 ratio is spot on. But even more significantly it would all have to go in on airplanes flown by the USAF. Therefore it would be lightly armed--no real tanks, etc. Besides that, even light infantry is poorly equipped and trained to occupy a country. They are bogged down with their own personal kit and can only move by vehicles, which requires an infrastructure.<< I now estimate that in order to put two combat brigades (army or marine) into Afghanistan (in an area where they would do something besides open cartons of MREs at Bagram), the DoD would have to add 15-20,000 total military personnel to the count in Afghanistan. Of course they might try and get NATO and Japan to provide more support, but these forces, despite all that cross-training, don't integrate well with US forces. OTOH, I wouldn't expect the Taliban to build the outhouses or the whorehouses that the US military requires. They might get NW or American airlines to fly the troopers into the country however. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Fri Oct 10 00:13:47 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:13:47 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >>I had your posts confused with the individual who posts on Marxmail as "Ruthless Critic of All That Exists".<< Sounds like Marxmal all right! I would bet in answer to the current crisis Louis Proyect published a film review and posted Swans links. >>However, that is not to deny that in the early 1950s, had been very much an uncritical supporter of the Soviet Union and Stalin. << Some would say he opposed the SU's treatment of Hungary (the right position) but for the wrong reasons (the wrong stance in defense of his position). He didn't give that defense a full treatment until 1957. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Fri Oct 10 00:18:52 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:18:52 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Afghanistan history refresher In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hey CB here is your chance to get ahead of the Barrage Obomber wave. Go for it. The UN will be there to back you up (which does make you wonder if the Iraq war is so illegal in the eyes of the UN, why it conferred a legal status on the US's occupation and quickly sent a delegation there--remember the one that got blown to, I guess, kingdom come). http://unjobs.org/vacancies/1221811631588 CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Fri Oct 10 00:24:56 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:24:56 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Afghanistan history refresher In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Speaking of material reality and modes of production, what do West Virginia, Bolivia and Afghanistan all have in common? I would say WV is a bit different in that the erstwhile reliance marijuana production has been diversified with the crystal meth labs. In the case of Bolivia, what George Bush ought to do before he leaves office is get the eastern half of the country to declare itself independent. Then, with an economy based on mineral extraction, large landholdings/ranches, and a society of wide gun ownership, they could petition to become a western state of the US. It won't help the Repugs win this time around but maybe in 4 years. Plus the Repugs would get two more Senate seats. CJ From farmelantj at juno.com Fri Oct 10 05:14:01 2008 From: farmelantj at juno.com (farmelantj at juno.com) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:14:01 GMT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The playboy philosopher Message-ID: <20081010.071401.5269.0@webmail08.vgs.untd.com> That is correct too. In the late 1940s, he was part of a movement to found a new radical left party that would provide an alternative to the PCF. However, when the cold war began to heat up in earnest, especially after the outbreak of the Korean War, Sartre shifted to a very pro-Soviet stance, and he began to lend his support to the PCF, without ever joining it. That lasted until the famous Khrushchev speech and the Soviet invasion of Hungary. However, even after that, Sartre tended to define his political stances in relation to the PCF, both on points of agreement and points of disagreement (Hungary, Algeria, later the 1960s student movement). Jim F. -- Ralph Dumain wrote: I believe that in the late '40s Sartre was anti-Stalinist and highly suspicious of the USSR. He tried to found a "third way" movement, which interested Richard Wright, who had recently gone into exile in France. At 09:08 PM 10/9/2008, Jim Farmelant wrote: > >On Thu, 9 Oct 2008 10:09:38 +0900 CeJ writes: > > > > > > BTW, I admire Sartre's contributions to philosophy, social science > > and > > politics. And his relationships with Camus, De Beauvoir and > > Merleau > > Ponty have long fascinated me. I think JF you are thinking of > > someone > > else on another list, since you contribute on the philsophy of > > history > > on those lists while at the same time CB cross-posts from those very > > same lists to this list (for example this thread on the playboy > > philosopher, which seems to have sprung up already fully discussed > > somewhere else). > >I had your posts confused with the individual who >posts on Marxmail as "Ruthless Critic of All >That Exists". He was the one who got Sartre's >position on Hungary. However, that is not >to deny that in the early 1950s, had been >very much an uncritical supporter of the >Soviet Union and Stalin. It was Khrushchev's >1956 speech at the 20th Party Congress >on Stalin that seems to have >removed the scales from his eyes. >In a broader sense Sartre remained >something of a Stalinist and this was >presumably reflected in his involvement >with the Maoists in the early 1970s. > >Jim F. > > > > > CJ _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ____________________________________________________________ Click for free info on online degrees and make up to $150K/ year. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/Ioyw6i3nlXGOnAH3F9brB8xHHHPyK2ttGoirK8NYmXZqkYOd88Prsl/ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 10 07:52:14 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 09:52:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Inflammatory Republican rallies raise concern Message-ID: <48EF25CD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Another Poster' s comment: [Rallies are eliciting angry audience exclamations like "Kill him!" and "Off with his head!" when Palin esp. launches into anti-Obama tirades. One clip I saw featured an angry man ranting to McCain that "socialists are taking over the country!" - B.] http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMqpznh3v6jNwakujuNxroUbT2qw Inflammatory Republican rallies raise concern 3 hours ago WAUKESHA, Wisconsin (AFP) - Shouts of "terrorist" and "treason" aimed at Barack Obama have echoed around Republican rallies, whipping up into alarming, hate-filled frenzies against the Democratic White House hopeful. Republican presidential nominee John McCain has taken to asking, "Who is the real Barack Obama?" at rallies this week, leading one supporter in Pennsylvania, a blue-collar battleground state to shout back, "he is a bomb." Before the rally, local Republican leader Bill Platt warmed up the crowd by several times referring to "Barack Hussein Obama," focusing on the Illinois senator's middle name, trying to highlight his differences with other Americans. Chants of "Nobama, Nobama" mingled with cries of "terrorist," as one banner in the crowd declared: "Go ahead, let the dogs out." The stream of vicious attacks against Obama, who has left McCain trailing in the polls, were ramped up at the weekend by Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin who accused the Chicago senator of "palling around with terrorists." Palin was referring to Bill Ayers, a founding member of the Weathermen, a radical leftist group in the 1960s, who served with Obama as a board member on a charitable foundation from 1999 to 2001. Now when she mentions Obama , some of the crowds' responses have escalated beyond boos and hisses, and there are fears among some observers that the attacks are going too far. Biden on Wednesday repudiated Palin's "ugly inferences" and personal attacks as "beyond disappointing." "They're trying to take the low road to the highest office in the land," Biden said. On Thursday, the McCain campaign issued a hard-hitting negative commercial, slamming his rival's judgement and candor and accusing him of not telling the truth about the extent of his acquaintance with Ayers. On the campaign trail in Waukesha, near Milwaukee in the northern state of Wisconsin, McCain and Palin appeared to have tempered their attack Thursday, focusing instead on policy, rather than personal differences with the Democratic candidate. On the stump, McCain slammed Obama on his alleged ties to banking giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, blamed Obama for having "never taken on the leadership of his own party on any issue," and for his position on raising taxes on wealthy Americans, among other issues. But still, on the Ayers issue which seems to have energized some of the angriest McCain supporters, the campaign is not backing away from its negative tack. "It's about Senator Obama being candid and straight forward with the American people and their relationship," McCain told Fox News. "He has dismissed it by saying he was just a guy in the neighborhood. You know it's much more than that." Obama himself has said little on the topic, leaving it to his vice presidential pick, Joseph Biden, to come to his defense. "This is volatile stuff and ... I just thought we were kind of beyond this place," Biden told ABC television. If Palin heard hate-filled shouts from the crowds, she should be "at least saying 'whoa, whoa, whoa that's overboard,'" Biden said Wednesday. In an email to supporters Biden said Thursday: "I've heard some pretty unspeakable things in the past few days -- deeply offensive smears that we'll hear over and over again until election day. "Instead of focusing on the issues that really matter, our opponents are doing everything they can to encourage this toxic atmosphere." The US Secret Service conducted a brief probe this week into an alleged "kill him" death threat against Obama that, according to The Washington Post, was shouted Monday at a McCain rally when Palin was speaking of Obama's links to Ayers. USSS spokesman Ed Donovan told AFP on Thursday that none of the Secret Service agents assigned to the McCain camp had actually heard the threat, and that it was unclear who it was meant for, whether Obama or Ayers. For those reasons, he added, the investigation was dropped. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 10 08:01:08 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:01:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Panic of 1907 Message-ID: <48EF27E3.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Panic of 1907 A swarm gathers on Wall Street during the bank panic in October 1907.The Panic of 1907, also known as the 1907 Bankers' Panic, was a financial crisis that occurred in the United States when the stock market fell close to 50 percent in January from its peak in the previous year. At the time, the economy was in a recession and there were numerous runs on banks and trust companies. The panic's primary cause was a retraction of market liquidity by a number of banks in New York City that quickly spread across the nation, leading to the closures of both state and local banks and businesses. The crisis occurred after an attempt by Otto Heinze to corner the market in United Copper failed in October, 1906. When the bid failed, banks that had loaned money for the scheme experienced a number of runs which spread to affiliated banks and trusts, leading a week later to the downfall of the Knickerbocker Trust Company. With the collapse of New York's third largest trust company, fear spread throughout the city's trusts as regional banks pulled deposits from New York, and nationwide as people withdrew their deposits from regional banks. At the time, the United States had no central bank to inject liquidity. The panic would have deepened further if not for the intervention of J.P. Morgan, who convinced other New York bankers to provide a backstop. By November the contagion had largely stopped, yet a small crisis emerged when a large brokerage firm had borrowed heavily with the stock of Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TC&I) as collateral. Collapse of the firm's stock price was averted by an emergency takeover approved by anti-trust crusading president Theodore Roosevelt. The following year, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich established and chaired a commission to investigate the crisis and propose future solutions, leading to the creation of the Federal Reserve System. Contents [hide] 1 Economic conditions 2 Panic 2.1 Cornering copper 2.2 Contagion spreads 2.3 Panic strikes the trusts 2.4 Enter J.P. Morgan 2.5 Stock exchange nears collapse 2.6 Crisis of confidence 2.7 Resolution 3 Aftermath 3.1 Central bank 3.2 Pujo Committee 4 References 5 Bibliography 6 External links [edit] Economic conditions The 1906 San Francisco earthquake badly damaged the U.S. economy, further exacerbating the vulnerability of the national banking system.When U.S. President Andrew Jackson allowed the Second Bank of the United States charter to expire in 1836, the U.S. was without any sort of central bank, and the money supply in New York City fluctuated with the country's annual agricultural cycle. Each autumn money flowed out of the city as harvests were purchased and?in an effort to attract money back?interest rates were raised. Foreign investors then sent their money to New York to take advantage of the higher rates.[1] In January 1906, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit a high of 103 and began a modest correction. The U.S. economy had been particularly unstable since the April 1906 earthquake which devastated San Francisco, prompting an even greater flood of money from New York to San Francisco to aid reconstruction.[2] A further stress on the money supply occurred in late 1906, when the Bank of England raised its rates and more funds remained in London than expected.[3] From their peak in January, stock prices declined 18 percent by July 1906. By late September, stocks had recovered about half of their losses. Between September 1906 and March 1907, the stock market slid, losing 7.7 percent. of its capitalization[4] Then, from March 9 to March 26, stocks fell another 9.8 percent.[5] (This March collapse is sometimes referred to as a "rich man's panic".[6]) The economy remained volatile through the summer. A number of shocks hit the system: the stock of Union Pacific?among the most common stocks used as collateral?fell 50 points; that June an offering of New York City bonds failed; in July the copper market collapsed; in August the Standard Oil Company was faced with a $29 million fine for antitrust violations.[7] In the first nine months of 1907, stocks were off a total of 24.4 percent.[8] On July 27, The Commercial & Financial Chronicle noted that "the market keeps unstable ... no sooner are these signs of new life in evidence than something like a suggestion of a new outflow of gold to Paris sends a tremble all through the list, and the gain in values and hope is gone."[9] The fall season was always a vulnerable time for the banking system?combined with the roiled stock market, even a small shock could have grave repercussions.[10] [edit] Panic [edit] Cornering copper Timeline of panic in New York City[11] Monday, Oct. 14 Otto Heinze begins purchasing to corner the stock of United Copper. Wednesday, Oct. 16 Heinze's corner fails spectacularly. Heinze's brokerage house, Gross & Kleeberg is forced to close. This is the date traditionally cited as when the corner failed. Thursday, Oct. 17 The Exchange suspends Otto Heinze and Company. The State Savings Bank of Butte, Montana, owned by Augustus Heinze announces it is insolvent. Augustus is forced to resign from Mercantile National Bank. Runs begin at Augustus' and his associate Charles W. Morse's banks. Sunday, Oct. 20 The New York Clearing House forces Augustus and Morse to resign from all their banking interests. Monday, Oct. 21 Charles T. Barney is forced to resign from the Knickerbocker Trust Company because of his ties to Morse and Heinze. The National Bank of Commerce says it will no longer serve as clearing house. Tuesday, Oct. 22 A bank run forces the Knickerbocker to suspend operations. Wednesday, Oct. 23 J.P. Morgan persuades other trust company presidents to provide liquidity to the Trust Company of America, staving off its collapse. Thursday, Oct. 24 Treasury Secretary George Cortelyou agrees to deposit Federal money in New York banks. Morgan persuades bank presidents to provide $23 million to the New York Stock Exchange to prevent an early closure. Friday Oct. 25 Crisis is again narrowly averted at the Exchange. Sunday, Oct. 27 The City of New York tells Morgan associate George Perkins that if they cannot raise $20?30 million by November 1, the city will be insolvent. Tuesday, Oct. 29 Morgan purchased $30 million in city bonds, discreetly averting bankruptcy for the city. Saturday, Nov. 2 Moore & Schley, a major brokerage, nears collapse because its loans were backed by the Tennessee Coal, Iron & Railroad Company (TC&I), a stock whose value is uncertain. A proposal is made for U.S. Steel to purchase TC&I. Sunday, Nov. 3 A plan is finalized for U.S. Steel to takeover TC&I. Monday, Nov. 4 President Theodore Roosevelt approves U.S. Steel's takeover of TC&I, despite anticompetitive concerns. Tuesday, Nov. 5 Markets are closed for Election Day. Wednesday, Nov. 6 U.S. Steel completes takeover of TC&I. Markets begin to recover. Destabilizing runs at the trust companies do not begin again. The 1907 panic began with a stock manipulation scheme to corner the market in F. Augustus Heinze's United Copper. Heinze had made a fortune as a copper magnate in Butte, Montana, and in 1906 moved to New York City, where he formed a close relationship with a notorious Wall Street banker Charles W. Morse. Morse had once successfully cornered New York City's ice market, and together with Heinze gained control of many banks?the pair served on at least six national banks, 10 state banks, five trust companies and four insurance firms.[12] The panic began in the vibrant marketplace for stocks that took place on the curb outside the New York Stock Exchange; this curb market later became the American Stock Exchange.Augustus's brother, Otto, devised the scheme to corner United Copper, believing that the Heinze family already controlled a majority of the company. However, a significant number of the Heinze's shares had been borrowed, and Otto believed that many of these had been loaned to investors who hoped the stock price would drop, and they could thus replace the shares cheaply, pocketing the difference in a technique known as short selling. Otto proposed a scheme called a "bear squeeze", whereby the Heinzes would aggressively purchase as many remaining shares as possible, and then force the short sellers to pay for their borrowed shares. The aggressive purchasing would drive up the prices, he believed and, unable to find shares elsewhere, the short sellers would have no option but to turn to the Heinzes, who could then name their price.[13] To finance the scheme, Otto, Augustus and Charles Morse met with Charles T. Barney, president of the city's third largest trust, the Knickerbocker Trust Company. Barney had provided financing for previous Morse schemes. Morse, however, cautioned Otto that he needed much more money than he had to attempt the squeeze and Barney declined to provide funding.[14] Otto decided to attempt the corner anyway. On Monday, October 14 he began aggressively purchasing shares of United Copper, which rose in one day to $52 per share from $39 per share. On Tuesday, he issued the call for short-sellers to give back the borrowed stock. Share prices rose to nearly $60, but the short-sellers were able to find plenty of United Copper shares from sources other than the Heinzes. Otto had misread the market, and the share price of United Copper began to collapse.[15] The stock closed at $30 on Tuesday and fell to $10 by Wednesday. Otto Heinze was ruined. The stock of United Copper was traded outside the hall of the New York Stock Exchange, literally an outdoor market "on the curb" (this curb market would later become the American Stock Exchange). After the crash, The Wall Street Journal reported, "Never has there been such wild scenes on the Curb, so say the oldest veterans of the outside market."[16] [edit] Contagion spreads The failure of the attempt at a corner left Otto unable to meet his obligations and sent his brokerage house, Gross & Kleeberg, into bankruptcy. On Thursday October 17, the New York Stock Exchange suspended Otto's trading privileges. As a result, the State Savings Bank of Butte Montana (owned by F. Augustus Heinze) announced its insolvency. The Montana bank had held United Copper stock as collateral against some of its lending and had been a correspondent bank for the Mercantile National Bank in New York City, of which F. Augustus Heinze was then president. F. Augustus Heinze's association with the corner and the insolvent State Savings Bank proved too much for the board of the Mercantile to accept. Although they forced him to resign before lunch time,[17] by then it was too late. As news of the collapse spread, depositors rushed en masse to withdraw money from the Mercantile National Bank. The Mercantile had enough capital to withstand a few days of withdrawals, but when depositors began to pull cash from the banks of the Heinzes' associate Charles W. Morse, runs occurred at both the Morse's National Bank of North America and the New Amsterdam National. Afraid of the impact the tainted reputations of Augustus Heinze and Morse could have on the banking system, the New York Clearing House (a consortium of the city's banks) forced Morse and Heinze to resign all banking interests.[18] By the weekend after the failed corner, there was not yet systemic panic. Funds were withdrawn from Heinze-associated banks, only to be deposited with other banks in the city.[19] [edit] Panic strikes the trusts At the time, trust companies were booming; in the decade before 1907, their assets had grown by 244 percent. During the same period, national bank assets grew by 97 percent, while state banks in New York grew by 82 percent.[20] The leaders of the high-flying trusts were mainly prominent members of New York's financial and social circles. One of the most respected was Charles T. Barney, whose father-in-law William Collins Whitney was a famous financier, and his Knickerbocker Trust Company was the third largest such fund in New York.[21] The headquarters of the Knickerbocker Trust Company at the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street.Because of past association with Charles W. Morse and F. Augustus Heinze, on Monday, October 21, the board of the Knickerbocker asked that Barney resign (depositors may have first begun to pull deposits from the Knickerbocker on October 18, prompting the concern[22]). That day, the National Bank of Commerce announced it would not serve as clearing house for the Knickerbocker. On October 22, the Knickerbocker faced a classic bank run. From the bank's opening, the crowd grew. As The New York Times reported, "as fast as a depositor went out of the place ten people and more came asking for their money [and the police] were asked to send some men to keep order".[23] In less than three hours, $8 million was withdrawn from the Knickerbocker. Shortly after noon it was forced to suspend operations.[24] As news spread, other banks and trust companies were reluctant to lend out any money. The interest rates on loans to brokers at the stock exchange soared and, with brokers unable to get money, stock prices fell to a low not seen since December of 1900.[25] The panic quickly spread to two other large trusts, Trust Company of America and Lincoln Trust Company. By Thursday, October 24, a chain of failures littered the street: Twelfth Ward Bank, Empire City Savings Bank, Hamilton Bank of New York, First National Bank of Brooklyn, International Trust Company of New York, Williamsburg Trust Company of Brooklyn, Borough Bank of Brooklyn, Jenkins Trust Company of Brooklyn and the Union Trust Company of Providence.[26] [edit] Enter J.P. Morgan When the chaos began to shake the confidence of New York's banks, the city's most famous banker was out of town. J.P. Morgan, president of the eponymous J.P. Morgan & Co., was attending a church convention in Richmond, Virginia. Morgan was not only the city's wealthiest and most well-connected banker, but he had experience with crisis?he helped rescue the U.S. Treasury during the Panic of 1893. As news of the crisis gathered, Morgan returned to Wall Street from his convention late on the night of Saturday October 19. The following morning, the library of Morgan's brownstone at Madison Avenue and 36th St. had become a revolving door of New York City bank and trust company presidents arriving to share information about (and seek help surviving) the impending crisis.[27][28] J.P. Morgan, the dominant banker in New York City, had rescued the U.S. Treasury during the Panic of 1893.Morgan and his associates had examined the books of the Knickerbocker Trust, but decided it was insolvent and did not intervene to stop the run. Its failure triggered runs on even healthy trusts, prompting Morgan to take charge of the rescue operation. On the afternoon of Tuesday, October 22, the president of the Trust Company of America asked Morgan for assistance. That evening Morgan conferred with George F. Baker, the president of First National Bank, James Stillman of the National City Bank of New York (the ancestor of Citibank), and the United States Secretary of the Treasury, George B. Cortelyou. Cortelyou said that he was ready to deposit government money in the banks to help shore up their deposits. After an overnight audit of the Trust Company of America?s books showed the institution to be sound, on Wednesday afternoon Morgan declared, ?This is the place to stop the trouble, then."[29] As a run began on the Trust Company of America, Morgan worked with Stillman and Baker to liquidate the company's assets to allow the bank to pay depositors. The bank survived to the close of business, but Morgan knew that additional money would be needed to keep it solvent through the following day. That night he assembled the presidents of the other trust companies and held them in a meeting until they agreed to provide loans of $8.25 million to allow the Trust Company of America to stay open the next day.[30] The meeting ran until midnight, but on the Thursday morning Cortelyou deposited around $25 million into a number of New York banks.[31] John D. Rockefeller, the wealthiest man in America, deposited a further $10 million in Stillman's National City Bank.[32] Rockefeller's massive deposit left the National City Bank with the deepest reserves of any bank in the city. To instill public confidence, Rockefeller phoned Melville Stone, the manager of the Associated Press, and told him that he would pledge half of his wealth to maintain America's credit.[33] [edit] Stock exchange nears collapse Despite the infusion of cash, the banks of New York were reluctant to make the short-term loans they typically provided to facilitate daily stock trades. Unable to obtain these funds, prices on the exchange began to crash. At 1:30 p.m. Thursday October 24, Ransom Thomas, the president of the New York Stock Exchange, rushed to Morgan's offices to tell him that he would have to close the exchange early. Morgan was emphatic that an early close of the exchange would be catastrophic.[34][35] Near panic broke on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in April 1907 when money reserves dried up.Morgan summoned the presidents of the city's banks to his office. They started to arrive at 2 p.m.; Morgan informed them that as many as 50 stock exchange houses would fail unless $25 million was raised in 10 minutes. By 2:16 p.m., 14 bank presidents had pledged $23.6 million to keep the stock exchange afloat. The money reached the market at 2:30 p.m., in time to finish the day's trading, and by the 3 o'clock market close, $19 million had been loaned out. Disaster was averted. Morgan usually eschewed the press, but as he left his offices that night he made a statement to reporters: "If people will keep their money in the banks, everything will be all right."[36] Friday, however, saw more panic on the exchange. Morgan again approached the bank presidents, but this time was only able to convince them to pledge $9.7 million. In order for this money to keep the exchange open, Morgan decided the money could not be used for margin sales. The volume of trading on Friday was 2/3 that of Thursday. The markets again narrowly made it to the closing bell.[37] [edit] Crisis of confidence Morgan, Stillman, Baker and the other city bankers were unable to pool money indefinitely, while even the U.S. Treasury was low on funds. Public confidence needed to be restored, and on Friday evening the bankers formed two committees?one to persuade the clergy to calm their congregations on Sunday, and second to explain to the press the various aspects of the financial rescue package. However, when Europe's most famous banker, Lord Rothschild, sent word of his "admiration and respect" for Morgan, his remark was represented by newspapers as just an idle boost.[38] In an attempt to gather confidence, the Treasury Secretary Cortelyou agreed that if he returned to Washington it would send a signal to Wall Street that the worst had passed.[39][40] (Clockwise from top left) John D. Rockefeller, George B. Cortelyou, Lord Rothschild, and James Stillman. Some of the best known names on Wall Street issued positive statements to help restore confidence in the economy. To ensure a free flow of funds on Monday, the New York Clearinghouse issued $100 million in loan certificates to be traded between banks to settle balances, allowing them to retain cash reserves for depositors.[41] Reassured both by the pastor and the newspapers, and with their balance sheets flushed with cash, a sense of order returned to New York that Monday.[42] Unbeknown to the city, a new crisis was being averted in the background. On the Sunday, Morgan's associate, George Perkins, became aware that the City of New York required at least $20 million by November 1 unless it was to become bankrupt. The city tried to source money through a standard bond issue, but failed to gather enough finance in a then tight climate. On the Monday and again on the Tuesday, the New York Mayor George McClellan approached Morgan for assistance. In an effort to avoid the disastrous signal that a New York City bankruptcy would send, Morgan wrote a contract to purchase $30 million of city bonds.[43][44] [edit] Resolution Although calm was restored in New York by Saturday, November 2, a further crisis loomed. One of the exchange's largest brokerage firms, Moore & Schley, was heavily in debt and in danger of collapse. The firm had borrowed extensively, using stock from the Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TC&I) as collateral. Recent market difficulties meant there was little demand for TC&I shares, and that not only would Moore & Schley be unable to repay their creditors if loans were called, but that the market would be flooded with TC&I stock. Thus it was presumed bank failure would rapidly spread.[45] The danger remained that if the following morning's exchange opened with Moore & Schley's fate still uncertain, fear would result in a massive crash. One obstacle remained: the anti-trust crusading President Theodore Roosevelt.[46] Morgan retained one ally that had not been tapped, the U.S. Steel Corporation, a company Morgan had helped form through the merger of the steel companies of Andrew Carnegie and Elbert Gary. U.S. Steel had no involvement in banking, but could acquire TC&I.[47] Morgan, Perkins, Baker and Stillman, along with U.S. Steel's Gary and Henry Clay Frick worked Saturday and Sunday arranging the terms and by Sunday night had a plan for acquisition. Frick and Gary traveled on overnight by train to the White House to implore Roosevelt to allow, before 10 a.m. when the markets opened, a company with a 60 percent market share?already the antithesis of his trust-busting efforts under the Sherman Antitrust Act?to make a massive acquisition. Roosevelt's personal secretary refused to see them, yet Frick and Gary convinced James Rudolph Garfield, the Secretary of the Interior, to bypass the secretary and allow them go directly to the president. With less than an hour before markets opened, Roosevelt and Secretary of State Elihu Root, began to review the proposed takeover and absorb the news of a potential crash if the merger was not approved.[48][49] Roosevelt relented, and he later recalled of the meeting, "It was necessary for me to decide on the instant before the Stock Exchange opened, for the situation in New York was such that any hour might be vital. I do not believe that anyone could justly criticize me for saying that I would not feel like objecting to the purchase under those circumstances."[50] When news reached New York, confidence soared. The Commercial & Financial Chronicle reported that "the relief furnished by this transaction was instant and far-reaching".[51] The final crisis of the panic had been averted.[52] [edit] Aftermath Dow Jones Industrial Average's weekly close from January 1904 to December 1909. The market bottom of 53 was recorded on the close of November 15 and November 22, 1907.The panic of 1907 occurred during a lengthy economic contraction, measured by the National Bureau of Economic Research as beginning in May 1907 and lasting until June 1908.[53] [54] The interrelated contraction, bank panic and falling stock market produced considerable economic strife. Robert Bruner and Sean Carr cite a number of statistics quantifying the damage in The Panic of 1907: Lessons Learned from the Market's Perfect Storm. Industrial production dropped further than after any bank run to that date, and that year saw the second highest volume of bankruptcies to that date. Production fell by 11 percent, imports by 26 percent while unemployment rose to 8 percent from under 3 percent. Immigration dropped to 750,000 people in 1909 from 1.2 million people two years earlier.[55] Since the end of the civil war, the United States had seen panics of varying severity. Economists Charles Calomiris and Gary Gorton rate the worst panics as those leading to widespread bank suspensions: the Panic of 1873, Panic of 1893, (as well as 1907 and a later suspension in 1914). Widespread suspensions were forestalled through coordinated actions during the panic of 1884 and panic of 1890. A bank crisis in 1896 is also sometimes classified as a panic.[56] The frequency of crises, the severity of the 1907 panic and concern about the outsized role of J.P. Morgan gave renewed impetus to conduct a national discussion on banking reform.[57] In May 1908, Congress passed the Aldrich?Vreeland Act which established the National Monetary Commission to investigate the panic and to propose legislation to regulate banking.[58] Senator Nelson Aldrich (R?RI), the chairman of the National Monetary Commission, went to Europe for almost two years to study that continent's banking systems. [edit] Central bank Main article: History of the Federal Reserve System A 1910 editorial cartoon in Puck titled: "The Central Bank--Why should Uncle Sam establish one, when Uncle Pierpont is already on the job?"A significant difference between European and the U.S. banking system was the absence of a central bank in the United States. Through their central banks, European countries were able to extend the supply of money during periods cash reserves were low. The idea that the United States economy was made vulnerable without a central bank was not new. Early in 1907, Jacob Schiff of Kuhn, Loeb & Co. warned in a speech to the New York Chamber of Commerce that "unless we have a central bank with adequate control of credit resources, this country is going to undergo the most severe and far reaching money panic in its history". Aldrich convened a secret conference with a number of the nation's leading financiers at the Jekyll Island Club, off the coast of Georgia, to discuss monetary policy and the banking system. In November 1910, Aldrich and A.P. Andrews (Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Department), Paul Warburg (a naturalized German representing Kuhn, Loeb & Co.), Frank A. Vanderlip (president of the National City Bank of New York), Henry P. Davison (senior partner of J. P. Morgan Company), Charles D. Norton (president of the Morgan-dominated First National Bank of New York), and Benjamin Strong (representing J. P. Morgan), produced a design for a "National Reserve Bank".[59] Forbes magazine founder B. C. Forbes wrote several years later: Picture a party of the nation?s greatest bankers stealing out of New York on a private railroad car under cover of darkness, stealthily riding hundreds of miles South, embarking on a mysterious launch, sneaking onto an island deserted by all but a few servants, living there a full week under such rigid secrecy that the names of not one of them was once mentioned, lest the servants learn the identity and disclose to the world this strangest, most secret expedition in the history of American finance. I am not romancing; I am giving to the world, for the first time, the real story of how the famous Aldrich currency report, the foundation of our new currency system, was written.[60] "Dawn of a new era in business"The final report of the National Monetary Commission was published on January 11, 1911. For nearly two years legislators debated the proposal and it was not until December 22, 1913, that Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act. President Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation immediately and the legislation was enacted on the same day, December 22, 1913, creating the Federal Reserve System.[61] Charles Hamlin became the Fed's first chairman, and none other than Morgan's deputy Benjamin Strong became president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the most important regional bank with a permanent seat on the Federal Open Market Committee.[61] [edit] Pujo Committee Main article: Pujo Committee Although Morgan was briefly seen as a hero, wide fears concerning plutocracy and concentrated wealth soon eroded this perception. Not only had Morgan's bank survived but the Trust Companies that were a growing rival to traditional banks were badly damaged. Some analysts believed that the panic had been engineered, either to punish Heinze or as part of an elaborate plot for U.S. Steel to acquire TC&I, or to damage confidence in trust companies so that banks would benefit.[62] Although Morgan lost $21 million in the panic, and the significance of the role he played in staving worse disaster is not disputed, he became the focus of intense scrutiny and criticism.[63] The chair of the House Committee on Banking and Currency, Representative Ars?ne Pujo, (D?La. 7th) convened a special committee to investigate a "money trust", the de facto monopoly of Morgan and New York's other most powerful bankers. The committee issued a scathing report on the banking community, finding that the officers of J.P. Morgan & Co. were on the boards of directors of 112 corporations with a market capitalization of $22.5 billion (with the total capitalization of the NYSE then estimated at $26.5 billion).[64] Despite his ill health, J.P. Morgan testified before the Pujo Committee, facing several grueling days of questioning from Samuel Untermyer. Untermyer and Morgan's famous exchange about the fundamentally psychological nature of banking?that it is an industry built on trust?is oft quoted to this day:[65] Untermyer: Is not commercial credit based primarily upon money or property? Morgan: No, sir. The first thing is character. Untermyer: Before money or property? Morgan: Before money or anything else. Money cannot buy it ... a man I do not trust could not get money from me on all the bonds in Christendom.[65] Associates of Morgan blamed his continued physical decline on the hearings. In February he became very ill and on March 31, 1913?nine months before the "money trust" would be officially replaced as lender of last resort by the Federal Reserve?J.P. Morgan died.[65] [edit] References This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 10 08:10:23 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 10:10:23 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Reverse auction Message-ID: <48EF2A0E.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Reverse auction A reverse auction (also called procurement auction, e-auction, sourcing event, e-sourcing or eRA) is a tool used in industrial business-to-business procurement. It is a type of auction in which the role of the buyer and seller are reversed, with the primary objective to drive purchase prices downward. In an ordinary auction (also known as a forward auction), buyers compete to obtain a good or service. In a reverse auction, sellers compete to obtain business. [edit] Introduction Reverse auction is a tool used by many purchasing and supply management organizations for spend management, as part of strategic sourcing and overall supply management activities. In a typical auction, the seller puts an item up for sale. Multiple buyers bid for the item, and one or more of the highest bidders buy the goods at a price determined at the conclusion of the bidding. In a reverse auction, a buyer contracts with a market maker to help make the necessary preparations to conduct the reverse auction. This includes: finding new suppliers, training new and incumbent suppliers, organizing the auction, managing the auction event, and providing auction data to buyers to facilitate decision making. The market maker, on behalf of the buyer, issues a request for quotation (RFQ) to purchase a particular item or group of items (called a "lot"). At the designated day and time, several suppliers, typically 5-20, log on to the auction site and will input several quotes over a 30-90 minute period. These quotes reflect the prices at which they are willing to supply the requested good or service. Quoting performed in real-time via the Internet results in dynamic bidding. This helps achieve rapid downward price pressure that is not normally attainable using traditional static 3-quote paper-based bidding processes. The prices that buyers obtain in the reverse auction reflect the narrow market which it created at the moment in time when the auction is held. Thus, it is possible that better value - i.e. lower prices, as well as better quality, delivery performance, technical capabilities, etc. - could be obtained from suppliers not engaged in the bidding or by other means such as collaborative cost management and joint process improvement. The buyer may award contracts to the supplier who bid the lowest price. Or, a buyer could award contracts to suppliers who bid higher prices depending upon the buyer's specific needs with regards to quality, lead-time, capacity, or other value-adding capabilities. However, buyers frequently award contracts to incumbent (i.e. current) suppliers, even if prices are higher than the lowest bids, because the switching costs to move work to a new supplier are higher than the potential savings that can be realized. This outcome, while very attractive to buyers, is often strongly criticized by both new and incumbent suppliers. The use of Optimization software has become popular since about 2002 to help buyers determine which supplier to source the work to. It includes relevant buyer and seller business data, including constraints. Reverse auctions are used to fill both large and small value contracts for public and private commercial organizations. In addition to items traditionally thought of as commodities, reverse auctions are also used to source buyer-designed goods and services, and has even been used to source reverse auction providers. The first time this occurred was in August 2001, by America West Airlines (now US Airways) using FreeMarkets software and won by MaterialNet. The majority of purchasing spend subject to reverse auctions over the years has been in the category of buyer-designed goods, followed by services, and then commodity items. Today, an average of 5% of total corporate spending is sourced using reverse auctions. This figure was higher in past years, indicating the goods and services to which reverse auctions can be successfully applied is limited.[1] [edit] History Reverse auctions gained popularity in the late 1990s as a result of the emergence of Internet-based online auction tools. Pioneer of online reverse auctions, FreeMarkets, was founded in 1995 by former McKinsey consultant and General Electric executive Glen Meakem after he failed to find internal backing for the idea of a reverse auction division at GE. Meakem hired McKinsey colleague Sam Kinney who developed much of the intellectual property behind FreeMarkets. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, FreeMarkets built teams of "market makers" and "commodity managers" to manage the process of running the online tender process and set up market operations to manage auctions on a global basis. The company's growth was aided greatly by the hype of the dot-com boom era. FreeMarkets customers included BP plc, United Technologies, Visteon, H.J. Heinz, Phelps Dodge, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell, to name a few. Dozens of competing start-up reverse auction service providers and established companies such as General Motors (an early FreeMarkets customer) and SAP, rushed to join the reverse auction marketspace. Although FreeMarkets survived the winding down of the dot-com boom, by the early 2000s it was apparent that its business model was really like an old-economy consulting firm with some sophisticated proprietary software. Online reverse auctions started to become mainstream and the prices that FreeMarkets had commanded for its services dropped significantly. This led to a consolidation of the reverse auction service marketplace. In January 2004, Ariba announced that it purchased FreeMarkets for $493 million.[2] Fortune magazine published an article in March 2000 describing the early days of reverse auctions.[3] In the past few years mobile reverse auction have evolved. Unlike B2B reverse auctions, mobile reverse auction is B2C and allow consumers to bid on products for pennies. The lowest unique bid wins. In Congressional testimony on the 2008 proposed legislative package to use federal funds to buy toxic assets from troubled financial firms, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke proposed that a reverse auction could be used to price the assets. [edit] Issues and Opportunities Buyers, sellers, and market makers should adhere to auction rules and industry codes of conduct for the use of reverse auctions, if they exist. Problems arise when one or more parties fail to conform to auction rules. This can range from simple cries of "foul" to litigation. Buyers should not assume that reverse auctions will, in every case, deliver savings - either on a unit price or total cost basis. Reverse auction savings can range from negative (i.e. it costs the buyer money) to neutral (i.e. no savings) to positive savings (average gross of 10-20%, but net savings is typically half or less). A true representation of savings can not be achieved if unit price-focused purchasing metrics such as "purchase price variance," "purchase order variance," or "material price variance" are used. Instead, total cost savings must be calculated, inclusive of direct and indirect losses associated with using reverse actions, implementing reverse auction results, subsequent procurement activity, and related activities such as customer returns, defective goods or services, warranty expense, litigation, etc. Suppliers are advised to determine if a value proposition exists for them that would warrant their participation. Some have characterized reverse auctions as a technologically-assisted form of zero-sum power-based bargaining, or as "going in reverse" with respect to developing buyer-seller relationships, collaboration, and purchasing process improvement. Reverse auctions have also been criticized as "bid shopping" - when a buyer uses a supplier's bid to obtain lower prices from other suppliers. Suppliers seeking to avoid reverse auctions can create unique intellectual property, expand the value propositions for its customers by creating new products and services, or seek to extend or improve collaborative activities with their customers. Reverse auctions used in industrial business-to-business procurement and spend management activities remain controversial, both within buying organizations, among suppliers, and among the academics who study them. As such, buyers considering the use of reverse auctions should carefully evaluate all available information, both favorable and unfavorable, to ensure that informed business decisions are made. [edit] Current State Reverse auctions (also becoming known as service auctions) are undergoing a resurgence at present (9/2008), as evidenced by a number of service auction sites for freelancers (e.g. eLance.com, guru.com) that are doing a significant volume of business both in number of projects and amount of money spent (20,000 projects in the last 30 days and over $100 million spent since 2006 according to eLance's website). There are narrow scope sites, such as those specializing in programming, technical writing and other professional, desk-based work (eLance.com, guru.com) or in home improvement and construction work, e.g. blauarbeit.de and eGenie.co.uk. A broad scope site, FlatDoor.com, covers all types of work in any part of the world, including volunteer projects for non-profit organizations. One recent article in Inc. (May 2007; Reverse Auctions ? A supplier's survival guide) by Mark Chafkin quotes Gartner Studios as having been successful with reverse auction bids. The same article quotes Sandy Jap, who studies reverse auctions at the Wharton School of Business as estimating that up to half of all corporate spending could some day be decided by reverse auction. Gartner's keys to success as a supplier in reverse auctions are: (a) Thorough preparation ? it's essential to know your costs, your suppliers, and your market to the greatest extent possible ? tiny details can make the difference between winning and losing, and between being profitable or not; (b) Reverse auctions should be largely kept to the supply of commodity products rather than proprietary ones; and (c) Having a strong, competent bidder leading your effort at the time of the auction, with clear guidelines on when to bid and when to fold is essential. The results of these preparations and skills in the arena are that Gartner has been able to decrease their production and shipping costs by almost 30%; a little more than double their sales in 3 years (2003-2006); and increase their profits to an all-time high. "I know most people don't look at reverse auctions positively, but we see them as a process that makes you better," Gartner says. "If companies don't look at it that way, they'll lose to somebody who does." [edit] See also This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Oct 10 09:28:25 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:28:25 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Inflammatory Republican rallies raise concern Message-ID: In a message dated 10/10/2008 9:52:56 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us writes: >> Another Poster' s comment: [Rallies are eliciting angry audience exclamations like "Kill him!" and "Off with his head!" when Palin esp. launches into anti-Obama tirades. One clip I saw featured an angry man ranting to McCain that "socialists are taking over the country!" - B.] << http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iMqpznh3v6jNwakujuNxroUbT2qw Comment On can of course compared the "call back" of the crowds when Obama speaks. "Yes we can," "Obama," and "Change." The reason crowds attending McCain/Palin rallies shout out things like "Kill him" - speaking of Senator Obama, and "Treason" and "terrorist" - again speaking of Obama, is because the core of the Republicans social basis is fascists. Make no mistake about this. At the core of the social - not financial or military, basis of the Republican party are fascists. WL **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From steiger2001 at centrum.cz Fri Oct 10 09:56:16 2008 From: steiger2001 at centrum.cz (steiger2001 at centrum.cz) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:56:16 +0200 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Moral hazard In-Reply-To: <48ECEBFA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> References: <48ECEBFA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <200810101756.4466@centrum.cz> Would you kindly tell me where I could read the full text of this message ie including the notes? Thanks. Stephen Steiger P.S. If you answer me please send the answer to brusini2000 at yahoo.com, as my server does not "serve" with incoming messages. ______________________________________________________________ > Od: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us > Komu: > Datum: 08.10.2008 23:22 > P?edm?t: [Marxism-Thaxis] Moral hazard > Moral hazard Moral hazard is the prospect that a party insulated from risk ( e.g. by a bailout-CB) may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not bear the full consequences of its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it otherwise would, leaving another party to bear some responsibility for the consequences of those actions. For example, an individual with insurance against automobile theft may be less vigilant about locking his or her car, because the negative consequences of automobile theft are (partially) borne by the insurance company. Moral hazard is related to information asymmetry, a situation in which one party in a transaction has more information than another. The party that is insulated from risk generally has more information about its actions and intentions than the party paying for the negative consequences of the risk. More broadly, moral hazard occurs when the party with more information about its actions or intentions has a tendency or incentive to behave inappropriately from the perspective of the party with less information. A special case of moral hazard is called a principal-agent problem, where one party, called an agent, acts on behalf of another party, called the principal. The agent usually has more information about his or her actions or intentions than the principal does, because the principal usually cannot perfectly monitor the agent. The agent may have an incentive to act inappropriately (from the viewpoint of the principal) if the interests of the agent and the principal are not aligned. Contents [hide] 1 In finance 2 In insurance 3 In management 4 History of the term 5 See also 6 References 7 External links [edit] In finance Financial bail-outs of lending institutions by governments, central banks or other institutions can encourage risky lending in the future, if those that take the risks come to believe that they will not have to carry the full burden of losses. Lending institutions need to take risks by making loans, and usually the most risky loans have the potential for making the highest return. A moral hazard arises if lending institutions believe that they can make risky loans that will pay handsomely if the investment turns out well but they will not have to fully pay for losses if the investment turns out badly. Taxpayers, depositors, and other creditors have often had to shoulder at least part of the burden of risky financial decisions made by lending institutions.[1] Moral hazard can also occur with borrowers. Borrowers may not act prudently (in the view of the lender) when they invest or spend funds recklessly. For example, credit card companies often limit the amount borrowers can spend using their cards, because without such limits those borrowers may spend borrowed funds recklessly, leading to default. Some believe that mortgage standards became lax because of a moral hazard?in which each link in the mortgage chain collected profits while believing it was passing on risk?and that this substantially contributed to the 2007?2008 subprime mortgage financial crisis.[2] Brokers, who were not lending their own money, pushed risk onto the lenders. Lenders, who sold mortgages soon after underwriting them, pushed risk onto investors. Investment banks bought mortgages and chopped up mortgage-backed securities into slices, some riskier than others. Investors bought securities and hedged against the risk of default and prepayment, pushing those risks further along. [edit] In insurance In insurance markets, moral hazard occurs when the behavior of the insured party changes in a way that raises costs for the insurer, since the insured party no longer bears the full costs of that behavior. Two types of behavior can change. One type is the risky behavior itself, resulting in what is called ex ante moral hazard. In this case, insured parties behave in a more risky manner, resulting in more negative consequences that the insurer must pay for. For example, after purchasing automobile insurance, some may tend to be less careful about locking the automobile or choose to drive more, thereby increasing the risk of theft or an accident for the insurer. After purchasing fire insurance, some may tend to be less careful about preventing fires (say, by smoking in bed or neglecting to replace the batteries in fire alarms). A second type of behavior that may change is the reaction to the negative consequences of risk, once they have occurred and once insurance is provided to cover their costs. This may be called ex post moral hazard. In this case, insured parties do not behave in a more risky manner that results in more negative consequences, but they do ask an insurer to pay for more of the negative consequences from risk as insurance coverage increases. For example, without medical insurance, some may forego medical treatment due to its costs and simply deal with substandard health. But after medical insurance becomes available, some may ask an insurance provider to pay for the cost of medical treatment that would not have occurred otherwise. Sometimes moral hazard is so severe that it makes insurance impossible. Sports players would like to insure against losing games, and students would like to be paid if their exams go poorly. But with insurance, players would play less hard (why risk injury?) and students would have a strong incentive to study less.[3] Deductibles, copayment, and coinsurance reduce the risk of moral hazard since the insured have a financial incentive to avoid making a claim. Moral hazard has been studied by insurers[4] and academics. See works by Kenneth Arrow[5][6][7], Tom Baker[8], and John Nyman. [edit] In management Moral hazard can occur when upper management is shielded from the consequences of poor decision making. This situation can occur under a number of circumstances: When a manager has a sinecure position from which he or she cannot be readily removed. When a manager is protected by someone higher in the corporate structure, such as in cases of nepotism or pet projects. When funding and/or managerial status for a project is independent of the project's success. When the failure of the project is of minimal overall consequence to the firm, regardless of the local impact on the managed division. When there is no clear means of determining who is accountable for a given project. The software development industry has specifically identified this kind of risky behavior as a management anti-pattern, but it can occur in any field. [edit] History of the term According to research by Dembe and Boden,[9] the term dates back to the 1600s, and was widely used by English insurance companies by the late 1800s. Early usage of the term carried negative connotations, implying fraud or immoral behavior (usually on the part of an insured party). Dembe and Boden point out, however, that prominent mathematicians studying decision making in the 1700s used "moral" to mean "subjective", which may cloud the true ethical significance in the term.[10] The concept of moral hazard was the subject of renewed study by economists in the 1960s, and at the time did not imply immoral behavior or fraud; rather, economists use the term to describe inefficiencies that can occur when risks are displaced, rather than on the ethics or morals of the involved parties. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 10 11:00:47 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:00:47 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Business Cycle in American History Message-ID: <48EF51FF.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://mgagnon.myweb.uga.edu/Tbanks.htm HISTORY 2111 The Business Cycle in American History -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- There have been many economic depressions in American History; so many that economists created the term "business cycle" to describe how the economy seemed to collapse approximately every twenty years under unregulated capitalism. Before the term "depression" came into vogue, however, such economic downturns were referred to as Bank Panics. Three such national depressions occurred during the antebellum period. The three antebellum depressions (in 1819, 1837 and 1857) all show two basic causes. The sudden collapse of an important agricultural commodity price In 1819 and 1837, the market for cotton collapsed In 1857, increased demand for wheat in Europe, caused by the Crimean War, came to a sudden end when the war ended and an excess harvest occured worldwide. An Unstable Banking System In 1819, runs on banks occur because of collapse of land price, because of risky speculation by unregulated state banks, and because of an embezzlement case at the Baltimore Branch of the Bank of the US. In 1837, "Wild Cat Banks" collapsed at the same time that specualtion on internal improvements destroyed the credit of many state governments. In 1857, an Ohio insurance company went bankrupt which set off a panic primarily in the North. The 1857 Panic brought another factor into the mix: Overproduction of manufactured goods. When inventory stocks of manufactured goods exceeded the demand for those goods because of the financial market, the depression deepened in the North as thousands of workers were laid off during the financial downturn. This become a factor in every depression afterwards. Panics continued approximately every twenty years after the Civil War up to the Great Depression. Panics occured in: 1819-1821 1837-1845 1857-1859 1873-1875 1893-1896 1908 1919 1929-1941 With the economic regulations put in place during the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt, financial downturns became less severe and became known as recessions. Recessions occurred in: 1946 1974-1975 1982-1983 1992 2001-2002 The Reagan Administration dismantled most of Roosevelt's regulations. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 10 11:09:57 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 13:09:57 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Moral Hazard Message-ID: <48EF5424.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard Moral hazard From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Moral hazard is the prospect that a party insulated from risk may behave differently from the way it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk. Moral hazard arises because an individual or institution does not bear the full consequences of its actions, and therefore has a tendency to act less carefully than it otherwise would, leaving another party to bear some responsibility for the consequences of those actions. For example, an individual with insurance against automobile theft may be less vigilant about locking his or her car, because the negative consequences of automobile theft are (partially) borne by the insurance company. Moral hazard is related to information asymmetry, a situation in which one party in a transaction has more information than another. The party that is insulated from risk generally has more information about its actions and intentions than the party paying for the negative consequences of the risk. More broadly, moral hazard occurs when the party with more information about its actions or intentions has a tendency or incentive to behave inappropriately from the perspective of the party with less information. A special case of moral hazard is called a principal-agent problem, where one party, called an agent, acts on behalf of another party, called the principal. The agent usually has more information about his or her actions or intentions than the principal does, because the principal usually cannot perfectly monitor the agent. The agent may have an incentive to act inappropriately (from the viewpoint of the principal) if the interests of the agent and the principal are not aligned. Contents [hide] 1 In finance 2 In insurance 3 In management 4 History of the term 5 See also 6 References 7 External links [edit] In finance Financial bail-outs of lending institutions by governments, central banks or other institutions can encourage risky lending in the future, if those that take the risks come to believe that they will not have to carry the full burden of losses. Lending institutions need to take risks by making loans, and usually the most risky loans have the potential for making the highest return. A moral hazard arises if lending institutions believe that they can make risky loans that will pay handsomely if the investment turns out well but they will not have to fully pay for losses if the investment turns out badly. Taxpayers, depositors, and other creditors have often had to shoulder at least part of the burden of risky financial decisions made by lending institutions.[1] Moral hazard can also occur with borrowers. Borrowers may not act prudently (in the view of the lender) when they invest or spend funds recklessly. For example, credit card companies often limit the amount borrowers can spend using their cards, because without such limits those borrowers may spend borrowed funds recklessly, leading to default. Some believe that mortgage standards became lax because of a moral hazard-in which each link in the mortgage chain collected profits while believing it was passing on risk-and that this substantially contributed to the 2007-2008 subprime mortgage financial crisis.[2] Brokers, who were not lending their own money, pushed risk onto the lenders. Lenders, who sold mortgages soon after underwriting them, pushed risk onto investors. Investment banks bought mortgages and chopped up mortgage-backed securities into slices, some riskier than others. Investors bought securities and hedged against the risk of default and prepayment, pushing those risks further along. [edit] In insurance In insurance markets, moral hazard occurs when the behavior of the insured party changes in a way that raises costs for the insurer, since the insured party no longer bears the full costs of that behavior. Two types of behavior can change. One type is the risky behavior itself, resulting in what is called ex ante moral hazard. In this case, insured parties behave in a more risky manner, resulting in more negative consequences that the insurer must pay for. For example, after purchasing automobile insurance, some may tend to be less careful about locking the automobile or choose to drive more, thereby increasing the risk of theft or an accident for the insurer. After purchasing fire insurance, some may tend to be less careful about preventing fires (say, by smoking in bed or neglecting to replace the batteries in fire alarms). A second type of behavior that may change is the reaction to the negative consequences of risk, once they have occurred and once insurance is provided to cover their costs. This may be called ex post moral hazard. In this case, insured parties do not behave in a more risky manner that results in more negative consequences, but they do ask an insurer to pay for more of the negative consequences from risk as insurance coverage increases. For example, without medical insurance, some may forego medical treatment due to its costs and simply deal with substandard health. But after medical insurance becomes available, some may ask an insurance provider to pay for the cost of medical treatment that would not have occurred otherwise. Sometimes moral hazard is so severe that it makes insurance impossible. Sports players would like to insure against losing games, and students would like to be paid if their exams go poorly. But with insurance, players would play less hard (why risk injury?) and students would have a strong incentive to study less.[3] Deductibles, copayment, and coinsurance reduce the risk of moral hazard since the insured have a financial incentive to avoid making a claim. Moral hazard has been studied by insurers[4] and academics. See works by Kenneth Arrow[5][6][7], Tom Baker[8], and John Nyman. [edit] In management Moral hazard can occur when upper management is shielded from the consequences of poor decision making. This situation can occur under a number of circumstances: When a manager has a sinecure position from which he or she cannot be readily removed. When a manager is protected by someone higher in the corporate structure, such as in cases of nepotism or pet projects. When funding and/or managerial status for a project is independent of the project's success. When the failure of the project is of minimal overall consequence to the firm, regardless of the local impact on the managed division. When there is no clear means of determining who is accountable for a given project. The software development industry has specifically identified this kind of risky behavior as a management anti-pattern, but it can occur in any field. [edit] History of the term According to research by Dembe and Boden,[9] the term dates back to the 1600s, and was widely used by English insurance companies by the late 1800s. Early usage of the term carried negative connotations, implying fraud or immoral behavior (usually on the part of an insured party). Dembe and Boden point out, however, that prominent mathematicians studying decision making in the 1700s used "moral" to mean "subjective", which may cloud the true ethical significance in the term.[10] The concept of moral hazard was the subject of renewed study by economists in the 1960s, and at the time did not imply immoral behavior or fraud; rather, economists use the term to describe inefficiencies that can occur when risks are displaced, rather than on the ethics or morals of the involved parties. [edit] See also Adverse selection Conflict of interest Externality Feedback Free rider problem Offset hypothesis Perverse incentive Unintended consequence [edit] References ^ Summers, Lawrence (2007-09-23). "Beware moral hazard fundamentalists". Financial Times. Retrieved on 2008-01-15. ^ Holden Lewis (2007-04-18). "'Moral hazard' helps shape mortgage mess". Bankrate.com. Retrieved on 2007-12-09. ^ Tim Harford (October 4, 2008). "Bailouts Are Inevitable, Even Desirable: Stop complaining about the "moral hazard" problem and enjoy the rescue", Slate magazine. ^ Crosby, Everett. "Fire Prevention" 26: 224-238. doi:10.2307/1011015. . Crosby was one of the founders of the National Fire Protection Association.[1] ^ Arrow, Kenneth (1963). "Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care" 53 (5): 941-973. doi:10.2307/1812044. ^ Arrow, Kenneth (1965). Aspects of the Theory of Risk Bearing. Finland: Yrj? Jahnssonin S??ti?. OCLC 228221660. ^ Arrow, Kenneth (1971). Essays in the Theory of Risk- Bearing. Chicago: Markham. ISBN 0841020019. ^ Baker, Tom (1996). "On the Genealogy of Moral hazard" 75: 237. ISSN 00404411. ^ Dembe, Allard E. and Boden, Leslie I. (2000). "Moral Hazard: A Question of Morality?" New Solutions 2000 10(3). 257-279 ^ David Anderson, Ph. D. "The Story of the moral" [edit] External links Discussion of moral hazard and insurance by Robert Schenk Moral hazard and risk (in Finance) Moral hazard and Bataan Power Plant The Moral Hazard Myth (in Health Care) What is Moral Hazard Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard" Categories: Asymmetric information | Market failure | Business ethics | Risk | Economics of uncertainty | Anti-patterns | United States housing bubble ViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History Personal toolsLog in / create account Navigation Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Search Interaction About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact Wikipedia Donate to Wikipedia Help Toolbox What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Printable version Permanent link Cite this page Languages Deutsch Espa?ol Fran?ais Italiano ????? Nederlands ??? ?Norsk (bokm?l)? Polski Portugu?s Suomi Svenska T?rk?e ?? This page was last modified on 6 October 2008, at 00:34. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia? is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Oct 10 13:24:15 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:24:15 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Why the Bailout Won't Work and What We Need to Do Message-ID: Why the Bailout Won't Work and What We Need to Do As this edition of the People's Tribune goes to press, the government has just approved the $700 billion bailout of the banks and other wealthy speculators. Among the people there is a mixture of anger and fear - anger that the speculators are being bailed out, and fear over where the economy is headed. The government is trying desperately to save a dying economic system. We must also see that the corporations are moving to gain complete control of our society and run it entirely in their interests. To understand why the proposed bailout won't work and is not in the workers' interest, we need to see what is really at the root of the crisis. With the advent of computers and robots, more and more production is carried on with fewer and fewer workers. Millions of jobs have been permanently eliminated or reduced to part-time, contingency or low-wage jobs. This has produced an unprecedented polarity of wealth and poverty. At one end of society are millions who are cast out of the economy and are struggling to survive on little or no work. At the other end is a tiny class of billionaires and the corporations they control. It is the elimination of jobs and the corresponding destruction of the market that is at the root of the crisis and the global economic depression we now see developing. As more production is done with less labor, there is practically no actual productive capacity, such as a factory, for the wealthy and the corporations to invest in. A relative handful of mines, mills, factories and giant farms spread around the world can produce everything that humanity can consume. With nothing productive to invest in that will actually give them a profit, the corporations have turned to speculation - in effect, they make money by gambling, by buying and selling all kinds of exotic financial instruments. And most of the speculation has been carried on with trillions of dollars of borrowed money. Now we are seeing trillions of dollars in value wiped out as the financial house of cards built by speculation collapses. The fact is that most of these financial instruments really have no value. This is because the underlying "real" economy - where real economic value is created by human labor power in the production process - is being destroyed by replacing human labor with computers and robots. You can't continue to have a market economy when the market -- which consists of people with jobs and the money to buy things - is being destroyed. And that problem is not going to be fixed by bailing out the speculators. For all practical purposes, the corporations have merged with the government, and their ultimate aim is to use the power of the government to reconstruct society in the way most profitable to them. They don't care whether the workers live or die. They are fully prepared to use the power and financial resources of the government to nationalize private property, so long as it's done in a way that suits their interests. We are seeing this in the bailout of the banks and speculators. The corporations will end up with the wealth, and we, the people, will still be scrambling to survive. What is going to be done to guarantee food, clothing, housing, health care, energy, education, transportation and the other necessities of modern life for the workers? Where is our bailout? Modern methods of production mean that it is now possible to have a society organized around meeting people's needs, where what we produce is distributed according to need, and not according to how much money you have. We can have a society where no one is homeless or hungry, or does without health care. As a step in that direction, we need to demand that certain industries - including the financial industry- be nationalized in such a way that we can guarantee that people's day to day needs are met. This means we must confront corporate control of the government. It is supposed to be our government, and we must demand that it represent our interests. The future is up to us. _http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.10/PT.2008.10.09.html_ (http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.10/PT.2008.10.09.html) **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Oct 10 13:27:16 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:27:16 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Job crisis: cause and solution Message-ID: Job crisis: cause and solution "I'm one of 600,000 Americans who lost their jobs this year," said a single Mom. "Potential employers tell me that so many people apply that they can get the skills they want without even considering everyone's application, including mine." This woman's story is becoming the norm. Further, the breadth and depth of the current round of layoffs is reaching into every sector of the economy - including Wall Street which is now called the "new" Rust Belt. What is even more alarming is the fact that today's job losses are, in the main, permanent. In August alone, the economy suffered a net loss of 84,000 jobs. Whole industries are going under, never to return again. What is the cause of the job crisis? Some say the layoffs are because the auto industry didn't turn to smaller vehicles soon enough. Others say the job loss is because of outsourcing and emerging markets like China. Or because of the bursting housing bubble and the sub-prime mortgage mess, which has now spread to the banking sector. All of these explanations are symptoms of the crisis. None are the cause. Like all crises of capitalism, the root cause of economic crisis is the inability of workers to buy back the goods they produce. But today's crisis is qualitatively different from all earlier crises. This one cannot be resolved within capitalism. Here's why. Capitalism is based on the buying and selling of labor power. The steady move to labor replacing electronic technology in the hands of the capitalist class is creating a permanent displacement of workers too poor to ever buy back the mountains of commodities being produced. While it is true that the government intervened in a way to help the workers during the Great Depression, that crisis took place before the shift to the current, new technological base of society. In the previous era, human labor was essential to industrial production. Today it is not. Thus we see that government intervention on the side of the giant corporations and for the purpose of stabilizing the system is seemingly limitless. Intervention on the side of workers is non-existent. The capitalists will not provide for workers they cannot employ or exploit. Also, in the past, the periodic recessions have been temporarily solved with more borrowed money. But sooner or later the loans have to be paid. Unemployed and impoverished workers can't pay or buy. Without buyers, businesses can't sell what they make. Seeing this, bankers and other lenders are pulling back. Credit is drying up. The economy is headed from recession toward a full-scale depression. Even more dangerous -- history shows that capitalism, in periods such as these, will turn to military production, war and fascism in an effort to save the system. A Vision of a Different World Ultimately, there is only one way out of this: We, the people, must organize ourselves to fight for a new society where we use the marvelous technology at our disposal to provide for all. Such a society would guarantee that everyone has the necessities of life as a right. Imagine a world where money as a means of circulation of goods and services is a relic of the past -- where the economy is organized so that everyone gets what they need, and where everyone gives back to the society their talents and skills. It is a world worth fighting for. _http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.10/PT.2008.10.02.html_ (http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.10/PT.2008.10.02.html) **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (ht tp://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From Waistline2 at aol.com Fri Oct 10 13:36:47 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:36:47 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?Elections_2008=3A_Let=E2=80=99s_Declar?= =?utf-8?q?e_Our_independence_from_the_Corporations?= Message-ID: Elections 2008: Let?s Declare Our independence from the Corporations As this is being written, the 2008 presidential election is just a few weeks away. The country is sliding deeper into a terrible economic crisis. This will probably be one of the most important elections in the country?s history, yet the process is unfolding as most U.S. presidential elections have ? as a contest between two personalities putting forward vague slogans, instead of as a choice between two programs. The critical question facing us is, how do we resolve the growing crisis in the interest of the people? Those of us who are struggling for a decent life must ask ourselves, what has held back the process of improving our lives, and what do we need to do to move the process forward? The answer is simple to say, but can be hard to do: We have to stop thinking with the ideas of the corporations that run this country and start thinking for ourselves, as workers. We have to break the ties that bind us politically to the very people who are eliminating our jobs, cutting our wages and benefits, and driving us into poverty. We have to begin thinking in terms of a political program that represents our interests, not the personalities of the candidates. It?s critical that we see the elections in their historical context. That context is the profound changes in the economy that have occurred over the past 40 years. Computers and robots have been brought into the production process in a big way. More and more production is carried on with little or no labor, and millions of jobs have been permanently eliminated or reduced to part-time, contingency or low-wage jobs. A whole new class of dispossessed people is being created?millions who are cast out of the economy and are struggling to survive on little or no work?while at the other end of society, a tiny class of billionaires and the corporations they control amass huge fortunes. There is no question but that these labor-replacing technological changes will transform our society; the question is who will control the transformation, and in whose interest will society be changed? In the hands of the workers, the new technology can help us build a society of abundance, free of poverty and fear. In the hands of the corporations, the new technology means more wealth for the few and more unemployment, poverty and fear for the many. The corporations have been successful over the years in promoting the notion of America as a classless society, where we all have the chance to make it, or even to get rich. But the ongoing destruction of jobs and our standard of living is opening people?s eyes. The workers will begin to see that, no matter how hard they work, their lives and their families are being destroyed through no fault of their own, and neither the corporations nor the government are doing anything about it. People with a program and a vision of what?s possible can bring about change. In this context, it?s important to note that the Green Party candidates ? Cynthia McKinney for president and Rosa Clemente for vice president ? are running on a program that consciously deals with the developing economic and political crisis from the standpoint of protecting the interests of the people. Among other things, they have taken an uncompromising stand to end the U.S. occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan; to defend the human and civil rights of all workers, regardless of nationality; to demand a single-payer health care system that guarantees health care to all; and to defend the rights and living standards of the workers against corporate power. Their program is in line with demands of the dispossessed, which this newspaper represents. We urge our readers to take an active part in the coming elections on the basis of program rather than personality and vague sloganeering. The key is getting ideas out to people, so the workers can see what kind of society is possible and start thinking for themselves. In the battle for the minds of the people, the elections are a forum where this dialogue about change can go on. We must stand on the demands of the dispossessed, the demands of those who are being stripped of what they have and plunged into poverty. Because they are fighting for life, they cannot compromise, and they are forced to fight for a new society that will serve the needs of the workers. Their struggle will point the way forward for all of us. _http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.10/PT.2008.10.03.html_ (http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.10/PT.2008.10.03.html) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 10 13:36:17 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:36:17 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] More chicken little Message-ID: <48EF7671.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100903425.html The End Of American Capitalism? By Anthony Faiola Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, October 10, 2008; A01 The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism. Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation's wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government. The Bush administration is considering a partial nationalization of some banks, buying up a portion of their shares to shore them up and restore confidence as part of the $700 billion government bailout. The notion of government ownership in the financial sector, even as a minority stakeholder, goes against what market purists say they see as the foundation of the American system. Yet the administration may feel it has no choice. Credit, the lifeblood of capitalism, ceased to flow. An economy based on the free market cannot function that way. The government's about-face goes beyond the banking industry. It is reasserting itself in the lives of citizens in ways that were unthinkable in the era of market-knows-best thinking. With the recent takeovers of major lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the bailout of AIG, the U.S. government is now effectively responsible for providing home mortgages and life insurance to tens of millions of Americans. Many economists are asking whether it remains a free market if the government is so deeply enmeshed in the financial system. Given that the United States has held itself up as a global economic model, the change could shift the balance of how governments around the globe conduct free enterprise. Over the past three decades, the United States led the crusade to persuade much of the world, especially developing countries, to lift the heavy hand of government from finance and industry. But the hands-off brand of capitalism in the United States is now being blamed for the easy credit that sickened the housing market and allowed a freewheeling Wall Street to create a pool of toxic investments that has infected the global financial system. Heavy intervention by the government, critics say, is further robbing Washington of the moral authority to spread the gospel of laissez-faire capitalism. The government could launch a targeted program in which it takes a minority stake in troubled banks, or a broader program aimed at the larger banking system. In either case, however, the move could be seen as evidence that Washington remains a slave to Wall Street. The plan, for instance, may not compel participating firms to give their chief executives the salary haircuts that some in Congress intended. But if the plan didn't work, the government might have to take bigger stakes. "People around the world once admired us for our economy, and we told them if you wanted to be like us, here's what you have to do -- hand over power to the market," said Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University. "The point now is that no one has respect for that kind of model anymore given this crisis. And of course it raises questions about our credibility. Everyone feels they are suffering now because of us." In Seoul, many see American excess as a warning. At the same time, anger is mounting over the global spillover effect of the U.S. crisis. The Korean currency, the won, has fallen sharply in recent days as corporations there struggle to find dollars in the heat of a global credit crunch. "Derivatives and hedge funds are like casino gambling," said South Korean Finance Minister Kang Man-soo. "A lot of Koreans are asking, how can the United States be so weak?" Other than a few fringe heads of state and quixotic headlines, no one is talking about the death of capitalism. The embrace of free-market theories, particularly in Asia, has helped lift hundreds of millions out of poverty in recent decades. But resentment is growing over America's brand of capitalism, which in contrast to, say, Germany's, spurns regulations and venerates risk. In South Korea, rising criticism that the government is sticking too close to the U.S. model has roused opposition to privatizing the massive, state-owned Korea Development Bank. South Korea is among those countries that have benefited the most from adopting free-market principles, emerging from the ashes of the Korean War to become one of the world's biggest economies. It has distinguished itself from North Korea, an impoverished country hobbled by an outdated communist system and authoritarian leadership. But the repercussions of crisis that began in the United States are global. In Britain, where Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher joined with President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to herald capitalism's promise, the government this week moved to partly nationalize the ailing banking system. Across the English Channel, European leaders who are no strangers to regulation are piling on Washington for gradually pulling the government watchdogs off the world's largest financial sector. Led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, they are calling for broad new international codes to impose scrutiny on global finance. To some degree, those calls are even being echoed by the International Monetary Fund, an institution charged with the promotion of free markets overseas and that preached that less government was good government during the economic crises in Asia and Latin America in the 1990s. Now, it is talking about the need for regulation and oversight. "Obviously the crisis comes from an important regulatory and supervisory failure in advanced countries . . . and a failure in market discipline mechanisms," Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF's managing director, said yesterday before the fund's annual meeting in Washington. In a slideshow presentation, Strauss-Kahn illustrated the global impact of the financial crisis. Countries in Africa, including many of those with some of the lowest levels of market and financial integration and openness, are now set to weather the crisis with the least amount of turbulence. Shortly afterward, World Bank President Robert Zoellick was questioned by reporters about the "confusion" in the developing world over whether to continue embracing the free-market model. He replied, "I think people have been confused not only in developing countries, but in developed countries, by these shocking events." In much of the developing world, financial systems still remain far more governed by the state, despite pressure from the United States for those countries to shift power to the private sector and create freer financial markets. They may stay that way for some time. China had been resisting calls from Washington and Wall Street to introduce a broad range of exotic investments, including many of the once-red-hot derivatives now being blamed for magnifying the crisis in the West. In recent weeks, Beijing has made that position more clear, saying it would not permit an expansion of complex financial instruments. With the U.S. government's current push toward intervention and the soul-searching over the role of deregulation in the crisis, the stage appears to be at least temporarily set for a more restrained model of free enterprise, particularly in financial markets. "If you look around the world, China is doing pretty good right now, and the U.S. isn't," said C. Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics. "You may see a push back from globalization in the financial markets." Staff writers Blaine Harden in Seoul and Ariana Cha in Washington contributed to this report. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 10 13:53:41 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:53:41 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Necessity is the mother of invention Message-ID: <48EF7A85.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> History of materialism Necessity is the mother of invention A need or problem encourages creative efforts to meet the need or solve the problem. This saying appears in the dialogue Republic, by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. 1 : Necessity is the mother of invention S Cf. [Persius Satires Prologue 10] magister artis ingeniique largitor venter, the belly is the teacher of art and the giver of wit. The idea is stated more succinctly in [1519 W. Horman Vulgaria 52] Nede taught hym wytte. Necessitas ingenium dedit. Necessitie, the inuentor of all goodnesse (as all authours in a maner, doo saye)?inuented a shaft heed. [1545 R. Ascham Toxophilus ii. 18V] The great Mother, Of all productions (graue Necessity). [1608 G. Chapman Tragedy of Byron iv. i.] Art imitates Nature, and Necessity is the Mother of Invention. [1658 R. Franck Northern Memoirs (1694) 44] I soaled my Shoes with wood, which I cut from a Tree. ?No man could more verify the Truth?That, Necessity is the Mother of Invention. [1726 J. Swift Gulliver's Travels iv. x.] ?But, dame, I found language too poor to paint him. I was fain to invent. You know Necessity is the mother of-.? ?Ay! ay, that is old enough, o' conscience?. [1861 C. Reade Cloister & Hearth II. vi.] If necessity is the mother of invention, calamity is not uncommonly the source of legislation. [2001 Washington Post 18 Nov. B7] This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Oct 11 06:48:05 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:48:05 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?New_York_county_prints_=E2=80=98Barack?= =?utf-8?q?_Osama=E2=80=99_on_ballots?= Message-ID: CNN) ? Some are calling it a Freudian slip. Everyone?s calling it a big mistake. Hundreds of absentee ballots sent to voters in New York State?s Rensselaer County, near Albany, were printed with Barack Obama?s last name spelled as ? Osama," the Albany Times Union reports. County elections officials tell the newspaper that it was a typo that made it by three rounds of proof-readers. They also said the error affected just a few hundred voters, and that they will re-send corrected ballots on request. Filed under: Barack Obama politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/10/10/new-york-countys-ballots-print-%E2%80 %98barack-osama%E2%80%99/ **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Oct 11 06:52:21 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:52:21 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Interview With Green Party Presidential Candidate Message-ID: The People's Tribune submitted questions to Presidential candidate Cynthia Mc Kinney and the Green Party Campaign. We received these answers. See our website for the complete interview at _http://www.peoplestribune.org_ (http://www.peoplestribune.org) . People's Tribune: Please summarize the key aspects of the Program of the Green Party. Cynthia McKinney: A McKinney-Clemente Administration would bring US troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan and our many other deployments around the world. We are ready to: Reshape US foreign policy so that we might serve as an honest broker for peace on Earth; Protect home buyers and tenants from predatory manipulations which have led to the greatest redistribution of wealth seen since perhaps the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade; take urgent action on global warming, investing billions and producing millions of jobs converting to a solar economy, employing folks at livable wages in our own communities, retaining our fuel expenses for investments in our own communities; end the war we face at home in the form of militarized borders and schools, privatized prisons, the persecution of political dissent, the drug war, the profiling and targeting of our young people and people of color, mandatory minimums, the list goes on. PT: What response are you getting? CM: The response is overwhelming. We could hardly accept all the invitations. The conditions accompanying this election are unprecedented, especially with the most recent crisis of the Federal Bailout legislation. People are angry, fearful and do not feel confidence in either the Republican or Democratic presidential candidates. This campaign and the Green Party are seeing more interest. It is in the interest of all media to inform the people about this campaign and to let them know about the Green Party with the same level and quality of coverage given to the other campaigns and parties. The media should be insisting that the McKinney/Clemente campaign be included in the debates so that the people of the United States, who have literally been sold out by their government, can learn that McKinney/Clemente and the Green Party are here for the wellbeing of them and their families and that our work and positions are entirely motivated by that. PT: What would you do about the state of the economy? CM: I have called for immediate Congressional action in the following areas: 1. Enactment of a foreclosure moratorium now before the next phase of ARM interest rate increases take effect; 2. Elimination of all ARM mortgages and their renegotiation into 30- or 40-year loans; 3. Establishment of new mortgage lending practices to end predatory and discriminatory practices; 4. Establishment of criteria and construction goals for affordable housing; 5. Redefinition of credit and regulation of the credit industry so that discriminatory practices are completely eliminated; 6. Full funding for initiatives that eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in home ownership; 7. Recognition of shelter as a right according to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to which the U.S. is a signatory so that no one sleeps on U.S. streets; 8. Full funding of a fund designed to cushion the job loss and provide for retraining of those at the bottom of the income scale as the economy transitions; 9. Close all tax loopholes and repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of income earners; and 10. Fairly tax corporations, denying federal subsidies to those who relocate jobs overseas, repeal NAFTA; 11. Appointment of former Comptroller General David Walker to fully audit all recipients of taxpayer cash infusions, including JP Morgan, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG, and to monitor their trading activities into the future; 12. Elimination of all derivatives trading; 13. Nationalization of the Federal Reserve and the establishment of a federally-owned, public banking system that makes credit available for small businesses, homeowners, manufacturing operations, renewable energy and infrastructure investments; and 14. Criminal prosecution of any activities that violated the law, including conflicts of interest that led to the current crisis. For more on my thoughts about the economic crisis we face, see: _http://votetruth08.com/index.php/component/content/article/271-a-gift-for-a-g eneration-a-us-financial-system-of-our-own_ (http://votetruth08.com/index.php/component/content/article/271-a-gift-for-a-generation-a-us-financial-system-of -our-own) PT: What do you see as the ultimate solution to the rampant poverty, racism, repression and drive toward war? CM: We need leaders of countries who are committed to, call for, and who inspire peace and caring for each other and who have the vision that each child and person can achieve and be supported in achieving their truest and highest nature. It could start here in this country. Every solution and impossible achievement could be attained if our country is populated with people who have every chance to be as healthy, strong and intelligent as they canbe. The Green Party approaches life with the understanding that we and everything in life are all interconnected and that should be taken into consideration with designing and creating new things as well as solutions for what is not working. We have a huge country, a huge population and a huge number of huge problems. There is no quick ultimate solution. We need a president who will use their special command of attention and regard to lift the spirits of the people of this country, not just with words, but with honesty, accountability and action on behalf of the people. In truth this will not be hard with a McKinney/Clemente administration that will not be limited to actions of special interest money which dictates so much of what the government does and which has caused so many of the problems that we have. A McKinney/Clemente administration will provide an unprecedented opportunity for this country to shift upward to a brighter future. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Oct 11 06:55:09 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 08:55:09 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The white chauvinist backlash Message-ID: The white backlash in national election campaigns is the inevitable result of American history and specifically the role of the African American people, in American history. Senator John McCain is the focal point of the reactionary white chauvinist backlash. Interestingly enough, the charges leveled against Senator Obama, were first consolidated and tossed into the public arena by Senator Hillary Clinton during the primary election. This includes the charge that Obama is a friend of home grown terrorists. Anyone that takes time to look at the masses both candidates draw to their rallies cannot not but notice that McCain's crowds are roughly 98% white and older than the crowds drawn to Senator Obama's rallies. Why? Much has changed in the thinking and actions of the American people since the Civil Rights Movement and the destruction of legal segregation. We have long ago left the era when it was profitable to discriminate against the blacks and meet appeals for justice with a bloody campaign of lynching. The real and ideological American fascist are attempting to explain and describe the housing crisis and the financial crisis as a case of providing mortgages to low income workers, meaning black and brown workers. The core social basis of the historic fascist movement in America consists primarily of white proletarians in the so-called "Bible Belt," but the economic basis of the historic fascist American movement flows from the capitalist class. Although the white backlash is very real, the modern fascist movement arises, not as the expression of a sector of capital but as the only available form of rule left to capital in crisis. WL **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From Waistline2 at aol.com Sat Oct 11 07:08:48 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 09:08:48 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?An_interview_with_Nelson_Peery=2C_auth?= =?utf-8?b?b3Igb2Yg4oCYQmxhY2sgUmFkaWNhbOKAmQ==?= Message-ID: An interview with Nelson Peery, author of ?Black Radical? By Patrick R. Saunders March 2008 _http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.03/PT.2008.03.8.html_ (http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.03/PT.2008.03.8.html) The following is an interview with Nelson Peery, author of the new book, ? Black Radical: The Education of an American Revolutionary.? Patrick R. Saunders: Mr. Peery, as someone who has witnessed and participated in some historic moments of the 20th century, what do you think is the singular event that has continued to impact on people of this country? Nelson Peery: I think that event was the development of the microchip. This led to the development of labor replacing productive tools and to globalization. These events are changing the world. Societies are based on existing means of production and are organized to facilitate distribution of the means of existence. Change in the means of production begins an era of destruction of the existing social order and finally reconstruction of a new social order compatible with the new means of production. The economic, social and political crises wracking the world today are expressions of the beginnings of this epochal change. Saunders: Mr. Peery, you saw the labor movement progress from the 30s to the present time. What happened to the dynamism that it had in the early days, and what impact has the loss of this energy had on the working class in the present time? Peery: Social dynamism is an expression of crisis. From 1929 through 1940 the world was in the grip of a general crisis. It turned inward against itself. To a great extent World War II temporarily resolved the crisis for America. With wartime full employment and profitability, America emerged virtually unscathed from the war with its productive capacity four times that of 1941. As America moved to dominate the world, it gave material incentives to the leading sector of the working class. This established an identity of interest between worker and capitalist. The effort to block class identity has even gone into the realm of language. Today upper, middle and lower class has replaced the concrete terms worker and capitalist. Without class awareness it is impossible for the workers to defend themselves. Saunders: Can Labor restore its effectiveness as a social movement, and what can rank and file workers do to re-energize the movement at the local level? Peery: The restoration of the labor movement will be an inevitable social result of the developing economic crisis. It will not be the same movement as the 1930's. That was led by the then new class ? the industrial worker. Another new class ? those dispossessed by automation, will lead the new movement. In order to "re-energize the movement at the local level" it is necessary for this new class to understand the real world. Before anything significant happens, the people must break their ideological dependency on their enemy. I'm afraid we are in for a long period of struggle and hardship before this is achieved. Saunders: How do workers overcome the marginalization by the mainstream media and the promotion of hate and prejudice by the political class in today?s world? Peery: Breaking the marginalization of workers by the mainstream media can only be achieved by organizations dedicated to propaganda. We have an unprecedented concentration of workers in the cities and towns. We have the old tools of the press and "pirate" radio and we have the marvelous new weapons of the Internet. In the process of struggle, the people will find their way. Saunders: Thank you for taking time to talk to me on these questions, and if your conversation on these few points is an indicator, I know that your appearance on April 3 at BGSU Firelands will be a wonderful opportunity for the students, faculty and the community at large in our area. This interview was conducted by Patrick R. Saunders, M.A., Instructor of the Humanities at Bowling Green State University Firelands College in Huron, Ohio. It was done in preparation for an event being held the first week of April at the College to remember the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Saunders, who teaches the American Culture Studies series and is an advisor for the local Chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, also worked for several decades on the railroad as a brakeman and conductor, a local union and community activist, and is a Vietnam Veteran. He has taught at BGSU Firelands since 2003, after completing his graduate degree. **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From dogangoecmen at aol.com Sat Oct 11 12:27:50 2008 From: dogangoecmen at aol.com (dogangoecmen at aol.com) Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 14:27:50 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Descartes, Smith and the Theory of Subject In-Reply-To: <8CAF7FC8F4843D2-DC0-2777@WEBMAIL-MC06.sysops.aol.com> References: <8CAF7FC8F4843D2-DC0-2777@WEBMAIL-MC06.sysops.aol.com> Message-ID: <8CAF9E63366D7B2-CB0-30C9@WEBMAIL-DC07.sysops.aol.com> Dear All, please find below the abstract of my paper on Descartes, Smith and the theory of subject. The paper will appear in the 3rd issue of BAYKUS - a Turkish journal of philosophy. You may think it is not dealing with the contemporary crisis. Sure it does not. But it deals with a fundamental contradiction of capitalism in regard to the question what is the situation of individuals in capitalit markets and production and of how to establish a society in which all individuals might be emancipated and regard one another as their second selves. Cheers, Dogan --------------------- ? This paper aims to present Smith?s theory of subject in his intellectual context and in relation to some con temporary approaches. The issue will be, first, dealt with in relation to Descartes from a philosophical and social historical point of view and this will be related to Smith?s philosophy of subject. After having referred to Smith?s Scottish background as a philosopher, there will be presented Smith?s two dimensional (general and historical) philosophy of subject as a critique of Cartesian philosophy of subject. In that connection there will be pointed to two traditions in the philosophy of subject: cogito and mirror. As will be seen below, Smith defines himself in mirror tradition. This will lead to presentation of Smith?s methodological revolution in the theory of subject and of his use of some of his major concepts such as situation, sympathy, impartiality a nd the division of labour. After having worked out Smith?s investigation into the contradiction between general and historical aspects of the philosophy of subject there will be pointed out that Smith uses a social theoretical perspective which might bring about the emancipation of subject. AOL Email goes Mobile! You can now read your AOL Emails whilst on the move. Sign up for a free AOL Email account with unlimited storage today. ________________________________________________________________________ AOL Email goes Mobile! You can now read your AOL Emails whilst on the move. Sign up for a free AOL Email account with unlimited storage today. From jannuzi at gmail.com Sat Oct 11 23:24:40 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:24:40 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marxism-Thaxis Digest, Vol 60, Issue 11 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > 8. New York county prints ?Barack Osama? on ballots > Well the Marxmal statement didn't spell his name correctly either. But interchange and --why heck I do it all the time! During the inflammatory McCain rallies, one elderly white woman said something like, she couldn't trust BO because he is a Muslim and an Arab (implied: and therefore a terrorist). And the most remarkable thing is McCain replied, No, no, he is not. He is a good family man (instead of saying, I don't think he is, but even if he were, that is not how you decide what sort of American he is). So in the current climate of fear (war against terror, mother nature hates you, war against everything) in the US, it's o.k. to say that Arabs and Muslims can never be Americans. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Sat Oct 11 23:48:39 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:48:39 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Here come the dollar barrage obombers! Message-ID: Even more significant though would appear to be the news about a 'suicide' bomber killing a large group of Pakistan tribesman who were trying to attack the militants. So this reveals the next step in how the US will try to stir things up in S. Asia. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081012/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan excerpt>>The U.S. is suspected in at least 11 missile strikes on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border since mid-August, killing more than 100 people, most of them alleged militants, according to an Associated Press count based on Pakistan intelligence numbers. The United States rarely confirms or denies the attacks, which provoke anger among many Pakistanis. Pakistan's military and civilian leaders have criticized the strikes as violations of their country's sovereignty. But they have not forcefully demanded Washington stop them, leading to criticism from Muslim conservatives. On Saturday, Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik accused the U.S. and Afghanistan of not doing enough to stop Islamist militants from crossing into its territory. Malik said his country had arrested scores of Afghan militants on its side of the border, and that insurgents were using rocket launchers and missiles against its troops. Also Saturday, mourners buried victims of a suicide bombing near the border that targeted anti-Taliban tribesmen who were moving to evict militants from their region. Government official Asghar Khan said authorities had tallied at least 34 bodies, but as many as 25 other bodies may have been taken away by relatives. Some media reports said the death toll from Friday's attack was much higher.<< From ballistanc at yahoo.com Sun Oct 12 06:16:50 2008 From: ballistanc at yahoo.com (juan De La Cruz) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 05:16:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?An_interview_with_Nelson_Peery=2C_auth?= =?utf-8?b?b3Igb2Yg4oCYQmxhY2sgUmFkaWNhbOKAmQ==?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <677843.3478.qm@web35508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 10/11/08, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote: From: Waistline2 at aol.com Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] An interview with Nelson Peery, author of ?Black Radical? To: marxism-thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu Date: Saturday, October 11, 2008, 9:08 AM An interview with Nelson Peery, author of ?Black Radical? By Patrick R. Saunders March 2008 _http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.03/PT.2008.03.8.html_ (http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.03/PT.2008.03.8.html) The following is an interview with Nelson Peery, author of the new book, ? Black Radical: The Education of an American Revolutionary.? Patrick R. Saunders: Mr. Peery, as someone who has witnessed and participated in some historic moments of the 20th century, what do you think is the singular event that has continued to impact on people of this country? Nelson Peery: I think that event was the development of the microchip. This led to the development of labor replacing productive tools and to globalization. These events are changing the world. Societies are based on existing **(I look at things from a different historical perspective, for example, from a communist view point one can argue that International Wave of proletarian Struggle 1917-1923 had been the most important and radically historical moment for the revolutionary proletariat since it put on the front line the fight to imposed the proletarian dictatorship on a world scale. The defeat of that wave led to inmense borugeois changes and reforms which in turn imposed de devolopment of capitalist productive forces and its technological innovations. So the reforms of changes on the means of production, consumption and distributions of commodities are directly related to defeat, on the production level, of the proletarian tentative of 1917. When you read the history of capital one learns that since the very begining of its deadly existence it is the history of international relations. Consequently, the use of the terms "globalization" doesn?t contribute in any way to the proletarian class conscious requierements of the epoch. In its process toward war capital needs to destroy portion of itself and its productive forces. As you can see, the only revolutionary alternative points toward communist revolution before capaital generalises war. That?s capital only way out in order to reconstruct law and order within its mode of production. From a proletarian perspective, once again, the communist revolution appears as the only and possible solution). means of production and are organized to facilitate distribution of the means of existence. Change in the means of production begins an era of destruction of the existing social order and finally reconstruction of a new social order compatible with the new means of production. The economic, social and political crises wracking the world today are expressions of the beginnings of this epochal change. Saunders: Mr. Peery, you saw the labor movement progress from the 30s to the present time. What happened to the dynamism that it had in the early days, and what impact has the loss of this energy had on the working class in the present time? Peery: Social dynamism is an expression of crisis. From 1929 through 1940 the world was in the grip of a general crisis. It turned inward against itself. To a great extent World War II temporarily resolved the crisis for America. With wartime full employment and profitability, America emerged virtually unscathed from the war with its productive capacity four times that of 1941. As America moved to dominate the world, it gave material incentives to the leading sector of the working class. This established an identity of interest between worker and capitalist. The effort to block class identity has even gone into the realm of language. Today upper, middle and lower class has replaced the concrete terms worker and capitalist. Without class awareness it is impossible for the workers to defend themselves. Saunders: Can Labor restore its effectiveness as a social movement, and what can rank and file workers do to re-energize the movement at the local level? Peery: The restoration of the labor movement will be an inevitable social result of the developing economic crisis. It will not be the same movement as the 1930's. That was led by the then new class ? the industrial worker. **(the actual structure of the labor movement must be and will be destroy by the next proletarian wave in order for the communist movement to impose its mode of production). Another new class ? those dispossessed by automation, will lead the new movement. In order to "re-energize the movement at the local level" it is necessary for this new class to understand the real world. Before anything significant happens, the people must break their ideological dependency on their enemy.**(correct!! But it needs to go further and create new structures) I'm afraid we are in for a long period of struggle and hardship before this is achieved. Saunders: How do workers overcome the marginalization by the mainstream media and the promotion of hate and prejudice by the political class in today?s world? Peery: Breaking the marginalization of workers by the mainstream media can only be achieved by organizations dedicated to propaganda. **(it is not enough)We have an unprecedented concentration of workers in the cities and towns. We have the old tools of the press and "pirate" radio and we have the marvelous new weapons of the Internet. In the process of struggle, the people will find their way. Saunders: Thank you for taking time to talk to me on these questions, and if your conversation on these few points is an indicator, I know that your appearance on April 3 at BGSU Firelands will be a wonderful opportunity for the students, faculty and the community at large in our area. This interview was conducted by Patrick R. Saunders, M.A., Instructor of the Humanities at Bowling Green State University Firelands College in Huron, Ohio. It was done in preparation for an event being held the first week of April at the College to remember the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Saunders, who teaches the American Culture Studies series and is an advisor for the local Chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America, also worked for several decades on the railroad as a brakeman and conductor, a local union and community activist, and is a Vietnam Veteran. He has taught at BGSU Firelands since 2003, after completing his graduate degree. **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun Oct 12 09:23:33 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 11:23:33 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Race and class Message-ID: Crossing Over As the U.S. Economy Sputters, Working-Class Women Shift to Obama By JONATHAN KAUFMAN Wall Street Journal October 11 2008 KOKOMO, Ind. -- Last month, in this once-sturdy auto town of 60,000, two white women sounded off at a union hall when talk turned to politics. "I feel like a white female or a white male has fewer opportunities than the black man or the black woman because of all the special treatment and special programs they have gotten," said Marla Hightower. "If Obama is elected, what's going to happen?" "That is just stupid," Ginny McMillin, the head of her local, shot back. "People are saying 'we don't want a black man.' Shame on America for thinking that!" The exchange was emblematic of the sharp divide among white, working-class female voters -- a key voting bloc that has largely rejected Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. But four weeks and a $700 billion financial-bailout package later, some attitudes are shifting. Sen. Obama is now picking up support from some of the very women who until recently disdained him. As U.S. economic concerns intensify, ranks of blue-collar females are reconsidering everything from Sen. Obama's policies to their comfort level with his race. Working-class women, generally defined as those in blue-collar and service jobs earning less than $50,000 a year -- comprise almost a quarter of American voters. Sen. Obama trailed Sen. John McCain by 12 points among these women just two weeks ago, but has since closed the gap. According to a Wall Street Journal poll conducted the weekend of Oct. 4, the two senators are now running even, with 45% of such voters giving each candidate the nod. The reversal is one of the main reasons Sen. Obama is gaining ground in swing states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana -- all of which have large rural and blue-collar populations. Ms. Hightower, who lost her auto-factory job two years ago in a wave of forced retirements, is one of the recent converts. Having watched the financial crisis unfold and the stock market plummet, she now says she plans to cast her vote for the Illinois senator. "I am not 100% crazy about Obama," says the 55-year-old with a sigh. "He kind of scares me. But I think he will do better for the middle class." In particular, she likes Sen. Obama's conviction to keep more jobs in the U.S. Petra Jameson, a black Obama supporter, says she's noticed similar changes taking place at Kokomo's two big auto plants. Just a few weeks ago, "when we had some people come around to ask workers to vote for Obama they were told 'I am not voting for that N-word.' People said that." At the time, union organizers who support Sen. Obama were stunned by how many working-class women even refused to take literature with his picture on it. But now, says Ms. Jameson, 35 years old, some people are turning. "They are losing money [in their retirement accounts] daily. They may have to get over race." Kokomo is a city with a checkered racial and economic history. It was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity in the 1920s and rippled with racial tension in the 1960s, residents say. About 10% of Kokomo's population today is African-American. Anchored by sprawling Delphi and Chrysler factories, the city has more recently been hit hard by layoffs triggered by the troubles of the auto industry. The area's jobless rate, at around 8%, is the highest in the state. In August, the Delphi plant announced it would let go another 300 workers. Thousands of people here have been pushed into early retirement. Many women in and around Kokomo once held jobs at the Delphi auto-parts plant and other factories that paid $20 to $30 an hour with generous benefits. Replacement gigs, often in the service sector, tend to pay about half that. Last week, Angela Lorenz, 58 years old, met with a stock broker to discuss her 401(k) which had been free-falling in value. Two years ago, she lost her position at a local utility company where she earned $24 an hour. These days, she and her husband, a former union auto worker, each make $9.25 an hour cleaning offices in a hospital building. Growing up in the Kokomo area, Ms. Lorenz recalls occasional clashes with African-Americans at work. Parking her car near black neighborhoods made her fearful about crime. Eventually, she says, she came to know and befriend blacks at her job. She voted for President Bush in 2004 but this time she is still undecided. "I want whoever is going to help the country get through this," says Ms. Lorenz, who has decided to stay put in the stock market for now. "I think Obama could represent me. He does understand the problems for older people. He was close to his grandparents. He is aware of what can happen to people if they don't have someone to look after them." In the latest Wall Street Journal poll, blue-collar women indicated they are more worried about their personal financial future than blue-collar men. About 62% of these women expressed concern about their personal financial future over the next year compared to just 23% who were more optimistic. Working-class men, while worried, show a bit more confidence, with 57% saying they are pessimistic about their own financial future versus 39% who are optimistic. Such differences may help to explain why working-class women have frequently shown a tendency to break with their husbands, brothers and fathers in the voting booth. (White working-class men still overwhelmingly back Sen. McCain by 58% to 34%, support that hasn't changed much since the financial crisis began.) In recent years, blue-collar women have been more open to Democratic economic messages, analysts say, and less swayed by social issues than their male counterparts. In 2004, President Bush defeated John Kerry overwhelmingly among blue-collar men but won blue-collar women by just one point. In 2000, President Bush trounced Al Gore among blue-collar men but won blue-collar women by just three points. For this election, some analysts see heightened economic tensions overcoming any racial prejudices or hang-ups. "Women are much more sensitive to kitchen-table issues -- they are usually responsible for balancing family budgets," says Katherine Newman, a Princeton sociologist who studies the working class. "Racism is what you indulge in if everything else is in order and you can let your prejudices hold sway. If your family is in trouble you can't afford it." Kenlyn Watson, the white owner of a beauty salon here called the Mane Attraction, was certain four weeks ago that she would vote for Sen. McCain. Among other things, she was suspicious that a President Obama "would try to right the injustices of 200 years against the black man in four years." Now, the 50-year-old says she is "on the fence" and seriously considering voting for Sen. Obama. "I am concerned when McCain says the 'fundamentals of the economy are sound' and then 24 hours later we are going down the crapper," she says. "I have friends who are planning on shutting down their stores in 30 days if things don't get better. I may not agree with all of Obama's policies but maybe we need change." In an effort to win back working-class women, the McCain campaign is emphasizing tax cuts and economic policies that it says will create jobs and help ease the financial crisis. Sen. McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have stepped up criticism of Sen. Obama's past associations, hammering away at the idea that Sen. Obama is an out-of-touch elitist while Sen. McCain and his running mate are populists on the side of workers. Gov. Palin has energized many working-class women here because they see themselves in her -- a woman, who, like them, is assertive, juggles work and family, and rejects many of the traditional liberal views of the women's movement. Chatting with a group of women in a downtown Kokomo caf?, 72-year-old Jody Hollis, a retired auto worker, recently took out a sheaf of papers with pictures of Gov. Palin downloaded from the Internet. "Look, girls: Her with the national guard, her killing a moose, holding a fish. Look! She's a macho woman and man at the same time." But support for Gov. Palin is also fading among working-class women. A month ago, 47% of blue-collar women said the Alaska governor was qualified to be president while 40% said she was not. Now those numbers have reversed: 43% of white working-class women in this past weekend's Journal poll say Gov. Palin is qualified to be president; 48% say she isn't ready. The campaign is still volatile and the preferences of white working-class women, like other segments of the electorate, could continue to shift. Race has emerged as an explosive topic several times -- most notably regarding Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Obama's former controversial Chicago pastor who made inflammatory statements attacking American policies. Analysts and advisers in both campaigns expect such issues to surface again. "The idea that in a time like this there is no time for racism is a nice thought but I don't think things will necessarily pan out that way," says Jay Campbell, vice president of Hart research, which conducts the Wall Street Journal poll. "What we have seen over the past twenty years in politics is that a lot of people don't end up voting their own economic self-interest, but they vote on a values level." About half of white working-class women -- 51% -- say they don't identify with Sen. Obama's "background" and "values" while 42% say they do, according to a Journal poll last month. By contrast, 60% say they identify with Sen. McCain's values, while 34% say they do not. The Obama campaign is stressing tax cuts and broader health care coverage in addition to traditional women's issues like pay equity and the senator's pro-choice stance on abortion. It is also deploying Michelle Obama around the country to meet with working women and talk about their concerns. Mrs. Obama recently traveled to a suburb of Indianapolis, about an hour south of here, to address female voters. "That is why I am out here -- to convince people that Barack does get it," Mrs. Obama told the crowd. Last week, Ms. Jameson says she was in a Costco store with her son who was wearing an Obama T-shirt. A white woman came up to them, Mrs. Jameson recalls, and said, "I hope he wins. I am a lifelong Republican but things have to change." _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list _pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu_ (mailto:pen-l at lists.csuchico.edu) _https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l_ (https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l) **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Sun Oct 12 17:04:09 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 19:04:09 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Race and class In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I wonder how much I should feel encouraged by this desperate shift of ignorant white women toward Obama. I suspect white Americans are idiots by and large, but because of my lack of social contact with working class whites over the past couple of decades, no matter how cynical I get, I nevertheless manage to underestimate their degree of imbecility. I wouldn't mind so much that this nation is doomed if these dumb motherfuckers were not going to take me down with them. At 11:23 AM 10/12/2008, Waistline2 at aol.com wrote: >Crossing Over >As the U.S. Economy Sputters, Working-Class Women Shift to Obama >By JONATHAN KAUFMAN >Wall Street Journal >October 11 2008 > >KOKOMO, Ind. -- Last month, in this once-sturdy auto town of 60,000, two >white women sounded off at a union hall when talk turned to politics. > ............... From Waistline2 at aol.com Sun Oct 12 19:44:45 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:44:45 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Race and class Message-ID: In a message dated 10/12/2008 7:11:23 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, _rdumain at autodidactproject.org_ (mailto:rdumain at autodidactproject.org) writes: >> I wonder how much I should feel encouraged by this desperate shift of ignorant white women toward Obama. I suspect white Americans are idiots by and large, but because of my lack of social contact with working class whites over the past couple of decades, no matter how cynical I get, I nevertheless manage to underestimate their degree of imbecility. I wouldn't mind so much that this nation is doomed if these dumb motherfuckers were not going to take me down with them.<< Comment Ralph always has a way with words. In other words the above means the American working class is not class conscious or lacks class consciousness. I believe it is factually - statistically, incorrect to present Anglo women as a segment, as being the most hostile towards the Obama candidacy. There is of course enough old fashion racism left in America to keep everyone busy. The white backlash was expected and predicable. I try to contextual the new environment of the class struggle. America 2008 is not the America I was born into fifty-six years ago. Today, it seems that the free wheeling "free market" ideology is under heavy assault. That this assault comes from within the ruling class is understandable. Our work is cut out for us. WL. **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 07:59:54 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 09:59:54 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Good morning Neighborhood Team Leaders Message-ID: <48F31C1A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Good morning Neighborhood Team Leaders: Thank you for attending the Get Out the Vote (GOTV) Training yesterday afternoon. We really appreciate your hard work and continued commitment to Team #__ and the Michigan Campaign for Change during the past few weeks! There will be a Team Leader Meeting this evening at 7:30 p.m. at Sala Thai Restaurant locates at (Lafayette Tower Shopping Plaza). At the meeting we will discuss how to implement the campaign's GOTV strategy during the last few weeks remaining between now and the election. Please plan to attend. Please contact me at ...t. to confirm that you will attend the meeting. Again, thank you for your continued support of the Michigan Campaign for Change! T. Neighorbhood Team # __ Coordinator Michigan Campaign for Change ?If you don?t like the way the world is, you change it. You have an obligation to change it. You just do it one step at a time.? Marian Wright Edelman This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 08:55:52 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 10:55:52 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Race and class In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48F32937.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Today, it seems that the free wheeling "free market" ideology is under heavy assault. That this assault comes from within the ruling class is understandable. ^^^^ CB: Yep. There is a big surge from the right in the working class against Wall Street right now. It's an instant populism, recent rightwingers making a left move. ^^^ Our work is cut out for us. WL. **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 11:18:06 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:18:06 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Recent history of bailouts Message-ID: <48F34A8E.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> US capitalism has been operating on state-monopoly ( definition of a monopoly is "too big to fail) underwriting or subsidizing for a while. What are the amounts of these bailouts ? Are there others ? Charles Chrysler bailout - 1979 ? S & L bailout LTCM bailout 2008: GM-Chrysler-Ford loan bailout AIG Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Paulson's $ 700 billion to what company ? This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 11:25:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 13:25:51 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Recapitalization of Banks ? Message-ID: <48F34C60.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The Recapitalization of Banks: Policy Makers Finally on Right Track by: Brian Griffin October 13, 2008 | about stocks: XLF Brian Griffin Add to Your WatchlistAbout this author: Bio & more articles Visit author's site Become a Contributor Submit an Article Font Size: PrintEmail After a tumultuous few weeks in the credit and equity markets, it seems that the US Treasury and Federal Reserve are finally on the right track. After some ridiculous jawboning about buying toxic mortgage securities above market prices, they have decided to use the Swedish playbook from the 1990s banking crisis in Scandinavia. This involves several steps: Injection of equity capital into the banking system; Providing confidence in the banking system to investors by providing transparent marks to illiquid securities; Taking equity stakes in firms that are strong enough to survive and liquidating those that aren?t - this helps to remove moral hazard because there is a serious price to pay if you want to remain in business and you are a financial company; Providing incentives to banks to lend their newfound capital. For more information, I will point you in the direction of the Fed?s paper located at this link: Cleveland Fed Policy Paper I think that investors, and the public in general, should breathe a sigh of relief. We have yet to deal with the recession that is coming but our policy makers are, for once, doing the right things to keep the foundation of our economy strong. http://seekingalpha.com/article/99636-the-recapitalization-of-banks-policy-makers-finally-on-right-track This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 12:40:56 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:40:56 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?Is_this_Capitalism=E2=80=99s_End_of_Da?= =?utf-8?b?eXM/?= Message-ID: <48F35DF9.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Counterfeit currency Is this Capitalism?s End of Days? By Norman Markowitz -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- click here for related stories: economy 10-08-08, 12:37 pm The economic crisis continues to escalate and it is a crisis of the capitalist system as the system has devolved in the US and globally in recent decades. It is not a crisis of ?Wall Street? aka the stock market or ?finance? aka the banks because the stock market and the banks are inter-related and with ?deregulation? directly interconnected institutions of the capitalist system. For those of us not ready to pass through the golden gates and ascend to Free Market Heaven where there is no regulation or taxation, three questions arise? What is being done? What should be done? What can be done? First, what is being done is to pump money into the system. The goal is to buy up the ?bad paper? that has functioned as a sort of counterfeit currency in a world where public policy has encouraged the worst of capitalist speculation on a scale greater (because the world economy is so much greater) than ever before. Does the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve have enough money literally to do this? In the ?brave new world "of multi-trillion dollar and euro unregulated global hedge funds, a world where transnational firms are in many instances literally working off the books, I really don?t know. And, more importantly, I don?t think that those who are pumping in the money from the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve know either? Register to vote here What they are doing now is to use a version of Keynesian compensatory fiscal as the policy to ?pump prime? the economy, as it was called in the 1930s, in order to ward off a major depression. But they are doing it in a chaotic, helter-skelter way, with no serious concessions to workers who face unemployment as credit contraction continues, the millions of homeowners who face foreclosure without any ban on foreclosures or any judicial discretion in debt restructuring. Nor is there any mention of the long battered public sector where state and local governments, relying on bond issues and regressive taxes to fund education, police, fire, and other basic services, may face collapse as the crisis expands to the bond market and local property taxes move toward confiscatory levels. What can be done? To answer this, let us exclude entirely the likely answers of Palin and McCain, that is, prayer and tax cuts for the corporations and the rich, respectively, along with their mock outrage against greedy Wall Streeters. Let us also exclude what the Federal Reserve Board itself seems to be excluding, that is, the monetary theory of the late Milton Friedman, on which it and the central banks of other major capitalist countries in significant ways have been operating for decades, that is intervening with interest rate increases and decreases to alternatively stimulate and dampen down capital flows in the economy and thus let the ?free market? operate without state intervention in the form of jobs, housing, health care, transportation energy. However, bailouts of banks, brokerage houses, corporations, which don?t fit into the theories of Adam Smith in the 18th century, with greatly influenced the nineteenth, or the theories of Milton Friedman in the 20th, century, which promised a triumphant return to the 19th, seem to keep on happening when big capitalists get in big trouble. It is almost as if government serves dominant class interests instead of being a ?neutral? force, a passive policeman, or a buddy to stakeholders. I am sure Milton Friedman would have opposed the Treasury department orchestrated bailout last week. And, although I do not commune with spirits, I think he certainly would be aghast at the Federal Reserve buying up all this bad paper. After all, he long contended that the US could have avoided both the great depression and the New Deal (a terrible deviation from ?economic freedom?) with the correct monetary policy. He would probably say if he were still with us that his monetary theories should be given a chance to work, that in the long run all will be well if the ?market? is kept as free as possible. And the theorist whom he spent much of his life trying to supplant (not Karl Marx, but John Maynard Keynes) would probably repeat the sarcastic answer he gave to his ?free market critics? during the depression that is, ?in the long run everyone is dead.? What should be done before Keynes' warning becomes prophecy? In the US and globally through the IMF and World Bank, there can be a repudiation of the policies that have emanated from Friedman?s monetary theories and a revival and updating of both regulation and compensatory fiscal policies aimed at maintaining effective purchasing power in national economies. This means providing economic and social protections for workers and farmers instead of forcing poor countries to eliminate existing subsidies to facilitate ?market development.? This means also building over time the World Labor Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN into instruments that will at the very least regulate both transnational corporations and agribusiness in the interest of workers and farmers in poor countries, raising the purchasing power of the people within those countries in order to make international trade a two way, not a one way street. In the US, particularly what should be done is the dismantling of what was once called ?Reaganomics? the grotesque combination of Friedmanite Monetary Theory with a prominent US historian earlier called ?Military Keynesianism.? To achieve this, what is needed is nothing more than a ?new New Deal,? and one that will in all likelihood have to be more experimental, flexible, and radical then the first. That ?new New Deal? should in the first hundred days of an Obama administration write new National Banking and Securities and Exchange Acts, repealing the deregulation of the last thirty years, and restructuring consumer debt for personal property (including home a mortgages). That ?new? New Deal should repeal in its entirety the Taft-Hartley law and threaten those states who seek to continue anti-union shop policies under various subterfuges with a cut off of federal funding. That ?new New Deal? should institute in its first year far reaching cuts in the military budget. A reduction of something like $50 billion should in the first year should be considered a minimum and those cuts should continue annually. These cuts should also be re-invested in federal public sector programs, federal aid to education, the establishment a national public health care system, the revival of public housing programs which went into eclipse in the Reagan era and public energy policies which fell by the wayside in after World War II. Finally, the first 100 days of a ?new New Deal? in an Obama administration should do more than close tax loopholes, but repeal the entire ?detaxation? policy of the Reagan-Bush era. Ideally, it would restore progressive income and corporation taxes, capital gains taxes, and in the process begin to collect hundreds of billions of dollars which will permit it, along with military budget cutbacks, increased revenues from increased real wages and incomes of working people, to both fund social revitalization, reduce the federal deficit and through its policies aid state and local governments to reduce their deficits. How much of this will be done depends on what happens in this coming election. If McCain wins, we can be reasonably certain that none of it will be done, because even with an expanded Democratic majority, he would veto virtually all of it. If Obama wins, the size of his victory and the continuation of the grassroots movements and activism that served was the mass base for his candidacy, along with his inclinations and the size of the crisis he confronts upon taking office will largely determine the policies of his first 100 days, whether it is just a half a loaf improvement from the Bush disaster or a comprehensive reversal of what Obama himself has called ?an economic philosophy which has failed completely.? All of this can be done, within the context of the present capitalist system. Immediately, meaning right now, Congress can push through a repeal of Gramm-Leach and the Obama campaign can begin to outline its economic policy, leaving McCain and Palin continue their silly and petty personal attacks, which merely highlights the fact that they have no plan, no policy, and no idea of what to do exist get elected and continue the policies that have produced the present crisis. Hopefully, we will begin to see an outline of the Obama?s first 100 days as he addresses the expanding economic crisis in the last weeks before the election. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 12:42:20 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:42:20 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Labor-led coalition demands recovery plan for Main Street Message-ID: <48F35E4D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Labor-led coalition demands recovery plan for Main Street Author: John Wojcik People's Weekly World Newspaper, 10/09/08 14:06 Leaders of many of the nation?s most powerful unions have joined with heads of dozens of progressive community and political organizations to map out an economic recovery plan for Main Street. In a message titled ?A Call for Common Sense,? they demanded that Congress support public oversight of the recently passed Wall Street bailout, tight new regulations for Wall Street, measures to keep people from losing their homes to foreclosure, strict limits on CEO compensation and a massive public program to rebuild the nation?s crumbling infrastructure. Leading the signers were the heads of the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association, the United Steelworkers and the Communications Workers of America. Others included leaders of ACORN, Jobs with Justice, the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the National Consumers League, Campaign for America?s Future and many more. These groups and others are now putting a priority on electing Barack Obama and a bigger Democratic majority in Congress as the next step to win a Main Street recovery plan. As record new jobless figures were announced Oct. 3, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney declared, ?The roots of the current economic crisis are decades deep. They reflect the basic elitism that underlines the Bush administration?s economic agenda and has permeated McCain?s as well for his 26 years in the Senate. These rules favor corporate profits and Wall Street investors and not the working people who build our cities, teach our children and nurse our ills.? The same day, President Bush signed the bailout measure giving $700 billion in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street. But Republicans have blocked an economic recovery package for workers, despite the signs of increasing desperation on Main Street. While the bailout may ultimately provide some relief to the tanking stock market and failing banks, progressive leaders say it does not address the center of the economic storm. The Labor Department announcement said 159,000 additional jobs were lost in September ? making the total jobs lost this year more than 760,000. Responding to the new jobless numbers, Sweeney said, ?It is essential that we provide immediate relief to families across the country who are bearing the brunt of the economic meltdown.? Immediately after approving the bailout, the Democratic-majority House approved an additional extension of unemployment benefits for long-term jobless workers. The bill provides a 7-week extension for workers who exhaust their benefits, with a 13-week extension in states with the highest rate of joblessness. More than 1.1 million workers will, by the end of the year, exhaust both their regular unemployment benefits and the13 weeks of extended benefits passed earlier this year. Bush said Oct. 2 that he continues to oppose any additional unemployment benefits. That same day Senate Republicans blocked a move by Democrats to bring the unemployment extension bill to a vote by unanimous consent. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was the ringleader of the effort to block the extension. McConnell is facing a strong election challenge from labor-endorsed Bruce Lunsford. As bad as the news on the job-loss front is, the full picture is far gloomier because the number of long-term unemployed (those out of work for more than six months) grew to 2 million in September, an increase of 728,000 over the past 12 months. A recent Economic Policy Institute report showed that in July there were 2.6 job seekers for every available job ? a hike of more than 60 percent from just a year earlier when there were 1.6 job seekers for every opening. Economist Dean Baker, of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, said, ?It is almost entirely the fault of Bush administration policy that things have gotten as bad as they have.? Obama called for enactment of a Main Street economic stimulus package, saying, ?Instead of Sen. McCain?s plan to give tax breaks to CEOs and companies that ship jobs overseas, we must rebuild the middle class by creating millions of new jobs, and by investing in infrastructure and renewable energy that will reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East.? Obama also called on Congress to ?pass an immediate rescue plan for our middle class that will provide tax relief, save one million jobs, and save our local communities from harmful budget cuts and painful tax increases.? John McCain opposes such stimulus measures for working families. McCain failed to show up for the Senate vote on the first stimulus bill last spring. jwojcik @pww.org This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 12:43:44 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:43:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The crisis of family debt Message-ID: <48F35EA1.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The crisis of family debt Author: Art Perlo People's Weekly World Newspaper, 10/06/08 17:38 There is broad consensus among labor unions and progressive organizations, economists and politicians that we need a bottom-up solution to the economic crisis. That is, the priority should be fixing Main Street, not Wall Street. The main proposals include: 1) A moratorium on home foreclosures, and giving bankruptcy courts the power to renegotiate mortgages. 2) Extend unemployment benefits and increase funding for food stamps, heating assistance, and other survival programs. 3) Aid to state and local governments so they can avoid layoffs and reductions in vital services. 4) Rebuilding the infrastructure of America: clean energy, roads, bridges, water systems, schools, and housing, providing good-paying jobs. Bailing out Wall Street without fixing Main Street is like fixing the cracks in the wall while your foundation is crumbling. The measures listed above, as well as more basic changes, are necessary. But with more than 100,000 families losing their homes each month, I would like to focus on one critical part of the foundation -- stopping foreclosures and keeping families in their homes. The root of the crisis is that working families have been squeezed from all sides, especially since the recession of 2001. Household income has been falling behind the increasing cost of necessities. The squeeze has been aggravated by the decline of medical coverage and retirement plans, shifting these costs, along with soaring costs for education, food and energy, onto over-strained family budgets. Many have dealt with this strain by going into debt. They were pushed deeper by the mortgage brokers, real estate agents, appraisers, and credit card vendors, who piled on fees, charges, and hidden interest rates, often based on wildly inflated housing prices. Even when this debt was not the result of outright fraud and conspiracy by the financial and real estate industries, it was in violation of any reasonable banking standards. Financial institutions, staffed by MBAs, PhDs and other highly-trained experts, made loans that no first-year economics student should have approved. The immediate cause of the financial crisis on Wall Street is this mountain of debt smothering people on Main Street. In simplified form, here is what happens. ? Hard-pressed families fall behind on their mortgage and credit card payments. ? When homeowners can't make payments, the banks foreclose, but the home frequently stands empty and the bank is unable to recover much of the outstanding loan.. ? The bank, with less money coming in, has trouble paying other banks and investors that it borrowed money from. ? Those other banks and investors have trouble paying banks and investors they borrowed from. ? Banks, investors, and ordinary businesses are afraid to lend money to other banks, investors and ordinary businesses. Families owe more on their mortgages and their credit cards than they can ever pay back. And their effort to save their homes and meet creditors' demands is undermining their families, their neighborhoods and the local economy, as family members work multiple jobs and cut back on health care, local purchases, local taxes, utilities, and home maintenance. The bailout package just approved by Congress doesn't address this problem at all. Homeowners and consumers still have the same debt, still face the same monthly payments. The only change is that the U.S. government has become a collection agent for the banks and investors. The solution is to reduce the amount that working people owe. Reduce homeowners' and consumers' debt to the level it would be at if reasonable lending standards had been applied in the first place. Conservative practice is that families should pay no more than 25 percent of their income for housing. So a people's bailout plan would mandate that mortgages be reduced so that monthly payments will be 25 percent of household income. But in no case should the debt be for more than the real value of the house, as determined by historical price levels adjusted for inflation. Credit card debt, second mortgages, and home improvement loans, college loans, and medical debt could also be adjusted by similar calculations, to a maximum of 10 percent of household income. This would not cost the government a penny -- it would force banks and investors to recognize the losses resulting from their own bad judgment and fraudulent practices. Millions of people would still be in their homes, and neighborhoods and local tax bases would be stabilized. And the financial system would be more stable because the banks could now be confident of receiving a steady stream of payments, even though these payments would be less than what they originally expected. The proposals to revive the economy, listed at the beginning of this article, should still be adopted. The economic stimulus package that was blocked in the Senate by a Republican filibuster a few weeks ago included some of those provisions. And major reform and regulation of the financial industry is necessary; there are some excellent proposals to take over failing banks, regulate the financial industry, and tax financial transactions and exorbitant compensation to control speculation and help pay for the program. But until we clear up the massive, unfair, and often illegal debt that has been fastened on working families, it will act as an anchor dragging down the economy, and Main Street will be haunted by insecurity and misery. Democratic leaders in Congress had a number of proposals that would have reduced the amount families owe on their mortgages. They were blocked by the Republicans, who don't support any meaningful relief for homeowners. During the vice presidential debate, Senator Biden expressed support for bankruptcy reform to reduce the amount owed by homeowners, and said that he thought that McCain opposed it. Governor Palin said that Biden was wrong, implying that McCain also supports the measure, and said that McCain is on the side of the people against ?the greed and corruption on Wall Street.? There is a simple test to see if Palin's claim has any substance. Will McCain show leadership and bipartisanship by proposing that Senators Obama and Biden join him in pushing to pass this bankruptcy legislation immediately? The proposal was killed in the Senate last April after encountering ?stiff opposition from many Republicans as well as the banking and mortgage loan industries,? according to the New York Times. (April 4, 2008) But with McCain's backing, there should be no problem getting this legislation through Congress now. Art Perlo (econ4ppl at cpusa.org) is chair of the Communist Party?s economic commission. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 12:47:32 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:47:32 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] "Recapitalization" Is Not "Nationalization" Message-ID: <48F35F85.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Sunday, October 12, 2008 "Recapitalization" Is Not "Nationalization" by Norman Markowitz The major industrial capitalist countries today are in effect purchasing "equity stakes" in major central banks, guaranteeing credit and deposits, and seeking to "recapitalize" through state investments and, hopefully, controls, a collapsing system. The Bush administration, according to the press is beginning to follow suit,shifting gears away from its $700 billion bailout. While this is being called "partial nationalization" it is yet a further exercise in state capitalism whose guarantees are primarily aimed at insuring that the capitalist class retains its control over capital. Many theorists in the socialist and to a much lesser extent the later Communist movements looked positively to aspects of state capitalist development, seeing in its centralization, its placing of state controls over capital, an important stepping stone on the road to the transformation of a centralized advanced form of capitalism into socialism. But without a strong workers movement(and Communists would say without a strong Communist party to educate the working class and help to coordinate its struggles) state capitalism can and has been a stepping stone to open capitalist dictatorships in Germany, Italy and other countries. Will these state capitalist interventions contain the crisis and keep the "recession" from becoming a major depression? Will they lead in the direction of working class revitalization or in the direction of increased monopoly power. That will be decided by the struggles ahead, the political struggles in the U.S. both before and especially after the election, especially the struggles to alleviate what we might call the "peoples crisis," unemployment, loss of homes and other personal property, loss of access to credit in an installment plan society, loss of pensions. While the peoples crisis and the capitalists crisis, the crisis of the banks and the stock market, the investors seeing their "portfolios" net worth plummet, the business managers seeing their credit tighten greatly, are inter-related, they affect different people in different ways, with the former affecting most of the world's people, who own nothing butt their labor. Senator Obama has talked about addressing the crisis "from the bottom up," which I interpret as addressing the peoples crisis first. So far that isn't being done. But it can be done and it is what has to be done. What is also interesting about the European governments actions is how irrelevant the Bush administration and its policies are to what is happening. Bush is in effect following Europe's lead, shucking and jiving so to speak with neither a consistent policy or much understanding of the developing crisis. If this is the world of "one superpower," that the pundits were proclaiming after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is a superpower straight out of Monte Python, with a President for global silliness. Meanwhile, McCain is running around, being booed by his own "base" for telling them that Obama is not an "arab," but a good family man, throwing in Bill Ayers while contending that the campaign should be kept clean, and expressing anger when Representative John Lewis, who was beaten into unconsciousnesses during the Freedom Rides in Alabama in 1961, accuses his campaign of "sowing hate" the way Alabama governor George C. Wallace did in the 1960s, hate that reverberated in increased violence against civil rights activists and peace activists. While the Obama campaign and Lewis are backtracking from the Wallace comparison, I wouldn't, in the sense that McCain's Town Meetings are filled with "supporters" who are talking like George Wallace in the 1960s or worse. Richard Nixon began to bring the George Wallace "base" (nearly 10 million votes in 1968) with coded appeals to racism and authoritarianism under slogans like "law and order" and "silent majority." McCain is using the "town meeting" format at this moment to have his supporters talk like George Wallace in a non coded way, to create a sort of audience participation racism and reaction while the world passes him, his campaign and his party by. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 12:53:31 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:53:31 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] "Recapitalization" Is Not "Nationalization" Message-ID: <48F360EC.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Sunday, October 12, 2008 "Recapitalization" Is Not "Nationalization" by Norman Markowitz The major industrial capitalist countries today are in effect purchasing "equity stakes" in major central banks, guaranteeing credit and deposits, and seeking to "recapitalize" through state investments and, hopefully, controls, a collapsing system. The Bush administration, according to the press is beginning to follow suit,shifting gears away from its $700 billion bailout. While this is being called "partial nationalization" it is yet a further exercise in state capitalism whose guarantees are primarily aimed at insuring that the capitalist class retains its control over capital. Many theorists in the socialist and to a much lesser extent the later Communist movements looked positively to aspects of state capitalist development, seeing in its centralization, its placing of state controls over capital, an important stepping stone on the road to the transformation of a centralized advanced form of capitalism into socialism. But without a strong workers movement(and Communists would say without a strong Communist party to educate the working class and help to coordinate its struggles) state capitalism can and has been a stepping stone to open capitalist dictatorships in Germany, Italy and other countries. Will these state capitalist interventions contain the crisis and keep the "recession" from becoming a major depression? Will they lead in the direction of working class revitalization or in the direction of increased monopoly power. That will be decided by the struggles ahead, the political struggles in the U.S. both before and especially after the election, especially the struggles to alleviate what we might call the "peoples crisis," unemployment, loss of homes and other personal property, loss of access to credit in an installment plan society, loss of pensions. While the peoples crisis and the capitalists crisis, the crisis of the banks and the stock market, the investors seeing their "portfolios" net worth plummet, the business managers seeing their credit tighten greatly, are inter-related, they affect different people in different ways, with the former affecting most of the world's people, who own nothing butt their labor. Senator Obama has talked about addressing the crisis "from the bottom up," which I interpret as addressing the peoples crisis first. So far that isn't being done. But it can be done and it is what has to be done. What is also interesting about the European governments actions is how irrelevant the Bush administration and its policies are to what is happening. Bush is in effect following Europe's lead, shucking and jiving so to speak with neither a consistent policy or much understanding of the developing crisis. If this is the world of "one superpower," that the pundits were proclaiming after the fall of the Soviet Union, it is a superpower straight out of Monte Python, with a President for global silliness. Meanwhile, McCain is running around, being booed by his own "base" for telling them that Obama is not an "arab," but a good family man, throwing in Bill Ayers while contending that the campaign should be kept clean, and expressing anger when Representative John Lewis, who was beaten into unconsciousnesses during the Freedom Rides in Alabama in 1961, accuses his campaign of "sowing hate" the way Alabama governor George C. Wallace did in the 1960s, hate that reverberated in increased violence against civil rights activists and peace activists. While the Obama campaign and Lewis are backtracking from the Wallace comparison, I wouldn't, in the sense that McCain's Town Meetings are filled with "supporters" who are talking like George Wallace in the 1960s or worse. Richard Nixon began to bring the George Wallace "base" (nearly 10 million votes in 1968) with coded appeals to racism and authoritarianism under slogans like "law and order" and "silent majority." McCain is using the "town meeting" format at this moment to have his supporters talk like George Wallace in a non coded way, to create a sort of audience participation racism and reaction while the world passes him, his campaign and his party by. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 13:09:07 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:09:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bush's Self-criticism Message-ID: <48F36494.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Bush's Self-criticism By Fidel Castro In a brief 15-minute speech [Sept. 24], the President of the United States made some assertions that, had they come from the mouths of any of his adversaries, they would have been described as atrocious and cynical slanders against the economic system of his country which he named ?democratic capitalism.? After dramatically appealing to Congress to allocate an additional 700 billion dollars to cope with the crisis, he cited, among others, the following reasons: ? This is an extraordinary period for America?s economy. ? We have seen terrible situations in the U.S. economy. ? The aim is to preserve the country?s overall economy. ? I have declared that our global economy remains regulated largely by twentieth century laws and we must update it to the financial structure of the twenty-first century. ? Banks have restricted credits. ? Many lenders have approved loans without examining ability to pay. ? How did we reach this point? What does this mean for the country?s financial future? ? Economists suggest these are problems that have developed for more than a decade. ? Most economists agree that the problems we?re witnessing today developed over a long period of time. ? Many entrepreneurs got loans to start businesses, buy houses and cars. There were many negative consequences, particularly in the housing market. ? Many mortgage lenders approved loans for borrowers without carefully examining their ability to pay. ? Many people assumed they would be able to pay their mortgages, but it was not so. ? All this had effects far beyond the housing market. ? Securities are sold to investors around the world. Many assumed these securities had a tangible value. ? Many companies like Freddie Mac borrowed enormous sums of money and put our financial market at risk. ? The large banks found themselves saddled with large amounts of assets they could not sell. ? Other banks found themselves in similar situations and available credit dried up. ? Many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government and put our financial system at risk. ? The situation became more precarious by the day. ? I?m a strong believer in free enterprise. ? The decline in the housing market set off a domino effect. ? I believe companies that make bad decisions should pay for it. Under normal circumstances, I would have not followed this course. But these are not normal circumstances. ? The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence. ? The government?s top economic experts warn that, without immediate action, the country could slip into panic, more banks could fail, there would be negative effects on the retirement accounts, foreclosures would rise and millions of Americans could lose their jobs. ? The country could experience a long and painful recession. We must not let this happen. ? Many are asking, how would a rescue plan work? ? It should be enacted as soon as possible. ? The federal government would put up to $700 billion to inject liquidity. ? The government will try to have the markets back to normal as soon as possible. ? We have seen how one company can grow so large that its failure jeopardizes the entire financial system. ? The government should be authorized to take a closer look at the companies to ensure that their growth does not threaten the global economy. ? Democratic capitalism is the best system ever devised. ? I know that Americans sometimes get discouraged, but this is a temporary situation. ? History has shown that, in times of real trial, its leaders unite to rise to the occasion. ? Tomorrow, in the White House, Obama, McCain and other congressional leaders will meet. He concluded with thanks. Some have pointed out that his eyes did not for one minute move away from the teleprompter and that he was frowning. Yesterday, George W. Bush did not only confess these truths; he launched a new sort of Alliance for Progress. The first of them all was the colossal farce at Punta del Este in 1961, conceived by Kennedy after the Cuban Revolution. The one before the last, as we know, was Bill Clinton?s and it was called the Free Trade Area for the Americas (FTAA), which was signed in 1994. This one received its coup de gr?ce in Mar del Plata in the year 2005. On the same day of his ?self-criticism?, Bush launched the Pathways to Prosperity in the Americas Initiative. What a ridiculous name. After checking the list of the ten Latin American countries committed to the Initiative in New York, I realized the absence of Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Ecuador, Venezuela and Nicaragua; in other words, almost all of South America and one from Central America, whose former Chancellor, Miguel D?Escoto, a Sandinista and a priest who favor the Theology of Liberation, is now presiding over the United Nations General Assembly. According to Bush?s recurring fantasy, this project which is being discussed by the news cable agencies, as expressed by the President when he addressed the governments of the ten countries present, ?would permit us to work to ensure that the benefits of trade are broadly shared.? ?It will deepen the connections among regional markets. It will expand our cooperation on development issues.? ?It is a good idea to continue opening up new markets, especially in our own neighbourhood.? Such events constitute excellent study material for the ideological battle. What kind of progress can imperialism guarantee for any Latin American country, with its atomic weapons, its arms industry, its escorted fleets of nuclear aircraft carriers, its wars of conquest, its unequal exchange and permanent pillaging of other peoples? Self-criticism is not a category under ?democratic capitalism?. Anyway, we shouldn?t be ungrateful or impolite: we should thank Bush for his brilliant contribution to political theory. Cuban News Agency This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 13:59:08 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:59:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?Is_this_Capitalism=E2=80=99s_End_of_Da?= =?utf-8?q?ys=3F_Counterfeit_currrency?= Message-ID: <48F3704D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Is this Capitalism?s End of Days? By Norman Markowitz -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The economic crisis continues to escalate and it is a crisis of the capitalist system as the system has devolved in the US and globally in recent decades. It is not a crisis of ?Wall Street? aka the stock market or ?finance? aka the banks because the stock market and the banks are inter-related and with ?deregulation? directly interconnected institutions of the capitalist system. For those of us not ready to pass through the golden gates and ascend to Free Market Heaven where there is no regulation or taxation, three questions arise? What is being done? What should be done? What can be done? First, what is being done is to pump money into the system. The goal is to buy up the ?bad paper? that has functioned as a sort of counterfeit currency in a world where public policy has encouraged the worst of capitalist speculation on a scale greater (because the world economy is so much greater) than ever before. Does the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve have enough money literally to do this? In the ?brave new world "of multi-trillion dollar and euro unregulated global hedge funds, a world where transnational firms are in many instances literally working off the books, I really don?t know. And, more importantly, I don?t think that those who are pumping in the money from the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve know either Register to vote here PA Editors Blog "Recapitalization" Is Not "Nationalization" Alan Greenspan Today Bloomberg's Unfinished Privatization Agenda Subscribe to this Feed What they are doing now is to use a version of Keynesian compensatory fiscal as the policy to ?pump prime? the economy, as it was called in the 1930s, in order to ward off a major depression. But they are doing it in a chaotic, helter-skelter way, with no serious concessions to workers who face unemployment as credit contraction continues, the millions of homeowners who face foreclosure without any ban on foreclosures or any judicial discretion in debt restructuring. Nor is there any mention of the long battered public sector where state and local governments, relying on bond issues and regressive taxes to fund education, police, fire, and other basic services, may face collapse as the crisis expands to the bond market and local property taxes move toward confiscatory levels. What can be done? To answer this, let us exclude entirely the likely answers of Palin and McCain, that is, prayer and tax cuts for the corporations and the rich, respectively, along with their their mock outrage against greedy Wall Streeters. Let us also exclude what the Federal Reserve Board itself seems to be excluding, that is, the monetary theory of the late Milton Friedman, on which it and the central banks of other major capitalist countries in significant ways have been operating for decades, that is intervening with interest rate increases and decreases to alternatively stimulate and dampen down capital flows in the economy and thus let the ?free market? operate without state intervention in the form of jobs, housing, health care, transportation energy. However, bailouts of banks, brokerage houses, corporations, which don?t fit into the theories of Adam Smith in the 18th century, with greatly influenced the nineteenth, or the theories of Milton Friedman in the 20th, century, which promised a triumphant return to the 19th, seem to keep on happening when big capitalists get in big trouble. It is almost as if government serves dominant class interests instead of being a ?neutral? force, a passive policeman, or a buddy to stakeholders. I am sure Milton Friedman would have opposed the Treasury department orchestrated bailout last week. And, although I do not commune with spirits, I think he certainly would be aghast at the Federal Reserve buying up all this bad paper. After all, he long contended that the US could have avoided both the great depression and the New Deal (a terrible deviation from ?economic freedom?) with the correct monetary policy. He would probably say if he were still with us that his monetary theories should be given a chance to work, that in the long run all will be well if the ?market? is kept as free as possible. And the theorist whom he spent much of his life trying to supplant (not Karl Marx, but John Maynard Keynes) would probably repeat the sarcastic answer he gave to his ?free market critics? during the depression that is, ?in the long run everyone is dead.? What should be done before Keynes' warning becomes prophecy? In the US and globally through the IMF and World Bank, there can be a repudiation of the policies that have emanated from Friedman?s monetary theories and a revival and updating of both regulation and compensatory fiscal policies aimed at maintaining effective purchasing power in national economies. This means providing economic and social protections for workers and farmers instead of forcing poor countries to eliminate existing subsidies to facilitate ?market development.? This means also building over time the World Labor Organization and the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN into instruments that will at the very least regulate both transnational corporations and agribusiness in the interest of workers and farmers in poor countries, raising the purchasing power of the people within those countries in order to make international trade a two way, not a one way street. In the US, particularly what should be done is the dismantling of what was once called ?Reaganomics? the grotesque combination of Friedmanite Monetary Theory with a prominent US historian earlier called ?Military Keynesianism.? To achieve this, what is needed is nothing more than a ?new New Deal,? and one that will in all likelihood have to be more experimental, flexible, and radical then the first. That ?new New Deal? should in the first hundred days of an Obama administration write new National Banking and Securities and Exchange Acts, repealing the deregulation of the last thirty years, and restructuring consumer debt for personal property (including home a mortgages). That ?new? New Deal should repeal in its entirety the Taft-Hartley law and threaten those states who seek to continue anti-union shop policies under various subterfuges with a cut off of federal funding. That ?new New Deal? should institute in its first year far reaching cuts in the military budget. A reduction of something like $50 billion should in the first year should be considered a minimum and those cuts should continue annually. These cuts should also be re-invested in federal public sector programs, federal aid to education, the establishment a national public health care system, the revival of public housing programs which went into eclipse in the Reagan era and public energy policies which fell by the wayside in after World War II. Finally, the first 100 days of a ?new New Deal? in an Obama administration should do more than close tax loopholes, but repeal the entire ?detaxation? policy of the Reagan-Bush era. Ideally, it would restore progressive income and corporation taxes, capital gains taxes, and in the process begin to collect hundreds of billions of dollars which will permit it, along with military budget cutbacks, increased revenues from increased real wages and incomes of working people, to both fund social revitalization, reduce the federal deficit and through its policies aid state and local governments to reduce their deficits. How much of this will be done depends on what happens in this coming election. If McCain wins, we can be reasonably certain that none of it will be done, because even with an expanded Democratic majority, he would veto virtually all of it. If Obama wins, the size of his victory and the continuation of the grassroots movements and activism that served was the mass base for his candidacy, along with his inclinations and the size of the crisis he confronts upon taking office will largely determine the policies of his first 100 days, whether it is just a half a loaf improvement from the Bush disaster or a comprehensive reversal of what Obama himself has called ?an economic philosophy which has failed completely.? All of this can be done, within the context of the present capitalist system. Immediately, meaning right now, Congress can push through a repeal of Gramm-Leach and the Obama campaign can begin to outline its economic policy, leaving McCain and Palin continue their silly and petty personal attacks, which merely highlights the fact that they have no plan, no policy, and no idea of what to do exist get elected and continue the policies that have produced the present crisis. Hopefully, we will begin to see an outline of the Obama?s first 100 days as he addresses the expanding economic crisis in the last weeks before the election. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 14:47:34 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:47:34 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Crossing Over :As the U.S. Economy Sputters, Working-Class Women Shift to Obama Message-ID: <48F37BA7.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Crossing Over As the U.S. Economy Sputters, Working-Class Women Shift to Obama By JONATHAN KAUFMAN Wall Street Journal October 11 2008 KOKOMO, Ind. -- Last month, in this once-sturdy auto town of 60,000, two white women sounded off at a union hall when talk turned to politics. "I feel like a white female or a white male has fewer opportunities than the black man or the black woman because of all the special treatment and special programs they have gotten," said Marla Hightower. "If Obama is elected, what's going to happen?" "That is just stupid," Ginny McMillin, the head of her local, shot back. "People are saying 'we don't want a black man.' Shame on America for thinking that!" The exchange was emblematic of the sharp divide among white, working-class female voters -- a key voting bloc that has largely rejected Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. But four weeks and a $700 billion financial-bailout package later, some attitudes are shifting. Sen. Obama is now picking up support from some of the very women who until recently disdained him. As U.S. economic concerns intensify, ranks of blue-collar females are reconsidering everything from Sen. Obama's policies to their comfort level with his race. Working-class women, generally defined as those in blue-collar and service jobs earning less than $50,000 a year -- comprise almost a quarter of American voters. Sen. Obama trailed Sen. John McCain by 12 points among these women just two weeks ago, but has since closed the gap. According to a Wall Street Journal poll conducted the weekend of Oct. 4, the two senators are now running even, with 45% of such voters giving each candidate the nod. The reversal is one of the main reasons Sen. Obama is gaining ground in swing states like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Indiana -- all of which have large rural and blue-collar populations. Ms. Hightower, who lost her auto-factory job two years ago in a wave of forced retirements, is one of the recent converts. Having watched the financial crisis unfold and the stock market plummet, she now says she plans to cast her vote for the Illinois senator. "I am not 100% crazy about Obama," says the 55-year-old with a sigh. "He kind of scares me. But I think he will do better for the middle class." In particular, she likes Sen. Obama's conviction to keep more jobs in the U.S. Petra Jameson, a black Obama supporter, says she's noticed similar changes taking place at Kokomo's two big auto plants. Just a few weeks ago, "when we had some people come around to ask workers to vote for Obama they were told 'I am not voting for that N-word.' People said that." At the time, union organizers who support Sen. Obama were stunned by how many working-class women even refused to take literature with his picture on it. But now, says Ms. Jameson, 35 years old, some people are turning. "They are losing money [in their retirement accounts] daily. They may have to get over race." Kokomo is a city with a checkered racial and economic history. It was a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activity in the 1920s and rippled with racial tension in the 1960s, residents say. About 10% of Kokomo's population today is African-American. Anchored by sprawling Delphi and Chrysler factories, the city has more recently been hit hard by layoffs triggered by the troubles of the auto industry. The area's jobless rate, at around 8%, is the highest in the state. In August, the Delphi plant announced it would let go another 300 workers. Thousands of people here have been pushed into early retirement. Many women in and around Kokomo once held jobs at the Delphi auto-parts plant and other factories that paid $20 to $30 an hour with generous benefits. Replacement gigs, often in the service sector, tend to pay about half that. Last week, Angela Lorenz, 58 years old, met with a stock broker to discuss her 401(k) which had been free-falling in value. Two years ago, she lost her position at a local utility company where she earned $24 an hour. These days, she and her husband, a former union auto worker, each make $9.25 an hour cleaning offices in a hospital building. Growing up in the Kokomo area, Ms. Lorenz recalls occasional clashes with African-Americans at work. Parking her car near black neighborhoods made her fearful about crime. Eventually, she says, she came to know and befriend blacks at her job. She voted for President Bush in 2004 but this time she is still undecided. "I want whoever is going to help the country get through this," says Ms. Lorenz, who has decided to stay put in the stock market for now. "I think Obama could represent me. He does understand the problems for older people. He was close to his grandparents. He is aware of what can happen to people if they don't have someone to look after them." In the latest Wall Street Journal poll, blue-collar women indicated they are more worried about their personal financial future than blue-collar men. About 62% of these women expressed concern about their personal financial future over the next year compared to just 23% who were more optimistic. Working-class men, while worried, show a bit more confidence, with 57% saying they are pessimistic about their own financial future versus 39% who are optimistic. Such differences may help to explain why working-class women have frequently shown a tendency to break with their husbands, brothers and fathers in the voting booth. (White working-class men still overwhelmingly back Sen. McCain by 58% to 34%, support that hasn't changed much since the financial crisis began.) In recent years, blue-collar women have been more open to Democratic economic messages, analysts say, and less swayed by social issues than their male counterparts. In 2004, President Bush defeated John Kerry overwhelmingly among blue-collar men but won blue-collar women by just one point. In 2000, President Bush trounced Al Gore among blue-collar men but won blue-collar women by just three points. For this election, some analysts see heightened economic tensions overcoming any racial prejudices or hang-ups. "Women are much more sensitive to kitchen-table issues -- they are usually responsible for balancing family budgets," says Katherine Newman, a Princeton sociologist who studies the working class. "Racism is what you indulge in if everything else is in order and you can let your prejudices hold sway. If your family is in trouble you can't afford it." Kenlyn Watson, the white owner of a beauty salon here called the Mane Attraction, was certain four weeks ago that she would vote for Sen. McCain. Among other things, she was suspicious that a President Obama "would try to right the injustices of 200 years against the black man in four years." Now, the 50-year-old says she is "on the fence" and seriously considering voting for Sen. Obama. "I am concerned when McCain says the 'fundamentals of the economy are sound' and then 24 hours later we are going down the crapper," she says. "I have friends who are planning on shutting down their stores in 30 days if things don't get better. I may not agree with all of Obama's policies but maybe we need change." In an effort to win back working-class women, the McCain campaign is emphasizing tax cuts and economic policies that it says will create jobs and help ease the financial crisis. Sen. McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin have stepped up criticism of Sen. Obama's past associations, hammering away at the idea that Sen. Obama is an out-of-touch elitist while Sen. McCain and his running mate are populists on the side of workers. Gov. Palin has energized many working-class women here because they see themselves in her -- a woman, who, like them, is assertive, juggles work and family, and rejects many of the traditional liberal views of the women's movement. Chatting with a group of women in a downtown Kokomo caf?, 72-year-old Jody Hollis, a retired auto worker, recently took out a sheaf of papers with pictures of Gov. Palin downloaded from the Internet. "Look, girls: Her with the national guard, her killing a moose, holding a fish. Look! She's a macho woman and man at the same time." But support for Gov. Palin is also fading among working-class women. A month ago, 47% of blue-collar women said the Alaska governor was qualified to be president while 40% said she was not. Now those numbers have reversed: 43% of white working-class women in this past weekend's Journal poll say Gov. Palin is qualified to be president; 48% say she isn't ready. The campaign is still volatile and the preferences of white working-class women, like other segments of the electorate, could continue to shift. Race has emerged as an explosive topic several times -- most notably regarding Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Sen. Obama's former controversial Chicago pastor who made inflammatory statements attacking American policies. Analysts and advisers in both campaigns expect such issues to surface again. "The idea that in a time like this there is no time for racism is a nice thought but I don't think things will necessarily pan out that way," says Jay Campbell, vice president of Hart research, which conducts the Wall Street Journal poll. "What we have seen over the past twenty years in politics is that a lot of people don't end up voting their own economic self-interest, but they vote on a values level." About half of white working-class women -- 51% -- say they don't identify with Sen. Obama's "background" and "values" while 42% say they do, according to a Journal poll last month. By contrast, 60% say they identify with Sen. McCain's values, while 34% say they do not. The Obama campaign is stressing tax cuts and broader health care coverage in addition to traditional women's issues like pay equity and the senator's pro-choice stance on abortion. It is also deploying Michelle Obama around the country to meet with working women and talk about their concerns. Mrs. Obama recently traveled to a suburb of Indianapolis, about an hour south of here, to address female voters. "That is why I am out here -- to convince people that Barack does get it," Mrs. Obama told the crowd. Last week, Ms. Jameson says she was in a Costco store with her son who was wearing an Obama T-shirt. A white woman came up to them, Mrs. Jameson recalls, and said, "I hope he wins. I am a lifelong Republican but things have to change." This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 14:50:41 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:50:41 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Wall Street Coup and the Bailout Scam Message-ID: <48F37C62.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The Wall Street Coup and the Bailout Scam by Ismael Hossein-zadeh The "rescue" plan is not only fraudulent, it is also the wrong medicine for the ailing economy. The Wall Street took the US (and the world) hostage and extracted a heavy ransom. But while the enormous ransom was successfully extracted, there are no guarantees that the hostages will be set free from the shackles of trickle-down economics. On the contrary, there are strong indications that the fraudulent (and perhaps criminal) bailout may turn the current crisis into a protracted agony of a long-bleeding economic depression. Why the Bailout Scam Is More Likely to Fail than to Succeed The bailout scam is doomed to fail because it avoids diagnosis and dodges the heart of the problem: the inability of more than five million homeowners to pay their fraudulently inflated mortgage obligations. Instead of trying to salvage the threatened real assets or homes and save their owners from becoming homeless, the bailout scheme is trying to salvage the phony or fictitious assets of Wall Street gamblers and reward their sins by sending taxpayers' good money after the gamblers' bad money. It focuses on the wrong end of the problem. The apparent rationale for the bailout plan is that, while the injection of tax payers' money into the Wall Street casino may not be fair, it is a necessary evil that will free the "troubled assets" and create liquidity in the financial markets, thereby triggering a much-needed wave of lending, borrowing, and expansion. There are at least five major problems with this argument. The first major problem is that the current financial disaster is not really a liquidity problem as it is repeatedly portrayed to be. It is a problem of faith and trust, or lack thereof, which in turn stems from the disproportionately large amount of junk assets or mortgages relative to real assets. It is true that lending and credit expansion has almost come to a halt and, in this sense, there is a serious liquidity crisis. But this illiquidity is not really due to a lack of good money or real assets in the system. It is rather because owners of such valuable assets are unwilling to lend their precious possessions to owners of troubled assets, or worthless papers. As Herman E. Daly, University of Maryland economist, puts it, "The value of present real wealth is no longer sufficient to serve as a lien to guarantee the exploding debt. Consequently the debt is being devalued in terms of existing wealth. No one any longer is eager to trade real present wealth for debt even at high interest rates. This is because the debt is worth much less, not because there is not enough money or credit." The second major problem with the bailout scheme is that it is simply unfeasible and ineffectual because there is just not enough good money to redeem all the bad money that has ballooned or bubbled to a multiple of the good money and/or real assets. full: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/hossein-zadeh111008.html This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 15:29:47 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:29:47 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] 'Economic 9/11' Exacting Grim Toll On Average Americans Message-ID: <48F3858C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> 'Economic 9/11' Exacting Grim Toll On Average Americans http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=254064 Agence France-Presse October 10, 2008 'Economic 9/11' exacting grim psychological toll in US -"This compares to 9/11 in terms of the impact, definitely. And it's significant that it isn't a Wall Street crisis as I see it - it's affecting the entire consumer economy, and almost every individual that I see. "It's not just affecting adults, it's affecting the children. I had one 14-year-old who came to see me and said 'I'm worried my parents are going to go broke, because they're arguing more.' "It's filtered down to almost every household I deal with. I've never seen something that has affected such a wide range of people." -"It is a sense of fear, depression and anxiety that says no matter how hard or well I work, I have no control over my future. So the present stinks and the future will be worse. And there's no one to help me." LOS ANGELES - The murder-suicide of a Los Angeles financial manager who shot dead five members of his family before killing himself has highlighted the psychological toll of the economic meltdown. The bodies of Karthik Rajaram, a 45-year-old business school graduate, and his wife, three children and mother-in-law, were discovered at his home in an upmarket gated community on Monday. In a letter to police, Rajaram said he had been driven to murder because of his dire economic situation: already unemployed for several months, his remaining finances were reportedly wiped out by Wall Street's collapse. Rajaram's tragic case has become a grim symbol of the US financial crisis. Or as Los Angeles deputy police chief Michael Moore put it, "a perfect American family destroyed by a man stuck in a rabbit hole of absolute despair." The Los Angeles case came less than a week after a 90-year-old woman in Ohio shot herself as she was about to served an eviction notice on the home she has lived in for the past 38 years. The two harrowing incidents have drawn attention to the mental-health impact associated with the most serious US financial crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, experts say. Chicago-based psychologist Nancy Molitor told AFP the numbers of people seeking help because of finance-related anxiety had skyrocketed. "In my 20 years of practice I have never seen anything like this, the anxiety is through the roof," Molitor told AFP, estimating she had seen a 50-percent increase in volume of calls. The sense of bewilderment caused by financial crisis was comparable to the effect of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Molitor said, impacting people of varying ages and backgrounds. "This compares to 9/11 in terms of the impact, definitely. And it's significant that it isn't a Wall Street crisis as I see it - it's affecting the entire consumer economy, and almost every individual that I see. "It's not just affecting adults, it's affecting the children. I had one 14-year-old who came to see me and said 'I'm worried my parents are going to go broke, because they're arguing more.' "It's filtered down to almost every household I deal with. I've never seen something that has affected such a wide range of people." Molitor said the problems varied greatly: affluent people who had lost a million dollars; couples fretting over the ability to pay for college tuition, or in one case, a 79-year-old woman who "couldn't afford to die." "I thought she was kidding," Molitor said. "But she told me 'I used to have a pretty good inheritance that I could leave my three children. If I die tomorrow they're going to get half of what they were going to get.'" Judith Bardwick, a professor of clinical psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, said the tidal wave of grim economic headlines had exacerbated widespread feelings of impotence in an era of job insecurity. "It is a sense of fear, depression and anxiety that says no matter how hard or well I work, I have no control over my future," Bardwick said. "So the present stinks and the future will be worse. And there's no one to help me. "In a period of fiscal crisis, in which very visibly major institutions fail or are bailed out, and the market is riding a rollercoaster, the number of people who have these despairing views of life will naturally increase." The fact that the macroeconomic causes of the meltdown were not easily explained added to the sense of impotence, Molitor said. "It's a perfect storm because what breeds anxiety is a fear of the unknown," she explained. "I had a very bright person with a PhD in economics who said to me 'Even I don't get it. And if I don't get it, how is the average person managing a household supposed to get it?'" "There's a sense of total helplessness, which if it goes on long enough becomes hopelessness. And if that goes on long enough it becomes depression." In Los Angeles, authorities are urging anyone in despair to seek professional help immediately. Ken Kondo, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, said a 24-hour service was available for anyone seeking help. "One in five people in the United States will experience mental illness and these stressors from the economic crisis could trigger that," Kondo said. "What we're saying is that people should talk to friends and family members, don't try and handle it by yourself. And if they feel chronically depressed or suicidal, seek professional mental health help right away." This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 13 15:38:48 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 17:38:48 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Chomsky: Anti-Democratic Nature of US Capitalism Message-ID: <48F387A9.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Anti-Democratic Nature of US Capitalism is Being Exposed Bretton Woods was the system of global financial management set up at the end of the second World War to ensure the interests of capital did not smother wider social concerns in post-war democracies. It was hated by the US neoliberals - the very people who created the banking crisis writes Noam Chomsky By Noam Chomsky The Irish Times October 10, 2008 http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2008/1010/1223560345968.html The simultaneous unfolding of the US presidential campaign and unraveling of the financial markets presents one of those occasions where the political and economic systems starkly reveal their nature. Passion about the campaign may not be universally shared but almost everybody can feel the anxiety from the foreclosure of a million homes, and concerns about jobs, savings and healthcare at risk. The initial Bush proposals to deal with the crisis so reeked of totalitarianism that they were quickly modified. Under intense lobbyist pressure, they were reshaped as "a clear win for the largest institutions in the system . . . a way of dumping assets without having to fail or close", as described by James Rickards, who negotiated the federal bailout for the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management in 1998, reminding us that we are treading familiar turf. The immediate origins of the current meltdown lie in the collapse of the housing bubble supervised by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, which sustained the struggling economy through the Bush years by debt-based consumer spending along with borrowing from abroad. But the roots are deeper. In part they lie in the triumph of financial liberalisation in the past 30 years - that is, freeing the markets as much as possible from government regulation. These steps predictably increased the frequency and depth of severe reversals, which now threaten to bring about the worst crisis since the Great Depression. Also predictably, the narrow sectors that reaped enormous profits from liberalisation are calling for massive state intervention to rescue collapsing financial institutions. Such interventionism is a regular feature of state capitalism, though the scale today is unusual. A study by international economists Winfried Ruigrok and Rob van Tulder 15 years ago found that at least 20 companies in the Fortune 100 would not have survived if they had not been saved by their respective governments, and that many of the rest gained substantially by demanding that governments "socialise their losses," as in today's taxpayer-financed bailout. Such government intervention "has been the rule rather than the exception over the past two centuries", they conclude. In a functioning democratic society, a political campaign would address such fundamental issues, looking into root causes and cures, and proposing the means by which people suffering the consequences can take effective control. The financial market "underprices risk" and is "systematically inefficient", as economists John Eatwell and Lance Taylor wrote a decade ago, warning of the extreme dangers of financial liberalisation and reviewing the substantial costs already incurred - and proposing solutions, which have been ignored. One factor is failure to calculate the costs to those who do not participate in transactions. These "externalities" can be huge. Ignoring systemic risk leads to more risk-taking than would take place in an efficient economy, even by the narrowest measures. The task of financial institutions is to take risks and, if well-managed, to ensure that potential losses to themselves will be covered. The emphasis is on "to themselves". Under state capitalist rules, it is not their business to consider the cost to others - the "externalities" of decent survival - if their practices lead to financial crisis, as they regularly do. Financial liberalisation has effects well beyond the economy. It has long been understood that it is a powerful weapon against democracy. Free capital movement creates what some have called a "virtual parliament" of investors and lenders, who closely monitor government programmes and "vote" against them if they are considered irrational: for the benefit of people, rather than concentrated private power. Investors and lenders can "vote" by capital flight, attacks on currencies and other devices offered by financial liberalisation. That is one reason why the Bretton Woods system established by the United States and Britain after the second World War instituted capital controls and regulated currencies.* The Great Depression and the war had aroused powerful radical democratic currents, ranging from the anti- fascist resistance to working class organisation. These pressures made it necessary to permit social democratic policies. The Bretton Woods system was designed in part to create a space for government action responding to public will - for some measure of democracy. John Maynard Keynes, the British negotiator, considered the most important achievement of Bretton Woods to be the establishment of the right of governments to restrict capital movement. In dramatic contrast, in the neoliberal phase after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s, the US treasury now regards free capital mobility as a "fundamental right", unlike such alleged "rights" as those guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: health, education, decent employment, security and other rights that the Reagan and Bush administrations have dismissed as "letters to Santa Claus", "preposterous", mere "myths". In earlier years, the public had not been much of a problem. The reasons are reviewed by Barry Eichengreen in his standard scholarly history of the international monetary system. He explains that in the 19th century, governments had not yet been "politicised by universal male suffrage and the rise of trade unionism and parliamentary labour parties". Therefore, the severe costs imposed by the virtual parliament could be transferred to the general population. But with the radicalisation of the general public during the Great Depression and the anti-fascist war, that luxury was no longer available to private power and wealth. Hence in the Bretton Woods system, "limits on capital mobility substituted for limits on democracy as a source of insulation from market pressures". The obvious corollary is that after the dismantling of the postwar system, democracy is restricted. It has therefore become necessary to control and marginalise the public in some fashion, processes particularly evident in the more business-run societies like the United States. The management of electoral extravaganzas by the public relations industry is one illustration. "Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business," concluded America's leading 20th century social philosopher John Dewey, and will remain so as long as power resides in "business for private profit through private control of banking, land, industry, reinforced by command of the press, press agents and other means of publicity and propaganda". The United States effectively has a one-party system, the business party, with two factions, Republicans and Democrats. There are differences between them. In his study Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age, Larry Bartels shows that during the past six decades "real incomes of middle-class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working- poor families have grown six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans". Differences can be detected in the current election as well. Voters should consider them, but without illusions about the political parties, and with the recognition that consistently over the centuries, progressive legislation and social welfare have been won by popular struggles, not gifts from above. Those struggles follow a cycle of success and setback. They must be waged every day, not just once every four years, always with the goal of creating a genuinely responsive democratic society, from the voting booth to the workplace. * The Bretton Woods system of global financial management was created by 730 delegates from all 44 Allied second World War nations who attended a UN- hosted Monetary and Financial Conference at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton Woods in New Hampshire in 1944. Bretton Woods, which collapsed in 1971, was the system of rules, institutions, and procedures that regulated the international monetary system, under which were set up the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) (now one of five institutions in the World Bank Group) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which came into effect in 1945. The chief feature of Bretton Woods was an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary policy that maintained the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value. The system collapsed when the US suspended convertibility from dollars to gold. This created the unique situation whereby the US dollar became the "reserve currency" for the other countries within Bretton Woods. (c) 2008 The Irish Times This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 14 13:29:55 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:29:55 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nader to lead Wall Street rally Message-ID: <48F4BAF5.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Nader to lead Wall Street rally It's GO TIME! We only have less than two days left before Ralph speaks, lets try and make this event as awesome as possible. Below is an email for you to send out to everybody and anybody you think might be interested in coming. Feel free to put it out on any email lists you have. Follow the link below to some flyers you can print and use. Around town, coffee shops, bulletin boards and light poles are great places. If you need supplies or printed flyers please call me as soon as possible so we can meet up and get some in your hands. We need people to flier before the events as well as volunteering at the events so let us know what you can do. We will be meeting in Union Square tomorrow at 6pm in front of the George Wahsington Statue where you will be able to pick up materials. If you can't make it you can download the fliers and get started on your own with the below links. Cooper Union Flyer http://www.votenader.org/files/rally/NYC_debates_bw_8.5x11_front.pdf Wall Street Rally http://www.votenader.org/files/rally/WALLST_11x17_BW.pdf Quarters and color flyers are available here: http://www.votenader.org/downloads/ Thanks a Ton for your help!!! Austin Case Event Staff- Ralph Nader for President 804-852-6116 Austin at xxxxxxxxxxxxx Josh Starcher NYC & LI Coordinator 718-909-6343 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ RALPH NADER TO HOLD RALLY AT THE GREAT HALL AT COOPER UNION On October 15th, Ralph will address a major crowd in the historic Cooper Union and take to the streets the next day to protest the bailout on the steps of Federal Hall across from the Stock Exchange. WHO: Ralph Nader, Matt Gonzalez, and Special Guests WHAT: Open the Debates Rally and Protest WHEN: Wednesday October 15th 6:00 p.m. Protest on Wall Street the 16th at noon. WHERE: The Great Hall at Cooper Union- 7 East 7th St. at Third Ave. Directions- http://www.cooper.edu/administration/admissions/tours.html#transportation Protest at Federal Hall 26 Wall St. Directions- http://www.nps.gov/feha/planyourvisit/publictransportation.htm At the rally a suggested contribution of ten dollars and five for students is appreciated but not required. Professors are welcome to bring or invite their classes to attend. COLLABORATE: We have limited tabling and speaking space available. If you or your group is interested in speaking or tabling at the event contact Austin at 804-852-6116. Join: Check out some hilarious videos and invite your friends to join the facebook group at Ralph Nader Cooper Union Facebook Group Ralph Nader is the only Presidential candidate who supports jail time, not bail time for Wall Street fat cats, so come hear him speak in the historic Cooper Union instead of watching the game show debates on TV. Ralph will address the crowd on serious issues like withdrawing our corporate and military forces from Iraq and more lighthearted, entertaining subjects such as strengthening shareholder power and taxing derivative speculation. He will also comment on the Presidential debates from which he was excluded. In another part of the city, while Ralph speaks in Cooper Union, the two corporate candidates will be debating each other without even mentioning the issues that Ralph will talk about and that matter to the American people. Since 1988, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has sponsored every presidential debate and kept the discussion empty. Since its inception, the CPD has always been headed by two former chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties. In 1987, the League of Women Voters refused to sponsor any more presidential debates, because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. About Ralph Nader Attorney, author, and consumer advocate Ralph Nader has been named by Time Magazine one of the "100 Most Influential Americans in the 20th Century." For more than four decades he has exposed problems and organized millions of citizens into more than 100 public interest groups advocating solutions. He led the movement to establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and was instrumental in enacting the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and countless other pieces of important consumer legislation. Because of Ralph Nader we drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments. Nader graduated from Princeton University and received an LL.B from Harvard Law School. About Matt Gonzalez Matt Gonzalez was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2000 representing San Francisco's fifth council district. From 2003 to 2005, he served as Board of Supervisors President. A former public defender, Gonzalez is managing partner of Gonzalez & Leigh, a 7-attorney practice in San Francisco that represents individuals and organizations in mediation, arbitration, and administrative proceedings before state and federal regulatory bodies. Gonzalez graduated from Columbia University and received a JD from Stanford Law School. About the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign The Nader/Gonzalez independent presidential candidacy will be on the ballot in 45 states, is polling at 5-6 percent nationally, and a new Time/CNN poll shows Ralph Nader polling 8 percent in New Mexico, 7 percent in Colorado, 7 percent in Pennsylvania, and 6 percent in Nevada -- all key battleground states. For more information on the Nader/Gonzalez campaign, visit: www.votenader.org Cooper Union Flyer http://www.votenader.org/files/rally/NYC_debates_bw_8.5x11_front.pdf Wall Street Rally http://www.votenader.org/files/rally/WALLST_11x17_BW.pdf Quarters and color flyers are available here: http://www.votenader.org/downloads/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 14 13:30:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:30:51 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Happy days are here again References: <48F46B0C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <48F4BB2D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Market roars back, but does that mean the worst is over? Bargain hunters spark the Dow's biggest rally in 7 decades http://www.freep.com/article/20081014/COL07/810140379 Happy days are here again So long sad times Go long bad times We are rid of you at last Howdy gay times Cloudy gray times You are now a thing of the past Happy days are here again The skies above are clear again So lets sing a song of cheer again Happy days are here again Altogether shout it now Theres no one Who can doubt it now So lets tell the world about it now Happy days are here again Your cares and troubles are gone Therell be no more from now on From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 14 13:40:44 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 15:40:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Funny money Message-ID: <48F4BD7D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2008/10/01/crisis-time-for-wall-streets-creatures-in-congress/#comments Wm. Terry L., RN: I?ve read all the articles about the causes of the current crash of the market but read little about solutions for the worker who has been forced to place money into 401k and 403b defined contribution plans. Unions have long opposed these plans because of the possibility of the current crash happening. It was only a matter of time before the hyper-inflated market would come crashing down with lack of regulation, short selling and just outright corruption and greed. Even the venerable Wall Street Journal admitted the defined contribution plans (401k type plans) for retirement resulted in an 11% decrease in worker savings.(http://www.thestreet.com/funds/belowradar/10016126.html) Today a Yale economist says the money invested in the market is just a ?fallacy?. It isn?t ?real? money, he says: ?Robert Shiller, an economist at Yale, puts it bluntly: The notion that you lose a pile of money whenever the stock market tanks is a ?fallacy.? He says the price of a stock has never been the same thing as money - it?s simply the ?best guess? of what the stock is worth. ?It?s in people?s minds,? Shiller explains. ?We?re just recording a measure of what people think the stock market is worth. What the people who are willing to trade today - who are very, very few people - are actually trading at. So we?re just extrapolating that and thinking, well, maybe that?s what everyone thinks it?s worth.? Shiller uses the example of an appraiser who values a house at $350,000, a week after saying it was worth $400,000. ?In a sense, $50,000 just disappeared when he said that,? he said. ?But it?s all in the mind.? (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_bi_ge/where_s_the_money) I asked my wife if she felt the 403b deductions taken from her paycheck as a RN working in the public sector was real money. She seemed to think an earned wage with money taken out for retirement is real. But looking at her AIG quarterly statement yesterday showed she just lost 20% of her retirement. That was ?real? money she lost. When I look at my PERA funds and think about all the years spent in public psychiatric hospitals as a RN, I think of the money taken from my paycheck for retirement as ?real? money. I earned it. My wife earned her money. Wall Street corruption stole 20% of our retirement funds. Now that?s real. So, we can play all these mind games about the reasons the markets crashed but the real pain isn?t on Wall Street. The real pain is with the workers who worked 40 hours (plus overtime) and allowed their wages to be used by brokers to play Monopoly. That was real working hours spent to earn real wages that went into retirement plans dictated by employers who went to defined contribution plans so they could lessen their contributions. Professor Shiller can play all his intellectual bullshit games about the concept of playing the market but he?s useless in coming up with any ?real? solution for all the workers who trusted the corrupted system to keep their retirement funds safe. I read about senior citizens living in their cars because of foreclosure in the AARP Bulletin and think of Henry Fonda playing his role in John Steinbeck?s ?Grapes of Wrath?. He was playing a role but the seniors and all the others sent packing are real. And the beat goes on with the taxpayers rescuing Wall Street swindlers and not a damn thing happening to rescue workers or former workers. Where?s all the intellectual geniuses of economics who have a solution to help ease the real pain of workers? Quit your interviews and all the intellectual posturing and come up with real solutions. We don?t give a damn about deriatives and all the other manipulations to steal if there isn?t a solution that the people can get behind and demand it be implemented. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 14 14:02:12 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:02:12 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Debt Bondage: A Christian Perspective on the Paulson Bank Bailout Message-ID: <48F4C286.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Debt Bondage: A Christian Perspective on the Paulson Bank Bailout http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10458 by Dr. Michael Hudson Global Research, October 5, 2008 An unprecedented popular protest led Congress to reject the Treasury?s initial bailout plan on Monday, September 29. Most commentators have noted how ironic and seemingly out-of-character it was that the bailout was defeated mainly by Republicans, and indeed by the party?s right-wing Bible Belt Conservatives. But would it be too much to hope that these Congressmen bore in mind the Christian ethic embodied in Matthew 18 ? almost literally a Biblical condemnation of the bailout?s terms? This wonderful passage describes how Peter came to Jesus and asked about forgiveness ? mainly the forgiveness of debts. In ancient languages the words for "sin" and "debt" were the same, in an epoch when. Sinners typically atoned for their offenses and "trespasses" by making a compensation payment. Jesus told a parable of a king calling in one of his officials, who owed him 10 thousand talents ? not unlike today?s government seeking to collect monies due from Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and other Wall Street financial firms. When the royal servant was unable to come up with the money, the king consigned him and his family to debt bondage. But the official "fell down and worshipped him, saying, Lord, have patience with me, and I will pay thee all." The analogy here is with Mr. Paulson?s allies on Wall Street promising that, somehow, the Treasury may end up being repaid and may even make a profit by buying $700 billion in junk mortgages. "Then the lord of that servant was moved with compassion, and loosed him, and forgave him the debt." This is what the compassionate Mr. Paulson is proposing to do. The Treasury will buy "trash for cash," taking junk mortgages and other bad loans at whatever price the financial speculators paid, without obliging them to take a loss. In the Matthew 18 parable the royal official "went out and found one of his fellow servants, who owed him a hundred pence; and he laid hands on him, and took him by the throat, saying, ?Pay me what you owe.?" The debtor begged the creditor for forgiveness just as the creditor himself had begged the king. But the creditor was not moved, and "went out and cast the debtor into prison, till he should pay the debt." Other debtors saw what was happening and worried that the same fate was in store for them, so they went to the king and told him what had happened. The king got angry and called in the creditor and said, ?Oh, thou wicked servant. I forgave thee all that debt ? shouldn?t you also have had compassion on thy fellow servant, even as I had pity on thee?? The king then threw him "to his tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him." This is where Congress has dropped the ball. It is telling the banks ? and the administrators whom the Treasury is hiring to recover "taxpayer money" ? to act in a hard-hearted way and lead the economy even further down the road to debt peonage. Consumers, homeowners and other debtors defaulting on their student loans, car loans and medical debts are not to get relief from the shrinking economy, rising consumer prices and falling asset prices. But Wall Street is to be able to avoid any loss at all. It is supposed to repay in five years ? that is, two presidential terms from now. So the Christian parallel is broken. The moral in the above parable, Jesus explained (Matthew 18:35), was that "So likewise shall my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses," that is, their debts. But Wall Street and Congress must be atheists, because the way that matters are working out today, only the wealthy are being forgiven their debts, not the poor. The big sinners are going free, their victims are being stripped of their assets. This is of course what happened historically in the Roman Empire on its way to debt bondage and serfdom. That is the secular road on which Congress set the economy last week. Michael Hudson is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by Michael Hudson This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 14 15:09:42 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:09:42 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Who is Behind the Financial Meltdown? Message-ID: <48F4D258.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Who is Behind the Financial Meltdown? Market Manipulation and the Institutional Speculator http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10529 by Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, October 11, 2008 Email this article to a friend Print this article The market is heavily manipulated. The driving force behind the meltdown is speculative trade. The system of "private regulation" serves the interests of the speculators. While most individual investors loose when the market falls, the institutional speculator makes money when there is a financial collapse. In fact, triggering market collapse can be a very profitable undertaking. There are indications that the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) regulators have created an environment which supports speculative transactions. There are several instruments including futures, options, index funds, derivative securities, etc. used to make money when the stock market crumbles. The more it falls, the greater the gains. Those who make it fall are also speculating on its decline. With foreknowledge and inside information, a collapse in market values constitutes a lucrative and money-spinning opportunity, for a select category of powerful speculators who have the ability to manipulate the market in the appropriate direction at the appropriate time. Short Selling One important instrument used by speculators to make money out of a financial meltdown is "short selling". "Short selling" consists in selling large amounts of stocks which you do not possess and then buying them in the spot market once the price has collapsed, with a view to completing the transaction and cashing in on the profits. The role of short selling in bringing down companies is well documented. The collapse of Lehman, Merrill Lynch and Bear Stearns was in part due to short selling. Short selling has also been used extensively in currency markets. It was one of the main instruments used by speculators during the 1997 Asian Crisis to bring down the Thai baht, the Korean won and Indonesian rupiah. Speculation in major currency markets also characterizes the ongoing financial crisis. There have been major swings in currency values with the Canadian dollar, for instance, loosing 10% of its value in the course of a few trading days. Temporary Ban on Short Selling Following the stock market meltdown on Black Monday September 15, the Security Exchange Commission (SEC) introduced a temporary ban on short selling. In a bitter irony, the SEC listed a number of companies which were "protected by regulators from short sellers". The SEC September 18 ban on short selling pertained largely to banks, insurance companies and other financial services companies. The effect of being on a "protected list" was to no avail. It was tantamount to putting those listed companies on a "hit list". If the SEC had implemented a complete and permanent ban on short selling coupled with a freeze on all forms of speculative trade, including index funds and options, this would have contributed to reducing market volatility and dampening the meltdown. The ban on short selling was applied with a view to establishing the protected list. It expired on Wednesday October 8 at midnight. The following morning, Thursday 9th of October, when the market opened up, those companies on the "protected list" became "unprotected" and were the first target of the speculative onslaught, leading to a dramatic collapse on of the Dow Jones on Thursday 9th and Friday 10th. The course of events was entirely predictable. The lifting of the ban on short selling contributed to accentuating the downfall in stock market values. The companies which were on the hit list were the first victims of the speculative onslaught. The shares of Morgan Stanley dropped 26 percent on October 9th, upon the expiry of the short-selling ban and a further 25 percent the following day. Financial warfare There are indications that the downfall of Morgan Stanley was engineered by financial rivals. A day prior to the September 18th ban on short selling, Morgan Stanley was the object of rival speculative attacks: John Mack, chief executive of Morgan Stanley, told employees in an internal memo Wednesday [September 17]: ?What?s happening out there? It?s very clear to me ? we?re in the midst of a market controlled by fear and rumours, and short sellers are driving our stock down.?' (Financial Times, September 17, 2008) Morgan Stanley was also the object of doubts expressed by the ratings agency Moody's, which contributed to investors dumping Morgan Stanley stock. Moody's cited an expectation that "an expected downturn in global capital market activity will reduce Morgan Stanley's revenue and profit potential in 2009, and perhaps beyond this period". In contrast JP Morgan Chase, controlled by the Rockefeller family climbed by almost 12%. The winners of financial warfare are JP Morgan Chase and Bank America. Both banking institutions have consolidated their control over the US banking landscape. They have used the financial crisis to displace and/or take over rival financial institutions. The concentration of wealth and the centralization of financial power resulting from market manipulation is unprecedented. Regulators Serve the Interests of Speculators The SEC was fully aware that the ban on short selling would serve to exacerbate the downfall. Why did they carry it out? How did they justify their decision? Who's interests are they serving? In a twisted logic, the SEC, which largely serves the interests of institutional speculators, contends, quoting the results of an academic research paper, that short selling contributes to reducing market instability, thereby justifying the repeal of the September 18 short selling ban. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 15 02:38:59 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:38:59 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Race and class Message-ID: >>CB: Yep. There is a big surge from the right in the working class against Wall Street right now. It's an instant populism, recent rightwingers making a left move.<< I don't know how left the move is. What is more striking (but then again so predictable) is how both parties ask the working class to vote against their class interests, whether they vote for an old white man or a tail-end-of-the-baby-boom black man (he is almost Gen X). So the Democrats are the most deceptive here because they asking the Gen X to vote against their class and their demographics in the disguise of a black man. So a high turnout will simply mean just what good con men the Demoncrats are. CJ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 15 07:43:55 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:43:55 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Race and class In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48F5BB5A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> >>> CeJ 10/15/2008 4:38 AM >>> >>CB: Yep. There is a big surge from the right in the working class against Wall Street right now. It's an instant populism, recent rightwingers making a left move.<< I don't know how left the move is. ^^^ CB: All those rightwingers in Congress who voted against the bailout were reflecting the anger of "rank and file" rightwingers. ^^^^^ What is more striking (but then again so predictable) is how both parties ask the working class to vote against their class interests, whether they vote for an old white man or a tail-end-of-the-baby-boom black man (he is almost Gen X). So the Democrats are the most deceptive here because they asking the Gen X to vote against their class and their demographics in the disguise of a black man. So a high turnout will simply mean just what good con men the Demoncrats are. CJ _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis at lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 15 07:52:39 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 09:52:39 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Beware the Economyths Message-ID: <48F5BD66.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Dear Friends of the American Monetary Institute, Beware the Economyths The real questions on economics to ask the presidential contenders in Wednesday's debate: In a new York Times October 7, 2008 Op-Ed Contributors JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ, R. GLENN HUBBARD and MYRON S. SCHOLES put forward economic questions for the Presidential debate titled: The Dismal Questions Their points were dismal all right, and shed light on why in Chapter 24 of The Lost Science of Money book, I warn that monetary reform must not be left in the hands of economists. Here is my response to their questions, which are below: "Take a closer look at those questions and you can understand how economists have represented a near total loss to society (yes we know there are a handful of good ones in America). All the questions deal with MICRO ECONOMICS, not with the big picture MACRO questions. Here would be some basic macro monetary/economic questions that illuminate the source of the current monetary debacle: Do you understand the difference between MONEY and CREDIT? Would you consider removing the special privilege financial institutions presently have to create our money supply by lending their CREDIT; and instead substitute government created MONEY in its place? Do you understand that such CREDIT evaporates in periods of financial stress, but government MONEY does not disappear? Do you understand that the above bank accounting privilege is the ultimate source of the ridiculous concentration of wealth, and has to be addressed for moral reasons? Are you willing to seriously include matters of justice, fairness and morality in monetary and economic public policy decisions? Will you admit/agree that the private financial sector regime has failed and has to be rescued again(!) by the public sector and therefore it must be replaced by a publicly controlled structure where money is issued by government not private banks?? Nationalize MONEY, not banking. See http://www.monetary.org for background, especially the article The Need for Monetary Reform. Sincerely, Stephen Zarlenga Director, American Monetary Institute Here is the New York Times piece, with the questions the economists submitted: October 7, 2008 Op-Ed Contributors The Dismal Questions By JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ, R. GLENN HUBBARD and MYRON S. SCHOLES John McCain and Barack Obama will meet tonight in Nashville for the second presidential debate. As Americans worry about a confusing federal rescue plan, a falling stock market and a financial crisis that is spreading across the globe, the editors of the Op-Ed page asked three economists to suggest the questions they would most like to hear the candidates answer. 1. When the current bailout of Wall Street fails to turn around the economy and reinvigorate credit markets, will you propose another one? How large should it be? Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke have said what is needed is a restoration of confidence in the economy. But won't the failure of this bailout destroy confidence, with disastrous consequences - as happened in Indonesia and other East Asian countries when similar bailouts failed 10 years ago? 2. More than a million people have lost their homes in the past two years. A million more are expected to lose their homes in the next 12 months or so. Do you support a more direct program of relief for homeowners? The government pays more of the mortgage costs of rich homeowners, through larger tax deductions, than of poorer homeowners. What would you do to correct this injustice? 3. President Bush pushed tougher bankruptcy laws that were supposed to reduce bankruptcy and lower lending costs. But the new laws made it more difficult for ordinary Americans to discharge their debts, and encouraged reckless lending on the part of lenders, who thought they could more easily force poor borrowers to repay. Would you make any changes in the bankruptcy laws? Currently, it is more difficult to restructure a mortgage on a primary residence than other debts. Do you support bankruptcy reforms that would make it easier for people to stay in their homes? - JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ, a professor of economics at Columbia who shared the Nobel prize in economics in 2001 and who has advised the Obama campaign **** ** 1. Does the financial crisis indicate that we need more regulation? Or is the problem less one of too little regulation than of poorly focused regulation? The crisis had its origins in part in international capital flows that led to extraordinarily low interest rates. But high-risk mortgage lending drew some of its breath from regulatory interventions. Some heavily regulated financial institutions managed to get themselves in trouble. And it was government-sponsored enterprises, no strangers to regulation, that stimulated the demand for questionable mortgage products. Shouldn't the next president be standing up to protect markets instead of sowing doubts about them? 2. The Federal Reserve has had to step into the political fray to an uncomfortable degree. Are we asking too much of the Fed? Should we create a strong financial regulator that would stand shoulder to shoulder with the Fed? 3. The existing capital standards for financial companies helped create the illusion that risky assets were "safe." A reformed system could mandate more capital, to support incremental risk-taking, during a boom and lower such capital requirements in a bust. By changing capital cushions over credit cycles, banks would be less likely to be forced into asset fire sales. Would you support such a change? 4. Do you support the appointment of a presidential commission to report quickly on the causes of the current crisis and present options for regulatory reform? - R. GLENN HUBBARD, the dean of Columbia Business School and the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 2001 to 2003 * ***** 1. Discuss the tradeoffs for our economy, if any, between growth (so-called trickle down) and redistribution (so-called sprinkle around) policies. 2. At this moment, there seems to be an overwhelming cry for retribution, in the form of new regulations aimed at our financial services industry (so-called Wall Street). To what extent do you believe that these measures are necessary? How will you judge the benefits and costs of the choices to be made? How will the new regulations take into account the evolution of the financial services sector in trading securities or goods and services, financing businesses and homes, saving for college or retirement, and reducing and transferring risk? 3. Individual innovation and creativity in our society are the cornerstones of our economy. They create wealth and improve the nation's welfare. Through innovations, the 20th century became the American Century. Will the 21st century be so as well or will it become the Global Century? How, if at all, would your administration foster innovation in the following areas: the provision of health care for our citizens; an immigration policy that attracts and retains the best; educational policies that increase the value of our human capital, our most important resource; helping people accumulate enough retirement savings; international trade and manufacturing; the evolution of information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology and neuroscience; the allocation of water, food and energy and the development of alternative energy sources; and, to some, the most important, the environment? - MYRON S. SCHOLES, who shared the Nobel prize in economics in 1997 This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 14 07:48:59 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:48:59 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Happy days are here again Message-ID: <48F46B0C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Market roars back, but does that mean the worst is over? Bargain hunters spark the Dow's biggest rally in 7 decades http://www.freep.com/article/20081014/COL07/810140379 Happy days are here again So long sad times Go long bad times We are rid of you at last Howdy gay times Cloudy gray times You are now a thing of the past Happy days are here again The skies above are clear again So lets sing a song of cheer again Happy days are here again Altogether shout it now Theres no one Who can doubt it now So lets tell the world about it now Happy days are here again Your cares and troubles are gone Therell be no more from now on From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 14 07:52:23 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 09:52:23 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Nader to lead Wall Street rally Message-ID: <48F46BD8.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Nader to lead Wall Street rally It's GO TIME! We only have less than two days left before Ralph speaks, lets try and make this event as awesome as possible. Below is an email for you to send out to everybody and anybody you think might be interested in coming. Feel free to put it out on any email lists you have. Follow the link below to some flyers you can print and use. Around town, coffee shops, bulletin boards and light poles are great places. If you need supplies or printed flyers please call me as soon as possible so we can meet up and get some in your hands. We need people to flier before the events as well as volunteering at the events so let us know what you can do. We will be meeting in Union Square tomorrow at 6pm in front of the George Wahsington Statue where you will be able to pick up materials. If you can't make it you can download the fliers and get started on your own with the below links. Cooper Union Flyer http://www.votenader.org/files/rally/NYC_debates_bw_8.5x11_front.pdf Wall Street Rally http://www.votenader.org/files/rally/WALLST_11x17_BW.pdf Quarters and color flyers are available here: http://www.votenader.org/downloads/ Thanks a Ton for your help!!! Austin Case Event Staff- Ralph Nader for President 804-852-6116 Austin at xxxxxxxxxxxxx Josh Starcher NYC & LI Coordinator 718-909-6343 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ RALPH NADER TO HOLD RALLY AT THE GREAT HALL AT COOPER UNION On October 15th, Ralph will address a major crowd in the historic Cooper Union and take to the streets the next day to protest the bailout on the steps of Federal Hall across from the Stock Exchange. WHO: Ralph Nader, Matt Gonzalez, and Special Guests WHAT: Open the Debates Rally and Protest WHEN: Wednesday October 15th 6:00 p.m. Protest on Wall Street the 16th at noon. WHERE: The Great Hall at Cooper Union- 7 East 7th St. at Third Ave. Directions- http://www.cooper.edu/administration/admissions/tours.html#transportation Protest at Federal Hall 26 Wall St. Directions- http://www.nps.gov/feha/planyourvisit/publictransportation.htm At the rally a suggested contribution of ten dollars and five for students is appreciated but not required. Professors are welcome to bring or invite their classes to attend. COLLABORATE: We have limited tabling and speaking space available. If you or your group is interested in speaking or tabling at the event contact Austin at 804-852-6116. Join: Check out some hilarious videos and invite your friends to join the facebook group at Ralph Nader Cooper Union Facebook Group Ralph Nader is the only Presidential candidate who supports jail time, not bail time for Wall Street fat cats, so come hear him speak in the historic Cooper Union instead of watching the game show debates on TV. Ralph will address the crowd on serious issues like withdrawing our corporate and military forces from Iraq and more lighthearted, entertaining subjects such as strengthening shareholder power and taxing derivative speculation. He will also comment on the Presidential debates from which he was excluded. In another part of the city, while Ralph speaks in Cooper Union, the two corporate candidates will be debating each other without even mentioning the issues that Ralph will talk about and that matter to the American people. Since 1988, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has sponsored every presidential debate and kept the discussion empty. Since its inception, the CPD has always been headed by two former chairs of the Democratic and Republican parties. In 1987, the League of Women Voters refused to sponsor any more presidential debates, because the demands of the two campaign organizations would perpetrate a fraud on the American voter. About Ralph Nader Attorney, author, and consumer advocate Ralph Nader has been named by Time Magazine one of the "100 Most Influential Americans in the 20th Century." For more than four decades he has exposed problems and organized millions of citizens into more than 100 public interest groups advocating solutions. He led the movement to establish the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Consumer Product Safety Commission, and was instrumental in enacting the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and countless other pieces of important consumer legislation. Because of Ralph Nader we drive safer cars, eat healthier food, breathe better air, drink cleaner water, and work in safer environments. Nader graduated from Princeton University and received an LL.B from Harvard Law School. About Matt Gonzalez Matt Gonzalez was elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 2000 representing San Francisco's fifth council district. From 2003 to 2005, he served as Board of Supervisors President. A former public defender, Gonzalez is managing partner of Gonzalez & Leigh, a 7-attorney practice in San Francisco that represents individuals and organizations in mediation, arbitration, and administrative proceedings before state and federal regulatory bodies. Gonzalez graduated from Columbia University and received a JD from Stanford Law School. About the Nader/Gonzalez Campaign The Nader/Gonzalez independent presidential candidacy will be on the ballot in 45 states, is polling at 5-6 percent nationally, and a new Time/CNN poll shows Ralph Nader polling 8 percent in New Mexico, 7 percent in Colorado, 7 percent in Pennsylvania, and 6 percent in Nevada -- all key battleground states. For more information on the Nader/Gonzalez campaign, visit: www.votenader.org Cooper Union Flyer http://www.votenader.org/files/rally/NYC_debates_bw_8.5x11_front.pdf Wall Street Rally http://www.votenader.org/files/rally/WALLST_11x17_BW.pdf Quarters and color flyers are available here: http://www.votenader.org/downloads/ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 15 15:05:34 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:05:34 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Market freefall takes huge bite out of corporate pension plans Message-ID: <48F622DD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Market freefall takes huge bite out of corporate pension plans By Mark Bruno and _Tom Henderson_ (mailto:thenderson at crain.com) ____________________________________ (http://oascentral.crainsdetroit.com/RealMedia/ads/click_nx.ads/www.detroitbusiness.com/index/15620892959 at Top,Middle,TopLeft,x01,x02,x03,Bottom!Middle?) ____________________________________ Less than a year after most companies were operating with comfortable pension surpluses, many are now staring at the strong possibility of ending 2008 with their defined benefit plans well in the red - an outcome that would require corporations to cough up considerable chunks of cash, seemingly at the worst possible time, to plug holes in their pensions' funding levels. Large corporate pension plans appear as if they've taken an astounding blow this month, losing an estimated $100 billion of their combined funded status over just five days. But the hit won't be nearly as bad as it might seem, said Sam Valenti III, president of Masco Capital Corp., the investment subsidiary of Masco Corp. Valenti said stocks likely will rebound by the end of the year, when pension funds do their accounting, but even if they remain at current lows, paper losses from stock investments won't translate into dollar-for-dollar replacements from working capital. ?It's complicated math, and you make it up over a period of years. It's not as dramatic as it seems,? he said. ?The real drama is if you are an auto dealer and you can't finance a sale.? ?Thankfully, actuaries take a very long view to smoothing the ups and downs of the market,? said David Sowerby, portfolio manager and chief market analyst for Bloomfield Hills-based Loomis Sayles & Co. L.P., who is also chairman of the investment advisory committee for the State of Michigan Retirement Systems. ?As frustrating as these bear markets are, here's why you design a strong allocation and investment policy that seeks diversification and is aligned with your needs.? Sowerby said the state's fund, which has fallen below $60 billion, is almost 60 percent invested in public stocks. ?You don't get too giddy in bull markets or act irrationally near the bottom of bear markets. ... These are the times when you prove your worth,? he said. Collectively, the 1,500 largest U.S. corporations had $1.66 trillion in defined-benefit assets at the end of last year to cover $1.6 trillion in pension liabilities, an ideal balance, according to data from pension consultants at New York City-based Mercer Human Resource Consulting. But these plans, on average, have about two-thirds of their assets invested in the equity markets, and by the end of last month were only 97 percent funded. It's a major hit by any stretch, but it pales in comparison to the most recent losses these plans appear to have just sustained, courtesy of one extremely Red October. As the broad equity markets were slammed over the first five days of the month - the Dow Jones Wilshire 5000 Index declined more than 15 percent, its worst five-day return since October 1987 - corporate pension funds' assets shrank, while their liabilities remained largely unchanged, said Adrian Hartshorn, a consultant in Mercer's financial strategies group. That combination likely means that, collectively, the defined benefit plans at the 1,500 largest U.S. corporations are now only about 90 percent funded. Now, when companies do their required annual actuarial evaluations at year-end, it appears almost certain that a number of large corporations will close their books with underfunded plans, said John Erhardt, principal and consulting actuary for Brookfield, Wis.-based Milliman USA. As part of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, companies with underfunded plans are now forced to make more aggressive contributions in order to get their pensions 100 percent fully funded. The rules also assigned a specific seven-year timetable in which a company must amortize payments to make up for the shortfall. The extent to which large corporations' pension funds will be damaged will vary greatly, and will depend, of course, on the way their assets are invested. Some, such as General Motors Corp., have made major moves to trim their exposure to equities and insulate their portfolios from volatility. GM, the largest corporate pension plan, had only 30 percent of its $117 billion in assets invested in equities at the end of last year, with the remainder invested in fixed-income and alternative investments. In 2005, the company had almost half its pension assets invested in the equity markets. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 15 15:08:22 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 17:08:22 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?b?S2FybCBNYXJ4IOKAnERhcyBLYXBpdGFs4oCd?= =?utf-8?q?_soar_among_young_Germans?= Message-ID: <48F62385.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From LBO-talk: John E. Norem: > Karl Marx ?Das Kapital? soar among young Germans Sales > of Kart Marx?s ?Das Capital? have soared in Germany as > a consequence of the financial crisis Not just since the financial crisis, either. The Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, the foundation close to the Left Party, has also been conducting regular seminars in all three volumes led by Sabine Nuss, Anne Steckner, and Ingo St?tzle, all of whom are students of Michael Heinrich. Heinrich's _Kritik der politischen ?konomie: Eine Einf?hrung_ selling many, many copies, and is in the 6th edition already (I am translating this work into English) Meanwhile, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung seems to have an almost neurotic obsession with Marx, as can be seen here: http://www.das-kapital-lesen.de/?p=85 and here: http://www.das-kapital-lesen.de/?p=76 They also ran a story where they had a paragraph commenting on the enormous number of young people meeting for the RLS seminar, but I can't find the article right now. But there is a factual error in your account, John: > One of the German provinces where Marx critique of > capitalism surged most strongly was in Hesse where > the leader of the Social Democratic party, SPD, > Andrea Ypsilanti would like to take office of the > regional government in alliance with a radical > grouping led by Oskar Lafontaine. 1. Ypsilanti is not entering into a coalition with Die Linke. She is entering into a minority government with the Greens while allowing herself to be voted as minister president by Die Linke. 2. Lafontaine has nothing to do with it. He is running for minister president of Saarland next year. Hessen is a different state entirely. I sympathize with the perception that all West Germans are the same, but trust me, they aren't. :-) This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From Waistline2 at aol.com Thu Oct 16 02:05:28 2008 From: Waistline2 at aol.com (Waistline2 at aol.com) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 04:05:28 EDT Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Racist statement against Michelle Obama Message-ID: Star Jones Reynolds responds to Bill O'Reilly/Fox News about Michelle Obama! Worth reading... Below is Star Jones' informed and provocative response to Bill O'Reilly's comment about 'having a lynching party for Michelle Obama if he finds out that she truly has no pride in her country.' Bill O'Reilly said: 'I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels - that is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever - then that's legit. We'll track it down.' Star said: 'I'm sick to death of people like Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, and his stupid and ignorant thinking that he can use a racial slur against a black woman who could be the next First Lady of the United States, and then give a half-assed apology and not be taken to task and called on his crap. What the hell is if it's 'legit,' you're going to 'track it down?' And then what do you plan to do? How dare this white man with a microphone and the trust of the public think that in 2008, he can still put the words 'lynch and party' together in the same sentence with a reference to a black woman; in this case, Michelle Obama? I don't care how you 'spin it' in the 'no spin zone,' that statement in and of itself is racist, unacceptable and inappropriate on every level. O'Reilly claims his comments were taken out of context. Please don't insult my intelligence while you're insulting me. I've read the comments and heard them delivered in O'Reilly's own voice; and there is no right context that exists. So, his insincere apology and 'out-of -context' excuse is not going to cut it with me. And just so we're clear, this has nothing to do with the 2008 presidential election, me being a Democrat, him claiming to be an Independent while talking like a Republican, the liberal media or a conservative point of view. To the contrary, this is about crossing a line in the sand that needs to be drawn based on history, dignity, taste and truth. Bill, I'm not sure of where you come from, but let me tell you what the phrase 'lynching party' conjures up to me, a black woman born in North Carolina .. Those words depict the image of a group of white men who are angry with the state of their own lives getting together, drinking more than they need to drink, lamenting how some black person has moved forward (usually ahead of them in stature or dignity), and had the audacity to think that they are equal. These same men for years, instead of looking at what changes they should and could make in their own lives that might remove that bitterness born of perceived privilege, these white men take all of that resentment and anger and decide to get together and drag the closest black person near them to their death by hanging them from a tree - usually after violent beating, torturing and violating their human dignity. Check your history books, because you don't need a masters or a law degree from Harvard to know that is what constitutes a 'lynching party.' Imagine, Michelle and Barack Obama having the audacity to think that they have the right to the American dream, hopes, and ideals. O'Reilly must think to himself: 'How dare they have the arrogance to think they can stand in front of this nation, challenge the status quo and express the frustration of millions? When this happens, the first thing that comes to mind for O'Reilly and people like him is: 'it's time for a party.' Not so fast...don't order the rope just yet. Would O'Reilly ever in a million years use this phrase with reference to Elizabeth Edwards, Cindy McCain or Judi Nathan? I mean, in all of the statements and criticisms that were made about Judi Nathan, the one-time mistress turned missus, of former presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, I never heard any talk of forming a lynch party because of something she said or did. So why is it that when you're referring to someone who's African-American you must dig to a historical place of pain, agony and death to symbolize your feelings? Lynching is not a joke to off-handedly throw around and it is not a metaphor that has a place in political commentary; provocative or otherwise. I admit that I come from a place of personal outrage here having buried my 90 year-old grandfather last year. This proud, amazing African- American man raised his family and lived through the time when he had to use separate water fountains, ride in the back of a bus, take his wife on a date to the 'colored section' of a movie theater, and avert his eyes when a white woman walked down the street for fear of what a white man and his cronies might do if they felt the urge to 'party'; don't tell me that the phrase you chose, Mr. O'Reilly, was taken out of context. To add insult to injury, O'Reilly tried to 'clarify' his statements, by using the excuse that his comments were reminiscent of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' use of the term 'high-tech lynching' during his confirmation hearing. I reject that analogy. You see Justice Thomas did mean to bring up the image of lynching in its racist context. He was saying that politics and the media were using a new technology to do to him what had been done to black men for many years -- hang him. Regardless of if you agreed with Justice Thomas' premise or not, if in fact ---Bill O'Reilly was referencing it the context becomes even clearer. What annoys me more than anything is that I get the feeling that one of the reasons Bill O'Reilly made this statement, thinking he could get away with it in the first place, and then followed it up with a lame apology in a half-hearted attempt to smooth any ruffled feathers, is because he doesn't think that black women will come out and go after him when he goes after us. Well, he's dead wrong. Be clear Bill O'Reilly: there will be no lynch party for that black woman. And this black woman assures you that if you come for her, you come for all of us.' Star Jones Reynolds *Friends and Family members, you are urged to please read this and pass it on to your Sisters, Brothers, Aunts, nieces, nephews and all of your cousins. It is worth reading Family, and Friends This email was cleaned by emailStripper, available for free from _http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm_ (http://www.papercut.biz/emailStripper.htm) **************New MapQuest Local shows what's happening at your destination. Dining, Movies, Events, News & more. Try it out (http://local.mapquest.com/?ncid=emlcntnew00000002) From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 16 07:55:40 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 09:55:40 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] centralization of credit Message-ID: <48F70F9C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "[PEN Progressive Economics" < ------------------ Channel 4 News (UK) this evening gleefully opened by announcing that the Bush administration had implemented what the Communist had called for in the Great Depression, the nationalization of the banks. A US commentator Ed Freeman (?) seemed sober enough but commented that he was fearful of how US government nationalization of the most dynamic culture of capitalism could be implemented without "snuffing out" the spirit of capitalism. Capitals fight between each other of course. It is clear now that the rest of capitalism cannot afford the risk of an unfettered finance capital sector that even once every eight years or eighteen years flips into chaotic paralysis. In that sense it has voted on its stock exchanges for the centralization and oversight of finance capital by the state. In that sense, when it really matters, the whole world is being taught that credit must be centralized. In 1848 the state did not have the variety of instruments to enforce its pressures, short of dictat. What has happened is social democratic rather than socialist, but it is still a step towards another of the demands of the Communist Manifesto "Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly. " - yes not an exclusive monopoly, but increasingly it is about recognising that *world wide* there is no alternative to oversight of the credit of the world as a whole by a coalition of central banks. Chris Burford This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 16 13:59:04 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:59:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Notes on the current crisis of capitalism Message-ID: <48F764C8.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> This is an nice Marxist analysis of the current crisis. Charles ^^^^ Anthony [Marxism] Notes on the current crisis of capitalism Matt wrote this in response to my post regarding Mandel and crises of overproduction. I am forwarding it on to Marxmail. Anthony ************ I completely agree with you criticism of Mandel here. Capital as a (particular) commodity, whose form is money capital, must be analyzed quite differently from (all) commodities as attributes of capital, and that is exactly what I am reading from Marx in the relevant chapters of vol. 3. "Driving down the cost of production, basically speeding up workers and cutting wages and benefits, does not alleviate a crisis of overproduction. In fact it aggravates it by causing the market for consumer goods to shrink. It can however, maintain profitability for businesses as profits begin to fall in the early stages of a crisis of overproduction." (That is you, not Marx :-) I'd also add to this in connection with measure C) below that extension of credit to wages in the form of credit cards, auto loans and mortgage loans, i.e. 'consumer credit', as a means to address the overproduction of capital, has as its precondition precisely this stagnation or fall in real wages. This introduces some important contradictions that are critical to understanding how a crisis in consumer credit - involving quite literally hapless Mexican immigrants trying to buy into "the American Dream" on the south side of Stockton, California, just think of it! - acted as the detonator for a generalized financial meltdown: 1) Assuming the onset of an overproduction of capital - a chronic state until now - on the one hand financial capital has a positive interest in stagnating or declining real wages, and in particular in wages that fall below refurnishing the necessities of life as determined by the prevailing standard of living, as this provides a widening market for its product; 2) On the other hand real wages can never fall so low that they cannot service the interest on the credit required for the necessities of life. 3) Further, by extending credit directly to wages, the competition for credit by industrial capital is undercut and bypassed in two ways: a) Simply because the individual wage earner exercises much less market leverage than the industrial capitalist, interest rates can be much higher for consumer credit than for industrial loans, raising the average rate of profit of the financial sector, thereby attracting more capital investment into this sector; b) Because wages as the variable part of industrial capital must be sufficient to cover consumer loan interest, this becomes an increment to the total interest paid by industrial capitalists to financial capitalists, and a subtraction from demand available for wage goods, further exacerbating the overproduction of commodities in the long run in this sector and depressing profits here. Note that finance capital does not cease to function as capital once put into circulation in the commodity form of consumer credit, as the interest becomes a component part of variable capital while the principle remains as a lien on labor power. Marx states that there is no "natural rate of interest", no equilibrium rate of interest as there is with the (general) rate of profit, therefore there is no theoretical limit on the proportion of wages or gross profit absorbed as interest, only the practical limit of the real extent of wage or profit levels. This alone gives the financial capitalist a certain advantage in competition with the industrial capitalist for profits. Marx also states that the financial capitalist does not stand in direct relation to the capitalist labor process as does the industrial capitalist, however, Marx never had the occasion to analyze money capital extended in the form of of consumer credit directly to wages, as this phenomenon began emerging only in the early 20th century, with the Great Depression being one of the first financial crises with significant involvement of consumer credit, though this was not a detonator of that crisis. It is my thesis based on the above points that this does bring the finance capitalist into such a direct relation to the wage laborer as a component part of productive capital and is therefore a relation that is a direct form of the class struggle but, unlike the relation with the industrial capitalist, presents itself immediately as a total global relation between two social classes at the moment of crisis. Some obvious reform demands spring from this: cancellation of consumer debts, caps on interest rates, etc. etc. Here I will not even go into other key dimensions of the "financialization of wages" such as in the form of retirement plans of privileged workers being funneled into the stock market, etc., as well as the whole consumer insurance sector It is more important to move to an analysis of the other characteristic pole of the present crisis, the vast financial universe of derivatives. For if the present tendency for wages to stagnate and fall to the point where a crisis in payment of consumer loan interest was unavoidable was the detonator for this crisis, the fuse to exploding much of the global banking system outside of Asia - including the so-called 'shadow banking system' of hedge funds and whatnot - was the packaging of these soon to not be performing consumer loans into mortgage backed securities (MBS) derivatives atop which was pyramided a second order of derivatives known as credit default swaps (CDS) - essentially insurance on the MBS - in themselves amounting to an approximately $65 trillion powder keg. That for another writing. Suffice to summarize that if ever a practical proof was presented of the critical role of the balance of forces in the class struggle, here in the form of the balance between wages and capital - capital and not simply profits - as the primary motor of capitalism, this is it. -Matt This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 16 15:16:41 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:16:41 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Welcome to depression Message-ID: <48F776FA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Welcome to depression -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Doyle Saylor Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 20:16:05 -0700 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings Economists, On Oct 15, 2008, at 5:14 PM, Sabri Oncu wrote: Too bad that there is no LEFT, either in the US or globally, except Venezuelan and some Latin American left maybe, to speak of to force capitalism to change, so who knows what will happen from now on? Doyle; I think we need to say now what will happen from now on. Not 'who knows'. We know this, the reformist agenda has risen to the top in the U.S. and neo-liberal free markets ideology is in free fall. Reformism will offer limited options in the face of a major global capitalist crisis. First off, neo-liberalism was based upon hegemonic nations asserting world domination. This seems to me the reformers can't repudiate because they can't abandon U.S. hegemonic ambitions. This means first, a global strategy for left goals. To support global equality or development in lieu of hegemonic dominance. The South American tendency offers a good view of what close cooperation might lead to for developing countries as opposed to Eurocentric power sharing at the expense of the majority of the planet. Within the U.S. the pillars of reformist power are shaking and vulnerable to critical judgments. Does the military really require all this money when it can't win these wars? Can we really afford to let financial capital run things when it leads to disaster? While these comments are broad this represents what a left can do going forward, represent a radical vision that works. Ask all people who don't have power and in a depression that we want to unite for a new vision. A class based vision that takes as an important example how radicals like Chavez really show us the road forward. In this way it is time to proudly stand up for the left everywhere again. A left that is now divorced from the 20th century errors mistakes and follies. Divorced by collapses and failures but enduring in the hearts of people who need more. We have a responsibility to the working class now to organize which is an old old cry, but in the context of these conditions to globalize the process and make the answer non-hegemonic and totalizing beyond the nation state stage of history. thanks, Doyle Saylor This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Thu Oct 16 15:58:22 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Thu, 16 Oct 2008 17:58:22 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] What Went Wrong Message-ID: <48F780BF.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Well, part of what went wrong, anyway. Charles ^^^^^ What Went Wrong By Anthony Faiola, Ellen Nakashima and Jill Drew Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, October 15, 2008; A01 A decade ago, long before the financial calamity now sweeping the world, the federal government's economic brain trust heard a clarion warning and declared in unison: You're wrong. The meeting of the President's Working Group on Financial Markets on an April day in 1998 brought together Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Arthur Levitt Jr. -- all Wall Street legends, all opponents to varying degrees of tighter regulation of the financial system that had earned them wealth and power. Their adversary, although also a member of the Working Group, did not belong to their club. Brooksley E. Born, the 57-year-old head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, had earned a reputation as a steely, formidable litigator at a high-powered Washington law firm. She had grown used to being the only woman in a room full of men. She didn't like to be pushed around. Now, in the Treasury Department's stately, wood-paneled conference room, she was being pushed hard. Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt had reacted with alarm at Born's persistent interest in a fast-growing corner of the financial markets known as derivatives, so called because they derive their value from something else, such as bonds or currency rates. Setting the jargon aside, derivatives are both a cushion and a gamble -- deals that investment companies and banks arrange to manage the risk of their holdings, while trying to turn a profit at the same time. Unlike the commodity futures regulated by Born's agency, many newer derivatives weren't traded on an exchange, constituting what some traders call the "dark markets." There were now millions of such private contracts, involving many of Wall Street's top firms. But there was no clearinghouse holding collateral to settle a deal gone bad, no transparent records of who was trading what. Born wanted to shine a light into the dark. She had offered no specific oversight plan, but after months of making noise about the dangers that this enormous market posed to the financial system, she now wanted to open a formal discussion about whether to regulate them -- and if so, how. Greenspan, Rubin and Levitt were determined to derail her effort. Privately, Rubin had expressed concern about derivatives' unruly growth. But he agreed with Greenspan and Levitt that these newer contracts, often called "swaps," weren't exactly futures. Born's agency did not have legal authority to regulate swaps, the three men believed, and her call for a discussion had real-world consequences: It would cast doubt over the legality of trillions of dollars in existing contracts and create uncertainty over how to operate in the market. At the April meeting, the trio's message was clear: Back off, Born. "You're not going to do anything, right?" Rubin asked her after they had laid out their concerns, according to one participant. Born made no commitment. Some in the room, including Rubin and Greenspan, came away with a sense that she had agreed to cool it, at least until lawyers could confer on the legal issues. But according to her staff, she was neither deterred nor chastened. "Once she took a position, she would defend that position and go down fighting. That's what happened here," said Geoffrey Aronow, a senior CFTC staff member at the time. "When someone pushed her, she was inclined to stand there and push back." Greenspan and Rubin maintained then, as now, that Born was on the wrong track. Greenspan, who left the Fed job in 2006 after an unprecedented three terms, also insists that regulating derivatives would not have averted the present crisis. Yesterday on Capitol Hill, a Senate committee opened hearings specifically on the role of financial derivatives in exacerbating the current crisis. Another hearing on the issue takes place in the House today. The economic brain trust not only won the argument, it cut off the larger debate. After Born quit in 1999, no one wanted to go where she had already gone, and once the Bush administration arrived in 2001, the push was for less regulation, not more. Voluntary oversight became the favored approach, and even those were accepted grudgingly by Wall Street, if at all. In private meetings and public speeches, Greenspan also argued a free-market view. Self-regulation, he asserted, would work better than the heavy hand of government: Investors had a natural desire to avoid self-destruction, and that served as the logical and best limit to excessive risk. Besides, derivatives had become a huge U.S. business, and burdensome rules would drive the market overseas. "We knew it was a big deal [to attempt regulation] but the feeling was that something needed to be done," said Michael Greenberger, Born's director of trading and markets and a witness to the April 1998 standoff at Treasury. "The industry had been fighting regulation for years, and in the meantime, you saw them accumulate a huge amount of stuff and it was already causing dislocations in the economy. The government was being kept blind to it." Rubin, in an interview, said of Born's effort, "I do think it was a deterrent to moving forward. I thought it was counterproductive. If you want to move forward . . . you engage with parties in a constructive way. My recollection was, though I truly do not remember the specifics of the meeting, this was done in a more strident way." Rarely does one Washington regulator engage in such a public, pitched battle with other agencies. Born's failed effort is part of the larger story of what led to today's financial chaos, a bipartisan story of missed opportunities and philosophical shifts in which Washington stood impotent as the risk of Wall Street innovation swelled, according to more than 60 interviews as well as transcripts of meetings, congressional testimony and speeches. (Born declined to be interviewed.) Full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/14/AR2008101403343.html This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 17 11:49:22 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 13:49:22 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama on Latin America Message-ID: <48F897E2.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> An exception to this was Obama?s brief reference to the Colombian government?s seeming indifference to the killing of labor leaders in that country with impunity, mentioned in the last presidential debate. ^^^^ CB: Hello -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Title: A Council on Hemispheric Affairs Press Release A Council on Hemispheric Affairs Press Release About COHA Contact COHA In the News Internships Obama on Latin America As Election Day draws near, presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama repeatedly have focused their attention on such key foreign policy issues as the Iraq War and the global financial crisis. U.S. policy toward Latin America, on the other hand, has been notoriously absent from figuring in recent presidential debates or stump speeches, as both candidates seek to win over last-minute voters by reiterating their campaign platforms on domestic and foreign policy topics of high public concern. An exception to this was Obama?s brief reference to the Colombian government?s seeming indifference to the killing of labor leaders in that country with impunity, mentioned in the last presidential debate. Nonetheless, Barack Obama has developed his policy agenda on U.S.-Latin American relations throughout the course of his presidential campaign. Beginning with an appearance at the Cuban-American National Foundation in May 2008, he set forth the proposal that the U.S. should foster a new era of hemispheric relations based upon mutual understanding and respect for national sovereignty. Similarly, the Senate voting record of vice presidential candidate Joe Biden reveals his position on regional matters, which over the years has seldom strayed from a standard approach to regional issues. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 17 12:43:42 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:43:42 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] ACORN is not the problem Message-ID: <48F8A4A0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> A Message from Kathryn Kolbert --------------------- October 17, 2008 Dear Charles, I'm not going to sit idly by while good people are thrown under the bus ... especially if that bus is John McCain's "Straight Talk Express." And I am not -- I repeat, NOT -- going to let the Right steal another election by demonizing community organizers while doing all they can to disenfranchise voters. That's why People For the American Way is not taking the attacks on ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) lying down, and we're not going to let the Right's latest distraction work. We're taking out a full page ad in the New York Times to tell the truth about ACORN, the myth of "widespread voter fraud" and the actual voter suppression being perpetrated by the Right. Check out the ad and find out what you can do to help with these efforts at http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=sO-cfUfeiZ5bZR6z1Gciog.. . ACORN has tirelessly worked to uplift the less fortunate and advocated for improved housing, a fair and living wage, and yes, continues to fight to give a voice to the underserved by promoting civic engagement and voter empowerment. John McCain used to know that but he seems to have forgotten. During Wednesday's presidential debate, McCain was again over the top, saying ACORN "may be perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history in this country, maybe destroying the fabric of democracy." No, Senator McCain, the fraud is GOP attempts to challenge the registrations of eligible voters who are on the verge of losing their homes to foreclosure ... the fraud is right-wing efforts to purge thousands of eligible voters from the voter rolls ... the fraud is the long history of your party's attempts to resurrect Jim Crow. Let's set the record straight. ACORN plays by the rules, but they register voters the Right would rather exclude, so they are a perfect target in the ongoing effort to stoke paranoia over so-called "widespread voter fraud" (a proven myth). Out of the 13,000 field workers ACORN hired in its drive to register 1.3 million voters, a small fraction submitted inappropriate registration cards. In most cases, ACORN was required by law to submit these incorrect forms, along with the valid forms, to election officials, and in most cases, the incorrect forms had been flagged for officials by ACORN as problematic. But bad registration forms don't add up to "voter fraud." The Bush administration has spent a good deal of time on fishing expeditions to find problems with groups like ACORN that register voters. In fact, they fired US Attorneys for refusing to participate in this partisan witch hunt. Using "voter fraud" to distract from real voter suppression is nothing new. But it's still extremely troubling that the McCain-Palin campaign has decided to put party before country and not denounce the GOP's attempts to squash voter participation. I don't think the American people are buying any of this. But even if scapegoating ACORN doesn't work, the Right will have won if they are successful in getting people to look the other way on the real voter suppression in which they are aggressively engaged. It's up to us to make sure the distraction doesn't work. All the best, Kathryn Kolbert, President Kathryn at pfaw.org =================================== People For the American Way depends on the support of its members. Help make sure America lives up to the promise of freedom and equality for all by funding the work of People For with a gift today. http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=KmWhl_TeaOms0O1c-dXyIg.. To ensure that People For e-mails are not diverted to your spam or bulk folders, please add alerts at pfaw.org to your address book and/or "safe list." People For the American Way 2008 2000 M Street, NW Suite 400 Washington, DC 20036 1-800-326-PFAW This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 17 12:54:46 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 14:54:46 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] credit default swap disaster - the dog that did not bark? Message-ID: <48F8A738.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Here's somebody who had a front row seat. Charles ^^^ From: "David Chris Burford writes about credit default swaps below: I thought I would share that in my capacity as a bankruptcy lawyer, I listened to today's hearing in the Lehman bankruptcy case, which included an extensive report to the Judge. We represent three different entities who were counter-parties to Lehman on either credit default swaps or power trades. When Lehman filed, most of the counter-parties terminated all contracts and then netted them out. If you determined you were owed money, you sent a demand letter. If you owed money, you did nothing. Lehman reported today that it is a party to about 1.5 million derivative transactions with over 8,000 counter-parties. The immediate problem counter-parties have is that they provided collateral for the transactions and nobody knows where the collateral is. Lehman doesn't really know because substantially all of the employees with institutional knowledge transferred to Barclays when the brokerage unit was sold. Lehman has hired Alvarez & Marsal (probably the largest provider of financial restructuring services in the world) to staff old Lehman, but it is going to take at least 45-60 days for them to get a handle on the data to provide any information. And once they do get up to speed, they are going to have to go out and hire people with expertise to evaluate all of the swap transactions to reconcile them. Quite the mess and very challenging issues for bankruptcy lawyers and the bankruptcy system. David Shemano Chris Burford writes about credit default swaps below: I thought I would share that in my capcaity as a bankruptcy lawyer, I listened to today's hearing in the Lehman bankruptcy case, which included an extensive report to the Judge. We represent three different entities who were counter-parties to Lehman on either credit default swaps or power trades. When Lehman filed, most of the counter-parties terminated all contracts and then netted them out. If you determined you were owed money, you sent a demand letter. If you owed money, you did nothing. Lehman reported today that it is a party to about 1.5 million derivative transactions with over 8,000 counter-parties. The immediate problem counter-parties have is that they provided collateral for the transactions and nobody knows where the collateral is. Lehman doesn't really know because substantially all of the employees with institutional knowledge transferred to Barclays when the brokerage unit was sold. Lehman has hired Alvarez & Marsal (probably the largest provider of financial restructuring services in the world) to staff old Lehman, but it is going to take at least 45-60 days for them to get a handle on the data to provide any information. And once they do get up to speed, they are going to have to go out and hire people with expertise to evaluate all of the swap transactions to reconcile them. Quite the mess and very challenging issues for bankruptcy lawyers and the bankruptcy system. David This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 17 13:42:47 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:42:47 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] credit default swap disaster - the dog that did not bark? Message-ID: <48F8B279.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Progressive Economics From: Doyle Saylor -------------------------------------------------------------- On Oct 16, 2008, at 3:00 PM, Chris Burford wrote: I would be interested to know whether other list members think that the collapse of these 50 trillion dollar structures will cause an unimaginable further lurch into profound depression or whether they are just worthless air, and could be blown away. Doyle; In a discussion of J.P. Morgan's derivatives this is a quote from Conde Nash Portfolio - J.P. Morgan continues to dominate the world of derivatives. It has derivatives contracts tied to $90 trillion of underlying securities. Of that, $10.2 trillion are credit-derivatives contracts. Those mind-boggling totals are somewhat misleading. They reflect what is called the ?notional? amount in the world of derivatives, based on the underlying amount of the contract, not its current value. When offsetting contracts are taken into account, that figure is whittled down to a much smaller-though still enormous-$109 billion of derivatives, of which $26 billion are credit derivatives. That?s the amount the bank could lose if all its trading partners went out of business, an extremely remote event. But the exposure is climbing, up 17.4 percent from the end of 2007. That?s equal to 20 percent of the bank?s net worth. http://www.portfolio.com/views/columns/wall-street/2008/10/15/Credit-Derivatives-Role-in-Crash Doyle; Observe the notional value being stated above. thanks, Doyle Saylor This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 17 13:43:52 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:43:52 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] David Stockman Message-ID: <48F8B2BA.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> David Stockman David Alan Stockman (born November 10, 1946) is a former U.S. politician and businessman, serving as a Republican U.S. Representative from the state of Michigan (1977?1981) and as the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (1981?1985). Contents [hide] 1 Education 2 Career 2.1 Congress 2.2 Office of Management and Budget 2.3 Fiscal Legacy 2.4 Private Equity 2.5 Collins & Aikman Corp. 3 Criminal and civil charges 4 Quote 5 Personal 6 Footnotes 7 External links [edit] Education Stockman was born in Fort Hood, Texas, and educated in the public schools of Stevensville, Michigan. He graduated from Lakeshore High School in 1964 and received a B.A. from Michigan State University, East Lansing in 1968. He pursued graduate studies at Harvard University, 1968?1970 and 1974?1975. He attended Harvard's Divinity School.[1] [edit] Career He served as special assistant to United States Representative and 1980 Presidential candidate John Bayard Anderson of Illinois, 1970?1972 and was executive director, United States House of Representatives Republican Conference, 1972?1975. [edit] Congress Stockman was elected to the United States House of Representatives for the 95th Congress and was reelected in two subsequent elections, serving from January 3, 1977, until his resignation January 27, 1981 to accept appointment as Director of the Office of Management and Budget under U.S. President Ronald Reagan. [edit] Office of Management and Budget Stockman emerged as one of the most powerful and controversial OMB directors ever during a tenure that lasted until his resignation in August 1985. Committed to the doctrine of supply-side economics, Stockman took the lead in directing passage of the "Reagan Budget" (the Gramm-Latta Budget), which Stockman hoped to be a serious curtailment of the "welfare state", gaining a reputation as a tough negotiator with House Speaker Tip O'Neill's Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Majority Leader Howard Baker's Republican-controlled Senate. During this period, although only in his early 30s, Stockman played a central and highly visible role as the ultimate "budget guru" in the fierce debate and contentious political wrangling over the future direction of the role of the federal government in American society. Stockman's power within the Reagan Administration waned after the Atlantic Monthly magazine published the famous 18,246 word article, "The Education of David Stockman",[1] in its December 1981 issue, based on lengthy interviews Stockman gave to reporter William Greider. It led to Stockman being "taken to the woodshed by Reagan" as the White House's PR team tried to deal with the article's damage to Reagan's perceived fiscal leadership skills. Stockman was quoted as referring to the Reagan Revolution's legacy tax act as: "I mean, Kemp-Roth [Reagan's 1981 tax cut] was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate.... It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down.' So the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory." Of the budget process in his first year on the job, Mr. Stockman is quoted as saying: "None of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers," which was used as the subtitle of the article. The fiscal misunderstandings had ramifications. With the National Debt benchmarking at $1.0 Trillion in October 1981, not counting Trillions in accumulating net interest carrying costs, the National Debt was put on a political trajectory via the legacy of the Reagan Revolution budgets, towards the $9.1 Trillion it reached by the end of 2007. The legacy of sizable budget deficits added up in the National Debt and interest costs alone on the debt clicked in at $1.17 Billion dollars per day for fiscal year ending 2007; $430 Billion for the year. After Stockman's first year at OMB and on the heels of 'being taken to the woodshed by the president' over his candor with Atlantic's William Greider, Stockman became disillusioned with the projected trend of increasingly large federal deficits and the rapidly expanding national debt, which he blamed on the Reagan tax cut. On 1 August 1985, he left OMB and later wrote a memoir of his experience in the Reagan Administration titled The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed in which he specifically criticized the failure of Congressional Republicans to support a reduction in government spending as necessary offsets to the large tax cuts, in order to avoid the creation of large deficits and an exploding national debt. [edit] Fiscal Legacy This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (February 2008) President Jimmy Carter's last signed and executed fiscal year budget results ended with a $79.0 Billion budget deficit, ending within the period of David Stockman's and Ronald Reagan's first year in office, on October 1, 1981, and provided the benchmark of where the National Debt stood when Reagan and Stockman began to unleash their revolutionary fiscal legacy. The Gross Federal National Debt had just climbed to the $1.0 Trillion level in October 1981 ($998 Billion on 9/30/81), which was the cumulative fiscal budget results of 205 years as a nation (1776-1981), 96 Congresses, and 39 Presidents; not to mention two World Wars and one Great Depression. Just four and a half years into the Reagan Revolution, upon Stockman's resignation at the OMB in the summer -- August 1981 -- the gross federal debt level had nearly doubled with the National Debt standing at $1.8 Trillion on 9/30/1985. Stockman's OMB work within the administration in 1981 up to August was dedicated to negotiating with the Senate and House on the next fiscal year's budget, executed later in the fall of 1985, which resulted in the National Debt officially doubling to $2.1 Trillion on fiscal year end 9/30/1986. [edit] Private Equity Having left government, Stockman joined the Wall St. investment bank Salomon Brothers and later became a founding partner at the now highly successful New York?based private equity firm, the Blackstone Group. He left Blackstone in 1999 to start his own private equity fund, Heartland Industrial Partners, L.P., based in Greenwich, Connecticut.[2]. On the strength of his investment track record at Blackstone, Stockman and his partners raised $1.3 billion of equity from institutional and other investors. Under Stockman's guidance, Heartland pursued a contrarian investment strategy, buying controlling interests in companies operating in sectors of the U.S. economy that were attracting the least amount of new equity: auto parts and textiles. With the help of about $9 billion in Wall Street debt financing, Heartland completed more than 20 transactions in less than 2 years to create four portfolio companies: Springs Industries, Metaldyne, Collins & Aikman, and TriMas. [edit] Collins & Aikman Corp. In August 2003, Stockman installed himself as CEO of Collins & Aikman Corp., a Detroit-based manufacturer of automotive interior components. He was ousted from that role days before a Chapter 11 filing on May 17, 2005. [edit] Criminal and civil charges On March 26, 2007, federal prosecutors in Manhattan indicted Stockman in "a scheme ... to defraud [Collins & Aikman]'s investors, banks and creditors by manipulating C&A's reported revenues and earnings." At the same time, the Securities and Exchange Commission brought civil charges against Stockman related to actions he took while CEO of Collins & Aikman.[3] Stockman faces up to 30 years in prison. Stockman suffered a personal financial loss, estimated at $13 million, along with losses suffered by as many as 15,000 Collins & Aikman employees worldwide. Stockman said in a statement posted on his law firm's Web site that the company's collapse was the consequence of an industry melt-down, not fraud.[2] [edit] Quote Concerning President Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut, Stockman said this to William Greider of the Atlantic Monthly:[4] ? Do you realize the greed that came to the forefront? The hogs were really feeding. The greed level, the level of opportunism, just got out of control. [The Administration's] basic strategy was to match or exceed the Democrats, and we did. ? [edit] Personal Stockman lives in Greenwich, Connecticut.[2] He is married to Jennifer Blei Stockman and is the father of two children, Rachel and Victoria. Jennifer Blei Stockman is the national co-chair of the Republican Majority for Choice, and the President of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation Board of Directors. [edit] Footnotes This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Fri Oct 17 14:36:09 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2008 16:36:09 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Is Fox news equating Obama with socialism, or worse yet...Marxism? Message-ID: <48F8BEFB.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Is Fox news equating Obama with socialism, or worse yet...Marxism? James Heartfield ( Thaxis alumnus) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hey, we're all Marxists, now, aren't we? At least the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury thinks so: Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism, writes Rowan Williams in The Spectator http://www.spectator.co.uk/print/the-magazine/features/2172131/face-it-marx-was-partly-right-about-capitalism.thtml Meanwhile Channel 4 News' Krishnan Guru-Murthy had the people at the Economist in stitches when he told them 'they've sent Jon [Snow, his co-anchor] to America to laugh at the collapse of capitalism' http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/5819/ And Canada's National Post thinks that the Bailout mark Marx's comeback: http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fpcomment/archive/2008/09/29/bailout-marks-karl-marx-s-comeback.aspx And here's a finance writer in Lebanon making the same point: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=3&article_id=96382 A few years ago, Radio Four did a greatest thinker competition, and the winner was... Karl Marx. Let's face it, the US mid-west, and East Europe must be the two places left where Marx is still reviled. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From jannuzi at gmail.com Sun Oct 19 20:54:42 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 11:54:42 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Is Fox news equating Obama with socialism, or worse yet...Marxism? Message-ID: Equating BO with socialism or Marxism is like equating Fox News with news. The man is sitting on a fence and sees both sides to both sides. The problem is the fence is now on the edge of the Grand Canyon, so to speak. CJ From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Sun Oct 19 21:50:48 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Sun, 19 Oct 2008 23:50:48 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] PBS: Obama & McCain Message-ID: I'm watching on PBS this Frontline documentary on Obama & McCain's political trajectories that is absolutely fascinating. It's also an unwitting indictment of this society and further evidence that it's doomed. From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Mon Oct 20 00:11:21 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 02:11:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] PBS: Obama & McCain In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I tuned in late, but the documentary I saw was "The Choice 2008": http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/ The feedback from readers (follow the link) is a mixed bag as can be expected, with only occasional glimmers of intelligence. The interview with David Mendell accords with most of the documentary. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/choice2008/interviews/mendell.html There are a number of things that can be said about McCain as well from this documentary, but I was more interested in the nuances of those parts of Obama's story that I saw, particularly about his experiences establishing himself in Chicago, his position on the Harvard Law Review, and his early political campaigns in Illinois. I only tuned in at the point where Obama is trying to establish himself in Chicago's South Side. The documentary wasn't entirely clear about pinpointing the motivations that determined his role as a mediator in the racially antagonistic atmosphere of Harvard, particularly his deliberate cultivation of conservatives that would set the tone for his later political maneuvering. The question is: what is this about other than naked personal ambition? Was his behavior pragmatically justified? Ultimately, the question is: what was and what is he aiming for? The Chicago community organizing story is a sad one, first of all, because it shows up the backward provincialism of black political behavior and the social and political ugliness of American cities. But again, how to evaluate Obama as an outsider attempting to do community organizing depends on how one gauges his perspective and motivations. Whatever the motivation, the whole scenario is sad and pathetic. The layers and layers of obstructions one has to deal with, not only the oppressive nature of the larger society and its institutions, but the small-minded provincialism of leaders who don't want anyone peeing on their trees, and saddest of all, the hopeless backwardness of the very people one is trying to help. A large number of people do their best to put as much distance between themselves and their "roots" as possible. The very notion that Obama would want to root himself in the black community of the south side of Chicago is itself depressing. Social consciousness is not about roots; it's about human emancipation, and if the helpers or the helpees lack development of the mental capacity to understand this, they'll spin their wheels forever. This nation is doomed. Have a nice day. At 11:50 PM 10/19/2008, Ralph Dumain wrote: >I'm watching on PBS this Frontline documentary on Obama & McCain's >political trajectories that is absolutely fascinating. > >It's also an unwitting indictment of this society and further >evidence that it's doomed. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 20 07:30:21 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 09:30:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Commodity fetishism Message-ID: <48FC4FAD.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Commodity fetishism From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 20 11:35:11 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:35:11 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Lahde Quits Hedge Funds, Thanks `Idiots' for Success Message-ID: <48FC890E.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Lahde Quits Hedge Funds, Thanks `Idiots' for Success (Update1) By Katherine Burton Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Andrew Lahde, the hedge-fund manager who quit after posting an 870 percent gain last year, said farewell to clients in a letter that thanks stupid traders for making him rich and ends with a plea to legalize marijuana. Lahde, head of Santa Monica, California-based Lahde Capital Management LLC, told investors last month he was returning their cash because the risk of using credit derivatives -- his means of betting on the falling value of bonds and loans, including subprime mortgages -- was too risky given the weakness of the banks he was trading with. ``I was in this game for money,'' Lahde, 37, wrote in a two-page letter today in which he said he had come to hate the hedge-fund business. ``The low-hanging fruit, i.e. idiots whose parents paid for prep school, Yale and then the Harvard MBA, was there for the taking. These people who were (often) truly not worthy of the education they received (or supposedly received) rose to the top of companies such as AIG, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and all levels of our government. ``All of this behavior supporting the Aristocracy, only ended up making it easier for me to find people stupid enough to take the other sides of my trades. God Bless America.'' Lahde, who managed about $80 million, told clients he'll be content to invest his own money, rather than taking cash from wealthy individuals and institutions and trying to amass a fortune worth hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars. ``I do not understand the legacy thing,'' he wrote. ``Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life.'' Request for Soros He said he'd spend his time repairing his health ``as well as my entire life -- where I had to compete for spaces at universities, and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management -- with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not.'' He also suggested that billionaire George Soros sponsor a forum in which ``great minds'' would come together to create a new system of government, as the current system ``is clearly broken.'' Lahde ended his letter with a plea for the increased use of hemp as an alternative source of food and energy that segued into a call for the legalization of marijuana. ``Hemp has been used for at least 5,000 years for cloth and food, as well as just about everything that is produced from petroleum products,'' he wrote. ``Hemp is not marijuana and vice versa. Hemp is the male plant and it grows like a weed, hence the slang term.'' `Innocuous Plant' He added, ``The evil female plant -- marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wife beating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country.'' Lahde said the only reason marijuana remains illegal is because ``Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other addictive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers.'' Lahde graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in finance and holds an MBA from the University of California, Los Angeles. He worked at Los Angeles-based hedge fund Dalton Investments LLC before founding his own firm two years ago with about $10 million. Lahde wasn't available for comment. A woman at his firm, who asked not to be identified, confirmed the authenticity of the letter. To contact the reporter on this story: Katherine Burton in New York at kburton at xxxxxxxxxxxxx This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 20 11:49:04 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:49:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Marx was right Message-ID: <48FC8C50.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Marx was right PWW Editorial Board People's Weekly World Newspaper, 10/17/08 It was only yesterday that ?free market? ideologues were dancing on Karl Marx?s grave with scornful shouts that ?greed is good? and ?TINA? ? ?there is no alternative? to capitalism. These fat men guffawed contemptuously at Marx?s warning that capitalism is built on wage exploitation, that workers never earn enough to buy back what they produce, creating ?overproduction? and periodic crises ? some deep and long ? that can only be solved by socialism. These ideologues cling to delusions that capitalism is the ?best of all possible worlds,? blindness expressed as recently as two weeks ago by John McCain when he asserted that the ?fundamentals of the economy are strong.? But just the other day, economist David Macke surveyed the financial collapse spreading like a thermonuclear chain reaction. Asked what was needed to stop the destruction he replied, ?At the end of the day, if you socialize enough of the financial system, it has to work.? Suddenly ?socialism? is needed to stave off catastrophe! And who is Macke? An economist for JPMorgan Chase, one of the world?s biggest transnational banks. But Macke?s ?socialism? bears no resemblance to Marx?s version, in which working people own the means of production, including banks, and operate them in working people?s interests. Macke would ?socialize? bad debt, forcing working people to bear the burden of rescuing Wall Street. Profits would continue to flow into the coffers of the rich. Left behind would be millions who have lost their homes, their jobs and health care as well as their 401(k) retirement accounts. We should demand that any bailout work for us. A coalition led by leaders of major unions has laid out just that approach in ?A Call for Common Sense.? Use the federal government?s bank equity, paid for with our tax dollars, to force Morgan Chase, CitiGroup, etc., to agree to a moratorium on foreclosures and evictions. Require the banks to invest in a ?green? jobs program to jumpstart the economy and retool our nation?s factories, farms and infrastructure to sharply reduce greenhouse gases. Make the banks invest in rebuilding the Gulf Coast, especially New Orleans. Such a program is not socialism, but it is a step toward socialism?s democratic principle, ?From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.? This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 20 12:01:55 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:01:55 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] A Message from People For the American Way Message-ID: <48FC8F53.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> A Message from People For the American Way ===================================== Dear Charles, On Saturday night, we obtained text and audio of the threats made to ACORN in the last several days. I urge you to read this post on People For the American Way's Right Wing Watch blog. It's a sobering reminder of how much hate remains in the world and how much work lies ahead in combating it. http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=syOtGhm2Eb1RXGxuZWngbg.. Since coming out in defense of ACORN against the ludicrous and overblown charges of so-called "voter fraud" by the McCain-Palin campaign, we've received some pretty disgusting hate e-mail too. Unfortunately, these types of fear mongering messages may continue if we are doing our job of standing up to injustice and hate. But I am proud that People For has the guts to be out front in support of our allies and stand up against the increasingly ugly and destructive right-wing machine. The threats and hate mail come as part of a crescendo of hate and bigotry and outright racism that we've seen building over the last two weeks, including: * an escalation in volatile rhetoric from white supremacist groups, * video footage of attendees at McCain-Palin rallies spouting ignorant and frightening comments about Barack Obama's race, and * incidents like a California GOP women's group sending out a newsletter saying that if Barack Obama is elected, his image would appear on food stamps, not dollar bills like other presidents (with an illustration following the statement of an "Obama Bucks" bill featuring Obama's image surrounded by a bucket of fried chicken, watermelon, ribs and Kool-aid). The GOP has recklessly fanned these flames with ugly robocalls and "push polling" calls that attempt to tie Obama to terrorists (some of the calls actually purport to be from the Obama campaign). And earlier this week, Sarah Palin started referring to her ticket's supporters as "pro-American" as if the rest of us somehow are not -- a sentiment later echoed by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) who invoked Joe McCarthy by suggesting that someone launch an investigation to expose which members of Congress are not sufficiently "pro-American." People For the American Way is proud to counter the lies and insinuations of the Right. Please know that we are counting on all of you. Together we can send the message that this kind of hate and bigotry is unacceptable and has no place in the America for which we strive. Please take a moment to sign on to a simple statement to that effect, and if you've seen incidences of racism, threats and hate speech in your community, please share the story with us. http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=jyOVIml_uP7OTkBNYqiYhw.. Thank you for the work you do in your communities -- and for the work your support enables us to do. All the best, Kathryn Kolbert, President People For the American Way +++++++++++++++++ view as a web page: http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=WKEJBoXBp5bT8S57eLXd1A.. tell a friend: http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=01e9JlhVOPqk6ywJW0H8bQ.. subscribe: http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=Qfp8bRyAFnZdt1kOuxUwUg.. unsubscribe: http://site.pfaw.org/site/CO?i=sUEz6W2TBbpkWQK2w6c2mVQLazXagdIZ&cid=1021 privacy policy: http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=hXFtEKgwIc5MCcvIGd-QUQ.. contact us: http://site.pfaw.org/site/R?i=BjUa4fkNGV8LhIMJk7LkJw.. +++++++++++++++++ People For the American Way 2000 M Street NW, Suite 400 Washington, DC 20036 phone: 202-467-4999 This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 20 12:12:28 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:12:28 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Venezuela: Rebirth Of Russia Positive For The World Message-ID: <48FC91CC.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Venezuela: Rebirth Of Russia Positive For The World http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=a4rm6yiISzko&refer=latin_america Bloomberg News October 16, 2008 Venezuela Supplies 300,000 Barrels of Subsidized Oil By Matthew Walter -``I think the rebirth of Russia is positive for the world,'' Chavez said. ``If it weren't for Russia, and the rebirth of Russia, Venezuela would be completely disarmed.'' Venezuela, the biggest oil exporter in the Americas, is currently supplying 300,000 barrels of oil a day at subsidized prices to poor countries in South America and the Caribbean, President Hugo Chavez said. The president said Venezuela will continue to press the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to provide subsidized oil to the 50 poorest countries in the world, most of which are in Africa. There isn't yet a ``consensus'' on the issue within the oil-producing cartel, Chavez said late yesterday in comments broadcast by state television. Chavez said the Venezuelan economy won't collapse even as oil prices decline. Crude oil traded below $73 a barrel today after a global stock plunge heightened concern bank bailouts won't prevent a recession. ``Many want the oil price to continue to drop to see us fall, but Venezuela isn't going to go under,'' he said, according to the state news wire. ``Although no country can say that it won't be affected by this economic disorder, the threat that some sectors want this to create in this country isn't going to materialize.'' Venezuela intends to reduce its dependence on trade with the U.S. by increasing oil shipments to China, he said. The South American country will ``soon'' be sending 400,000 barrels a day to China, with the goal of increasing that to 1 million barrels a day ``in the coming years,'' he said. Oil Output Venezuelan oil output was unchanged in September from the previous month at 2.36 million barrels a day, according to Bloomberg estimates. Chavez said OPEC should also consider Venezuela's proposal to create a development bank. If the initiative fails, he said he'll pursue the option with oil-producing nations such as Russia and Iran. The socialist leader said his country has benefited from economic and military agreements with Russia, which has sold Venezuela billions of dollars of weapons. ``I think the rebirth of Russia is positive for the world,'' Chavez said. ``If it weren't for Russia, and the rebirth of Russia, Venezuela would be completely disarmed.'' =========================== Stop NATO http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato To subscribe, send an e-mail to: stopnato-subscribe at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/messages http://lists.topica.com/lists/ANTINATO/read This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 20 13:05:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:05:51 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Bailout pushes mortgage rates up Message-ID: <48FC9E4F.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> ttp://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/housing/2008-10-16-mortgage-rates_N.htm Bailout pushes mortgage rates up MORTGAGE RATES National overnight averages Today +/- 30 yr fixed mtg 6.29% 15 yr fixed mtg 5.98% 5/1 ARM 6.09% $30K home equity loan 7.67% $30K HELOC 5.15% About these rates FINANCIAL TURMOIL Yahoo! Buzz Digg Newsvine Reddit FacebookWhat's this?By Stephanie Armour, USA TODAY A recent jump in mortgage rates could jeopardize any turn-around in the housing market as home buyers face steeper loan costs. The average interest rate on a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage this week hit 6.46%, up from 5.94% last week, mortgage giant Freddie Mac reported Thursday. The roughly half-point increase is the biggest weekly jump since 1987. On a $165,000 loan, a borrower would pay $1,069 monthly, or $58 more than the payment on the same loan taken out last week. Despite the big jump, the 30-year rate is about where it was as recently as mid-August. Home sales nationally have increased as prices have declined, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported last week.But escalating mortgage rates are eroding some of the growing affordability that has come from dropping home prices, say economists such as Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors. Meanwhile, the USA's housing market remains well below its 2006 peak in both sales volumes and prices paid. According to the most recent data from NAR, the pace of home sales in August was 11% below the year-ago level. The median sales price of $198,100 in August was down 9.5% from a year earlier, and the USA had more than a 10-month supply of homes on the market. FIND MORE STORIES IN: Ohio | Columbus | Freddie Mac | Fannie Mae | Moody | National Association of Realtors | mid-August | Economy.com | Mark Zandi | Hogan | Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors Naroff and others cite the federal government's bank rescue plan as a key reason for the recent jump in mortgage interest rates. The government's $700 billion rescue plan means the Treasury is borrowing more money, putting pressure on long-term interest rates for mortgage securities ? the source of most capital for home finance. That, coupled with investors' fears about future inflation, means rates could continue to rise. Another feature of the rescue plan may also be affecting mortgages. The government has agreed to guarantee bank debt. As a result, investors who had previously bought mortgage debt issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debt are investing in bank debt, which now seems safer. The big jump in mortgage rates mirrors recent volatility in Treasury securities. The 10-year Treasury, a benchmark for fixed-rate mortgages, was yielding about 4% Thursday, up from 3.5% early last week. But some economists say rates should stabilize as fears over the economy recede and markets become less volatile. "I suspect what we're seeing right now is the worst of it. I'm predicting the financial panic will abate some," says Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Economy.com. Some homeowners say they believe the federal bailout is unfair and could backfire if it continues to make the cost of home financing rise. Mike Hogan, 30, of Columbus, Ohio, recently refinanced from an adjustable-rate loan to a fixed-rate, 30-year mortgage at 6%, and says he's concerned. "People have been spoiled with low rates, and with higher rates they won't refinance or purchase. And we're paying to help bail other people out," says Hogan, who works in advertising This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 20 13:22:27 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:22:27 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Going to Extremes in America Message-ID: <48FCA232.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Tomgram: Nick Turse, Going to Extremes in America ? Back in the Great Depression years of the 1930s, unemployed writers, like unemployed steelworkers, were in need of jobs, and so the New Deal's Works Progress Administration, which put all sorts of Americans back to work, did so for writers as well -- 6,500 of them in the Federal Writers' Project at approximately $20 a week. Among other things, the FWP's writers produced a series of classic guide books to American cities and states, still enjoyable to read today. (Richard Wright and John Cheever were among the crew who, for example, did The WPA Guide to New York City.) FWP workers also gathered more than 10,000 first-person oral histories of ordinary -- yet extraordinary -- Americans, relatively few of which were ever published. Almost 30 years ago, the writer Ann Banks collected 80 of these into a deeply moving memory piece of a book entitled First-Person America. When you read through it, one thing likely to strike you about its narratives from our last spectacular economic meltdown was how many of the speakers didn't distinguish between the 1920s and the 1930s, between, that is, "the roaring twenties" of the "Jazz Age" and the Great Depression era. For lots of them, it was all tough times. As Banks wrote in her introduction: "For most of the people in this book, the Depression was not the singular event it appears in retrospect. It was one more hardship in lives made difficult by immigration, world war, and work in low-paying industries before the regulation of wages and hours. Though they spoke of living through bad times, those interviewed by the Federal Writers seldom mentioned the Depression itself." This came to my mind recently as I read in the Washington Post about a category of crime I hadn't known existed: desperate people in a money crunch, often behind on loan payments to car dealerships, who torch their cars and then try to collect insurance on them (usually by claiming they were stolen). Washington police estimate hundreds of such cases in their region just in the past two years. Though the numbers of such attempted frauds may now be on the rise, it's a phenomenon that hardly began with the collapse of Bear Stearns, or the tanking of the stock market, or the global credit crunch that followed. I was left wondering how many people this time around won't make much of a distinction between the blow-out 1990s, the Bush years in which the President, in response to the 9/11 attacks, asked Americans to head for Disney World and shop till they drop, and the disaster that is now almost certain to follow and haunt us all. As more people today are behind on car loans than ever before, we undoubtedly can brace ourselves for a rise in car burnings in the years ahead, just as we are already seeing a rise in all kinds of extreme acts, including suicides, as ever more Americans have their homes foreclosed and face the reality of eviction. As Nick Turse, author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, points out, if you search carefully through local news reports nationwide, you can already see where we're heading, and it isn't pretty. Not one bit. Tom The Rising Body Count on Main Street The Human Fallout from the Financial Crisis By Nick Turse On October 4, 2008, in the Porter Ranch section of Los Angeles, Karthik Rajaram, beset by financial troubles, shot his wife, mother-in-law, and three sons before turning the gun on himself. In one of his two suicide notes, Rajaram wrote that he was "broke," having incurred massive financial losses in the economic meltdown. "I understand he was unemployed, his dealings in the stock market had taken a disastrous turn for the worse," said Los Angeles Deputy Police Chief Michel R. Moore. The fallout from the current subprime mortgage debacle and the economic one that followed has thrown lives into turmoil across the country. In recent days, the Associated Press, ABC News, and others have begun to address the burgeoning body count, especially suicides attributed to the financial crisis. (Note that, months ago, Barbara Ehrenreich raised the issue in the Nation.) Suicide is, however, just one type of extreme act for which the financial meltdown has seemingly been the catalyst. Since the beginning of the year, stories of resistance to eviction, armed self-defense, canicide, arson, self-inflicted injury, murder, as well as suicide, especially in response to the foreclosure crisis, have bubbled up into the local news, although most reports have gone unnoticed nationally -- as has any pattern to these events. While it's impossible to know what factors, including deeply personal ones, contribute to such extreme acts, violent or otherwise, many do seem undeniably linked to the present crisis. This is hardly surprising. Rates of stress, depression, and suicide invariably climb in times of economic turmoil. As Kathleen Hall, founder and CEO of the Stress Institute in Atlanta, told USA Today's Stephanie Armour earlier this year, "Suicides are very much tied to the economy." With predictions of a long and deep recession now commonplace, it's not too soon to begin looking for these patterns among the human tragedies already sprouting amid the financial ruins. Troubling trends are to be expected in the years ahead, especially as hundreds of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghan Wars, their families often already under enormous stress, are coming home to scenarios of joblessness and, in some cases, homelessness. Consider this, then, an attempt to look for early anecdotal signs of the fallout from hard times, the results, in this case, of a review of local press reports from across the nation, some tiny but potentially indicative of larger American tragedies, and all suggesting a pattern that is likely to grow more pronounced. Extreme Evictions In February, when a sheriff's deputy went to serve an eviction notice on a home owner in Greeley, Colorado, he found the man had slashed his wrists and was lying in a pool of blood. Rushed to a nearby hospital, the man survived, while the Sheriff's office tried to downplay economic reasons for the incident, saying, according to the Denver Post, that "it wasn't linking the suicide attempt to the eviction because the man had known for a week that he was to be kicked out." In March, Ocala, Florida resident Roland Gore killed his dog and his wife, set fire to his home which was in foreclosure, and then killed himself. In April, Robert McGuinness, a 24-year-old process server, arrived at the Marion County, Florida doorstep of Frank W. Conrad. According to an article in the local Star Banner, the 82-year-old Conrad was reportedly "cordial" at first. When McGuinness produced the foreclosure notice, however, Conrad got angry and left the room. He returned with a .38 caliber pistol and announced, "You have two seconds to get off my property or you will go to the hospital." Marion County sheriff's deputies later arrested Conrad. On June 3rd, agents of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) set out to inform New Orleans resident Eric Minshew that he would be evicted from his "Katrina" trailer. After Minshew threatened them, the FEMA employees called the police. When they arrived, Minshew allegedly threatened them as well and "locked himself in his partially-gutted home, adjacent to his trailer." A SWAT team was called in and tear-gassed the man. Interviewed by the Times-Picayune, local resident Tiffany Flores said, "Some SWAT members told my husband they had never seen anyone withstand that much tear gas." The standoff went on for hours before "an assault team of tactical officers" invaded the home. Though Minshew opened fire, they eventually cornered him on the upper floor. When -- they claimed -- he refused to drop his weapon, they gunned him down. That same day, in Multnomah County, Oregon, sheriff's deputies served an eviction notice on a desperate tenant. According to Deputy Travis Gullberg, the Multnomah County Sheriff's Public Information Officer, the evictee promptly pulled a gun from his pocket and pointed it at his head before being disarmed by the deputies. Hard Times Recently, according to the Los Angeles Times, Rich Paul, a vice president at ValueOptions Inc., which handles mental health referrals, said that over the last year stress-related calls arising from foreclosures or financial hardship had gone up 200% in California. Similarly, Dr. Mason Turner, chief of psychiatry at Kaiser Permanente's San Francisco Medical Center, reported "a fourfold increase in psychiatric admissions at his hospital during August, with roughly 60% of patients saying financial stress contributed to their problems." Of course, many victims of the linked economic crises never receive treatment. In July, Sacramento County Sheriff's Deputy Mark Habecker told the Sacramento Bee that twice this year "homeowners about to be evicted have committed suicide as he approached to do a lockout." In another case, he said, "a fellow Sacramento deputy found a note in the home that told him where to find the foreclosed homeowner's body." The Bee reported that such cases "received no publicity when they happened," which raises the question of just how many similar suicides have gone unreported nationwide. In July, when police delivered an eviction notice at the Middleburg, Florida home of George and Bonnie Mangum, the couple barricaded themselves inside. Eventually, George Mangum was talked into surrendering and was arrested. "He did the only thing he knew to do, protect his family, all he did was sit on the other side of the door and say I have a gun, I have a gun and that's why he's going to jail because he threatened the police," said Bonnie. The couple's daughter Robin added, "This is my home, this is all our home and I don't think it's right. My dad was a Green Beret, he's sick, how are you going to kick him out?" Pinellas Park, Florida resident Dallas Dwayne Carter was a 44-year-old disabled, single dad who lost his job, fell into debt, and was faced with eviction. "He always talked about needing help -- financially and help with the kids," neighbor Kevin Luster told the St. Petersburg Times. On July 19th, Carter apparently called the police to say he was armed and disturbed. When they arrived, Carter fired his pistol and rifle inside the apartment, before emerging and pointing his weapons at the officers on the scene. Police say they ordered him to drop them. When he didn't, they killed him in a 10-round fusillade. On July 23d, about 90 minutes before her foreclosed Taunton, Massachusetts home was scheduled to be sold at auction, Carlene Balderrama faxed a letter to her mortgage company, letting them know that "by the time they foreclosed on the house today she'd be dead." She continued, "I hope you're more compassionate with my husband and son than you were with me." After that, she took a high-powered rifle and, according to the Boston Globe, shot herself. In an interview with the Associated Press, Balderrama's husband John said, "I had no clue." His wife handled the finances and had been intercepting letters from the mortgage company for months. "She put in her suicide note that it got overwhelming for her," he said. In the letter, she wrote, "take the [life] insurance money and pay for the house." The day after Balderrama took her life, 50 miles away in Worcester, Massachusetts, a 64-year-old man, who had already been evicted, barricaded himself inside his former home. Police were called to the scene to find him reportedly prepared to ignite four propane tanks. "His intention was to burn the house down with him in it," Sgt. Christopher J. George told the Telegram & Gazette. With the man becoming "even more despondent" as "a moving van arrived on the street," police stormed the house to find him "holding a foot-long knife to his own chest" as a piece of paper burned near the propane. The man was disarmed and the fire extinguished. That very same day, in Visalia, California, a Tulare County sheriff's deputy tried to serve an eviction notice to Melvin Nicks, 50. Nicks responded by stabbing the deputy with a knife and barricading himself in the house for several hours. He later surrendered. No Way Out Bay City, Michigan residents David and Sharron Hetzel, both 56, "lost their home to foreclosure and filed for bankruptcy protection. But they did not follow through with the Chapter 13 proceedings." On August 1st, say police reports, David Hetzel mailed a letter of apology to his family members. Later that night, according to the local police, he attacked his sleeping wife, striking her in the head with a golf club and repeatedly stabbing her with a kitchen knife. After that, he began setting fires throughout the house before crawling into bed beside his wife and killing himself with "a single, fatal wound to his torso." On August 12th, sheriff's deputies arrived at the Saddlebrook, New Jersey home of 88-year-old Beatrice Brennan, another victim of the mortgage crisis, who had refinanced her home and fallen behind on payments. Refusing to stand idly by while his mother was put out on the street, her 60-year-old son John pulled a .22 caliber handgun on the lawmen. That sent the movers, waiting for a court-imposed 10 a.m. deadline, scurrying for their van. Brennan was able to delay the eviction briefly before a SWAT team arrested him and his mother lost her home. "I'm heartbroken over this," Vincent Carabello, a longtime neighbor, told the local paper, the Record. "How could this happen?" Roseville, Minnesota resident Sylvia Sieferman was under a great deal of stress and beset by financial difficulties. She worried about how she would care for her two 11-year-old daughters. On August 21st, according to police reports, Sieferman "repeatedly stabbed the girls and herself." "She reached her limit," her friend Carrie Micko told the Star Tribune. "She couldn't cope anymore? she felt that her daughters were suffering because she was failing to provide for them." As Micko further explained, "After a series of financial mishaps, she just couldn't see her way through. She was under extreme financial, emotional and spiritual distress and didn't want to fail them." By Any Means Necessary The Boston Globe reported that, on September 5th, "[f]our protesters trying to prevent the eviction of a Roxbury woman from her home were arrested? after they chained themselves to the steps of her back porch." As 40 protesters chanted in the street, officials from Bank of America ordered Paula Taylor out of her house. "This is our eighth blockade and the first time there have been arrests," said Soledad Lawrence, an organizer with City Life, a non-profit organization seeking to halt the large numbers of foreclosures and evictions in Boston neighborhoods. "They can be more aggressive and we'll be more aggressive," she added. On September 25th, as politicians in Washington tried to hash out a massive bailout package for financial institutions, six Boston police officers confronted about 40 City Life activists in front of the home of Ana Esquivel, a public school employee, and her husband Raul, a construction worker, both in their fifties. The Globe reported that four protesters were arrested as police shoved their way through in order to allow a locksmith into the house to bar the Esquivels from their home. "We've been destroyed by the bank," Ana Esquivel said, sobbing. "The bank is too big for us." While the Esquivel blockade failed, Steven Meacham, a City Life organizer, told a Globe reporter that "the protests have helped to stop about nine evictions. In the successful blockades, the homeowners were given additional time by their mortgage holders to negotiate alternatives to foreclosure." Two days earlier, Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies came to the Monrovia home of 53-year-old Joanne Carter and her 67-year-old husband John to serve an eviction notice. Joanne Carter refused to accept it. According to "Monrovia spokesman" Dick Singer, as reported in the Pasadena Star-News, she "told deputies she had guns in the house and showed them a shotgun." The next day, Monrovia police officers showed up at the home after being informed that the woman "may have made threats to a workers compensation agency." Police Lieutenant Michael Lee said that Carter told them if they "tried to come in, she would defend her house at any means necessary." She and her husband then reportedly barricaded themselves inside, after which a shotgun was fired. Police from other local departments were called in. Following an hours-long standoff, the Carters surrendered and were arrested. That same day, in northern California, Cliff Kendall, Petaluma's chief building official, shot himself with a rifle. A week earlier, Kendall had learned that he was being laid off. "He was afraid we'd lose our home, and we probably will because I can't afford to keep it," his wife Patricia, who is on disability with a back injury, told the Press Democrat. "He was extremely upset about it and hurt." On October 3rd, the day before Karthik Rajaram's mass murder/suicide in Los Angeles, 90-year-old Addie Polk was driven to extremes by the financial crisis. With sheriff's deputies at the door, Polk evidently took the only measure she felt was left to her to avoid eviction from her foreclosed home. She tried to kill herself. Her neighbor Robert Dillon, hearing loud noises from her home, used a ladder to enter the second floor window. He found Polk lying on her bed. "Then she kind of moved toward me a little and I saw that blood, and I said, 'Oh, no. Miss Polk musta done shot herself.'" While she was in the hospital recovering from two self-inflicted gunshot wounds, Fannie Mae spokesman Brian Faith announced the mortgage association had decided to forgive her outstanding debt and give her the house "outright." On October 6th, in Sevier County, Tennessee, sheriff's deputies, with police in tow, arrived to evict Jimmy and Pamela Ross from their home. They heard a shot and entered the home to find 57-year-old Pamela dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest. Neighbor Ruth Blakey told WVLT-TV, "I know she really hated to leave that house. She did not want to leave that house." Wanda Dunn told neighbors she would rather die than leave her home. On October 13th, the day she was to be evicted, the 53-year-old Pasadena, California native apparently set fire to the home "where her family had lived for generations" before shooting herself in the head. "We knew it was going to happen," neighbor Steve Brooks told the Los Angeles Times. "It was nobody's fault; it was everybody's fault." Outsourcing Suicide In September, readers at Slate's "Explainer" column asked the following question: If the financial crisis was so dire, "how come we aren't hearing about executives jumping out of windows?" Writer Nina Shen Rastogi dutifully answered: "Because the current situation hasn't had nearly as devastating an effect on people's personal finances. The Great Crash of 1929 -- and, to a lesser extent, the crash of 1987 -- did lead some people to commit suicide. But in nearly all of those cases, the deceased had suffered a major loss when the market collapsed. Now, due in large part to those earlier experiences, investors tend to keep their portfolios far more diversified, so as to avoid having their entire fortunes wiped out when stocks take a downturn." Perhaps this is true. So far, at least, Wall Street's suicides seem to have been outsourced to places that its executives have probably never heard of. There, on the proverbial main streets of America, the Street's financial meltdown is beginning to be measured not only in dollars and cents, but in blood. Right now, there are no real counts of the many extreme acts born of the financial crisis, but assuredly other murders, suicides, self-inflicted injuries, acts of arson and of armed self-defense have simply gone unnoticed outside of economically hard-hit neighborhoods in cities and small towns across America. With no end in sight for either the foreclosures or the economic turmoil, Americans may have to brace themselves for many more casualties on the home front. Unless extreme economic steps, like mortgage- and debt-forgiveness, are implemented, the number of extreme acts and the ultimate body count may be far more extreme than anyone yet wants to contemplate. Nick Turse is the associate editor and research director of Tomdispatch.com. His work has appeared in many publications, including the Los Angeles Times, Le Monde Diplomatique (German edition), Adbusters, the Nation, and regularly at Tomdispatch.com. His first book, The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, an exploration of the new military-corporate complex in America, was recently published by Metropolitan Books. His website is Nick Turse.com. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 20 14:59:30 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 16:59:30 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Time for a Global Glasnost, Says Gorbachev Message-ID: <48FCB8F1.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> MEDIA: Time for a Global Glasnost, Says Gorbachev By Sabina Zaccaro VENICE, Oct 14 (IPS) - Former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev has warned against the danger of letting the global financial crisis and other emergencies overshadow media attention on climate change. "This financial turmoil, which will heavily affect the real economy, was absolutely predictable, and it is only one aspect of the wider crisis of all the current development systems," Gorbachev, former president of the former Soviet Union and the 1990 Nobel Peace laureate told IPS in an interview. "In fact, there are connected simultaneous crises that are rapidly emerging. These relate to energy, water, food, demography, climate change and the ecosystem devastation." The idea of unlimited growth has proven to be illusory because the resources of the earth are restricted, and they are running out, he says. "There are two ways of addressing the issue: making no mention of the truth and postpone unpopular decisions, or start telling people the truth and work together for change, while we are still in time. FULL: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=44256 ==================================================================== JOSEPH STIGLITZ wrote No modern economy can function well without the government playing an important role. Even free marketeers are now turning to the government. But would it not have been better to have taken action to prevent this meltdown? This is a new kind of public-private partnership - the financial sector walked off with the profits, the public was left with the losses. We need a new balance between market and government. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 20 15:19:09 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 17:19:09 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Karl Marx: did he get it all right? Message-ID: <48FCBD8D.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4981065.ece From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 21 09:40:18 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 11:40:18 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Fannie Suit Vexes Regulator, May Pay Shareholders Message-ID: <48FDBFA2.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Fannie Suit Vexes Regulator, May Pay Shareholders by Saha-Bubna, AparajitaWall Street Journal, 10 October, 2008 The $700 billion financial rescue package approved by Congress to shore up banks also carries a parallel bailout of the financial sector and other industries through a series of obscure tax breaks. Operating mostly under the radar screen, Congress, the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service have been rolling back various provisions of the tax code to help out industries and investors caught up in the turmoil. The most costly - and most controversial - of the moves provide billions in extra tax relief to big banks such as Wells Fargo & Co. and Spain?s Banco Santander SA. Another change gives aid to investors stung by the auction-rate securities meltdown. Still another shift relaxes tax rules to help big multinationals bring back cash from overseas. The total sums involved aren?t clear, but the cost will easily amount to tens of billions of dollars, tax experts say . . . . (rest of article) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122428804156146581.html?mod=todays_us_page_one This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 21 12:36:04 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:36:04 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rick Kuhn on the economic crisis Message-ID: <48FDE8D4.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Rick Kuhn on the economic crisis -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: activists and scholars in Marxist tradition , pen-l at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [Pen-l] Rick Kuhn on the economic crisis From: Louis Proyect A few months ago I was crossposting items about Henryk Grossman from the Intro to Marxism mailing list here. Grossman was a Marxist economist who believed that overaccumulation led to crisis. Rick Kuhn, who received the Isaac Deutscher prize for his biography of Grossman, has an article on MRZine that applies Grossman's economic theory to the current crisis: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/kuhn171008.html Highly recommended. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 21 12:38:54 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:38:54 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] The Libertarians' Lament Message-ID: <48FDE97E.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> The Libertarians' Lament Their heroic view of capitalism makes it difficult for them to accept that financial systems without vigorous government oversight constitute a recipe for disaster. Jacob Weisberg NEWSWEEK From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 21 12:56:32 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:56:32 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Imperialism Message-ID: <48FDEDA0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20946.htm Did Vladimir Lenin Predict The Banking Disaster Of 2008? "Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism" By V. I. Lenin LCW vol.22, Lenin enumerated the following five features characteristic of the epoch of imperialism: The epoch of imperialism opens when the expansion of colonialism has covered the globe and no new colonies can be acquired by the great powers except by taking them from each other, and the concentration of capital has grown to a point where finance capital becomes dominant over industrial capital. Lenin enumerated the following five features characteristic of the epoch of imperialism: (1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation on the basis of this ?finance capital?, of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopoly capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed. [Lenin, Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, LCW Volume 22, p. 266-7.] "[Imperialism] is something quite different from the old free competition between manufacturers, scattered and out of touch with one another, and producing for an unknown market. Concentration [of production] has reached the point at which it is possible to make an approximate estimate of all sources of raw materials (for example, the iron ore deposits)... [throughout] the whole world. Not only are such estimates made, but these sources are captured by gigantic monopolist associations [now called multi-national conglomerates]. An approximate estimate of the capacity of markets is also made, and the associations "divide" them up amongst themselves by agreement. Skilled labor is monopolized, the best engineers are engaged; the means of transport are captured - railways in America, shipping companies in Europe and America. Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialization of production; it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialization. "Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social means of production remain the private property of a few. The general framework of formally recognized free competition remains, and the yoke of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times heavier, more burdensome and intolerable." (p. 205) "The development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still "reigns" and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the "geniuses" of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialized production; but the immense progress of mankind, which achieved this socialization, goes to benefit... the speculators." (p. 206-207) Monopoly, oligarchy, the striving for domination and not for freedom, the exploitation of an increasing number of small and weak nations by a handful of the richest or most powerful nations - all these have given rise to those distinctive characteristics of imperialism which compel us to define it as parasitic or decaying capitalism. ? It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of bourgeoisie and certain countries betray? now one and now another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before.? Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, VI Lenin, Selected Works in one volume, p 260 (ch.7) Parasitism and the Decay of Capitalism...parasitism is characteristic of imperialism... the deepest economic foundation of imperialism is monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly which has grown out of capitalism and which exists in the general environment of capitalism, commodity production and competition, in permanent and insoluble contradiction to this general environment. Nevertheless, like all monopoly, it inevitably engenders a tendency of stagnation and decay....Certainly, the possibility of reducing the cost of production and increasing profits by introducing technical improvements operates in the direction of change. But the tendency to stagnation and decay, which is characteristic of monopoly, continues to operate, and in some branches of industry, in some countries, for certain periods of time, it gains the upper hand.... imperialism is an immense accumulation of money capital in a few countries, amounting, as we have seen, to 100,000-50,000 million francs in securities. Hence the extraordinary growth of a class, or rather, of a stratum of rentiers, i.e., people who live by ?clipping coupons?, who take no part in any enterprise whatever, whose profession is idleness. The export of capital, one of the most essential economic bases of imperialism, still more completely isolates the rentiers from production and sets the seal of parasitism on the whole country that lives by exploiting the labour of several overseas countries and colonies.... Imperialism....CH. 10... the bourgeoisie to an ever-increasing degree lives on the proceeds of capital exports and by ?clipping coupons?. It would be a mistake to believe that this tendency to decay precludes the rapid growth of capitalism. It does not. In the epoch of imperialism, certain branches of industry, certain strata of the bourgeoisie and certain countries betray, to a greater or lesser degree, now one and now another of these tendencies. On the whole, capitalism is growing far more rapidly than before; but this growth is not only becoming more and more uneven in general, its unevenness also manifests itself, in particular, in the decay of the countries which are richest in capital.... ...the tendency of imperialism to split the workers, to strengthen opportunism among them and to cause temporary decay in the working-class movement, revealed itself much earlier than the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries; for two important distinguishing features of imperialism were already observed in Great Britain in the middle of the nineteenth century-vast colonial possessions and a monopolist position in the world market. Marx and Engels traced this connection between opportunism in the working-class movement and the imperialist features of British capitalism systematically, during the course of several decades. For example, on October 7, 1858, Engels wrote to Marx: ?The English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat alongside the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable.?[15] Almost a quarter of a century later, in a letter dated August 11, 1881, Engels speaks of the ?worst English trade unions which allow themselves to be led by men sold to, or at least paid by, the middle class?. In a letter to Kautsky, dated September 12, 1882, Engels wrote: ?You ask me what the English workers think about colonial policy. Well, exactly the same as they think about politics in general. There is no workers? party here, there are only Conservatives and Liberal-Radicals, and the workers gaily share the feast of England?s monopoly of the world market and the colonies.? [13] (Engels expressed similar ideas in the press in his preface to the second edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England, which appeared in 1892.)... The distinctive feature of the present situation is the prevalence of such economic and political conditions that are bound to increase the irreconcilability between opportunism and the general and vital interests of the working-class movement: imperialism has grown from an embryo into the predominant system; capitalist monopolies occupy first place in economics and politics; the division of the world has been completed; on the other hand, instead of the undivided monopoly of Great Britain, we see a few imperialist powers contending for the right to share in this monopoly, and this struggle is characteristic of the whole period of the early twentieth century. Opportunism cannot now be completely triumphant in the working-class movement of one country for decades as it was in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century; but in a number of countries it has grown ripe, overripe, and rotten, and has become completely merged with bourgeois policy in the form of ?social-chauvinism?. [14] http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch10.htm Posted on ICH 04/10/08 This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 21 13:09:10 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:09:10 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] evaluation of PK's work: politics & economics Message-ID: <48FDF096.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> From: "Jim Devine" The Professor and the Columnist [by David Warsh] To the long list of sharp reactions provoked around the world by George W. Bush now must be added another: the decision last week by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to give its 2008 Nobel Prize in economics to Paul Krugman, 55, of Princeton University and The New York Times. Not that the honor is in any sense undeserved. On the contrary, it has long been anticipated; for two decades, it has been a question of how and when. The central part that Krugman played in overturning 175 years of conventional thinking about international trade by introducing the analytic tools of monopolistic competition is by now something of a legend, thanks to two autobiographical essays as forthcoming as any in economics ^^^^^ CB: Interesting. In 1916, Lenin formulated the concept of monopoly competition ( competition in monopoly capitalism as fiercer even than "free" competition) One of the most succinct statements of this principle by Lenin is quoted in Nitkin's _Fundamentals of Political Economy_: "Imperialism cannot eliminate competition. In fact it is this combination of antagonistic principles, viz, competition and monopoly, that is the essence of imperialism, ...' quoting Lenin "Comments on the Remarks Made by the Committee of the April All-Russian Conference, Collected Works, Bol. 24, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1974, p465). In _Imperialism_ , Lenin discusses monopoly competition as _fiercer_ than the competition in the pre-imperialist phase of capitalism This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Tue Oct 21 13:24:19 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:24:19 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama & Ellison? Message-ID: I haven't read Obama's autobiography or his other book, and I'm not sure where this author is coming from, but I find this piece fascinating: The New Republic Invisible Man by David Samuels How Ralph Ellison explains Barack Obama. Post Date Wednesday, October 22, 2008 http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=5c263e1d-d75d-4af9-a1d7-5cb761500092 Aside from some skewed political remarks of Samuels, and the unrealistic conclusion that Obama ought to reveal his true self, which Samuels has not unpacked as fully as a third party could do, Samuels did not tie together, among other things, the relationships connecting the liberal idealism Obama was raised on, his pragmatic learning about power in Indonesia and elsewhere, his community activism in, and the ultimate realpolitik he pursued as a politician. Samuels makes an interesting connection between Obama's perception of 3rd world realities and those of the American mainstream, but doesn't pursue it as far as he should have. Samuels sees the contradictions in Obama's story, and the peculiarities of racial identity in it, but he doesn't go far enough, even for a bourgeois writer. This is still only a tease, as is the Frontline documentary. Samuels intimates the consequences of petty bourgeois identity without fully drawing out its implications as it intersects with the peculiarities of both racial identity and crossover appeal. Triangulate community organizing and Jeremiah Wright, the Harvard Law School, and becoming an Illinois politician, to begin with, to draw out the weird logic of Obama's political trajectory. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 21 14:01:32 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 21 Oct 2008 16:01:32 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama & Ellison? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <48FDFCDC.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> For obvious reasons, O has a very developed understanding and self-consciousness of Dubois' ideas about Black folks' double consciousness , or the idea that Black folks have two souls, one Black and one White, Also, I gotta say that O is a good writer. And he's one of us. The right-wing has good reason to red-bait him. If it doesn't work, it may mean the wicked witch of Reaganism is dead. Even more. McCain and Palin are accusing O of being a "socialist" . But the US population has been long trained to have historical amnesia or anti-historical consciousness or presentist consciousness. There is an automatic memory erasure mechanism wherein most Americans can't remember politics from six months earlier. They act like a bunch of little airheaded Ronald Reagans. However, since the fall of the SU, the US propaganda apparatus has , not surprisingly, not been able to keep up saturation of the population with mass anti-communist and anti-Soviet demogogy. I mean afterall, communism is dead, no ? Why talk about it on television. There are masses of American , young adults who have almost no anti-communist brainwashing. And the older adults have fading anti-c reflexes with their habit of forgetting quickly - Maybe !. Now suddenly, as a last resort, McCain and Palin go to that well, but it's dry ? Wow ! The contradictions of the American brainwashing machine: anti-historical consciousness wipes out anti-communist consciousness ??????? We'll see in two weeks. Hold on to your hats. It's Change or More Reaganism. Ding dong the witch is dead, The wicked witch... >>> Ralph Dumain 10/21/2008 3:24 PM >>> I haven't read Obama's autobiography or his other book, and I'm not sure where this author is coming from, but I find this piece fascinating: The New Republic Invisible Man by David Samuels How Ralph Ellison explains Barack Obama. Post Date Wednesday, October 22, 2008 http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=5c263e1d-d75d-4af9-a1d7-5cb761500092 Aside from some skewed political remarks of Samuels, and the unrealistic conclusion that Obama ought to reveal his true self, which Samuels has not unpacked as fully as a third party could do, Samuels did not tie together, among other things, the relationships connecting the liberal idealism Obama was raised on, his pragmatic learning about power in Indonesia and elsewhere, his community activism in, and the ultimate realpolitik he pursued as a politician. Samuels makes an interesting connection between Obama's perception of 3rd world realities and those of the American mainstream, but doesn't pursue it as far as he should have. Samuels sees the contradictions in Obama's story, and the peculiarities of racial identity in it, but he doesn't go far enough, even for a bourgeois writer. This is still only a tease, as is the Frontline documentary. Samuels intimates the consequences of petty bourgeois identity without fully drawing out its implications as it intersects with the peculiarities of both racial identity and crossover appeal. Triangulate community organizing and Jeremiah Wright, the Harvard Law School, and becoming an Illinois politician, to begin with, to draw out the weird logic of Obama's political trajectory. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 01:15:48 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 16:15:48 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Rick Kuhn on the economic crisis Message-ID: There are two views out there about private equity and the better-positioned hedge funds. One view says they are loaded with cash and are out there lurking sitting on it, waiting to buy up 'distressed assets' of all sorts, all over Europe, UK, US, and even (now yet again) Asia. The other view though is they are the next overleveraged dominoes to fall. Perhaps they are both. It seems sitting on cash often means sitting on some cash with tens of billions of dollars of debt coming due the next quarter. CJ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 22 07:43:01 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:43:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Lenin's discussion of monopoly and speculation References: <48FDEFC1.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Message-ID: <48FEF5A5.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch01.htm ?Even in the purely economic sphere,? writes Kestner, ?a certain change is taking place from commercial activity in the old sense of the word towards organisational-speculative activity. The greatest success no longer goes to the merchant whose technical and commercial experience enables him best of all to estimate the needs of the buyer, and who is able to discover and, so to speak, ?awaken? a latent demand; it goes to the speculative genius [?!] who knows how to estimate, or even only to sense in advance, the organisational development and the possibilities of certain connections between individual enterprises and the banks. . . .? Translated into ordinary human language this means that the development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still ?reigns? and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the ?geniuses? of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialised production; but the immense progress of mankind, which achieved this socialisation, goes to benefit . . . the speculators. We shall see later how ?on these grounds? reactionary, petty-bourgeois critics of capitalist imperialism dream of going back to ?free?, ?peaceful?, and ?honest? competition. " Half a century ago, when Marx was writing Capital, free competition appeared to the overwhelming majority of economists to be a ?natural law?. Official science tried, by a conspiracy of silence, to kill the works of Marx, who by a theoretical and historical analysis of capitalism had proved that free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly. Today, monopoly has become a fact. Economists are writing mountains of books in which they describe the diverse manifestations of monopoly, and continue to declare in chorus that ?Marxism is refuted?. But facts are stubborn things, as the English proverb says, and they have to be reckoned with, whether we like it or not. The facts show that differences between capitalist countries, e.g., in the matter of protection or free trade, only give rise to insignificant variations in the form of monopolies or in the moment of their appearance; and that the rise of monopolies, as the result of the concentration of production, is a general and fundamental law of the present stage of development of capitalism." -clip- "Thus, the principal stages in the history of monopolies are the following: (1) 1860-70, the highest stage, the apex of development of free competition; monopoly is in the barely discernible, embryonic stage. (2) After the crisis of 1873, a lengthy period of development of cartels; but they are still the exception. They are not yet durable. They are still a transitory phenomenon. (3) The boom at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-03. Cartels become one of the foundations of the whole of economic life. Capitalism This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 22 07:51:51 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:51:51 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] 1978 to 2008 Message-ID: <48FEF7B7.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subjec [Pen-l] Rick Kuhn on the economic crisis From: Doyle Saylor -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings Economists, On Oct 20, 2008, at 3:59 PM, Jim wrote: as it always is. We shouldn't consider socialism only in crisis times. Doyle; We can consider socialism anytime, but no mass movement limits the speculation. Or at least that is how I interpret 1978 to 2008. It was simply impossible to get a major mass movement going in the U.S. no matter how good socialist analysis was. And I think that analysis can only be so so when there is no major movement to support it. Contrary I have thought it important to do something from 1978 to now. And others have acted throughout this period. I think looking back and understanding why that period was bleak in the U.S. might be good scholarship and help us in the future. That sort of thinking is not so freighted with impossibles as doing something during a conservative period. thanks, Doyle Saylor This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 22 07:55:47 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 09:55:47 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Dialectics of revolutionary organization and spontaneity Message-ID: <48FEF8A2.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Carrol Cox is a Thaxis alumnus. ^^^ [Pen-l] Newsweek: Blame the libertarians -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [Pen-l] Newsweek: Blame the libertarians From: Carrol Cox < -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- raghu wrote: > That's a fair point. Being unproven is, of course, a big problem for > socialists and especially communists. No. Socialist struggles are never, actually, struggle for socialism to begin with - that enters only at a very late stage, and almost by accident as it were. They begin with struggles against (almost always, I think, a saying No) some particular horror of the capitalist society (Jim Crow in the South), and as they develop more and more within them see that more is at issue than the particular aims of the struggle. It branches out. The struggle becomes against capitalism (with only an active minority thinking specifically in terms of an alternative). By the time Socialism becomes the order of the day there is _still_ no need to "prove" or even argue for socialism: it has simply become the only alternative available. And it is within that struggle that the specific features of the particular socialism in question get hammered out, with any formula for socialism we might excogitate now being pretty irrelevant. It is even more problematic for > anyone who believes a socialist revolution has to be worldwide or not > at all. This is probably true, but it still poses no problem of prooving anything in advance. A popular mass movement within a given country does not start all over the place at once. Sometimes it simply starts at one lunch counter or someone getting ticked off in the streets of Watts. (The riots were every bit as important as the more formal pats of the civil-rights movement.) Similarly, a "woeld-wide" revolution (or a widely spread revolution in several major areas to be more realistic) can't be planned in advance. If a really massive struggle happens in one nation, and if the conditions sparking it are widely spread, it may may trigger struggles elsewhere. One can't write recipes for the cookshops of the future. There is no hard-and-fast-theory of what a revolution is. It is a mass struggle that sudenly becomes more than itself, and the people in it have to start using their fucking brains as best as they can. The world can, perhaps, rightly be skeptical of the wisdom of > any such large scale experiment. "Experiment" is a really bad, even disgusting, word to use here. There are no controlled laboratory conditions in human history. Carrol This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 22 09:09:21 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 22 Oct 2008 11:09:21 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Workers of the World, just read and watch the news Message-ID: <48FF09E0.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Here's another main media frontpage headline story that could be in a socialist newspaper. Workers of the World, just read and watch the news . The revolution is being televised Charles http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20081021/1a_lede21_dom.art.htm Cities see 'alarming' homeless numbers More families seek aid in face of financial crisis By Wendy Koch USA TODAY More families with children are becoming homeless as they face mounting economic pressures, including mortgage foreclosures, according to a USA TODAY survey of a dozen of the largest cities in the nation. Local authorities say the number of families seeking help has risen in Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Minneapolis, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Seattle and Washington. "Everywhere I go, I hear there is an increase" in the need for housing aid, especially for families, says Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates federal programs. He says the main causes are job losses and foreclosures. Other factors have been higher food and fuel prices hitting families with "no cushion," says Nan Roman of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. Many mayors have 10-year plans to end homelessness and had reported progress until this year. The most recent official count, in January 2007, found 671,888 people living on U.S. streets or in shelters, down 12% from January 2005. "We saw family homelessness began to increase last winter," says Sally Erickson, Portland's homeless program manager. "There's definitely a spike in the last six months." The number of requests for emergency shelter doubled from fiscal year 2007 to fiscal 2008, which ended in June. Darlene Newsom, who runs United Methodist Outreach Ministries' New Day Centers, which provide shelter programs for families in Phoenix, says the number of requests is "alarming." She says families who never sought help before are calling. Los Angeles says it has no 2008 data. Miami reports no major change. Chicago has not had a surge in requests, but more come from renters evicted because of landlords' foreclosure, says Nancy Radner of the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness. USA TODAY found: ?In New York City, 2,747 families applied for shelter in September 2008, up from 2,087 in September 2007. ?In Hennepin County, including Minneapolis, 880 families were in shelters from January through August 2008, up from 698 in that period last year. At least 10% this year came from foreclosed properties where most had been renters, says Cathy ten Broeke, county coordinator to end homelessness. Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor of social policy, expects foreclosures to cause a "big increase" in homeless families. Mangano says a new federal law gives communities $3.9 billion to buy foreclosed properties or provide services to the homeless. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 18:29:10 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:29:10 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Skipping from Lenin to .... Message-ID: NOT KRUGMAN, who is just totally unoriginal Demoncratic Party dreck, but instead to this. Key point: big capital and its governments are not intervening in order to transform into something like socialism. They are intervening to save their control and to save their system. Whether or not that presents a possibility for events going way beyond the usual 'unintended consequences' and leads to political, economic changes in the US and Europe, is beyond anyone's ability to predict. However, unintended consequences could mean that the actions taken only make matters worse (i.e., there were no lessons to be learned from looking at the 1930s or Japan in the period 1992-1998 that would apply to this crisis). And then this would lead to a very dangerous time, but one with revolutionary, transformational potential. In which case you would expect big capital and its governments to become increasingly authoritarian in domestic politics--and indeed you could argue we have already seen that shift. Suggested reading: http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/7597/ Is the Crisis Transforming Global Finance? By C P Chandrasekhar Original source: People's Democracy (India) After much dithering, lots of high drama and much effort to avoid the inevitable for fear that it would straightjacket capitalism, governments in the developed industrial countries have taken the first, major, necessary step to begin resolving the financial crisis. They have, effectively, nationalized a large part of the private banking system. The process began in the UK, where the Gordon Brown administration stepped beyond what Bush was willing to do and announced that it would resort to an "equity injection" to buy ordinary and preference shares worth ?37 billion in three of the biggest banks in the country: Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB and HBOS. Existing shareholders have the option of buying back the ordinary shares from the government. But if they do not, as seems likely, then the government would have a stake of 60 per cent in RBS and 43.5 percent in the combined entity that would emerge after the ongoing merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS. This clearly amounts to State takeover, which brings with it new obligations. The three banks will not be able to pay dividends on ordinary shares until they have repaid in full the ?9 billion in preference shares they are issuing to the government. The Treasury would appoint three new RBS directors and two directors to the board of the combined Lloyds-HBOS to oversee the government's interests. And there would be restrictions on executive salaries and bonuses that had ballooned during the years of the speculative boom. The decision to nationalize was forced on the UK government because it realized that the problem facing segments of the banking system was not just one of inadequate liquidity resulting from the "freezing" of credit markets due to fears generated by the subprime crisis. Rather credit markets had frozen because the entities that needed liquidity most were those faced with a solvency problem, because of the huge volume of bad assets they carried on their balance sheets. To lend to or buy into these entities with small doses of money was to risk losses since that money would not have covered the losses involved in cleaning up their balance sheets and yet keeping these banks viable. So money was hard to come by. This is disastrous for a bank because rumors of its vulnerability trigger a run that devastate its already damaged finances. STATE TAKEOVER What was needed was a large injection of equity to recapitalize these banks after taking account of losses. Wherever the sum involved was small, a private sector buyer could play the role, otherwise the State had to step in. Thus, in the case of some banks recapitalization through nationalization was unavoidable because, as UK chancellor Alistair Darling put it, "this is the only way, when markets are not open to certain banks, they can get the capitalization they need." Others such as Barclays hope they can attract private investors so as to avoid being absorbed by the government. It expects to raise ?6.6 billion from private investors, but the prospects are not certain given the fact that it has decided not to pay a final dividend in 2008, so as to save ?2 billion. That may not be the best signal to send to prospective investors. What needs to be noted, however, is that nationalization is not the end of the matter. In addition, the UK government has chosen to guarantee all bank deposits, independent of their size, to prevent a run. It has also decided to guarantee inter-bank borrowing to keep credit flowing as when needed. Once the UK decided to take this radical and comprehensive route, others were quick to read the writing on the wall. What followed was a deluge. Germany with an estimated bill of ?470 billion, France with ?340 billion, and other governments with as yet unspecified amounts pitched in, with plans to recapitalize banks with equity injections, besides guaranteeing deposits and inter-bank lending. The banking system was being saved through State take-over, not just with State support. Finally, the US, which was seeking to avoid State acquisition and had already decided to use as much as $700 billion to address the financial crisis by buying out impaired assets that were seen as choking the financial system, fell in line . It too has decided to use $250 of that money to acquire a stake in a large number of banks. Half of that money is to go to the nine largest banks, such as Bank of America, Citigroup, Wachovia and Morgan Stanley. The minimum investment will be the equivalent of one per cent of risk-weighted assets or $25 billion ? whichever is lower. With capital adequacy at a required eight percent, this is indeed a major recapitalization. Further the government, through the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, is guaranteeing all deposits in non-interest bearing accounts and senior debt issued by banks insured by the FDIC. However, the conservative influence has ensured that this intervention is biased in favor of Big Finance. The support comes cheap: banks will pay a dividend of just five percent for the first five years, only after which the rate jumps to nine percent. During that time, they have the option of mobilizing private capital and buying out the government. Interestingly, the government is not taking voting rights and would be able to appoint directors only if the bank misses dividend payments for six quarters. While there are restrictions on payment of dividends to ordinary shareholders before clearing the government's claims and limits on executive compensation, the government only reserves the right to convert 15 percent of its investments into common stock. In sum, the American initiative overseen by Henry Paulson, an old Wall Street hand from Goldman Sachs, has virtually cajoled the banks to accept a government presence, unlike what seems true in the UK and Europe. DESPERATE ATTEMPT Whether it occurs in part-punitive fashion or as a sop, the back-door part or full takeover of major private banks is a desperate attempt to stall the financial meltdown in the advanced economies resulting from the decision to allow private financial players unfettered freedom to pursue profits at the expense of all else. That freedom which came with the financial liberalization of the 1980s and after, spawned new institutions and instruments ? collateralized debt obligations, special investment vehicles, credit default swaps and the like ? that were all aimed at expanding credit irrespective of risk, packaging such debts into products, and selling the associated returns and risks. The process ensured high returns in the form of fees and commissions, which came to be more important than interest income. The net result of this was a tendency on the part of all players to believe that they were free of the risk, because it had been transferred, even though branches of the same firm had made huge leveraged investments in those kinds of assets. This disease also afflicted the conventional banking system, which was risking the money of depositors, through its involvement directly or indirectly in all stages of the speculation-fed expansion. When the bubble burst, the banks were faced with collapse and depositors' funds together with the all-important role that the banks need to play in a modern economy were impaired, threatening a deep recession or depression in the real economy. While this threat has forced governments to drop their neo-conservative bias against State ownership and markets that hollered at government intervention in the past have now applauded such action, the threat of recession has not receded. Even if the banks are safe, though there is no definite guarantee as yet, there are many other institutions varying from hedge and mutual funds to pension funds that have suffered huge losses, both from the subprime fiasco and the stock market crash, eroding the wealth of many. The effects of that wealth erosion on investment and consumption demand are only now unraveling, indicating that there is much to be told in this story as yet. From jannuzi at gmail.com Wed Oct 22 18:35:58 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:35:58 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama & Ellison Message-ID: >>We'll see in two weeks. Hold on to your hats. It's Change or More Reaganism.<< Of course it would be neither. Not change as in change planned and controlled by Obama, master of the 'holding action'. And not Reaganism because McCain is not Reagan, for one thing. And for another, I think in the last year of campaigning Obama has praised Reagan more than McCain. So it's two more weeks of this weak-assed shit about Obama from CB, and then we can all take a rest until he takes office. Then we can watch as he flounders for two years and then comes on strong to run for more of that same old shit change again. It's interesting that the Obama bin Biden candidacy has -- most likely accidentally -- hinted that 'enemies of the US' would test a newbie youngin president like Obama. What is more likely is some sort of contrived crisis in S. Asia largely created by CentCom in order to test their young president, who will be weak at the knees with them, because having not served, he will 'respect them'. Which is why Obama needs old Botox Joe Biden around to handle all those crises. CJ From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Thu Oct 23 00:29:26 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:29:26 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama & Ellison In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: As a bargainer, Obama will probably try to throw everyone a bone. The right wing threw a wrecking ball into government with Reagan, but even more so during the Clinton years, and they went buck wild with Dubya. They will turn on Obama with a viciousness that makes the impeachment of Clinton look like happy hour. The finances of the country are fucked, but I'm guessing that Obama would want to put his health care scheme into place, but can he do it? The center-right Democratic Party is gaining ground only because the situation is fucked so bad that it seems they can manage the neoliberal order more judiciously than the right wing nutjobs. Will Obama work to bridle the incipient police state and put some brakes on corporate plundering? I don't know what he really hopes to accomplish. He is being supported by some rational segments of the bourgeoisie, who undoubtedly view him as more sober and stable than the gangsters running the country into the ground right now. He was very shrewd in seizing this moment to organize to become president, but to what end, I'm mystified, as I don't buy into his bullshit rhetoric. Perhaps, given popular discontent and the economic crisis, he may rise to the occasion to tilt domestic policy away from the right, but I question how aggressive he will be in kicking ass the way FDR or LBJ did. At 08:35 PM 10/22/2008, CeJ wrote: > >>We'll see in two weeks. Hold on to your hats. It's Change or More > Reaganism.<< > >Of course it would be neither. Not change as in change planned and >controlled by Obama, master of the 'holding action'. And not Reaganism >because McCain is not Reagan, for one thing. And for another, I think >in the last year of campaigning Obama has praised Reagan more than >McCain. > >So it's two more weeks of this weak-assed shit about Obama from CB, >and then we can all take a rest until he takes office. Then we can >watch as he flounders for two years and then comes on strong to run >for more of that same old shit change again. > >It's interesting that the Obama bin Biden candidacy has -- most likely >accidentally -- hinted that 'enemies of the US' would test a newbie >youngin president like Obama. What is more likely is some sort of >contrived crisis in S. Asia largely created by CentCom in order to >test their young president, who will be weak at the knees with them, >because having not served, he will 'respect them'. >Which is why Obama needs old Botox Joe Biden around to handle all >those crises. > >CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 23 04:36:17 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:36:17 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama & Ellison In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I liked Ralph's analysis of the NPR article and, even more, his take on some of the issues it raises (or doesn't raise)--will get to that later. But I must say, the article itself is some pretty weird stuff. For example, >>My own belief is that Barack Obama has the makings of an unusual and unusually effective president, because he might combine a writer's sense of the dramatic moment, and of how language helps to shape reality, with the brain--and perhaps the soul--of a Harvard-educated technocrat. At the same time, I find it hard not to wonder about how President Obama will see the world, and what the major fault lines in his personality might be. The fact that the talking heads and the voters alike are unable to see him plain is an optic effect that Obama anticipates in his first book. It is no accident that the literary model for Obama's narrative of self is Ellison's Invisible Man, just as it is no accident that liberals and conservatives alike seem to be talking about five or six wildly different people when they talk about Obama, none of whom bears all that much resemblance to the narrator of Dreams.<< Weird stuff. At any rate, what I read of his memoir didn't really impress as being altogether that well-written. Or ghost-written, as is so often the case nowadays. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 23 04:52:03 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:52:03 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama & Ellison In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: RD:>>Samuels did not tie together, among other things, the relationships connecting the liberal idealism Obama was raised on, his pragmatic learning about power in Indonesia and elsewhere, his community activism in, and the ultimate realpolitik he pursued as a politician. << I had a hard time seeing where the author Samuels had shown he had actually read the memoir, even in excerpt. But giving him the benefit of a doubt, I'll assume he had. But what I'm trying to get my head around is where did that idea of 'community activist/organizer' really come from in BO's life? It didn't come from his father. Did it come from his white mother or grandmother, who raised him but whom he makes a point to reject? So perhaps there was something very uncalculated about that move but also something very mixed up and troubled. He was raised white but still would have experienced the US as black in many ways because of the way other people would act towards him. Older people might look at BO and see a clean-cut American fellow. Without noticing that in appearance he actually seems to emulate the Black Muslims. However, BO has been very careful--even after a lot of baiting--not to show the one side (even if it doesn't exist in his personality) that would alienate many whites who now support him. The 'surly' in-your-face black man that whites project onto blacks as different as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Farrakhan, and Rev. Wright (who all end up at the margins of politics without being socialists or Marxists). He is smart enough to know that even an ounce of indignation based on his existence as a black man could be viewed as that. But given all this build up and all this projection of there being something special about this man (because apparently white America wants to see it), it might be very anti-climactic once he has to act in the best interests of the US establishment, even at a time when the establishment is unclear on what it thinks its best interests are. CJ From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Thu Oct 23 08:02:25 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:02:25 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama & Ellison In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's only a hunch, but I'm guessing that Obama was, in his formative years, essentially a white liberal who is black. By this I mean that he was more or less programmed as a white liberal would be but there were identity issues a white activist would not have. One can begin with very noble motives to be a community organizer, but the brutality of what one has to face is going to teach some bitter lessons, which, depending on one's background, may be a surprise to those unfamiliar with the type of social environment one encounters. Some people think the need to belong is a good thing. I do not. I know too many people who escaped from poverty and stifling social environments and distanced themselves from their oppressive upbringing, and for many, that means the ghetto and the black church. It's one thing to be a spectator to the carrying on in the black church and find it exciting from a safe distance; it's quite another to be raised on that ignorance. Obama's mother was a secular humanist. Obama joined a church that met his political and middle class needs. I'm guessing that was based on pure opportunism and/or liberal guilt combined with a need to belong. I don't find this admirable. At best it is naive as one might expect of someone raised on liberal idealism free from the constraints of the ghetto mentality. Jeremiah Wright is a rather pedestrian social type, rather tiresome at this late date. The fire-and-brimstone and the black nationalist paranoia only detract from the percentage of valid objective political content in his histrionics. Actually, I can understand pure opportunism; I find gullibility more objectionable. Obama joining the black community on those terms constitutes a major step in the chameleon-like character one requires to be a politician. Then there's his behavior at Harvard and his ultimately entering the fray of electoral politics to consider. Here is a very ambitious man who knows how to take names. What induced Obama to challenge Bobby Rush? I don't see political idealism in this, but rather a politician on the make. I can see Obama's self-image as a pragmatist as someone who thinks he is doing good, but I think the post-New-Deal-Great-Society yuppie/buppie Democrats cherish their illusion of themselves as nice people, which is also endemic to the upper middle class mentality. Segments of white America wanted to see something special in Obama before black people did, or so it seems to me. Obviously, he is very capable at what he does, but that's not special in the way people see him as special. The first people I met raving about Obama were upper middle class liberal Jews and white Unitarians, what you would expect of "nice people" who live in a bubble. What they thought was so special was a mystery to me, and probably to them too. It was all image as far as I could tell. This was before Oprah, who lost whatever mind she had a long time ago, christened Obama "the one". Once blacks jumped on the bandwagon, the self-deception train was booked solid. I don't expect a bourgeois politician to be anything other than a bourgeois politician. There are better and worse. I can work with that, as long as my eyes are open as to who I'm dealing with. The American political system has become so constricted, and the progressive forces so weakened, especially the labor movement, that the Democratic Party has not had on its agenda anything like the Great Society/New Deal historic compromise for three decades. Now the situation has become so bad there might be a historic shift in the making, which Obama could ride as did FDR and LBJ, but I'm not seeing it yet. Obama will inherit a situation so bad, and there will be a war on between the rational section of the bourgeoisie that backs Obama and the right-wing wreckers, that our first black president may be set up as a scapegoat for the economic collapse to come. I am referring to domestic policy, where the differences are most perceptible, as foreign policy doesn't change much save for the decision whether or not to pursue adventurist wars. At 06:52 AM 10/23/2008, CeJ wrote: >RD:>>Samuels did not tie together, among other things, the >relationships connecting the liberal idealism Obama was raised on, his >pragmatic learning about power in Indonesia and elsewhere, his >community activism in, and the ultimate realpolitik he pursued as a >politician. << > > >I had a hard time seeing where the author Samuels had shown he had >actually read the memoir, even in excerpt. But giving him the benefit >of a doubt, I'll assume he had. >But what I'm trying to get my head around is where did that idea of >'community activist/organizer' really come from in BO's life? It >didn't come from his father. Did it come from his white mother or >grandmother, who raised him but whom he makes a point to reject? > >So perhaps there was something very uncalculated about that move but >also something very mixed up and troubled. > >He was raised white but still would have experienced the US as black >in many ways because of the way other people would act towards him. > >Older people might look at BO and see a clean-cut American fellow. >Without noticing that in appearance he actually seems to emulate the >Black Muslims. > >However, BO has been very careful--even after a lot of baiting--not to >show the one side (even if it doesn't exist in his personality) that >would alienate many whites who now support him. The 'surly' >in-your-face black man that whites project onto blacks as different as >Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Farrakhan, and Rev. Wright (who all end up >at the margins of politics without being socialists or Marxists). He >is smart enough to know that even an ounce of indignation based on his >existence as a black man could be viewed as that. > >But given all this build up and all this projection of there being >something special about this man (because apparently white America >wants to see it), it might be very anti-climactic once he has to act >in the best interests of the US establishment, even at a time when the >establishment is unclear on what it thinks its best interests are. > >CJ From rdumain at autodidactproject.org Thu Oct 23 08:19:01 2008 From: rdumain at autodidactproject.org (Ralph Dumain) Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:19:01 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Mike Davis on Obama Message-ID: Can Obama See the Grand Canyon? On Presidential Blindness and Economic Catastrophe Wednesday 15 October 2008 by: Mike Davis, TomDispatch.com From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 23 20:42:22 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:42:22 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Mike Davis on Obama Message-ID: I was going to say (jokingly), hey that guy stole my Grand Canyon metaphor, but he wrote that a good week before my little remark on this list. Another interesting aspect of BO can be summed up in the word 'celebrity'. It's rare a politician in the US qualifies for the 'star treatment' that BO gets (and while he has had his teeth whitened, he didn't get his ears fixed). And then runs for president. He has been a celebrity ever since that supposedly stellar performance at the Dem Nat Convention in 2004 in support of John Kerry. I think RD is right in saying that his upward trajectory started first with white liberals, but then he got almost universal support from the blacks in the Democratic Party. Much of that comes from all the work Jesse Jackson did in that party. At any rate, I think the MD piece sums up much of what we have been saying in our analysis of BO. CJ From jannuzi at gmail.com Thu Oct 23 23:20:29 2008 From: jannuzi at gmail.com (CeJ) Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2008 14:20:29 +0900 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] "Socialist" China to fund US, Euro bailouts? Message-ID: Maybe I know nothing, but it seems to me that the trade-surplus countries of E. Asia and ME are already holding a lot of the debt from Bush's bubble (and post-9-11 REFLATION of that bubble). So I asked at the first, how are they going to float all this new government debt (especially when you see small countries like Iceland looking worse than most state governments in the US)? Won't interest rates have to go up at a time WHEN THEY CAN'T GO UP? And won't the governments of E. Asia and ME be in worse shape at holding more US debt as their currencies strengthen against the dollar, as their export economies tank, and, in the case of ME, as the price of oil crashes (the crash of which, btw, seems to have been one of the precipitating factors in the year-long run-up to this crisis). WSWS looks at this with a China perspective http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/chin-o23.shtml excerpt:>>With American and European governments having pledged huge bailouts for their respective banking systems, the obvious question has arisen: where will they get the money? The US in particular is so indebted that an estimated $1.3 trillion in new bonds may have to be issued next year just to cover its initial $700 billion Wall Street bailout package. Faced with dwindling currency reserves, some eyes are turning to China and other Asian countries, which hold $4.35 trillion in foreign reserves, as a possible source of cash.< With all that 'bad boy trash US' talk from Pakistan politicians (whether in or out of power), it would easy to forget that Pakistan is still basically a US client state. Plus we have to remember however numerous the Pashtun are in Afghanistan and Pakistan, they are a minority in Pakistan and not really close to a majority in Afghanistan (thought the puppet government of Karzai's Kabulistan is nominally headed up by a Pashtun--you know the one with Parisian tailors, probably the same guys who made all those faux Persian royalty outfits for the Shah of Iran). We are now up to a Colombia-Bolivia level for Pakistan, and if you add in Afghanistan, the mix is something lethal and expensive enough to equal the Iraq debacle. So that should be a pretty good 4 year plan to make it through the BO presidency--drag out the withdrawal from Iraq while consolidating on 4 megabases there; at the same time, ratchet up S. Asia in order to have a real 'crisis' with Pakistan. Meanwhile, I would expect a hard-right authoritarian in a libertarian-turned- populist cloak to emerge in the Repugnican Salvation Front to Save America in 2010. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081023/pl_afp/uspakistanmilitary_081023211725;_ylt=AtfCuAuIDMZWxA0HgNnzfZbuOrgF US military training program starts in Pakistan: official by Jim Mannion ? Thu Oct 23, 5:17 pm ETon against Islamic militants in ? WASHINGTON (AFP) ? A small contingent of US military instructors have begun a training program scheme aimed at turning Pakistan's Frontier Corps into an effective counter-insurgency force, a US military official said Thursday. About 25 US military personnel last week began training Pakistani counterparts at a location in Pakistan outside the troubled tribal areas where the Frontier Corps operates, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It has started. It is a train-the-trainer mission," the official said, emphasizing that the Americans would not directly train the Frontier Corps, but only their Pakistani army instructors. Recruited from the tribal areas and led by Pakistani army officers, the 80,000-member Frontier Corps historically has been poorly armed and trained. The aim is "basically to train the Frontier Corps in counter-insurgency warfare to make them more effective in the tribal areas," the official said. The politically sensitive program had been stalled for months by negotiations between the US and Pakistani military. The official attributed the delay to difficulties in getting the facilities needed to conduct the training. "What is important here is that the Pakistani government recognizes they have a challenge with extremists inside their own country," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. "Clearly they are looking for a variety of means to address it." The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported Thursday that Pakistan plans to supply Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles and other small arms to tens of thousands of anti-Taliban fighters in tribal militias called "lashkars." Pakistani officials told the newspaper that the plan to arm the militias was their idea and they were paying for it. It is reminiscent, however, of the successful US effort in Iraq to turn Sunni militias against Al-Qaeda in western Iraq, at the time an insurgent stronghold. The US military, as well as the White House and State Department, has been conducting a major strategy review that for the first time encompasses both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The review was prompted by two years of rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan that now is seen as a threat to a seven-year-old US- and NATO-led effort to establish a democratic, centrally governed state. US military commanders have warned that the insurgency in Afghanistan cannot be quelled without a strategy that effectively shuts down the insurgent sanctuaries in the tribal belt. Although not publicly acknowledged by the United States, one response has been a surge of air strikes by US unmanned aircraft on suspected insurgent houses and compounds in the tribal areas. The attacks have inflamed public opinion in Pakistan, but Pentagon officials insist that the Pakistani military and government recognize the threat posed by the insurgents. The Pakistani military has mounted major operations in recent weeks against Taliban militants in the Bajaur district, which borders Afghanistan's Kunar province. From ballistanc at yahoo.com Sun Oct 26 07:47:34 2008 From: ballistanc at yahoo.com (juan De La Cruz) Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 06:47:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Fw: [marxist] Bad News For Mumia Message-ID: <779370.85850.qm@web35504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 10/25/08, Dave Williams wrote: From: Dave Williams Subject: [marxist] Bad News For Mumia To: tuscapeace at yahoogroups.com, peacetalkbham at yahoogroups.com, NC4P at yahoogroups.com, "anarchy list" , "Marxist List" Date: Saturday, October 25, 2008, 3:20 PM U.S. Supreme Court developments concerning Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row U.S. Supreme Court There are new developments in the case of my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on Pennsylvania' s death row, that are the most significant and deadly since his 1981 arrest. The prosecution has advised the Supreme Court that it is seeking reversal of the federal decision which ordered a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Earlier I made an appearance in the court on our ongoing effort to win an entirely new jury trial on the issue of innocence, so that Mumia can be freed. We are now at the crossroads of the case. This is a life and death struggle in the fight for Mumia?s freedom. His life hangs in the balance. The following are details as to what has been occurring in the Supreme Court. Abu-Jamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08A299 On October 3, I filed in the Supreme Court a Motion for Extension of Time To File Petition for Writ of Certiorari. Justice David H. Souter granted the motion on October 9. The Petition is now due on December 19, 2008. The issues I will be presenting on behalf of Mumia include racism in jury selection and the prosecutor?s misrepresentations to the jury during the guilt phase of the 1982 trial. These were denied last spring by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia. Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008). The court was split 2-1 on the racism question. The prosecution?s use of racism in selecting the jury is a strong issue because of the powerful dissenting opinion by Judge Thomas L. Ambro. In voting that relief should be granted, he wrote that ?[e]xcluding even a single person from a jury because of race violates the Equal Protection Clause of our Constitution? and concluded that ?everyone is entitled to a fair and impartial trial by a jury of his or her peers.? A major problem we have encountered is that Mumia?s previous lawyers neither developed essential evidence nor raised some issues of constitutional significance. Such failings are inexcusable. For example his attorneys during the period 1994-2001, failed to even get the racial composition of the panel from which the jury was selected. They had the jurors? names and addresses, and could have gone out and obtained this information in a day. Once the case went up on appeal it was too late to introduce this crucial evidence which would have established beyond question that African-Americans were underrepresented on the jury panel and that the prosecution used discriminatory racial practices in jury selection. Justice Ambro pointed out in his dissent that this deficiency should not serve as a basis to deny relief in view of the other evidence we have of prosecutorial racism. Another issue concerning the judge's racism and prejudice at trial was doomed from the start because it was not even presented by the previous lawyers. Rather, they only argued that the judge was unfair 13 years later at a 1995 evidentiary hearing. It was an incompetent mistake that waived this strong issue. Sadly, Mumia is bound by the errors of those lawyers. Beard v. Abu-Jamal, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08A315 The Philadelphia District Attorney is seeking reversal of the federal court decision which granted a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Their intent is to see Mumia executed. That was announced in an extension motion filed in the Supreme Court. The court ordered on October 14 that the government petition must be filed by November 19, 2008. We will then submit briefing in opposition to the death penalty arguments. Abu-Jamal v. Pennsylvania, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-5456 In a ruling not related to the present litigation, the Supreme Court on October 6 issued an order denying the petition we had filed seeking review of a decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. That concerned the denial of a new trial based upon the fact that the prosecution persuaded witnesses to lie in order to obtain a conviction and death judgment against my client. This arises from adverse rulings by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court and the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. The District Attorney successfully argued that Mumia?s previous lawyers had failed to raise the misconduct issues in a timely manner. Even though this evidence of fraud is not before the Supreme Court, I will certainly be able to use it at a new jury trial. Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense Due to the developments in the Supreme Court, the legal defense for Mumia is in dire need of funds. The legal costs will likely reach $100,000. To help, please make your checks payable to the ?National Lawyers Guild Foundation? (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). These donations to Mumia?s defense are tax deductible, and should be mailed to: Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal P.O. Box 2012 New York, NY 10159-2012 Conclusion More activism and support is needed in the campaign to free Mumia from the death penalty and prison. It is an affront to civilized standards and international law that he remains in prison and on death row. We must have hope and fight for justice. Yours very truly, Robert R. Bryan Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan 2088 Union Street, Suite 4 San Francisco, California 94123-4117 Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal RobertRBryan@ aol.com ? "Fascism is nothing but capitalist reaction." -Leon Trotsky "Those who do not move, do not notice their chains." -Rosa Luxemburg "Marxism is a revolutionary worldview that must always struggle for new revelations." -Rosa Luxemburg "Nietzsche was stupid and abnormal." -Leo Tolstoy "All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. " -Leo Tolstoy "Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself." -Leo Tolstoy [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ "[C]apital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt." --Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31 Community email addresses: Post message: marxist at yahoogroups.com Subscribe: marxist-subscribe at yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: marxist-unsubscribe at yahoogroups.com List owner: Hunter Gray Shortcut URL to this page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist Also take our one-question survey at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist/pollsYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist/join (Yahoo! 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Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 27 06:15:08 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:15:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] test Message-ID: <4905869C.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 27 10:37:29 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:37:29 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Beijing statement on democratic economic reforms Message-ID: <4905C41B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Beijing statement on democratic economic reforms -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: pen-l at xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [Pen-l] Beijing statement on democratic economic reforms From: fmoseley at xxxxxxxxxxxxx Date: Sun, 26 Oct 2008 11:44:33 -0400 User-agent: Internet Messaging Program (IMP) H3 (4.0.4) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Below is the link to a tremendous proposal for democratic economic reforms in response to the current economic crisis. The statement is the result of a conference two weeks ago in Beijing sponsored by Asia-Europe People?s Forum and the Transnational Institute and Focus on the Global South. It is along the same lines as the Caracas statement, but more detailed and more comprehensive. http://casinocrash.org/?p=235#more-235 We should be trying to figure out how to interject these proposals into the current policy debates in the US. Any ideas? Fred This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 27 11:33:44 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:33:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Obama & Ellison Message-ID: <4905D14A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Obama & Ellison Ralph Dumain As a bargainer, Obama will probably try to throw everyone a bone. The right wing threw a wrecking ball into government with Reagan, but even more so during the Clinton years, and they went buck wild with Dubya. They will turn on Obama with a viciousness that makes the impeachment of Clinton look like happy hour. ^^^^^ CB: First they will have to win majorities in Congress, as with the white race riot that put the Gingrich-Armey gang in in 1994. ^^^^^ The finances of the country are fucked, but I'm guessing that Obama would want to put his health care scheme into place, but can he do it? The center-right Democratic Party is gaining ground only because the situation is fucked so bad that it seems they can manage the neoliberal order more judiciously than the right wing nutjobs. Will Obama work to bridle the incipient police state and put some brakes on corporate plundering? I don't know what he really hopes to accomplish. He is being supported by some rational segments of the bourgeoisie, who undoubtedly view him as more sober and stable than the gangsters running the country into the ground right now. He was very shrewd in seizing this moment to organize to become president, ^^^^ CB: Are you saying he knew two years ago that the current low popularity of Bush and financial crisis would occur ? That would be more than shrewd. It would be prescient, prophetic almost. ^^^^ but to what end, I'm mystified, as I don't buy into his bullshit rhetoric. ^^^ CB: As somebody said on another list, he's the Anti-Christ. ^^^^ Perhaps, given popular discontent and the economic crisis, he may rise to the occasion to tilt domestic policy away from the right, but I question how aggressive he will be in kicking ass the way FDR or LBJ did. ^^^ CB: He's hasn't won, but he might, and then we will find out. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 27 11:42:41 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:42:41 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Chinese Premier: co-op needed to deal with global economic problems Message-ID: <4905D363.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chinese Premier: co-op needed to deal with global economic problems http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/25/content_10251510.htm www.chinaview.cn 2008-10-25 Special Report: The 7th Asia-Europe Meeting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao speaks at a press conference at the end of the 7th Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Beijing, Oct. 25, 2008. Confidence, cooperation and responsibility are the keys to finding a solution to the global financial meltdown, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao said here on Saturday. (Xinhua Photo) http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/25/content_10251510.htm This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Mon Oct 27 12:18:58 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Mon, 27 Oct 2008 14:18:58 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Beijing statement on democratic economic reforms Message-ID: <4905DBE5.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Beijing statement on democratic economic reforms -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: "Progressive Economics" Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Beijing statement on democratic economic reforms From: Sandwichman wrote: > > Any ideas? > The single proposal dealing with the hours of work took a remarkably defensive stance. Rather than calling for the reduction of working time ("the limitation of the working day") it simply called for an end to reforms aimed as extending hours." "Stop labour law reforms aimed at extending hours of work and making it easier for employers to fire or retrench workers." Well, excuuuuse me, but this strikes the ol' Sandwichman as passive to the point of inert. But I won't pretend to be surprised. Reduction of the hours of work, once the conditio sine qua non of the workers' movement has become the elephant in the room, about which one must not speak. http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2008/10/elephants-room.html -- Sandwichman This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 28 09:01:31 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 11:01:31 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Comrade Picasso Message-ID: <4906FF1B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Blurring the party linePicasso was one of the most valued members of the French Communist party - until a portrait of Stalin put him at the centre of an ideological row. Gertje R Utley on an artist true to his beliefsGertje R Utley The Guardian, Saturday October 21 2000 Article history On October 4 1944, less than six weeks after the liberation of Paris, Pablo Picasso, then 63, joined the French Communist party. To his surprise, the news covered more than half of the front page of the next day's L'Humanit?, the party's official newspaper, overshadowing reports of the war. The article celebrated the entry of "the illustrious son of democratic Spain" into "la famille communiste". Shortly after, in an interview for L'Humanit?, Picasso claimed that he had always fought, through the weapons of his art, like a true revolutionary. But he also said that the experience of the second world war had taught him that it was not sufficient to manifest political sympathies under the veil of mythologising artistic expression. "I have become a communist because our party strives more than any other to know and to build the world, to make men clearer thinkers, more free and more happy. I have become a communist because the communists are the bravest in France, in the Soviet Union, as they are in my own country, Spain. While I wait for the time when Spain can take me back again, the French Communist party is a fatherland for me. In it I find again all my friends - the great scientists Paul Langevin and Fr?d?ric Joliot-Curie, the great writers Louis Aragon and Paul Eluard, and so many of the beautiful faces of the insurgents of Paris. I am again among brothers." Five days after joining the party Picasso appeared at a ceremony at the P?re Lachaise cemetery, organised as a joint memorial for those killed during the Commune of 1871 and in the Nazi occupation of Paris. Surrounded by party luminaries such as Aragon and Eluard, Aragon's novelist wife Elsa Triolet, the writer Eduard Pignon, philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre and actor Jean-Louis Barrault, Picasso was prominent among what the newspaper Ce Soir estimated to be a crowd of 250,000. He also presided over the infamous gathering of the Comit? Directeur du Front National des Arts, which drew up the list of artists to be purged for collaborationist activities during the occupation. In 1950 he was awarded the Stalin prize for his involvement in the Mouvement de la Paix, for which he had designed the emblem of a dove. The movement, ostensibly set up up by French and Polish intellectuals, was inaugurated in Wroclaw under the aegis of Andrey Zhdanov, secretary of the Soviet central committee and chief architect of Stalin's ideological campaign. Picasso's involvement also earned him an FBI file which was kept active until his death. Heavily edited, with large sections blacked out completely, the file was sent to me upon my request, under the US Freedom of Information Act. Third parties were to be investigated and their "security status" questioned, merely because they were acquainted with Picasso. Charlie Chaplin's friendship with Picasso - "an admitted French CP member" - further harmed his reputation in McCarthy's America, and led to calls for his extradition as a "subversive alien". One particularly damning entry, for June 16 1950, which is almost totally blacked out, accused him of spying for the Soviet Union. While Picasso was never an apparatchik, there was no doubt of his commitment to the party. He was never expected to attend the mandatory weekly cell meetings or go out to sell L'Humanit? as other members were. But his propaganda value as a prestigious artist was incalculable, and he generously donated time and money to the FCP and associated organisations. He marched with the Front National des Intellectuels and the Front National Universitaire and accepted honorary positions on boards and in organisations. His contributions mostly took the form of paintings donated for sale. In November 1956 alone, the dealer Kahnweiler wrote that he gave on Picasso's behalf a cheque for FFr3m for Christmas gifts for Enfants des Fusill?s de la R?sistance, FFr500,000 for the Comit? de la Paix, FFr300,000 for the Patriote de Toulouse, FFr750,000 more for the children of war victims and FFr3m (half a million more than the previous year) for a yearly Communist party event. (To give some perspective to these figures, Chrysler bought Picasso's Le Charnier in 1954 for FFr5m.) The political character of many of the charities Picasso sponsored can be surmised from the fact that a number of his contributions went through the hands of Georges Gosnat, member of the central committee and treasurer of the French Communist party. If it dawned only slowly on Picasso that the party would be unceasing in its demands on his time, money and political support - requests he fulfilled to an astonishing degree, if never to full party satisfaction - he had yet to feel pressure in matters of art itself. Although in the early years of his membership the party tolerated his chosen form of expression, which departed from the party style of socialist realism, by 1947 some critics had started to remonstrate that he was not putting his art more clearly at the service of his political beliefs. In 1953 the controversy over his "privileged" beyond-the-rules status erupted. Stalin died on March 5. Aragon and editor Pierre Daix were preparing an issue of the communist journal Les Lettres fran?aises when the news broke. Aragon immediately sent a telegram to Picasso, who was living with Fran?oise Gilot, requesting a drawing of Stalin. Daix and Gilot knew that Picasso, who until then had successfully foiled any hope that he would paint a portrait of Stalin, could not refuse this time. The artist's homage for Stalin's 70th birthday in 1949 had been nothing more than a drawing of a glass raised to the dictator's health, which had shocked the party faithful with its breezy caption, "Staline ? ta sant?". There is ample evidence that Picasso knew what Stalin looked like but Picasso claimed not to be able to summon Stalin's features. This time, he seems to have used old newspaper photographs as a reference. The portrait (see above) shows the young Stalin, face framed by thick, cropped hair, mouth partly hidden under a bushy moustache. The eyes under the strong eyebrows are those of a dreamer and offset by the prominent jawline. Picasso told Genevi?ve Laporte, with whom he was having an affair at the time, that he had wanted to show Stalin as a man of the people, without his uniform and decorations. But Daix has argued that the fact that Stalin's death followed shortly after the execution of victims of the Sl?nsky trial in Czechoslovakia should be taken into account. Daix maintained that the victims were people whom Picasso had known personally through their involvement in the Spanish civil war. One has to wonder, therefore, whether Picasso, in choosing to represent a young Stalin, perhaps still driven by an idealistic vision, perceived what most of the non-communist world already knew and what the communists only slowly came to accept: that in order to present an idealised image of the man, one had to go back into the early days of his life and of the revolution. Aragon and Daix were relieved to find the portrait to their liking. Daix opted for the neutral caption "Staline par Pablo Picasso, March 8 1953". Below it ran the names of Aragon, Nobel-prize winning scientist Joliot-Curie, and Picasso - "les trois mousquetaires," as they were known - the most prestigious that the party intelligentsia could invoke. The adulatory tone of the accompanying articles, which celebrate "the extraordinary man loved and revered as a master by every one of us," stands in sharp contrast to Picasso's drawing. Perhaps this is why his portrait was seen by many as an unforgivable act of l?se-majest?. For Aragon and Daix, the satisfaction with their commemorative issue was short-lived. The first negative reaction came from the employees of France Nouvelle and L'Humanit?, the two papers that shared the same building as Les Lettres fran?aises, who were appalled by what they considered an affront to Stalin. Daix suspected - correctly, as it turned out - that this was instigated by the party leaders, who saw publication of the portrait as an incursion against the personality cult, and by Auguste Lecur, hardline party secretary, who welcomed this opportunity to chastise Aragon and Les Lettres fran?aises for the relative independence they claimed. On seeing the journal, Elsa Triolet understood immediately that the simple fact that Picasso had dared to touch Stalin was going to infuriate the faithful, and she knew that disaster awaited them. She realised that the perceptual discrepancy between the young Georgian in the drawing and the usual representation of Stalin as "the incarnation of wisdom, courage, of all that is human, of the one who had won the war, our saviour" was too wide for believers. From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 28 10:06:07 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:06:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION AND MONOPOLIES Message-ID: <49070E42.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism A POPULAR OUTLINE -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I. CONCENTRATION OF PRODUCTION AND MONOPOLIES The enormous growth of industry and the remarkably rapid concentration of production in ever-larger enterprises are one of the most characteristic features of capitalism. Modern production censuses give most complete and most exact data on this process. In Germany, for example, out of every 1,000 industrial enterprises, large enterprises, i.e., those employing more than 50 workers, numbered three in 1882, six in 1895 and nine in 1907; and out of every 100 workers employed, this group of enterprises employed. 22, 30 and 37, respectively. Concentration of production, however, is much more intense than the concentration of workers, since labour in the large enterprises is much more productive. This is shown by the figures on steam-engines and electric motors. If we take what in Germany is called industry in the broad sense of the term, that is, including commerce, transport, etc., we get the following picture. Large-scale enterprises, 30,588 out of a total of 3,265,623, that is to say, 0.9 per cent. These enterprises employ 5,700,000 workers out of a total of 14,400,000, i.e., 39.4 per cent; they use 6,600,000 steam horse power out of a total of 8,800,000, i.e., 75.3 per cent, and 1,200,000 kilowatts of electricity out of a total of 1,500,000, i.e., 77.2 per cent. Less than one-hundredth of the total number of enterprises utilise more than three-fourths of the total amount of steam and electric power! Two million nine hundred and seventy thousand small enterprises (employing up to five workers), constituting 91 per cent of the total, utilise only 7 per cent of the total amount of steam and electric power! Tens of thousands of huge enterprises are everything; millions of small ones are nothing. In 1907, there were in Germany 586 establishments employing one thousand and more workers, nearly one-tenth (1,380,000) of the total number of workers employed in industry, and they consumed almost one-third (32 per cent) of the total amount of steam and electric power.[1] As we shall see, money capital and the banks make this superiority of a handful of the largest enterprises still more overwhelming, in the most literal sense of the word, i.e., millions of small, medium and even some big ?proprietors? are in fact in complete subjection to some hundreds of millionaire financiers. In another advanced country of modern capitalism, the United States of America, the growth of the concentration of production is still greater. Here statistics single out industry in the narrow sense of the word and classify enterprises according to the value of their annual output. In 1904 large-scale enterprises with an output valued at one million dollars and over, numbered 1,900 (out of 216,180, i.e., 0.9 per cent). These employed 1,400,000 workers (out of 5,500,000, i.e., 25.6 per cent) and the value of their output amounted to $5,600,000,000 (out of $14,800,000,000, i.e., 38 per cent). Five years later, in 1909, the corresponding figures were: 3,060 enterprises (out of 268,491, i.e., 1.1 per cent) employing 2,000,000 workers (out of 6,600,000, i.e., 30.5 per cent) with an output valued at $9,000,000,000 (out of $20,700,000,000, i.e., 43.8 per cent). [2] Almost half the total production of all the enterprises of the country was carried on by one-hundredth part of these enterprises! These 3,000 giant enterprises embrace 258 branches of industry. From this it can be seen that at a certain stage of its development concentration itself, as it were, leads straight to monopoly, for a score or so of giant enterprises can easily arrive at an agreement, and on the other hand, the hindrance to competition, the tendency towards monopoly, arises from the huge size of the enterprises. This transformation of competition into monopoly is one of the most important?if not the most important?phenomena of modern capitalist economy, and we must deal with it in greater detail. But first we must clear up one possible misunderstanding. American statistics speak of 3,000 giant enterprises in 250 branches of industry, as if there were only a dozen enterprises of the largest scale for each branch of industry. But this is not the case. Not in every branch of industry are there large-scale enterprises; and moreover, a very important feature of capitalism in its highest stage of development is so-called combination of production, that is to say, the grouping in a single enterprise of different branches of industry, which either represent the consecutive stages in the processing of raw materials (for example, the smelting of iron ore into pig-iron, the conversion of pig-iron into steel, and then, perhaps, the manufacture of steel goods)?or are auxiliary to one another (for example, the utilisation of scrap, or of by-products, the manufacture of packing materials, etc.). ?Combination,? writes Hilferding, ?levels out the fluctuations of trade and therefore assures to the combined enterprises a more stable rate of profit. Secondly, combination has the effect of eliminating trade. Thirdly, it has the effect of rendering possible technical improvements, and, consequently, the acquisition of superprofits over and above those obtained by the ?pure? (i.e,, non-combined) enterprises. Fourthly, it strengthens the position of the combined enterprises relative to the ?pure? enterprises, strengthens them in the competitive struggle in periods of serious depression, when the fall in prices of raw materials does not keep pace with the fall in prices of manufactured goods.?[3] The German bourgeois economist, Heymann, who has written a book especially on ?mixed?, that is, combined, enterprises in the German iron industry, says: ?Pure enterprises perish, they are crushed between the high price of raw material and the low price of the finished product.? Thus we get the following picture: ?There remain, on the one hand, the big coal companies, producing millions of tons yearly, strongly organised in their coal syndicate, and on the other, the big steel plants, closely allied to the coal mines, having their own steel syndicate. These giant enterprises, producing 400,000 tons of steel per annum, with a tremendous output of ore and coal and producing finished steel goods, employing 10,000 workers quartered in company houses, and sometimes owning their own railways and ports, are the typical representatives of the German iron and steel industry. And concentration goes on further and further. Individual enterprises are becoming larger and larger. An ever-increasing number of enterprises in one, or in several different industries, join together in giant enterprises, backed up and directed by half a dozen big Berlin banks. In relation to the German mining industry, the truth of the teachings of Karl Marx on concentration is definitely proved; true, this applies to a country where industry is protected by tariffs and freight rates. The German mining industry is ripe for expropriation.?[4] Such is the conclusion which a bourgeois economist who, by way of exception, is conscientious, had to arrive at. It must be noted that he seems to place Germany in a special category because her industries are protected by higher tariffs. But this is a circumstance which only accelerates concentration and the formation of monopolist manufacturers? associations, cartels, syndicates, etc. It is extremely important to note that in free-trade Britain, concentration also leads to monopoly, although somewhat later and perhaps in another form. Professor Hermann Levy, in his special work of research entitled Monopolies, Cartels and Trusts, based on data on British economic development, writes as follows: ?In Great Britain it is the size of the enterprise and its high technical level which harbour a monopolist tendency. This, for one thing, is due to the great investment of capital per enterprise, which gives rise to increasing demands for new capital for the new enterprises and thereby renders their launching more difficult. Moreover (and this seems to us to be the more important point), every new enterprise that wants to keep pace with the gigantic enterprises that have been formed by concentration would here produce such an enormous quantity of surplus goods that it could dispose of them only by being able to sell them profitably as a result of an enormous increase in demand; otherwise, this surplus would force prices down to a level that would be unprofitable both for the new enterprise and for the monopoly combines.? Britain differs from other countries where protective tariffs facilitate the formation of cartels in that monopolist manufacturers? associations, cartels and trusts arise in the majority of cases only when the number of the chief competing enterprises has been reduced to ?a couple of dozen or so?. ?Here the influence of concentration on the formation of large industrial monopolies in a whole sphere of industry stands out with crystal clarity.?[5] Half a century ago, when Marx was writing Capital, free competition appeared to the overwhelming majority of economists to be a ?natural law?. Official science tried, by a conspiracy of silence, to kill the works of Marx, who by a theoretical and historical analysis of capitalism had proved that free competition gives rise to the concentration of production, which, in turn, at a certain stage of development, leads to monopoly. Today, monopoly has become a fact. Economists are writing mountains of books in which they describe the diverse manifestations of monopoly, and continue to declare in chorus that ?Marxism is refuted?. But facts are stubborn things, as the English proverb says, and they have to be reckoned with, whether we like it or not. The facts show that differences between capitalist countries, e.g., in the matter of protection or free trade, only give rise to insignificant variations in the form of monopolies or in the moment of their appearance; and that the rise of monopolies, as the result of the concentration of production, is a general and fundamental law of the present stage of development of capitalism. For Europe, the time when the new capitalism definitely superseded the old can be established with fair precision; it was the beginning of the twentieth century. In one of the latest compilations on the history of the ?formation of monopolies?, we read: ?Isolated examples of capitalist monopoly could be cited from the period preceding 1860; in these could be discerned the embryo of the forms that are so common today; but all this undoubtedly represents the prehistory of the cartels. The real beginning of modern monopoly goes back, at the earliest, to the sixties. The first important period of development of monopoly commenced with the international industrial depression of the seventies and lasted until the beginning of the nineties.? ?If we examine the question on a European scale, we will find that the development of free competition reached its apex in the sixties and seventies. It was then that Britain completed the construction of her old-style capitalist organisation. In Germany, this organisation had entered into a fierce struggle with handicraft and domestic industry, and had begun to create for itself its own forms of existence.? ?The great revolution commenced with the crash of 1873, or rather, the depression which followed it and which, with hardly discernible interruptions in the early eighties, and the unusually violent, but short-lived boom round about 1889, marks twenty-two years of European economic history ... .. During the short boom of 1889-90, the system of cartels was widely resorted to in order to take advantage of favourable business conditions. An ill-considered policy drove prices up still more rapidly and still higher than would have been the case if there had been no cartels. and nearly all these cartels perished ingloriously in the smash. Another five-year period of bad trade and low prices followed, but a new spirit reigned in industry; the depression was no longer regarded as something to be taken for granted: it was regarded as nothing more than a pause before another boom. ?The cartel movement entered its second epoch: instead of being a transitory phenomenon, the cartels have become one of the foundations of economic life. They are winning one field of industry after another, primarily, the raw materials industry. At the beginning of the nineties the cartel system had already acquired-in the organisation of the coke syndicate on the model of which the coal syndicate was later formed?a cartel technique which has hardly been improved on. For the first time the great boom at the close of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-03 occurred entirely?in the mining and iron industries at least?under the aegis of the cartels. And while at that time it appeared to be something novel, now the general public takes it for granted that large spheres of economic life have been, as a general rule, removed from the realm of free competition.?[6] Thus, the principal stages in the history of monopolies are the following: (1) 1860-70, the highest stage, the apex of development of free competition; monopoly is in the barely discernible, embryonic stage. (2) After the crisis of 1873, a lengthy period of development of cartels; but they are still the exception. They are not yet durable. They are still a transitory phenomenon. (3) The boom at the end of the nineteenth century and the crisis of 1900-03. Cartels become one of the foundations of the whole of economic life. Capitalism has been transformed into imperialism. Cartels come to an agreement on the terms of sale, dates of payment, etc. They divide the markets among themselves. They fix the quantity of goods to be produced. They fix prices. They divide the profits among the various enterprises, etc. The number of cartels in Germany was estimated at about 250 in 1896 and at 385 in 1905, with about 12,000 firms participating.[7] But it is generally recognised that these figures are underestimations. From the statistics of German industry for 1907 we quoted above, it is evident that even these 12,000 very big enterprises probably consume more than half the steam and electric power used in the country. In the United States of America, the number of trusts in 1900 was estimated at 185 and in 1907, 250. American statistics divide all industrial enterprises into those belonging to individuals, to private firms or to corporations. The latter in 1904 comprised 23.6 per cent, and in 1909, 25.9 per cent, i.e., more than one-fourth of the total industrial enterprises in the country. These employed in 1904, 70.6 per cent, and in 1909, 75.6 per cent, i.e., more than three-fourths of the total wage-earners. Their output at these two dates was valued at $10,900,000,000 and $16,300,000,000, i.e., 73.7 per cent and 79.0 per cent of the total, respectively. At times cartels and trusts concentrate in their hands seven- or eight-tenths of the total output of a given branch of industry. The Rhine-Westphalian Coal Syndicate, at its foundation in 1893, concentrated 86.7 per cent of the total coal output of the area, and in 1910 it already concentrated 95.4 per cent.[8] The monopoly so created assures enormous profits, and leads to the formation of technical production units of formidable magnitude. The famous Standard Oil Company in the United States was founded in 1900: ?It has an authorised capital of $150,000,000. It issued $100,000,000 common and $106,000,000 preferred stock. From 1900 to 1907 the following dividends were paid on the latter: 48, 48, 45, 44, 36, 40, 40, 40 per cent in the respective years, i.e., in all, $367,000,000. From 1882 to 1907, out of total net profits amounting to $889,000,000, $606,000,000 were distributed in dividends, and the rest went to reserve capital.[9] ?In 1907 the various works of the United States Steel Corporation employed no less than 210,180 people. The largest enterprise in the German mining industry, Gelsenkirchener Bergwerksgesellschaft, in 1908 had a staff of 46,048 workers and office employees.?[10] In 1902, the United States Steel Corporation already produced 9,000,000 tons of steel.[11] Its output constituted in 1901, 66.3 per cent, and in 1908, 56.1 per cent of the total output of steel in the United States.[12] The output of ore was 43.9 per cent and 46.3 per cent, respectively. The report of the American Government Commission on Trusts states: ?Their superiority over competitors is due to the magnitude of their enterprises and their excellent technical equipment. Since its inception, the Tobacco Trust has devoted all its efforts to the universal substitution of mechanical for manual labour. With this end in view it has bought up all patents that have anything to do with the manufacture of tobacco and has spent enormous sums for this purpose. Many of these patents at first proved to be of no use, and had to be modified by the engineers employed by the trust. At the end of 1906, two subsidiary companies were formed solely to acquire patents. With the same object in view, the trust has built its own foundries, machine shops and repair shops. One of these establishments, that in Brooklyn, employs on the average 300 workers; here experiments are carried out on inventions concerning the manufacture of cigarettes, cheroots, snuff, tinfoil for packing, boxes, etc. Here, also, inventions are perfected.?[13] ?Other trusts also employ what are called development engineers whose business it is to devise new methods of production and to test technical improvements. The United States Steel Corporation grants big bonuses to its workers and engineers for all inventions that raise technical efficiency, or reduce cost of production.?[14] In German large-scale industry, e.g., in the chemical industry, which has developed so enormously during these last few decades, the promotion of technical improvement is organised in the same way. By 1908 the process of concentration of production had already given rise to two main ?groups? which, in their way, were also in the nature of monopolies. At first these groups constituted ?dual alliances? of two pairs of big factories, each having a capital of from twenty to twenty-one million marks-on the one hand, the former Meister Factory in Hochst and the Casella Factory in Frankfurt am Main; and on the other hand, the aniline and soda factory at Ludwigshafen and the former Bayer Factory at Elberfeld. Then, in 1905, one of these groups, and in 1908 the other group, each concluded an agreement with yet another big factory. The result was the formation of two ?triple alliances?, each with a capital of from forty to fifty million marks. And these ?alliances? have already begun to ?approach? each other, to reach ?an understanding? about prices, etc.[15] Competition becomes transformed into monopoly. The result is immense progress in the socialisation of production. In particular, the process of technical invention and improvement becomes socialised. This is something quite different from the old free competition between manufacturers, scattered and out of touch with one another, and producing for an unknown market. Concentration has reached the point at which it is possible to make an approximate estimate of all sources of raw materials (for example, the iron ore deposits) of a country and even, as we shall see, of several countries, or of the whole world. Not only are such estimates made, but these sources are captured by gigantic monopolist associations. An approximate estimate of the capacity of markets is also made, and the associations ?divide? them up amongst themselves by agreement. Skilled labour is monopolised, the best engineers are engaged; the means of transport are captured?railways in America, shipping companies in Europe and America. Capitalism in its imperialist stage leads directly to the most comprehensive socialisation of production; it, so to speak, drags the capitalists, against their will and consciousness, into some sort of a new social order, a transitional one from complete free competition to complete socialisation. Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social means of production remain the private property of a few. The general framework of formally recognised free competition remains, and the yoke of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times heavier, more burdensome and intolerable. The German economist, Kestner, has written a book especially devoted to ?the struggle between the cartels and outsiders?, i.e., the capitalists outside the cartels. He entitled his work Compulsory Organisation, although, in order to present capitalism in its true light, he should, of course, have written about compulsory submission to monopolist associations. It is instructive to glance at least at the list of the methods the monopolist associations resort to in the present-day, the latest, the civilised struggle for ?organisation?: (1) stopping supplies of raw materials ... ?one of the most important methods of compelling adherence to the cartel?); (2) stopping the supply of labour by means of ?alliances? (i.e., of agreements between the capitalists and the trade unions by which the latter permit their members to work only in cartelised enterprises); (3) stopping deliveries; (4) closing trade outlets; (5) agreements with the buyers, by which the latter undertake to trade only with the cartels; (6) systematic price cutting (to ruin ?outside? firms, i.e., those which refuse to submit to the monopolists. Millions are spent in order to sell goods for a certain time below their cost price; there were instances when the price of petrol was thus reduced from 40 to 22 marks, i.e., almost by half!); (7) stopping credits; (8) boycott. Here we no longer have competition between small and large, between technically developed and backward enterprises. We see here the monopolists throttling those who do not submit to them, to their yoke, to their dictation. This is how this process is reflected in the mind of a bourgeois economist: ?Even in the purely economic sphere,? writes Kestner, ?a certain change is taking place from commercial activity in the old sense of the word towards organisational-speculative activity. The greatest success no longer goes to the merchant whose technical and commercial experience enables him best of all to estimate the needs of the buyer, and who is able to discover and, so to speak, ?awaken? a latent demand; it goes to the speculative genius [?!] who knows how to estimate, or even only to sense in advance, the organisational development and the possibilities of certain connections between individual enterprises and the banks. . . .? Translated into ordinary human language this means that the development of capitalism has arrived at a stage when, although commodity production still ?reigns? and continues to be regarded as the basis of economic life, it has in reality been undermined and the bulk of the profits go to the ?geniuses? of financial manipulation. At the basis of these manipulations and swindles lies socialised production; but the immense progress of mankind, which achieved this socialisation, goes to benefit . . . the speculators. We shall see later how ?on these grounds? reactionary, petty-bourgeois critics of capitalist imperialism dream of going back to ?free?, ?peaceful?, and ?honest? competition. ?The prolonged raising of prices which results from the formation of cartels,? says Kestner, ?has hitherto been observed only in respect of the most important means of production, particularly coal, iron and potassium, but never in respect of manufactured goods. Similarly, the increase in profits resulting from this raising of prices has been limited only to the industries which produce means of production. To this observation we must add that the industries which process raw materials (and not semi-manufactures) not only secure advantages from the cartel formation in the shape of high profits, to the detriment of the finished goods industry, but have also secured a dominating position over the latter, which did not exist under free competition.?[16] The words which I have italicised reveal the essence of the case which the bourgeois economists admit so reluctantly and so rarely, and which the present-day defenders of opportunism, led by Kautsky, so zealously try to evade and brush aside. Domination, and the violence that is associated with it, such are the relationships that are typical of the ?latest phase of capitalist development?; this is what inevitably had to result, and has resulted, from the formation of all-powerful economic monopolies. I shall give one more example of the methods employed by the cartels. Where it is possible to capture all or the chief sources of raw materials, the rise of cartels and formation of monopolies is particularly easy. It would be wrong, however, to assume that monopolies do not arise in other industries in which it is impossible to corner the sources of raw materials. The cement industry, for instance, can find its raw materials everywhere. Yet in Germany this industry too is strongly cartelised. The cement manufacturers have formed regional syndicates: South German, Rhine-Westplialian, etc. The prices fixed are monopoly prices: 230 to 280 marks a car-load, when the cost price is 180 marks! The enterprises pay a dividend of from 12 to 16 per cent?and it must not be forgotten that the ?geniuses? of modern speculation know how to pocket big profits besides what they draw in dividends. In order to prevent competition in such a profitable industry, the monopolists even resort to various stratagems: they spread false rumours about the bad situation in their industry; anonymous warnings are published in the newspapers, like the following: ?Capitalists, don?t invest your capital in the cement industry!?; lastly, they buy up ?outsiders? (those outside the syndicates) and pay them compensation of 60,000, 80,000 and even 150,000 marks.[17] Monopoly hews a path for itself everywhere without scruple as to the means, from paying a ?modest? sum to buy off competitors, to the American device of employing dynamite against them. The statement that cartels can abolish crises is a fable spread by bourgeois economists who at all costs desire to place capitalism in a favourable light. On the contrary, the monopoly created in certain branches of industry increases and intensifies the anarchy inherent in capitalist production as a whole. The disparity between the development of agriculture and that of industry, which is characteristic of capitalism in general, is increased. The privileged position of the most highly cartelised, so-called heavy industry, especially coal and iron, causes ?a still greater lack of co-ordination? in other branches of industry?as Jeidels, the author of one of the best works on ?the relationship of the German big banks to industry?, admits.[18] ?The more developed an economic system is,? writes Liefmann, an unblushing apologist of capitalism, ?the more it resorts to risky enterprises, or enterprises in other countries, to those which need a great deal of time to develop, or finally, to those which are only of local importance.?[19] The increased risk is connected in the long run with a prodigious increase of capital, which, as it were, overflows the brim, flows abroad, etc. At the same time the extremely rapid rate of technical progress gives rise to increasing elements of disparity between the various spheres of national economy, to anarchy and crises. Liefmann is obliged to admit that: ?In all probability mankind will see further important technical revolutions in the near future which will also affect the organisation of the economic system?... electricity and aviation.... ?As a general rule, in such periods of radical economic change, speculation develops on a large scale.?...[20] Crises of every kind?economic crises most frequently, but not only these?in their turn increase very considerably the tendency towards concentration and towards monopoly. In this connection, the following reflections of Jeidels on the significance of the crisis of 1900, which, as we have already seen, marked the turning-point in the history of modern monopoly, are exceedingly instructive: ?Side by side with the gigantic plants in the basic industries, the crisis of 1900 still found many plants organised on lines that today would be considered obsolete, the ?pure? (non-combined) plants, which were brought into being at the height of the industrial boom. The fall in prices and the falling off in demand put these ?pure? enterprises in a precarious position, which did not affect the gigantic combined enterprises at all or only affected them for a very short time. As a consequence of this the crisis of 1900 resulted in a far greater concentration of industry than the crisis of 1873: the latter crisis also produced a sort of selection of the best-equipped enterprises, but owing to the level of technical development at that time, this selection could not place the firms which successfully emerged from the crisis in a position of monopoly. Such a durable monopoly exists to a high degree in the gigantic enterprises in the modern iron and steel and electrical industries owing to their very complicated technique, far-reaching organisation and magnitude of capital, and, to a lesser degree, in the engineering industry, certain branches of the metallurgical industry, transport, etc.?[21] Monopoly! This is the last word in the ?latest phase of capitalist development?. But we shall only have a very insufficient, incomplete, and poor notion of the real power and the significance of modern monopolies if we do not take into consideration the part played by the banks. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Notes [1] Figures taken from Annalen des deutschen Reichs, 1911, Zahn ?Lenin [2] Statistical Abstract of the United States, 1912, p. 202 ?Lenin [3] Finance Capital, Russ. ed., pp. 286-87 ?Lenin [4] Hans Gideon Heymann, Die gemischten Werke im deutschen Grosseiseugewerbe, Stuttgart, 1904, (S. 256, 278). ?Lenin [5] Hermann Levy, Monopole, Kartelle und Trusts, Jena, 1909, S. 286, 290, ?Lenin [6] Th. Vogelstein, ?Die finanzielle Organisation der kapitalistischen Industrie und die Monopolbildungen? in Grundriss der Sozial?konomik, VI. Abt., Tubingen, 1914. Cf., also by the same author: Organisationsformen der Eisenindustrie und Textilindustrie in England und Amerika, Bd. 1, Lpz., 1910. ?Lenin [7] Dr. Riesser, Die deutschen Grossbanken und ihre Konzentration im Zusammenhange mit der Entwicklung der Gesamtwirtschaft in Deutschland, 4. Aufl., 1912, S. 149; Robert Liefmann, Kartelle und Trusts und die Weiterbildung der volkswirtschaftlichen Organisation, 2. Aufl., 1910, S. 25. ?Lenin [8] Dr. Fritz Kestner, Der Organisationszwang. Eine Untersuchung ?ber die K?mpfe zwischen Kartellen und Aussenseitern, Berlin, 1912, S. 11. ?Lenin [9] R. Liefmann, Beteiligungs- und Finanziertingsgesellschaften. Eine Studie ?ber den modernen Kapitalismus und das Effektenwesen, 1. Aufl., Jena, 1909, S. 212. ?Lenin [10] Ibid., S. 218. ?Lenin [11] Dr. S. Tschierschky, Kartell und Trust, G?ttingen, 1903, S. 13. ?Lenin [12] Tr. Vogelstein, Organisationsformen, S. 275. ?Lenin [13] Report of the Commissioner of Corporations on the Tobacco Industry, Washington, 1909, p. 266, cited according to Dr. Paul Tafel, Die nordamerikanischen Trusts und ihre Wirkungen auf den Fortschritt der Technik, Stuttgart, 1913, S. 48. ?Lenin [14] Dr. P. Tafel, ibid., S. 49. ?Lenin [15] Riesser, op. cit., third edition, p. 547 et seq. The newspapers (June 1916) report the formation of a new gigantic trust which combines the chemical industry of Germany. ?Lenin [16] Kestner, op.cit., S. 254 ?Lenin [17] L. Eschwege, ?Zement? in Die Bank, 1909, S. 115 et. seq. ?Lenin [18] Jeidels, Das Verh?ltnis der deutschen Grossbanken zur Industrie mit besonderer Ber?chsichtigung der Eisenindustrie, Leipzig, 1905, S. 271 ?Lenin [19] Liefmann, Beteiligungs- und Finanzierungsgesellschaften, S, 434. ?Lenin [20] Ibid, S. 465-66 ?Lenin [21] Jeidels, op. cit., S. 108. ?Lenin This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 28 10:35:14 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:35:14 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] In Defense of White Americans Message-ID: <49071516.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> October 26, 2008Op-Ed Columnist In Defense of White Americans By FRANK RICH IT seems like a century ago now, but it was only in 2005 that a National Journal poll of Beltway insiders predicted that George Allen, then a popular Virginia senator, would be the next G.O.P. nominee for president. George who? Allen is now remembered, if at all, as a punch line. But any post-mortem of the Great Republican Collapse of 2008 must circle back to the not-so-funny thing that happened on his way to the White House. That would be in 2006, when he capsized his own shoo-in re-election race by calling a 20-year-old Indian-American ?macaca? before a white audience (and a video camera). ?Welcome to America and the real world of Virginia,? Allen told the young Democratic campaign worker for good measure, in a precise preview of the playbook that has led John McCain and Sarah Palin to their tawdry nadir two years later. It wasn?t just Allen?s lame racial joke or his cluelessness about 21st-century media like YouTube that made him a harbinger of the current G.O.P. fiasco. It was most of all the national vision he set forth: There are Real Americans, and there are the Others. The Real are the small-town white folks Allen was addressing in southwestern Virginia. The Others ? and their subversive fellow travelers, the Elites ? are Americans like the young man who Allen maligned: a high-achieving son of immigrant parents who was born and raised in Washington?s Northern Virginia suburbs during its technology boom. (Allen, the self-appointed keeper of real Virginia, grew up in California.) Cut to 2008. You?d think that this incident would be a cautionary tale, but the McCain campaign instead embraced Allen as a role model, with Palin?s odes to ?real? and ?pro-America? America leading the charge. The farcical apotheosis of this strategy arrived last weekend, again on camera and again in Virginia, when a McCain adviser, Nancy Pfotenhauer, revived Allen?s original script, literally, during an interview on MSNBC. After dismissing the Northern Virginia suburbs, she asserted that the ?real Virginia? ? the part of the state ?more Southern in nature? ? will prove ?very responsive? to the McCain message. All Pfotenhauer left out was ?macaca,? but with McCain calling Barack Obama?s tax plan ?welfare? and campaign surrogates (including the robo-calling Rudy Giuliani) linking the Democrat to violent, Willie Horton-like criminality, that would have been redundant. We don?t know yet if McCain will go the way of Allen in a state that hasn?t voted for a Democratic president since 1964, when L.B.J. vanquished another Arizona Republican in a landslide. But we do know that Obama swept like a conquering hero through Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, last week and that he leads in every recent Virginia poll. There are at least two larger national lessons to be learned from what is likely to be the last gasp of Allen-McCain-Palin politics in 2008. The first, and easy one, is that Republican leaders have no idea what ?real America? is. In the eight years since the first Bush-Cheney convention pledged inclusiveness and showcased Colin Powell as its opening-night speaker, the G.O.P. has terminally alienated black Americans (Powell himself now included), immigrant Americans (including the Hispanics who once gave Bush-Cheney as much as 44 percent of their votes) and the extended families of gay Americans (Palin has now revived a constitutional crusade against same-sex marriage). Subtract all those players from the actual America, and you don?t have enough of a bench to field a junior varsity volleyball team, let alone a serious campaign for the Electoral College. But the other, less noticed lesson of the year has to do with the white people the McCain campaign has been pandering to. As we saw first in the Democratic primary results and see now in the widespread revulsion at the McCain-Palin tactics, white Americans are not remotely the bigots the G.O.P. would have us believe. Just because a campaign trades in racism doesn?t mean that the country is racist. It?s past time to come to the unfairly maligned white America?s defense. That includes acknowledging that the so-called liberal media, among their other failures this year, have helped ratchet up this election cycle?s prevailing antiwhite bias. Ever since Obama declared his candidacy, the press?s default setting has been to ominously intone that ?in the privacy of the voting booth? ignorant, backward whites will never vote for a black man. A leading vehicle for this journalistic mind-set has been the unending obsession with ?the Bradley effect? ? as if nothing has changed in America since 1982, when some polls (possibly for reasons having nothing to do with race) predicted erroneously that a black candidate, Tom Bradley, would win the California governorship. In 2008, there is, if anything, more evidence of a reverse Bradley effect ? Obama?s primary vote totals more often exceeded those in the final polls than not ? but poor old Bradley keeps being flogged anyway. So do all those deer hunters in western Pennsylvania. Once Hillary Clinton whipped Obama in the Rust Belt, it?s been a bloviation staple (echoing the Clinton camp?s line) that a black guy is doomed among Reagan Democrats, Joe Sixpacks, rednecks, Joe the Plumbers or whichever condescending term you want to choose. (Clinton at one low point settled on ?hard-working Americans, white Americans.?) Michigan in particular was repeatedly said to be slipping out of the Democrats? reach because of incorrigible racism ? until McCain abandoned it as hopeless this month in the face of a double-digit Obama lead. The constant tide of anthropological articles and television reports set in blue-collar diners, bars and bowling alleys have hyped this racial theory of the race. So did the rampant misreading of primary-season exit polls. On cable TV and the Sunday network shows, there was endless chewing over the internal numbers in the Clinton victories. It was doomsday news for Obama, for instance, that some 12 percent of white Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania said race was a factor in their choice and three-quarters of them voted for Clinton. Ipso facto ? and despite the absence of any credible empirical evidence ? these Clinton voters would either stay home or flock to McCain in November. The McCain campaign is so dumb that it bought into the press?s confirmation of its own prejudices. Even though registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by 1.2 million in Pennsylvania (more than double the 2004 gap), even though Obama leads by double digits in almost every recent Pennsylvania poll and even though no national Republican ticket has won there since 1988, McCain started pouring his dwindling resources into the state this month. When the Democratic Representative John Murtha described his own western Pennsylvania district as a ?racist area,? McCain feigned outrage and put down even more chips on the race card, calling the region the ?most patriotic, most God-loving? part of America. Well, there are racists in western Pennsylvania, as there are in most pockets of our country. But despite the months-long drumbeat of punditry to the contrary, there are not and have never been enough racists in 2008 to flip this election. In the latest New York Times/CBS News and Pew national polls, Obama is now pulling even with McCain among white men, a feat accomplished by no Democratic presidential candidate in three decades, Bill Clinton included. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News survey finds age doing more damage to McCain than race to Obama. Nor is America?s remaining racism all that it once was, or that the McCain camp has been hoping for it to be. There are even ?racists for Obama,? as Politico labels the phenomenon: White Americans whose distrust of black people in general crumbles when they actually get to know specific black people, including a presidential candidate who extends a genuine helping hand in a time of national crisis. The original ?racist for Obama,? after all, was none other than Obama?s own white, Kansas-raised grandmother, the gravely ill Madelyn Dunham, whom he visited in Hawaii on Friday. In ?Dreams From My Father,? Obama wrote of how shaken he was when he learned of her overwhelming fear of black men on the street. But he weighed that reality against his unshakeable love for her and hers for him, and he got past it. When Obama cited her in his speech on race last spring, the right immediately accused him of ?throwing his grandmother under the bus.? But Obama?s critics were merely projecting their own racial hang-ups. He still loves his grandmother. He was merely speaking candidly and generously ? like an adult ? about the strange, complex and ever-changing racial dynamics of America. He hit a chord because many of us have had white relatives of our own like his, and we, too, see them in full and often love them anyway. Such human nuances are lost on conservative warriors of the Allen-McCain-Palin ilk. They see all Americans as only white or black, as either us or them. The dirty little secret of such divisive politicians has always been that their rage toward the Others is exceeded only by their cynical conviction that Real Americans are a benighted bunch of easily manipulated bigots. This seems to be the election year when voters in most of our myriad Americas are figuring that out. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Tue Oct 28 11:02:35 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:02:35 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] More on Cubism Message-ID: <49071B80.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Chuck Grimes on Cubism, relativity, et al. CB ^^^ Now that you're retired what will you be doing more of? Reading, hiking, painting, revolution plotting? Dennis ----------------- You bet. That's exactly what I am doing today (written yesterday). I got up late, nine-thirty, scanned LBO and Pen-L, and got an e-mail from a friend who is beginning to write a fictional account of his years in Berkeley when he was married and worked at UCB---living off a post-doc and later various grants. His marriage ended his life in Berkeley, because his ex-wife took the kids and moved down to the San Luis Obispo area. This in effect ruined his career, since he had to move down there to be see his kids, and start over. He had to take poor paying adjunct positions. His writing is good and has a naturally `abstract' or `modernist' quality, something like James Joyce, because he is blind and describes the world without visual terms or images. Reading D's work makes me aware of how little information we really get from visual perception. Conincidently, Joanna gave me an article in recent New Yorker titled `Itch' by Atul Gawande (June 30, 2008) that makes the same point from a neuro-science point of view. The amount of concrete information gained through vision is very much less than we suppose. I discovered the above through my friendship with D. and the years we spent climbing, hiking, and of course while I was working for him on various bio-science projects. One startling fact that everybody forgets is that much of bio-sphere, plants of course, but also some animals do not have eyes, and manage quite successfully without them. Since D. can't see, he has no idea what Cubism means. I spent most of the day describing what Cubism was, by using special relativity, multiple positions, and no privilaged reference frame (no fixed metric, either) as the way to describe what Cubist painting was trying to do. This in turn relates to Joyce and Ulysses, since Joyce was attempting to achieve similar effects (multiple and theoretically simultaneous points of view) in writing. I just re-started Ulysses to see if this theory of the novel holds up, and what I think about it, after trying to get through it in my early twenties. This idea of relating Cubism, Joyce, and Relativity together is straight out of Edmond Carpender's lectures in Cultural Anthro. Carpenter (heavily influenced by McLuhan) picked up the trace of the ideas from Cassirer, Whorf of course, and other sources in the period. We are so familiar with these ideas and their effects on our concept of the world, that we hardly notice them anymore. You can see these effects and their influence on our arts when you go rent older movies (say the straight story line sort) and then contrast them to much newer movies where more recent directors have mastered some of these collage and simultaneity effects well enough to construct a formal composition out of very heavily cut and pasted scenes that build a story line through what is in linear terms, essentially irrational nonsense. Momento, for example does a really good job of this sort of abstract composition by telling the story backward in color and foreward in black and white---or was it the other way? (Can't remember, and it doesn't really matter.) The plot synopsis is in the link below. Don't read it if you haven't seen the movie, but plan to. That's because the synopsis will spoil the effect this discovery of composition makes on you---which is a very nice surprize. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/synopsis This movie is highly reminiscent of Alain Robbe-Grillet. For any one interested try R-G's Snap Shots, a collection of very short stories. The compositional forms stand out easily and don't become tedious. For example, The Replacement, uses something like Joyce's parallax (two points of view of the same object), hence the title. The object is a tree seen by a school teacher, teaching French history, and a student in the classroom, bored, looking out the window at the same tree. Both are completely disengaged from their own physical position, while their minds wonder in other directions. The apparent positions, when you work them out, turn out to be physically impossible. The narrative makes them appear coherent. CG This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 29 08:05:22 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:05:22 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Murtha goes Trumka Message-ID: <49084371.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Labor Leader Richard Trumka has been openly confronting racism , too. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081013/trumka_video http://www.pww.org/article/view/13814 Charles Murtha: ?No Question That Western Pennsylvania Is A Racist Area? Murtha Warns Obama on Afghanistan PITTSBURGH (AP) - U.S. Rep. John Murtha says his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist and that could reduce Barack Obama's victory margin in the state by 4 percentage points. The 17-term Democratic congressman tells the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in a story posted Wednesday on its Web site that, as he put it: "There is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area." He says it's taken time for many Pennsylvania voters to come around to liking Obama, but he should still win the state, though not in a runaway. In a separate interview posted Wednesday on the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review's Web site, Murtha says Obama has a problem with the race issue in western Pennsylvania that could shave 4 points off his lead in the state. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 29 08:11:38 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 10:11:38 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] In Defense of White Americans Message-ID: <490844E9.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> In Defense of White Americans By FRANK RICH The constant tide of anthropological articles and television reports set in blue-collar diners, bars and bowling alleys have hyped this racial theory of the race. So did the rampant misreading of primary-season exit polls. On cable TV and the Sunday network shows, there was endless chewing over the internal numbers in the Clinton victories. It was doomsday news for Obama, for instance, that some 12 percent of white Democratic primary voters in Pennsylvania said race was a factor in their choice and three-quarters of them voted for Clinton. Ipso facto ? and despite the absence of any credible empirical evidence ? these Clinton voters would either stay home or flock to McCain in November. ^^^^ CB: Clinton's campaign was a main source of this argument that these people wouldn't vote for O. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 29 09:11:17 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:11:17 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Super-structure reflects infrastructure Message-ID: <490852E4.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> ----- Original Message ----- Super-structure reflects infra-structure >Here's a novel idea. The current financial crisis is the >long term crisis in US industry finally expressed, the >financial super-structure finally reflecting the >de-industrialization of the US, the Rust Belt, the auto >,-steel-manufacturing crisis of the last 30 years; and Wall >Street as US finance, not international finance. > >Capitalism can run, but it can't hide from its own _Real_ >American contradictions. > >Materialist Friends of Philosophy > >>> "j Right, they took their money (or more correctly our money) out of production, used it for speculation, created a huge gap in income between workers and the capitalists and forced people to borrow on the inflated value of their homes. (Now the Wall Street pundits chastise these Joe Plumbers and Middle Americans for "living beyond their means"; they're just as much to blame as the Predatory Lenders and Speculating Parasites). Plants are closed and more will be closing. The case for public works jobs gets bigger and bigger. ^^^^ And "they" keep looking for explanations of the crisis in all these finance theories, separate from the "real" economy, as if wealth can be created outside the sphere of real, industrial, manufacturing, "hardworking" physical laborers, the classical sphere of the workers-of-the -hand workers ; that the American bourgeoisie can just let Pittsburgh, Detroit, Chicago, Dayton, Gary Milwaukee "rust" and still have the Gross Domestic "Production" grow in "bubbles" in the non-productive, financial services sector without the bubbles bursting _because_ they have de-industrialized/structurally readjusted the American homeland. We need a new Ballad for Americans, Song for our People, Picassoesque Communist Art, New Man River. This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 29 09:27:07 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:27:07 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] Morning Joe, known as the most prominent of the MSNBC conservatives. Message-ID: <4908569A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Joe Scarborough For the Sheffield painter, see Joe Scarborough (artist). Joe Scarborough -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 1st district In office January 3, 1995-September 5, 2001 Preceded by Earl Hutto Succeeded by Jeff Miller -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Born April 9, 1963 (1963-04-09) (age 45) Atlanta, GA Political party Republican Spouse Melanie Hinton (divorced), Susan Waren Profession attorney, currently television host Religion Baptist Charles Joseph "Joe" Scarborough (born April 9, 1963) is an American cable news host and former politician. Before his present position as host of Morning Joe on MSNBC, Scarborough hosted Scarborough Country on the same channel. Besides his work in cable news, Scarborough served in the United States House of Representatives from 1995 to 2001 as a Republican from the 1st district of Florida. He is known as the most prominent of the MSNBC conservatives. Contents [hide] 1 Early life and education 2 Congressional career 2.1 Committee memberships 3 Post-congressional career 4 Family 5 References 6 External links [edit] Early life and education Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Scarborough graduated from Pensacola Catholic High School in Pensacola, Florida (although he is not a Roman Catholic). He received a B.A. from the University of Alabama in 1985 and a J.D. from the University of Florida College of Law in 1990.[1] He was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1991. [1] Scarborough taught high school and practiced law in Pensacola.[2] During this time he wrote and produced CDs with his band, Dixon Mills.[3] In 1993, Michael F. Griffin's family requested that Scarborough represent him at his trial for the murder of abortion provider, Dr. David Gunn. As a young civil law attorney, Scarborough wasn't qualified to defend him in that case but he did help them find a criminal defense attorney and helped shield the family from the media exposure, pro bono.[4] Scarborough's first major foray into politics was assisting with a petition drive in late 1993 opposing a 65 percent[dubious - discuss] increase in the City of Pensacola's property taxes. During the drive he made numerous contacts which would prove valuable in his upcoming congressional race.[2] [edit] Congressional career In 1994, Scarborough won the Republican Party nomination for Florida's 1st congressional district, which came open after the incumbent Democrat Earl Hutto did not run for reelection. He defeated former Pensacola mayor Vince Whibbs with 61 percent of the vote, becoming the first Republican to represent the 1st since its formation in 1903 (it was the 3rd District from 1903 to 1963), as well as the first Republican to represent any portion of the Florida Panhandle since 1872. The 1st had turned into one of the most conservative regions of the state. It has not supported a Democrat for president since 1960, but conservative Democrats won most offices well into the 1990s. As a measure of how conservative this area of Florida had become, Scarborough was reelected with 72 percent of the vote in 1996. In 1998 and 2000, he was only opposed by a write-in candidate. Scarborough was regarded as a reliable conservative, receiving a 95 percent lifetime rating from the American Conservative Union.[5] He signed the Contract with America, and was part of the 1994 Republican takeover of the House led by Newt Gingrich. Scarborough served on the Armed Services, Judiciary, Government Reform, and Education committees. In 1998, he was named Chairman of the Civil Service Committee. Scarborough was one of a group of about 40 freshmen Republican legislators who dubbed themselves the "New Federalists" after the Federalist Papers. Scarborough was elected Political Director of the incoming legislators. The New Federalists called for sweeping cuts in the U.S. government, including plans to "privatize, localize, consolidate, [or] eliminate"[6] the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy and Housing and Urban Development, but were largely unsuccessful in their goals. Gingrich tapped Scarborough to head a Republican task force on education, and Scarborough declared, "Our goal is to get as much money, power and authority out of Washington and get as much money, power and authority into the classroom as possible."[2] Scarborough supported a number of pro-life positions while in Congress including legislation that made it a crime to harm a fetus during the commission of other crimes. Scarborough sponsored a bill to force the U.S. to withdraw from the United Nations after a four-year transition[6] and voted to make the Corporation for Public Broadcasting "self-sufficient"[7] by eliminating federal funding. He also voted for the "Medicare Preservation act of 1995,"[8] which cut the projected growth Medicare by $270 billion over ten years, and against the "Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996"[9] which raised the minimum wage to $5.15. Scarborough had a conservative voting record on economic, social, and foreign policy issues, but was seen as moderate on environmental issues and human rights causes (including closing the School of the Americas and Lori Berenson).[2] [US Congressman Joe Scarborough] heard about Lori Berenson on an NPR broadcast. He went to Peru and spent a day at her second trial. He watched the prosecutors and the judges working together, heard the evidence and decided that she had done nothing that would have convicted her in a U.S. court. Even a repentant terrorist, who was to have been the strongest witness, said Berenson was not a member of MRTA and gave no help at all. Scarborough thought the court had to conclude she was not a terrorist leader.[10] While in Congress, Scarborough received a number of awards, including the "Friend of the Taxpayer Award" from Americans for Tax Reform; the "Guardian of Small Business Award" from the National Federation of Independent Business; the "Spirit of Enterprise Award" from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce; the "Taxpayer's Hero Award" from the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste; and the "Guardian of Seniors' Rights Award" from the 60 Plus Association. On July 20, 2001, one of Scarborough's aides, Lori Klausutis, died in Scarborough's Fort Walton Beach office.[11] On Aug 28, reporter Denis Wright published an article alleging that she was murdered by Scarborough.[12] According to Scarborough, soon after her death, allegations "spread all over the Internet" that he had been involved even though there was no foul play.[13] In 2003, he joked about the incident with Don Imus on Imus's radio program[14] and in 2004 it was the subject of a public spat between Scarborough and filmmaker Michael Moore.[15] Moore accused Scarborough of wrongdoing, even though Scarborough was in his Washington, DC, office at the time of his aide's death.[16] [edit] Committee memberships 104th Congress[17] Committee on Government Reform and Oversight Committee on National Security 105th Congress[18] Committee on National Security Committee on Government Reform and Oversight Committee on Education and the Workforce 106th Congress[19] Committee on Armed Services Committee on Government Reform Committee on the Judiciary 107th Congress[20] Committee on Government Reform Committee on the Judiciary [edit] Post-congressional career In late May 2001, Scarborough announced that he would resign from Congress on September 6 to spend more time with his children. In his announcement, Scarborough also speculated about possible future presidential appointments and legal and television work.[21] He officially resigned on September 5, 2001.[1] After leaving Congress, he joined the law firm of prominent Florida attorney Fred Levin. He practiced law with the firm Beggs and Lane,[22] the oldest firm in Florida. He was appointed to the President's Council on the 21st Century Workforce in 2002.[23] In April 2003, he embarked upon a successful television career with the launch of Scarborough Country on MSNBC, a current affairs show. Scarborough also published a book, Rome Wasn't Burnt in a Day (2004) (ISBN 0-06-074984-9) in which he reflects on his experiences as a young Republican congressman during the Clinton years. Scarborough criticizes both political parties for irresponsible spending and giving in to special interests. Scarborough briefly hosted a three-hour radio show in 2005. The show aired in a competitive time slot (10am-1pm US ET) and struggled to gain affiliates; those few that did carry the show usually carried it in the noon-3pm US ET slot or in late nights instead. After a few months, Scarborough left the show to focus his time on other priorities. (After being vacant for over a year, the slot was filled by Dennis Miller's radio show in 2007.) In August 2005, Scarborough confirmed reports that he had been asked to consider a challenge to U.S. Rep. Katherine Harris for the Republican nomination to challenge Senator Bill Nelson's reelection bid. However, he announced later that month that he was renewing his contract with NBC.[24] In July 2006, former aides to Harris's 2006 Senate campaign claimed that Harris had called potential Scarborough supporters and raised the death of an aide in his home district office as a means to prevent his entry into the race.[25] Scarborough, who had never intended to enter the race, initially considered suing Harris but decided to let the incident pass. He later told Nelson that drawing Harris as an opponent in the race made Nelson "the luckiest man in Washington."[26] As of May 9, 2007, Scarborough became one of the rotating hosts auditioning for the slot vacated by Imus in the Morning on MSNBC, as host of Morning Joe. Morning Joe won the slot permanently in July 2007, thus ending Scarborough Country in the process. He has also appeared on other MSNBC shows as a commentator or panelist, primarily Hardball with Chris Matthews and Race for the White House. [edit] Family In 1986, Scarborough married Melanie Hinton. They had two children[27] and divorced in 1999. His younger child was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. While interviewing Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., in June 2005, Scarborough expressed concerns about the possibility that one of his sons may have suffered vaccine damage, perhaps attributable to the sharp increase during the 1980s in the amount of thimerosal injected into infants: "My son, born in 1991, has a slight form of autism called Asperger's. When I was practicing law and also when I was in Congress, parents would constantly come to me and they would bring me videotapes of their children, and they were all around the age of my son or younger. So, something happened in 1989."[28] In October 2001, Scarborough married Susan Waren, a former aide to Florida Governor Jeb Bush and a former congressional committee staffer. They live in Pensacola with their daughter Kate and his two sons, Joey and Andrew.[29] [edit] References ^ a b c ""Scarborough, Charles Joseph"". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress. Retrieved on 2006-03-18. ^ a b c d Michael Barone, Richard E. Cohen, The Almanac of American Politics, National Journal Press, 2002, pages 374-76. ^ liner notes "Dixon Mills" CD 1992 SRS records Inc. ^ Bill Kaczor, "Abortion an Unmentionable Issue in District Hit by Anti-Abortion Violence", Associated Press, November 2, 1994; Laura Griffin, "Area lawyer hired in clinic killing", St. Petersburg Times, April 13, 1993. ^ 2000 U.S. House Ratings ^ a b Not Dead Yet (5/1/95) - www.GovernmentExecutive.com ^ http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=104_cong_bills&docid=f:h2979ih.txt.pdf (pdf) ^ http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1995/roll731.xml ^ http://clerk.house.gov/evs/1996/roll398.xml ^ Mary McGrory (2001-07-01). "Captive Parents". Washington Post. ^ McLaughlin, Tom "Examiner: Klausutis' death was accidental," Northwest Florida Daily News, August 7, 2001 ^ [1] ^ Lisa Osburn, "Scarborough ready to get back home", Pensacola News Journal. September 6, 2001 ^ James Wolcott, "MSNBC's fox hunt: management and marketing strategies", Vanity Fair 518 (Oct 2003): 140(5) ^ Judy Bachrach. "Moore's War," Vanity Fair (March 2005): 240; Scarborough Country, June 14, 2004 [2]. ^ Northwest Florida Daily News, Saturday, July 21, 2001 ^ Designating Majority Membership on Certain Standing Committees of the House (House of Representatives - January 04, 1995) ^ Election of Majority Members to Certain Standing Committees of the House (House of Representatives - January 07, 1997); Election of Majority Members to Certain Standing Committees of the House (House of Representatives - January 09, 1997); Election of Majority Members to Certain Standing Committees of the House (House of Representatives - January 21, 1997) ^ Election of Majority Members to Certain Standing Committees of the House - (House of Representatives - January 06, 1999); Election of Majority Members to Certain Standing Committees of the House - (House of Representatives - March 11, 1999) ^ Election of Members to Certain Standing Committees of the House - (House of Representatives - January 06, 2001) ^ Lisa Osburn, "U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough Trading House for Home: Congressman ready to be a full-time dad," Pensacola News Journal, May 26, 2001. ^ Charles Joseph Scarborough ^ Members Of President's Council on the 21st Century Workforce Announced Council To Provide Information, Advice To The President On 21st Century Workforce Issues [03/21/2002] ^ 'Scarborough Country' for March 9 - Morning Joe - MSNBC.com ^ "Story of 'Joe's dead intern' began Harris' slide, insiders say", Miami Herald, July 14, 2006 ^ "Harris' Attack on TV Pundit Started Campaign Slide, Insiders Say". The Miami Herald (July 14, 2006). Retrieved on 2008-06-06. ^ CNN 1998 Election Biography ^ A coverup for a cause of Autism? - Morning Joe - MSNBC.com ^ Scarborough Bio from leadingauthorities.com [edit] External links Official Site Morning Joe - MSNBC Biography at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress Voting record maintained by The Washington Post Stories on Joe Scarborough from Media Matters for America Campaign contributions made by Joe Scarborough OnTheIssues page for Congressional terms USA Today: Scarborough Under Fire for Comments About Thompson's Wife United States House of Representatives Preceded by Earl Hutto Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida's 1st congressional district 1995-2001 Succeeded by Jeff Miller Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Scarborough" Categories: 1963 births | American bloggers | American political pundits | American political writers | American radio personalities | American television personalities | Florida lawyers | Florida Republicans | Gator Caucus | Living people | Members of the United States House of Representatives from Florida | MSNBC | People from Pensacola, Florida | People from Georgia (U.S. state) | University of Alabama alumni | University of Florida alumni | Baptists from the United States | Television anchors who ran for election Hidden categories: Template computed age | All pages needing cleanup | Articles with disputed statements ViewsArticle Discussion Edit this page History Personal toolsLog in / create account Navigation Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Search Interaction About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact Wikipedia Donate to Wikipedia Help Toolbox What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Printable version Permanent link Cite this page Languages Deutsch Espa?ol Fran?ais Polski This page was last modified on 28 October 2008, at 06:58. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.) Wikipedia? is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity. Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 29 09:31:43 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:31:43 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] First Black president? Detroit labor legend wonders if it's all a dream Message-ID: <490857AE.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Dave Moore, comrade of Coleman Young. John Henry Found at: http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/13908/ First Black president? Detroit labor legend wonders if it's all a dream -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Author: Pepe Lozano Pepe Lozano Dave Moore DETROIT, Mich. - These days, as millions nationwide work to elect the first African American president, 96-year-old Dave Moore, longtime labor and community leader, wonders if it?s all just a dream. ?I don?t want to sound pessimistic, but I?ve been Black all my life, and sometimes I don?t know if I?m dreaming,? Moore told the World. He said he was ?blown away? at how many white votes Barack Obama won during the primaries and the impressive display of thousands of white voters at Obama rallies across the country. ?When I wake up the next day after the election and Obama wins, then I will know that this country has begun to take a turn for the better,? said Moore. Born April 6, 1912, as a teenager Moore left what he calls the ?slave state of South Carolina? with his family and moved to Detroit. New to the big city, he says he had never seen so many people before hustling and bustling about. Moore recalls joining a community water polo team as a youth on the city?s East Side, at a time when ?colored? and ?white? signs were common. His team made it to the finals and traveled across town to a park in a predominantly white area to face an all-white team. Although the park required segregated seating, Moore said the players ignored the rule and sat where they wanted because the mayor of Detroit had declared the city?s public areas open to all. ?And we won the city championship,? Moore said proudly. Moore remembers the Great Depression of the 1930s when people had little food and ate rotten vegetables and fruits to get by. ?And we didn?t have heat in the winter so we would use wood from the porch out front to stay warm,? he said. People at that time lived through ?hardships, suffering, pain and agony while the fat cats gobbled up all the money.? His parents lost $500 when banks closed. That was a lot of money back then, said Moore. ?All of us were suffering like hell.? Moore became active with the Unemployed Councils, which mobilized people to fight against mass hunger and home evictions. Those experiences taught Moore the importance of unity among Black, white and Latino workers. People came together and rallied for their basic rights against rich employers who left millions out in the cold. Moore?s most memorable and proudest moment came in 1941 when he was instrumental in organizing workers into the United Auto Workers union at the Ford Motor Company in Dearborn, Mich. At the time Ford was the third largest industrial giant in the world and 75 percent of the workforce there had been laid off with no public relief. People were dying from cold and hunger. In 1932 Moore helped lead a hunger march where five union members fell victim to machine guns fired by thugs hired by anti-union Henry Ford. It was the multiracial unity among the workers that overcame the divisions that Ford tried to provoke. That struggle eventually opened the door to the organization of the nation?s auto industry and the founding of the UAW. Moore was eventually elected to leadership positions at UAW Local 600, the powerful Ford local. Like many others, however, Moore fell victim to McCarthyism and was dismissed from his elected position in 1951. But as McCarthyism waned, he was reinstated in 1963 and was assigned as a national UAW representative. Moore was a founding member of the National Negro Labor Council and served as a legislative assistant to legendary Rep. George Crockett. Later Detroit Mayor Coleman Young appointed Moore the city?s senior citizens director. Reflecting on the history he has lived and battled through, Moore said the Black community has been hit the hardest with the current economic crisis. ?We got a lot of people unemployed today,? he said, adding that many of his neighbors have been laid off from the once booming auto industry. Moore believes the economic meltdown is going to propel Obama to become the first Black president, but ?it?s not going to be easy for him.? During the Depression of the 1930s, President Roosevelt had the people behind him, said Moore. ?And that is what Obama needs to do - have the people behind him. I believe the key to Obama?s campaign lies with the working people.? ?I think Obama has the best program, but no matter what happens the fat cats of Wall Street and tycoons of big industry are the ones who control the finances of this country,? he said. ?They don?t want to see a movement for unity of all people coming together.? ?It?s a long, long road that working and poor people have to travel but we have to remember this is a capitalist country and the fat cats on Wall Street will do whatever they can to keep it that way. Take a look at this country?s history - big business has always called the shots. I hope Obama goes all the way when he says he?s for change.? When it comes to fighting for unions, multiracial unity, civil rights and peace, Moore has seen it all, he said - he knows what it means to struggle for a working people?s agenda in victory and defeat. Today, he sees great hope for the future. ?I?d like to see unity of all people one day where racism in this country is behind us,? he said. ?I?d like to see a world where people don?t have to worry about starvation or unemployment. Where youngsters can get an education and become contributors to the betterment of society. Where our country?s government truly plays a role to help educate our children in a world based on peace, understanding and brotherhood regardless of race, creed, religion or color.? Moore is looking forward to seeing a step in that direction with the election of Obama on Nov. 4 plozano @ pww.org This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 29 12:51:54 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:51:54 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] "Depression" as eurocentric term Message-ID: <4908869A.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> Depressions -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- To: Progressive Economics Subject: Re: [Pen-l] Depressions From: soula avramidis -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- there is something eurocentric about the word depression... I have worked once on least developing countries and some unemployment rates were close to 90 percent. and much of the same for the social dislocation throughout the third world. and if the case may be that if value can be created by non-economic factors, then that could mean that the extraction of surplus in the centre is positively related to pauperisation of the periphery. and as Tchkhov says: "even an imbecile can cope with a crisis. It's the everyday life that exhausts us" This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 29 12:53:08 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 14:53:08 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] =?utf-8?q?L=C3=B3pez_Obrador=27s_speech_at_Mexic?= =?utf-8?q?o=27s_chamber_of_deputies?= Message-ID: <490886E4.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> L?pez Obrador's speech at Mexico's chamber of deputies -------------------------------------------------------------- Audio, in Spanish: http://interactivo.eluniversal.com.mx/external/podcast/products/audios/AMLO271008completoC.mp3 _______________________________________________ This message has been scanned for malware by SurfControl plc. www.surfcontrol.com From charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us Wed Oct 29 13:04:44 2008 From: charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us (Charles Brown) Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2008 15:04:44 -0400 Subject: [Marxism-Thaxis] II. BANKS AND THEIR NEW ROLE Message-ID: <4908899B.84C9.00BF.0@cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us> http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch02.htm II. BANKS AND THEIR NEW ROLE The principal and primary function of banks is to serve as middlemen in the making of payments. In so doing they transform inactive money capital into active, that is, into capital yielding a profit; they collect all kinds of money revenues and place them at the disposal of the capitalist class. As banking develops and becomes concentrated in a small number of establishments, the banks grow from modest middlemen into powerful monopolies having at their command almost the whole of the money capital of all the capitalists and small businessmen and also the larger part of the means of production and sources of raw materials in any one country and in a number of countries. This transformation of numerous modest middlemen into a handful of monopolists is one of the fundamental processes in the growth of capitalism into capitalist imperialism; for this reason we must first of all examine the concentration of banking. In 1907-08, the combined deposits of the German joint-stock banks, each having a capital of more than a million marks, amounted to 7,000 million marks; in 1912-13, these deposits already amounted to 9,800 million marks, an increase of 40 per cent in five years; and of the 2,800 million increase, 2,750 million was divided among 57 banks, each having a capital of more than 10 million marks. The distribution of the deposits between big and small banks was as follows:[1] PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL DEPOSITS In 9 big Berlin banks In the other 48 banks with a capital of more than 10 million marks In 115 banks with a capital of 1-10 million marks In small banks (with a capital of less than a million marks) 1907-08..... 47 32.5 16.5 4 1912-13...... 49 36 12 3 The small banks are being squeezed out by the big banks, of which only nine concentrate in their hands almost half the total deposits. But we have left out of account many important details, for instance, the transformation of numerous small banks into actual branches of the big banks, etc. Of this I shall speak later on. At the end of 1913, Schulze-Gaevernitz estimated the deposits in the nine big Berlin banks at 5,100 million marks, out of a total of about 10,000 million marks. Taking into account not only the deposits, but the total bank capital, this author wrote: ?At the end of 1909, the nine big Berlin banks, together with their affiliated banks, controlled 11,300 million marks, that is, about 83 per cent of the total German bank capital. The Deutsche Bank, which together with its affiliated banks controls nearly 3,000 million marks, represents, parallel to the Prussian State Railway Administration, the biggest and also the most decentralised accumulation of capital in the Old World.?[2] I have emphasised the reference to the ?affiliated? banks because it is one of the most important distinguishing features of modern capitalist concentration. The big enterprises, and the banks in particular, not only completely absorb the small ones, but also ?annex? them, subordinate them, bring them into their ?own? group or ?concern? (to use the technical term) by acquiring ?holdings? in their capital, by purchasing or exch