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17041 [lbo-talk] Ace on fuel economy -- rank: 1000

Doug Henwood wrote: >it's gotta be a conspiracy! And I meant to say a conspiracy that has entirely taken in Wall Street. That's one helluva successful conspiracy. Doug

Document Size:	4636
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 16 08:17:59 PDT 2005

17042 [lbo-talk] Ace on fuel economy -- rank: 1000

Michael Pollak wrote: >While at the same time he categorically rejects the idea of global >warming with a firmness that makes Bush look like a waverer. He >seems to be going out of his to embrace every extreme minority >scientific view, to put it kindly. Is he just being impish? That's part of it - he loves to tweak Nation readers, and no better way to do that than endorse a Bushite view on climate change - but I suspect a couple of other things. One is that he just loves big old ca ...

Document Size:	5896
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 16 08:15:42 PDT 2005

17043 [lbo-talk] Refco's house of cards... -- rank: 1000

Paul wrote: >Don't you think this vast explosion owes itself - in very large part >- to the opportunities to avoid profit-reducing regulation and >taxation? Sure there IS an element of "legitimate" hedging against >true business risk (outside the vast hedging required to make the >accounts look right for the regulators, shift categories of profit >for tax reduction, etc) but has this "need" suddenly exploded in the >last 30 years? Certainly there'd be no ...

Document Size:	6969
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Oct 16 08:02:42 PDT 2005

17044 [lbo-talk] The over-leveraged consumer -- rank: 1000

Willy Greenfields wrote: >the 'over-leveraged >consumer,' And how about those lines in front of the bankruptcy courts, racing to beat the new code taking effect on Monday? The bread line for the 2000s? Doug

Document Size:	4766
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 10:01:47 PDT 2005

17045 [lbo-talk] The over-leveraged consumer -- rank: 1000

Willy Greenfields wrote: >There's plenty of talk - even here, on a nominally >econ-centric dsicussion list! - about various discrete >bubbles and overextensions: "innovative" financial >products helping form a real estate bubble, runaway >consumer/credit card debt, stratospheric energy costs. >But how independent of one another are they? A recent >Goldman Sachs research brief cited the 'over-leveraged >consumer,' a character I find appearing with greater >reg ...

Document Size:	5767
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 09:54:47 PDT 2005

17046 [lbo-talk] new radio product -- rank: 1000

JC Helary wrote: >For some weird reason I was never able to download them from the >site. The podcast allows me to get them on my ipod and listen to >them while commuting. Really? How strange. What software? >>Is 5 not enough? That's what Jordan set the value at when he wrote >>the script. It's easily changed. Any advice from the audience? > >Are podcasts saved separately on the server ? If not put one year of >them available. Or all the still relevant ones. The fil ...

Document Size:	5133
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 09:48:57 PDT 2005

17047 [lbo-talk] One optimist's view of the economy -- rank: 1000

Mark S wrote: >I've seen two different economists assert that poor people are >basically superfluous to the present real growth of the U.S. economy. It's not just poor people - income in the middle three quintiles is virtually stagnant too. It's mostly the top 10%, not unlike the 1980s. I know it's hard to generalize when n=2, but there seems to be a pattern in Republican economies. Doug

Document Size:	5023
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 09:47:42 PDT 2005

17048 [lbo-talk] Tithing to the Rich -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >Rick Wolff reminds us, as the bankruptcy reform is about to take >effect (on Monday): > >"For the first quarter of 2005, the Fed announced that the nation's >debt service ratio (debt payments as a percentage of after-tax >income) was 13.4%, the highest since the Fed began recording this >statistic in 1980." ><http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/wolff151005.html> > >We are more than tithing to the rich. :-0 Hey it's up to 13.6% & ...

Document Size:	5355
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 08:52:04 PDT 2005

17049 [lbo-talk] Report from KPFA CAB meeting -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >Doug's critique is weak because he chose the wrong metaphor. "Mush" >won't hold up. The cliche he wants is "blank check," i.e. a term which >is empty until used in a specfic or specifiable context with defined >application. I'll accept this. Floating signifier, too, if you want a fancier "cliche." It's applied promiscuously to when there are real social ties to the named entity, as well as when they're aren't. > All the complaints ...

Document Size:	6015
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 08:47:16 PDT 2005

17050 [lbo-talk] Refco's house of cards... -- rank: 1000

Paul wrote: >Refco is a "trading firm" that deals with futures, derivatives and >commodities - mostly areas that were allowed to emerge since the >rise of neo-liberalism, with the precise intent of bypassing >regulations and limiting taxation. That's an exaggeration. Commodities have been around forever, so I'm guessing you mean commodity futures. And futures are a kind of derivative, so you're talking about derivatives in general. Certainly derivatives have exploded in rec ...

Document Size:	5493
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 08:40:15 PDT 2005

17051 [lbo-talk] One optimist's view of the economy -- rank: 1000

I should have added that if that's the best the optimists can do, they're pretty weak.

Document Size:	4683
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 08:23:58 PDT 2005

17052 [lbo-talk] One optimist's view of the economy -- rank: 1000

Marvin Gandall quoted Jim Paulsen: >We've got >3.5%-4% real GDP [gross domestic product] growth, and 15%-20% profit growth, >almost 2% job growth, 9% to 10% retail sales growth. Not really. GDP growth in this expansion has averaged 3.3%, the slowest of the 10 post-WW2 expansions, and just 2/3 of the 1945-1990 expansion average (and 72% if you include the 1990s expansion). Employment growth has averaged just 0.6% a year, compared with an average of 3.3%. Even the latest year-to-year read ...

Document Size:	6033
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 08:23:36 PDT 2005

17053 [lbo-talk] happy b'day -- rank: 1000

Today would have been Michel Foucault's 77th. Celebrate by musing on power, or participating in a fisting, or both! Doug

Document Size:	4543
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 07:56:50 PDT 2005

17054 [lbo-talk] new radio product -- rank: 1000

JC Helary wrote: >Do you plan to make podcasts of the previous interviews ? They're all now available as MP3's on the archive page <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html>, but the podcasting script <http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive/2005/dircaster.php> just lists the 5 latest shows. You could always download an older MP3 and copy it to a player. Is 5 not enough? That's what Jordan set the value at when he wrote the script. It's easily changed. Any advice from the ...

Document Size:	5105
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 15 07:54:40 PDT 2005

17055 [lbo-talk] Report from KPFA CAB meeting -- rank: 1000

Dick Grippon wrote: >sheeeeeeeeeeeeit. I was involved in two community research programs. >teams of researchers crawling all over said community. on one, the >director of the research program was a high-minded intellectual >type. we spent two years asking, "what is a community?" and once you >answer that question, "how, exactly, do you study it in good >faith?". there's no clear cut answer, but one thing: simply pointing >out disagreements within a so-cal ...

Document Size:	5774
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 14 21:30:39 PDT 2005