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27166 [lbo-talk] Markets and the tooth fairy - Orange juice futures -- rank: 1000

Jamessuro at aol.com wrote: >Roll shows that the NWS forecasts explain about 90% of the >variability in temperature. So the R2 is, I think, between 0.1-0.4, >since only 10% of the variability was going un-forecast. I love this. The NWS explains 90% of the variability, and this gets translated in the popular mind to "the futures market forecasts the weather better than the government." Hilarious. Doug

Document Size:	5254
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 12:44:46 PDT 2003

27167 [lbo-talk] Stomping Out the Reds -- rank: 1000

Brad DeLong wrote: >Why didn't you tell us about "Stomping Out the Reds"? But I did: <http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20030217&s=henwood>, posted here as <http://squawk.ca/lbo-talk/0302/0454.html>. Doug

Document Size:	4854
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 12:38:56 PDT 2003

27168 [lbo-talk] Wi-Fi as "Dog Turd" Capitalism -- rank: 1000

Shane Taylor wrote: >James Westrich wrote: >> SXQgaXMgd2lyZWxlc3MgY29tcHV0ZXIgbmV0d29ya2l >> uZyAod2lyZWxlc3MgbG9jYWwgYXJlYSBuZXR3b3Jrcy >> BvciAid2lyZWxlc3MgZmlkZWxpdHkiKS4gIA0KIA0KQ >> W5kIHdvdWxkbid0IGl0IGJlIGVhc2llciBhbmQgbW9yZ >> SBwb2xpdGUgKGFuZCBsZXNzIGJhbmR3aWR0aCkgd >> G8gYWN0dWFsbHkgcmVhZCB0aGUgYXJ0aWNsZT8N >> CiANCkppbQ0KIA0KImFuZCB5b3Uga25vdyB0aGF0IH >> Blb3BsZSBhcmUgcmVhbGx5IHJhdGhlciBhZnJhaWQ >> sIA0KYWZyYWlkIG9mIGJl ...

Document Size:	5515
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 12:28:28 PDT 2003

27169 Re;[lbo-talk] The real thing? -- rank: 1000

budge wrote: >Fed governor from Dallas (McTyre) Robert "Bob" McTeer, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. It seems like the most ideologically right-wing of all the regional banks, and McTeer's bio <http://www.dallasfed.org/htm/dallas/mcteer.html> says: >Bob is a strong advocate for free enterprise, and under his >leadership, the Dallas Fed has become known as the "free enterprise >Fed" and, more recently, the "New Economy Fed." Doug

Document Size:	5065
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 12:26:08 PDT 2003

27170 [lbo-talk] ask the president about his focus on golf -- rank: 1000

[These words of wisdom come from Richard Berke, the favorite to head the NY Times DC bureau now that Jill Abramson is becoming managing editor <http://www.utexas.edu/coc/journalism/SOURCE/j310/berke.html>] 3/29 Lecture: Richard Berke National Political Correspondent - NY Times Don't misrepresent yourself. Credibility for journalists is important. If readers don't believe you, if sources don't believe you, nobody will read what you have written. In all your work, try to fair and even handed ...

Document Size:	6030
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 12:10:45 PDT 2003

27171 [lbo-talk] hip right -- rank: 1000

[the item immediately following the Che report on Page Six] RIGHT WING'S HIP IMAGE HUEY Lewis may have been right when he sang that it was "Hip to Be Square." Gavin McInnes, the co-founder of Vice magazine, a hipster bible that caters to the too-cool-for-school Williamsburg set, has proclaimed it cool to be conservative. Writing in the new issue of Pat Buchanan and Taki Theodoracopulos' American Conservative, McInnes says its "become fashionable to link liberalism with weakness an ...

Document Size:	5651
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 11:53:47 PDT 2003

27172 [lbo-talk] Page Six does Che -- rank: 1000

New York Post [Page Six] - August 1, 2003 CHEERING CHE CHE Guevara, the Communist revolutionary gunned down in 1967, has long had a hold on the minds of leftie loonies and celebs who should know better. Liz Hurley was recently spotted in London wearing a shirt with Che's bearded face as she clutched a $3,000 Louis Vuitton bag - which the guerrilla leader would have abhorred as a symbol of capitalistic imperialism. And Johnny Depp, who dislikes America so much he lives in France, wears a Che meda ...

Document Size:	5176
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 11:52:48 PDT 2003

27173 [lbo-talk] Markets and the tooth fairy - Orange juice futures -- rank: 1000

Jamessuro at aol.com wrote: >Now, it's possible that this was purely a random correlation. But we >are talking about six years of data. And, as Roll points out, >weather is likely the single biggest variable affecting the value of >OJ futures. So it makes sense that futures traders would pay close >attention to, and perhaps have insight into, weather patterns. Is that remotely plausible? How the hell would they know any better than meterologists? Some direct line to a wise old far ...

Document Size:	5502
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 11:46:55 PDT 2003

27174 [lbo-talk] backlash? -- rank: 1000

Jon Johanning wrote: >I'm not an expert in the science (?) of polling, but I think I've >seen several stories recently noting that pollers are getting >increasingly frustrated trying to find valid samples, given that >they get a lot of answering machines when they try to call folks, or >when they do reach them, folks refuse to participate, etc. Yup, the refusal rate is up, people are switching from land lines to cell phones (which aren't as easily accessible), caller ID means peop ...

Document Size:	5114
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 11:42:40 PDT 2003

27175 Re;[lbo-talk] The real thing? -- rank: 1000

Dwayne Monroe wrote: >This is the sort of thing that puzzles me. How could >anyone believe that a one time infusion of a needed >but still modest amount of cash (relative to people's >debts, etc) and increased spending on items like >cruise missiles would "...jump start" the economy? >Will 1 million people be employed building F-22 >raptors? Are these "analysts" really so lacking in >common sense? Capitalist economies have been known to grow, so it's ...

Document Size:	5539
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 11:03:31 PDT 2003

27176 [lbo-talk] That shallow American religious piety -- rank: 1000

Chuck0 wrote: >My roommate also reports that the teens she talked to were very open >to new ideas and weren't hostile to somebody who talked to them >about activism. I suppose we could take the optimistic view and say that a lot of them are drawn to Xtianity by a dislike of the brutal and alienated world they live in - the heart of a heartless world and all that. But the only nonmarket way of thinking that's in broad circulation is the Jesus racket. Doug

Document Size:	5126
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 09:16:04 PDT 2003

27177 [lbo-talk] The real thing? -- rank: 1000

C. G. Estabrook wrote: >[Doug, here's another take on the suggestion that the U.S. economy may be >looking better over the last couple of weeks. --CGE] It wasn't a good report, that's for sure. The average workweek was down to the lowest level since numbers began in 1964, and the employment/pop ratio down to 1994 levels. Temp employment was up, usually a harbinger of future permanent job growth, but that's about the only good news. Job losses for June were revised upwards, and manufacturin ...

Document Size:	5584
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Aug 1 09:13:24 PDT 2003

27178 [lbo-talk] Geraldo defends himself -- rank: 1000

The odious Rivera writes <http://www.roughpoint.tv/v1/iraq2.php>: >"THE COMMENTS OF SOME WERE SO RECKLESS AND BADLY REPORTED THE ONLY >CONCLUSION CAN BE THAT MSNBC, FOR EXAMPLE, MALICIOUSLY CONDUCTED A >'GET-GERALDO' CAMPAIGN. USING A NEO-NAZI EX-CONGRESSMAN AND A PSYCHO >EX-SPORTSCASTER AS THEIR HATCHET MEN THEY LOBBED ACCUSATIONS AND >INNUENDO AIMED AT USING MY SAND DRAWING TO DESTROY A 33 YEAR CAREER >FAR MORE DISTINGUISHED THAN ANYTHING TO WHICH EITHER OF THAT HA ...

Document Size:	5467
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Apr 30 18:32:07 PDT 2003

27179 [lbo-talk] poll on civil liberties in US -- rank: 1000

[there are some misspellings ("Gallop") and odd word choices ("vagaries") that make one wonder, but...] Press Release From: Retro Poll www.retropoll.org Retro Poll's Findings on American views on the War on Terrorism and the abridgment of Civil Liberties in the U.S. >From the Retro Poll Committee: www.retropoll.org (1600 words). >From April 5-20 more than 30 volunteers, mainly college students in the San Francisco area, polled a random sample of the U.S. population ...

Document Size:	15151
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Apr 30 15:33:26 PDT 2003

27180 [lbo-talk] Anti-All This Goddamn Cuba Stuff -- rank: 1000

mike larkin wrote: >We, the undersigned, nearly at our wit's end over all >this discussion of Cuba, do hereby propose that there >be no more posting on this issue, as every leftist in >America has now weighed in on this matter at least 50 >times, to no discernible effect, and to the point >where I'm going to fly to Cuba and demand that Castro >shoot ME. Seconded. This one's played, comrades. Doug

Document Size:	5072
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Apr 30 14:30:21 PDT 2003