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271 Capitalism and foot and mouth disease -- rank: 1000

The funeral pyres of dead cattle highlight the intense contradictions of capitalist animal husbandry. Foot and mouth disease is not fatal. It merely temporarily affects the ability of cattle to put on weight, produce milk, produce marketable commodities, and release surplus value. Agriculture is increasingly a battle field between capitalist economics and the socialist principles of production guided by "social foresight" (Marx to the First International). Below is a dramatic report fr ...

Document Size:	10458
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Mar 20 00:00:50 PST 2001

272 Balancing the Japanese economy down -- rank: 1000

At 13:42 13/03/01 -0800, Dennis wrote: It's the weak link of neoliberalism, for sure. Japan's problem is, it doesn't have an EU-style superstate to funnel capital to its neighbors. At 23:34 17/03/01 -0800, Dennis wrote: >On Thu, 15 Mar 2001, Chris Burford wrote: > > > So if they have to destroy a significant fraction of their capital, > > their most rational reform would be to turn their investments in their > > neighbours into outright gifts and hope to regenerate curren ...

Document Size:	8722
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Mar 18 04:38:45 PST 2001

273 Balancing the Japanese economy down -- rank: 1000

At 18:11 13/03/01 -0500, Yoshie wrote: >There is no nation in the world today for which socialism is more suitable >than Japan. ... The problems are ... ..... >plus the ... possibilities of capital flight That is why the solution has to be at a world level. Chris Burford London

Document Size:	4816
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Mar 14 22:22:54 PST 2001

274 Balancing the Japanese economy down -- rank: 1000

At 13:42 13/03/01 -0800, Dennis wrote: >It's the weak link of neoliberalism, for sure. Japan's problem is, it >doesn't have an EU-style superstate to funnel capital to its neighbors. So if they have to destroy a significant fraction of their capital, their most rational reform would be to turn their investments in their neighbours into outright gifts and hope to regenerate current economic activity in Japan on the strength of increased economic activity in the region as a whole. Of course ...

Document Size:	5305
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Mar 14 23:26:13 PST 2001

275 Health Care Costs -- rank: 1000

The US system is massively economically inefficient, if your goal is to secure the entire population against the misery of remediable health risks. The US system is probably more efficient if you consider it as a market for individual choice of a subjective nature. It is inefficient if you consider that even in an era of unprecedented surplus wealth, the insecurities of ill health remain one of the biggest worries that trouble human beings, quite rightly. There is a major battle about whether co ...

Document Size:	5004
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Mar 11 23:50:50 PST 2001

276 Sun backs Labour -- rank: 1000

The Sun, the largest popular newspaper in the UK, has come out tonight strongly backing Labour to win the general election expected early May. With no mention of Europe anywhere, it heaps praise on praise for Gordon Brown's budget. "It's in the bag, Tony" is the headline. While there is doubt about the enthusiasm of Labour supporters to vote, the budget appears to have appealed to some core Labour voters, and to have alienated none of the electorate. The decision of the Sun is the sing ...

Document Size:	5048
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Mar 7 16:01:46 PST 2001

277 Myners Report on Institutional Investment -- rank: 1000

This morning the Financial Times leads on the Myners Report on Institutional Investment. This argues, from the point of view of a committed Fund Manager, how the system of pension funds, actuaries and fund managers, while quite logical in the short term, produces a system in which British capital is not investing adequately in young start up companies. It needs this to compete effectively as aggregate capital, with the USA and continental Europe. He proposes that these pension and other funds sh ...

Document Size:	5363
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Mar 6 16:45:59 PST 2001

278 Medical Incompetence -- rank: 1000

At 09:06 03/03/01 -0800, Marta wrote: >March 1,2001 Updated 11:13 AM ET > >Report: Nation's health care woefully lacking. >More on health care > > WASHINGTON (AP) - The nation's health care system is a > tangled maze that too often leaves Americans with inadequate, outdated, > even unsafe therapy, according to a scathing report Thursday that > recommends an urgent overhaul to bring 21st century care to more patients. > But too many patients slog ...

Document Size:	6385
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Mar 6 15:36:06 PST 2001

279 Foot'n'mouth -- rank: 1000

At 11:52 04/03/01 +0000, James Heartfield wrote: >The WEEK >ending 4 March 2001 > >Agricultural luddites > >Prime Minister Tony Blair added to the clamour of criticism of British >supermarkets for holding down food prices - which he suggests is the >reason for the foot and mouth outbreak. In fact it was increased >productivity in agriculture that transformed the quality of life in the >UK. In 1950 spending on food represented nearly 30 per cent of the >household ...

Document Size:	8423
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Mar 4 14:55:52 PST 2001

280 US Deception during Bosnian war -- rank: 1000

While evidence accumulates of how Milosevic tried to conceal deaths of Kosovan Albanians, other evidence surfaces as in the BBC Programme last night on the rising military distrust between the US and Europe. Chris Burford ___________________ Allies and lies: Correspondent, Sunday 24th June at 1915 on BBC 2. Reporter: Sheena McDonald Producer: David Hebditch Editor: Fiona Murch http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/audiovideo/programmes/correspondent/newsid_1390000/1390536.stm Deceiving your allies Th ...

Document Size:	11761
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jun 24 22:37:15 PDT 2001

281 Slippery slope from 'strategic competitor' to outright adversary -- rank: 1000

The head of the security committee of the House of Lords (UK - where else would you have a House of Lords?) said in an interview at the time of the US mission to Europe to sell the missile defence system, that the US representatives said privately that the real enemy was not rogue states, but China. It is essential for Bush's hegemonic plan that China plays a sufficiently credible role as main enemy to jjustify this sytem. This system would allow the US to punish erring states with lasers. So mu ...

Document Size:	5684
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jun 24 01:12:35 PDT 2001

282 Latin America on the brink -- rank: 1000

Note 1) if correct, this report suggests that the next wave of international global capitalist crisis will not come from global environmental causes but will be a major adjustment once again in the significant periphery of the global capitalist core, 2) Brazil's greater virtue (in the eyes of the author) than Argentina, will not save it from crisis. 3) in the course of trying to restabilize, by a concealed devaluation, Argentina has shifted the linking of its currency to a basket including the e ...

Document Size:	9425
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Jun 23 14:58:59 PDT 2001

283 Berlin, London, Paris all controlled by the Left - first time? -- rank: 1000

Woworeit has just taken the oath, (without the help of God) as head of a new interim minority government of Berlin of SPD and Greens, "tolerated" by the PDS. Shortly after the vote of no confidence in Diepgen by 87 to 76 with 4 abstensions, it became known that in the direct election on 23rd September for Mayor, the PDS candidate will be Gregor Gysi, the extremely able former PDS leader. It is good to hear serious arguments from within other countries from Hinrich and Johannes. Hinrich ...

Document Size:	12704
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Jun 16 09:53:52 PDT 2001

284 Berlin, London, Paris all controlled by the Left - first time? -- rank: 1000

At 12/06/01 17:09 -0400, Nathan wrote: >With the fall of the "grand coalition" governing Berlin, the recent election >in Paris, and Ken Livingstone's win in London, there is a remarkable new >landscape of capital city politics in Europe, including the fact that two of >the new mayors (Berlin and Paris) are gay as well. And Livingstone is a New Man too. The pluralistic inclusive perspectives are indeed almost essential now for European cities. They go hand in hand with urban ...

Document Size:	6907
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Jun 12 22:48:09 PDT 2001

285 Berlin Grand Coalition falls -- rank: 1000

Apart from a few abstensions, the special conference of the Berlin SPD has just decided to oppose Diepgen, the CDU mayor of Berlin for the last 11 years, in a no-confidence vote on Thursday. This will mark the end of the Grand Coalition between the two parties, that supervised the unification of the city, to the exclusion of the former communists from East Berlin, the PDS. Helped perhaps by the recent public apology from the PDS to the SPD for the coercive way the SED was created in the past, th ...

Document Size:	5656
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jun 10 08:49:50 PDT 2001