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36046 inflation -- rank: 1000

Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 21:42:20 -0500 (EST) From: bhandari at mmp.Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari) Subject: Re: Japan syndrome Doug asks > >So why does the bourgeoisie hate inflation so much, and why have they >embraced deflationary policies since Paul Adolph Volcker's ascendancy >in 1979? Because inflation got out of control by the 1970s. It went from prop to key destabilizing factor as it galloped ahead to the complete incompehension of bourgeois economists as unemployment was then h ...

Document Size:	4963
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Feb 10 08:31:52 PST 2000

36047 Zizek on Haider -- rank: 1000

Apsken at aol.com wrote: > Zizek's comments on the plebeian extreme right are as sniveling and >evasive as anything I've seen yet, when they are not simply banal. Suppose he >is correct. What does he propose that the radical left should do? Support >Haider? Ignore Haider? I don't know where you get that from. > Oppose Haider? And what is Zizek's attitude toward the >actual policies and actions of the radical left against Haider? It is >precisely this kind of windy sophi ...

Document Size:	8043
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Feb 10 08:19:55 PST 2000

36048 China: State-owned firms left behind as dependence on US grows -- rank: 1000

Stephen E Philion wrote: >The imports and exports of foreign-invested joint ventures in the mainland >exceeded those of state companies last year for the first time, while the >country's dependence on the United States as an export market increased. Is this what they call "socialism with Chinese characteristics"? Doug

Document Size:	5085
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 18:31:55 PST 2000

36049 bouncing Japan -- rank: 1000

Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 21:09:24 -0500 (EST) From: bhandari at mmp.Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari) Subject: Re: Japan's growing debt could wreck the world economy OK Christian, Japan has lotsa more room to a mongo stimulus package--if you say so. Yet why one might ask why have past fiscal stimuli petered out so damn quickly? Even if the fiscal stimulus is only 1/3rd of what is claimed, why no lasting effect even commensurate with that? Perhaps the non effect stands in the way of an even bigger f ...

Document Size:	6543
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 18:21:38 PST 2000

36050 Remembering the Scottsboro Case (was Re: Breaking Butterflies & Poisoning Wells) -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >Charles: > > >>>> Chuck0 <chuck at tao.ca> 02/08/00 11:37PM >> > >My theory is that they dropped their involvement during the quiet years > >when Mumia's appeals wound their way through the Pennsylvania court > >system. Other progressive groups dropped their involvement too, because > >the situation wasn't dire for Mumia. It was during this period that the > >sectarian Left groups moved in. > > & ...

Document Size:	6597
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 18:14:02 PST 2000

36051 Japan syndrome -- rank: 1000

Roger Odisio wrote: >What Mattick wrote: > >"Inflation is a weapon in the Keynesian arsenal. Through the more rapid >increase in prices relative to wages, the profit necessary for expansion >grows, while the accelerated creation of money reduces the interest on the >debt, which makes investment easier. The surplus value gained in this way, >equal to the reduction in the value of labor power transferred from money >to productive capital, permits a corresponding increa ...

Document Size:	5978
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 18:18:51 PST 2000

36052 Japan syndrome -- rank: 1000

Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 20:32:09 -0500 (EST) From: bhandari at mmp.Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari) Subject: Re: Japan syndrome Roger, You will have to clarify whether by v you mean value of labor power or variable capital. Inflation does increase surplus value by way of upward redistribution of value. It is not itself the additional production of value. Mattick speaks precisely here. Again I do not think variable capital and the value of labor power are the same thing. The former is necessarily ...

Document Size:	9957
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 18:17:02 PST 2000

36053 Death Penalty, the Labor Party, & Political Responsibility(wasRe: Break... -- rank: 1000

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >That if you want to pick up a political fight, you do not want a poster boy >who has skeletons in his closet and his main defence is a spin on legal >procedures. I've been critical of both Mumia & his supporters, but there's no doubt he got a crappy trial, and that the U.S. criminal justice system is racist and oppressive. That's a lot more significant than legal technicalities. >Most people understand "justice" as "crime does not pay" ...

Document Size:	5966
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 18:09:29 PST 2000

36054 Fwd: TO THE GREENS #2 -- rank: 1000

[All I can say is...yeah!] Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 14:14:04 -0500 From: joel kovel <jkovel at prodigy.net> TO THE GREENS #2 By Joel Kovel BEYOND POPULISM Today, one of the most influential models on the left is that of Populism. As the word suggests, Populism stems from the "people," which is to say, the common citizenry, without respect to structural dividing lines like class, gender and ethnicity, who come together to address a mutually perceived social evil, most commonly, conc ...

Document Size:	14816
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 18:03:42 PST 2000

36055 Japan syndrome -- rank: 1000

[follow the bouncing Rakesh] >Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 17:08:26 -0500 (EST) >From: bhandari at mmp.Princeton.EDU (Rakesh Bhandari) >Subject: RE: Japan syndrome > >Max, thank you for the reply. > > > >This is way too simple and is contradicted, though not > >refuted, by simple responses. First, if the real wage reduction > >is associated with an employment increase, there is a > >gain to the working class that offsets the loss to > >some exten ...

Document Size:	7369
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 17:55:50 PST 2000

36056 Japan's growing debt could wreck the world economy -- rank: 1000

Carl Remick wrote: >This reminds me, what do the economists hereabouts think of Larry >Summers' argument in favor of budgetary austerity -- i.e., that it >is "reloading the fiscal cannon," as I believe he put it. Yeah, right. On the phone the other day, Max Sawicky quoted Ron Dellums saying something like in the 60s they told us we couldn't spend because of the war, in the 70s it was inflation, in the 80s it was the deficit.... And now we can't spend because of the surplus! Th ...

Document Size:	5325
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 17:51:35 PST 2000

36057 quote from Marx? -- rank: 1000

Dace wrote: >There's a very good definition of evil, put forth by a political scientist >named C. Fred Alford, that starts with this principle. What makes people >evil is that, in order to contain their anguish, they're willing to expell >it onto others. Evil is powered by dread, and what distinguishes it from >mental illness (where the two categories don't overlap) is the absence of >empathy. Of course, we blinkered bigots under the sway of the medieval doctrines of psychoan ...

Document Size:	5324
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 17:48:25 PST 2000

36058 Zizek on Haider -- rank: 1000

[Here, courtesy of the author, is the English original of an article that appeared in German in today's Suddeutsche Zeitung. The Nation rejected a version of this.] WHY DO WE ALL LOVE TO HATE HAIDER? Slavoj Zizek The prospect of Joerg Haider's Freidemokraten participation in the Austrian government aroused horror in the entire spectrum of the "legitimate democratic" political block in the Western world: from the Social Democratic Left to the Christian conservatives, from Chirac to Clin ...

Document Size:	11311
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 17:33:30 PST 2000

36059 the C -- rank: 1000

oudies at flash.net wrote: >Now I'm laughing reading Doug tell Wojtek he's scary b/c Doug you are >always on about what a piece of b.s. the C is. Any time anyone brings it >up, you blast 'em with the "Why is the C a sacred document?" argument that >makes it look like any appeal to the C is a blind allegiance to something >that is, at root, fraudulent. The Constitution is a text imbued with mystical power and authority by most Americans. My major beef with it, aside from ...

Document Size:	5340
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 17:25:07 PST 2000

36060 Japan syndrome -- rank: 1000

Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2000 13:34:24 -0500 (EST) From: Rakesh Bhandari <bhandari at phoenix.Princeton.EDU> This is from today's NYT editorial page. Krugman a bourgeois economist here recommends inflation targetting through money creation. By 1974 Mattick had already revealed such Keynesianism to be a form of "civilized" class warfare. Quoting here from Economic Crisis and Crisis Theory, p. 147-8 which was translated in 1981: "Inflation is a weapon in the Keynesian arsenal. Through ...

Document Size:	10642
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Feb 9 11:12:41 PST 2000