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11371 [lbo-talk] more on how the markets love AKP -- rank: 1000

Financial Times - July 23, 2007 LEX Turkish elections The victory of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Sunday s parliamentary elections got a cheery welcome from Turkey s financial markets. With good reason. The AKP has presided over impressive economic gains in Turkey since 2002. The economy has grown about 7 per cent a year on average, and the budget deficit has been reduced from nearly 15 per cent of gross domestic product to just 0.7 per cent of GDP last year. Backed by an IMF ...

Document Size:	6625
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jul 24 08:41:46 PDT 2007

11372 [lbo-talk] Marx and Justice -- rank: 1000

On Jul 22, 2007, at 9:54 PM, Michael Perelman wrote: > Marx was trying to downplay the reformers who based their program on > morality. Marx was saying that the problem was not individual > employers unjustly ripping off their workers. The problem was the > rules of the system. In short, he was denying justice as a basis for > political organizing, calling for what he considered to be a > scientific > basis. Yeah that's the standard line, but do you really believe it? Sur ...

Document Size:	5258
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 19:13:33 PDT 2007

11373 [lbo-talk] Marx and Justice -- rank: 1000

On Jul 22, 2007, at 7:04 PM, James Heartfield wrote: > I can't help feeling that Rakesh gives too much ground to the idea > that > exploitation is unjust. I think Marx is very clear when he says > that labour > power is paid at the proper rate. I've long thought that Marx was being ironic about this - that labor power is paid at a "just" rate is just evidence of how preposterous the notion of capitalist justice is (liberty, equality, and Bentham). The notion that the ...

Document Size:	5164
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 18:22:30 PDT 2007

11374 [lbo-talk] HP -- rank: 1000

Ok, so what happened with Harry Potter? A friend reports that he was gang-raped by dwarves, but achieved some sort of philosophical uplift from the experience, but I'm guessing this is a fabrication? Did the little hellspawn die or what? Google is offering no help. My sister-in-law told me that Harvard Sq was closed off on Friday night for the HP release nonsense, and it was filled with people in costume. I also hear that hipster Brooklyn is overrun with people wearing capes & glasses ...

Document Size:	4911
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 13:12:18 PDT 2007

11375 [lbo-talk] Turkish stock market loves AKP -- rank: 1000

<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a4ylF134VG7o> Turkish Stocks Rally Before Elections: World's Biggest Mover By Seda Sezer July 19 (Bloomberg) -- Turkish stocks posted the biggest gain this year, lifting the country's main index to a record, on bets this weekend's elections will result in a single-party government that will maintain economic growth. Akbank TAS and Turkiye Is Bankasi AS, Turkey's two biggest publicly traded banks, paced the advance. The ISE Nat ...

Document Size:	6221
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 13:09:06 PDT 2007

11376 [lbo-talk] TURKEY: AKP's Landslide Victory (and Growth of the Secular Far Right) -- rank: 1000

On Jul 22, 2007, at 1:46 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: > Newspaper Radikal's "Orijinal Demokrasi" Ad, Unexpurgated: > <http://youtube.com/watch?v=x9A9WJNGY-Q> > Transcript of "Orijinal Demokrasi": > <http://www.damacana.org/2007/07/radikal-gazetesi-orjinal- > demokrasi.html> > > <http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/news/415002.asp> > NTVMSNBC.com > Turkey's ruling party heading to landslide victory > > If the AKP maintains it 50 percent sh ...

Document Size:	6562
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 13:00:25 PDT 2007

11377 [lbo-talk] Moore's Sicko Analysis -- rank: 1000

On Jul 22, 2007, at 3:00 PM, Robert Wrubel wrote: > Maybe I'm wrong about this, but I thought the WTO was > the venue, or enforcing agency, for things like > intellectual property rights laws, and laws which > pre-empt local and national labor and environmental > regulations as "restraints of trade." Those arent > dead issues. They're not, but the WTO hasn't really done all that much in these areas. Doug

Document Size:	4999
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 12:54:14 PDT 2007

11378 [lbo-talk] advances in conspicuous consumption -- rank: 1000

[and only $78 million!] <http://www.ussubs.com/submarines/phoenix_1000.php3> Phoenix 1000 The Phoenix 1000 is a 65-meter (213') personal luxury submarine. The initial design was originally executed for a client and now awaits a buyer. As proposed, the submarine would constitute the single largest private undersea vehicle ever built, and arguably, one of the most significant personal transportation devices of the century. A Luxurious Undersea Vehicle This design, which we have named the ...

Document Size:	7276
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 11:30:26 PDT 2007

11379 [lbo-talk] Moore's Sicko Analysis -- rank: 1000

On Jul 22, 2007, at 1:40 PM, Chuck wrote: > Quite a few analysts give credit to the movement for torpedoing the > WTO. It may have emboldened a couple of delegations at the Seattle talks, leading to their breakdown. But that was almost 8 years ago. They began another round of trade talks in Doha in late 2001, and those have stalled because of a complex set of disagreements among the members. See the NYT piece below. Unless this is a conspiracy of the pig media to deny the power of pup ...

Document Size:	13380
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 10:54:31 PDT 2007

11380 [lbo-talk] Moore's Sicko Analysis -- rank: 1000

On Jul 21, 2007, at 9:45 PM, Chuck wrote: > I think most analysts agree that the movement seriously torpedoed > the WTO. Well, the WTO - or, more specifically the Doha round - has gone nowhere, and the movement barely exists anymore. Has its effect lingered for six or seven years, or was it really that the tensions among the negotiating parties were too intense? Speaking of which, it's interesting that much of the problem with the Doha round is intra-South tension. Mexico and Africa do ...

Document Size:	5244
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 07:32:28 PDT 2007

11381 [lbo-talk] Cultural Revolution Revisited -- rank: 1000

On Jul 22, 2007, at 9:08 AM, Russell Grinker wrote: > Laurens van der Post Any relation to the FT's preposterous columnist Lucia van der Post? Doug

Document Size:	4716
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 07:29:03 PDT 2007

11382 [lbo-talk] speculation -- rank: 1000

By the way, a lot of these analyses of "speculation" make it sound like an easy way to earn money. It's not as hard as digging ditches, but it's really not like falling off a log either. Most people who trade securities don't do all that well, and many are wiped out. The real way to make money is to be the house - a manager of a reasonably successful fund, who earns fees from the money under management, or a banker who makes fees for underwriting offerings. Doug

Document Size:	4972
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Jul 22 07:23:02 PDT 2007

11383 [lbo-talk] 14,000 reasons to be skeptical -- rank: 1000

On Jul 21, 2007, at 5:46 PM, Michael Perelman wrote: > I wonder how much > hedge fund, private equity money originates in the US. Quite a bit, but a lot of it is captured by the Caribbean islands in the official stats.

Document Size:	4857
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Jul 21 15:08:08 PDT 2007

11384 [lbo-talk] 14,000 reasons to be skeptical -- rank: 1000

On Jul 21, 2007, at 4:39 PM, michael perelman wrote: > I have some questions regarding Doug's answer --- not criticisms, but > questions that puzzle me. > > Doug Henwood wrote: >> * The pressure not to invest but to ship surplus cash out to >> stockholders isn't the spontaneous desire of corporate managers - >> it's been shaped by the increased shareholder assertiveness of the >> last 25 years. If a firm invests too much for Wall Street's liking, >> its ...

Document Size:	6761
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Jul 21 14:20:59 PDT 2007

11385 [lbo-talk] 14,000 reasons to be skeptical -- rank: 1000

On Jul 21, 2007, at 11:57 AM, Rakesh Bhandari wrote: > Doug, this is how I would respond: > >> Profitability has been quite high in the U.S. for the last few years, >> but investment has been low. > > > But that's Grossman's point. Profits are still > made (and quite a lot through centralization of > capital as I have already emphasized), but > additional investment is pointless. As Rick Kuhn, > quoting Grossman, puts it: 'instead of > accumulating the s ...

Document Size:	7938
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Jul 21 12:49:31 PDT 2007