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19441 [lbo-talk] radio files - and a call for tech help -- rank: 1000

New programs are finally there, though I haven't announced them yet (later today): <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html>. For some reason, the podcasting script <http://shout.lbo-talk.org/lbo/RadioArchive/2005/dircaster.php> has stopped being able to read the MP3 tags properly. Instead of reading the guests' names out of the comments field like it used to, it spews hex: "00000000 00000210 00000A70 00000000088DC800 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 00000000 ...

Document Size:	6823
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 29 07:13:19 PST 2005

19442 [lbo-talk] Fitch on unions & health insurance -- rank: 1000

Michael Perelman wrote: >Doug, would you be able to ask him to tell me more about this. I once >took a long walk with him in Berkeley, but we never remained in >contact. I was very impressed with the Fitch/Openheimer articles. Bob has a whole book on unions coming out next month, and I'll have him on the radio to talk about it. Doug

Document Size:	4998
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 28 14:53:40 PST 2005

19443 [lbo-talk] The Housing Market's Last Gasp -- rank: 1000

Merrill Lynch estiamtes that a flat housing market would knock about 1% off GDP growth. Other estimates are a bit bigger, maybe 2%. Since we're now around 3.5%, that's still above 0%. It would probably take a bigger hit out of consumption than other elements of GDP. People who've bought r.e. for spec purposes could take a bath even on a flat market. For people who bought overpriced houses just to live in, well at least they'll still have the house. Of course it could be worse - it could cause an ...

Document Size:	6449
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 28 11:17:07 PST 2005

19444 [lbo-talk] Saddam had WMDs after all! -- rank: 1000

Wall Street Journal - December 28, 2005 THE FIGHT FOR IRAQ Some Conservatives Return To Old Argument Outside Advocacy Group Aims To Rally Support by Backing Bush's Initial Claims on Iraq By YOCHI J. DREAZEN and JOHN D. MCKINNON Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WASHINGTON - The television commercials are attention-grabbing: Newly found Iraqi documents show that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, including anthrax and mustard gas, and had "extensive ties" to ...

Document Size:	13269
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 28 08:14:56 PST 2005

19445 [lbo-talk] Fitch on unions & health insurance -- rank: 1000

jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com wrote: > > If the government paid everyone's health insurance bills, >> as those in Canada and most of Europe do, Detroit's Big Three >> could save at least $1,300 per vehicle. Profitability would return. > >Where do people come up with this stuff? Where does this guy think >the money would come from for "the government" to pay it? Are they >just going to print it? Are they just going to get it from a >different industry ...

Document Size:	5605
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 28 08:10:03 PST 2005

19446 [lbo-talk] Re: Chip Berlet on Hustler -- rank: 1000

Michael Pugliese wrote: >On 12/22/05, joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote: >> Actually, I was thinking of spending my retirement in Cuba, assuming it >> remains a socialist country. > >http://www.therealcuba.com/Page7.htm >http://www.therealcuba.com/two_cubas.htm >http://www.therealcuba.com/page4.htm >http://www.therealcuba.com/HurricaneCastro.htm >http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/2005/12/361336.php A choice bit from link #4: "Hurricane Castro h ...

Document Size:	5630
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 28 07:58:16 PST 2005

19447 [lbo-talk] The Housing Market's Last Gasp -- rank: 1000

Steven L. Robinson wrote: >The Housing Market's Last Gasp It could just go flat, like the UK and Australia. Doug

Document Size:	4689
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 28 07:56:59 PST 2005

19448 [lbo-talk] Paradise Now and Munich -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >The most boring freshman theme in the late '50s at Michigan (I got at >least two or three of them a week) were themes bewailing "herd >mentality" and praising individual judgment. It'd be fun if you wrote one of these praising the herd mentality and bewailing individual judgment. Then we could all vote on what grade to give you. Doug

Document Size:	4898
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 28 07:56:15 PST 2005

19449 [lbo-talk] NYT does Graeber -- rank: 1000

[Graeber's anthro colleague has a point - almost no one ever gets tenure at Yale. Still, since they've given him a year's sabbatical, he must have something on them.] New York Times - December 28, 2005 When Scholarship and Politics Collided at Yale By KAREN W. ARENSON David Graeber pulled a green object shaped like a Champagne cork out of his pocket. "Do you know what this is?" he asked recently. "It's a plastic bullet." The bullet, he said, was fired by the police in Quebec ...

Document Size:	13684
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 28 07:45:09 PST 2005

19450 [lbo-talk] Fitch on unions & health insurance -- rank: 1000

New York Times - December 28, 2005 Big Labor's Big Secret By ROBERT FITCH AS most Americans are aware, our auto industry is in a crisis. Workers' wages are falling, and hundreds of thousands of jobs are being sent offshore. America's largest parts supplier, Delphi, filed for bankruptcy protection, and General Motors, Delphi's main customer, may too, if a threatened United Auto Workers strike occurs next month. Meanwhile, Ford and its main parts supplier, Visteon, seem to be skidding down the sam ...

Document Size:	9811
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 28 07:42:46 PST 2005

19451 [lbo-talk] Paradise Now and Munich -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >> > >> > protagonists take responsibility for their own decisions and >> > choices instead of relying on canned scripts embedded in popular >> > culture. > >Wojtek's rock-hard allegiance to an individualist metaphysic shows up in >his choice of language here. Let me give a rough translation: > >. . .protagonists reject their birthright as Palestinians, reject all >solidarity with their own peo ...

Document Size:	6114
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 27 12:20:36 PST 2005

19452 [lbo-talk] Krugman's Latest -- rank: 1000

Sure, but the overall thrust of the Greenspan years has not been tightness. He's presided over 2 1/2 speculative bubbles of historic proportions (the end of the 80s leveraging mania is the half; the full manias are the 90s stock bubble and the 00s housing bubble). And employment was growing quite rapidly in 93-94 - about twice the current rate (the equivalent of about 336,000 a month today, in contrast with the recent average of 168,000). Doug Max B. Sawicky wrote: >There was a mini-uproar i ...

Document Size:	5982
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 27 09:43:28 PST 2005

19453 [lbo-talk] Two Simplified Pictures of Putin's Russia, Both Wrong -- rank: 1000

Chris Doss wrote: >Speaking of Russian newspapers, I found out today that >Argumenty i Fakty had an online press conference with >Gorbachev yesterday: http://www.aif.ru/conf/conf?id=99 >. I wish I'd known about it -- I would have sent an >email. He talks about the breakup of the USSR, Iraq, >how great Putin is, and Bono, and gets really slagged >off by an Armenian guy. I may translate some of it and >post it if anybody wants. Bono? What'd he say about that pest? Doug

Document Size:	5419
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 27 09:32:39 PST 2005

19454 [lbo-talk] Krugman's Latest -- rank: 1000

W. Kiernan wrote: >Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >> >> You seem to imply that the ruling class seeks to harm >> working class *in addition* to profit seeking. How >> can you separate the two? > >Because the investing class is so often willing to take a sizable >monetary loss in order to diminish the leverage of the working >class. What else would you call it when the Fed hoists rates in >order to discourage industrial credit and cool off the economy, just ...

Document Size:	6045
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Dec 26 21:23:13 PST 2005

19455 [lbo-talk] American Democracy Delineated -- rank: 1000

Chris Doss wrote: >--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote: > > >> >> So if that were true, why is one a socialist? >> >> Doug > >To score with hot WWP chicks! The ISO folks, male and female, are much hotter! Doug

Document Size:	4974
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Dec 26 09:18:26 PST 2005