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10621 [lbo-talk] Junkyard dog hits Motown -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 12:23 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > On Wednesday 16 May 2007 07:42, Doug Henwood wrote: > >> Why have they been so unable to get their shit together? > >> From what I've seen of corporate executives, this is a little like >> asking why > the plague bacillus doesn't take better care of its host. > > People who are making their way on the inside of big established > companies > mostly have far more immediate and urgent worries than whether ...

Document Size:	5525
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 11:13:40 PDT 2007

10622 [lbo-talk] food prices rising -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 1:24 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote: > wtf? Isn't California the bread basket of the country or something? A lot of this has been attributed to pressure on grain prices because of demand for ethanol. Fidel was right on this one. Doug

Document Size:	4751
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 11:10:28 PDT 2007

10623 [lbo-talk] Junkyard dog hits Motown -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 12:12 PM, Charles Brown wrote: > Why should the top exec's care or exert themselves ? They are pretty > much financially set for life personally. They can coast, rather than > march. Because they could make a shitload more money if the stock were rising 10-20% a year! To your average capitalist, being "set for life" isn't enough. You've got to be set for the hereafter too. Doug

Document Size:	4962
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 09:50:33 PDT 2007

10624 [lbo-talk] life maxim -- rank: 1000

Just saw this in a friend's sig line: The less you eat, drink, buy books, go to the theater, go dancing, go drinking, think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save and the greater will become that treasure which neither moths nor maggots can consume your capital. The less you are, the less you give expression to your life, the more you have, the greater is your alienated life ... So all passions and all activity are submerged in greed Karl Marx, notebooks, 1844

Document Size:	4951
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 08:59:30 PDT 2007

10625 [lbo-talk] Junkyard dog hits Motown -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 11:38 AM, ravi wrote: > Look at what a horrible job even those with a > minimal and controlled platform like Apple do (poor keyboard > navigation support till 10.4, lack of support for data spread across > disks in apps like iPhoto, primitive to non-existent synchronisation > in applications like iCal, inconsistent, counter-intuitive and > crippled UI, application misbehaviour such as iTunes weirdness in its > new album cover UI, etc, etc). To each hir ow ...

Document Size:	5277
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 08:55:28 PDT 2007

10626 [lbo-talk] Junkyard dog hits Motown -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 10:37 AM, andie nachgeborenen wrote: > Fact of the matter is (and I guess I am > skirting dangerously close to certain waters where I > don't want to go), we need red business people, red > accountants, red MBAs, red engineers and red factory > and line managers. In some sense, yeah. I keep worrying that Chavez is going to crash and burn, in no small part because PdVSA is going to run into the ground. There's a real problem with distributing all the oil profi ...

Document Size:	5466
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 08:13:45 PDT 2007

10627 [lbo-talk] Junkyard dog hits Motown -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 10:01 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: > But if you want out of > the box thinking - why did not the union buy the share of the > damned thing? > It was sold cheaply. Yup, but I'm not sure if they could get the financing. Anyone with money to invest would assume that wages and benefits have to be slashed, and who'd trust a union to do that? A union might do that, but financiers don't know that. Doug

Document Size:	4987
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 08:08:40 PDT 2007

10628 [lbo-talk] Falwell: not loved -- rank: 1000

<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3178394&page=1> Measuring Falwell's Popularity Over His Lifetime For All the Attention Paid to Him, Falwell Was Never Very Popular, Polls Show Analysis By GARY LANGER Popularity with most Americans was not among the Rev. Jerry Falwell's achievements. Indeed, while some public figures describe intricate paths in their personal ratings -- arcs and twists following the course of events and their own actions -- Falwell's ratings, across his care ...

Document Size:	8084
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 08:03:50 PDT 2007

10629 [lbo-talk] vote for Ron Paul! -- rank: 1000

Ron Paul came in #2!!!! Solidly ahead of Rudy, too. <http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,272493,00.html> Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who ignited controversy at the debate with remarks that U.S. policy had invited the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, came in second with 25 percent. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who strongly admonished Paul for his comments, came in third place with 19 percent. Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is the frontrunner in South Carolina polls, came in sixt ...

Document Size:	5892
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 06:31:07 PDT 2007

10630 [lbo-talk] more Falwell gems -- rank: 1000

<http://chrisafer.com/2007_05_01_blog_archive.html#3485565525033340941> Grown men should not be having sex with prostitutes unless they are married to them. AIDS is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals. "I think [Desmond Tutu]'s a phony, period, as far as representing the black people of South Africa." The whole (global warming) thing is created to destroy America's free enterprise system and our economic ...

Document Size:	5155
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 06:13:37 PDT 2007

10631 [lbo-talk] Junkyard dog hits Motown -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 8:28 AM, Russell Grinker wrote: > Could it be because they failed to invest sufficiently to redesign and > retool and stay abreast of the hungrier foreign competition, > producing only > what someone once called "40 foot behemoths with kiddie-car breaks and > rubber- band suspension"? Isn't this sort of thing your area Doug? > Why did > they fail to innovate? Yeah, the first part of what you say is true, but why did they fail so badly? I don't ...

Document Size:	6071
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 06:01:39 PDT 2007

10632 [lbo-talk] Celebrating the Death of Jerry Falwell -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 6:46 AM, Joseph Catron wrote: > Jerry Laymon Falwell Sr., August 11, 1933 May 15, 2007: RIP. History > will judge you, as it will the rest of us. May God have mercy on us > all. <http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10806.html> I have to admit, writing about Falwell s death poses an awkward challenge for me. When I worked at Americans United for Separation of Church and State for several years, I read Falwell s materials, I listened to his speeche ...

Document Size:	11868
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 05:33:05 PDT 2007

10633 [lbo-talk] Celebrating the Death of Jerry Falwell -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 6:07 AM, Joseph Catron wrote: > The comments I've read from anti-Falwell types have been disgusting > and heartless. Celebrate the death of a man because you disagreed with > some of his opinions and political activism? How humane. The most > passionate anti-Falwell types hated him because he did not support > homosexual behavior and because he was anti-abortion. This alone makes > someone a hateful, worthless bigot according to the hard left. But > let's ...

Document Size:	6234
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 04:57:39 PDT 2007

10634 [lbo-talk] Junkyard dog hits Motown -- rank: 1000

On May 16, 2007, at 6:56 AM, Michael Smith wrote: > My point was, it isn't an isolated or exceptional case. I'm not > sure what the > reasons for it are. I suspect early domination of the field, more > even than > monopoly. The US auto industry has been subject to strong competition from abroad for more than 30 years, yet still they just kept falling behind. They got a break during the era of low gas prices, when people bought high-profit SUVs, but now that gas is $3, they're ...

Document Size:	5268
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 16 04:42:57 PDT 2007

10635 [lbo-talk] Junkyard dog hits Motown -- rank: 1000

On May 15, 2007, at 9:45 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > On Tuesday 15 May 2007 18:08, Doug Henwood wrote: > >> Well yeah, but why can't they? Why are the Big Three so bad at >> designing cars? I don't get it. > > Why is Microsoft so bad at writing software? Because they're a monopoly? I don't get your point. Because they're big? Toyota makes great cars. Because they're American? Other Americans write great software. So what are you saying? Doug

Document Size:	5043
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue May 15 19:58:19 PDT 2007