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40606 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Louis Proyect wrote: >Don't be so defensive, Doug. Defensive? Me? What are you talking about?!?! >I think what snitgrl (?) Kelley Crouse, in disguise. >and I are perturbed >by is this obdurate agnosticism on your part. Frankly, I can't remember a >single issue of LBO where you went "apocalyptic" and I am a charter >subscriber. One of the reasons I'm so cautious today is that I was burned by being too apocalyptic after the 1987 stock market crash. I also used to think ...

Document Size:	8610
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 17 11:15:08 PDT 1998

40607 more right-wing radio -- rank: 1000

pms wrote: >hi- > >this morning I turned on Neil Boortz (Atlanta's Rush), and he was ranting >about Larry Summers. He said Summers was the kind of left-wing appointees >Clinton has given us. > >I was confused. Then he started talking about how Summers had thrown out >this idea on CNN(I think) of how we might tax imcome above, say $200,000/yr >at a rate of 100% and some woman said she hoped she didn't need a >cardiologist in Sept. cause he would have quit working in ...

Document Size:	5843
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 17 10:45:55 PDT 1998

40608 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

K wrote: >Doug, doug, doug. Tsk Tsk. Marx also wrote, in a >letter to Arnold Ruge I believe (memory fails), >that the goal of critical theory was, to >paraphrase, work with existing social struggles in >order to get people to move beyond their bourg >views to more radical forms of consciousness. >Critique with the goal of actual social change was >the goal. Is this not what motivated so much of >his critique of utopian socialism--a social >movement he saw as a bo ...

Document Size:	5281
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 17 09:56:01 PDT 1998

40609 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Louis Proyect wrote: >Doug, I think this paragraph pretty much epitomizes our differences on >these questions. You tend to view what's going on in Asia as capitalism >functioning "normally" as if a depression is some kind of bowel movement >that the economic body needs to exercise in order to keep in tune. This is >exactly the way that the Economist or Forbes would look at it. Actually the bourgeois view is that recessions and depressions are caused by exogenous factors. ...

Document Size:	6695
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 17 06:51:51 PDT 1998

40610 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Patrick Bond wrote: >On the interest rate cut, Doug, I'll share with you that airplane chat >comment from Stiglitz, the day after Greenspan's (9/29) first 1/4% cut >(paraphrased): "That won't make any difference at all to profit >rates or investor expectations anywhere -- it's just to show that >someone has a hand on the tiller during the storm." Which is not unimportant. Of course a 1/4 point in itself will do little. "Investors" are little children who can d ...

Document Size:	5447
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sat Oct 17 06:38:17 PDT 1998

40611 Media Mash #20 -- rank: 1000

[This is from Don Hazen's Media Mash, published by the Institute for Alternative Journalism. Michael Moore & Working Assets want us to vote Democrat. Moore's position is particularly bizarre, but it must come from the same place as his love letter to Hillary Clinton in Downsize This. Note the sharp contrast in the coverage of Working Assets between this & Jeff St Clair's piece in LBO #85. - Doug] >MEDIACULTURE REVIEW ONLINE, Issue #, October 16, 1998 >http://www.mediademocracy.org/ ...

Document Size:	15697
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 16 17:46:28 PDT 1998

40612 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Mark Jones wrote: >Greider is about as Armageddonish as an upside down turtle. Same kind of >posturing anyway. The man lives in Brad deLong's mental universe, if you >hadn't >noticed, just inhabits a different wing. As for me, I'm sticking to my guns. >This crisis has barely begun. And it won't stop until it produces large >changes >in global GEOPOLITICAL arrangements. Could be, Mark. But why are you so certain? Doug

Document Size:	4954
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 16 17:33:17 PDT 1998

40613 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Dennis R Redmond wrote: >On Fri, 16 Oct 1998, Jorn Andersen wrote: > >> I have read that extra government spending in Japan within the last year or >> so has been as much as 40 pct. of GNP. I mean: They can do so once and >> maybe two or three times, but they can't continue to do so, can they? >> And up to now it seems this public spending has only had a limited effect. > >Oh, they have the money alright. After checking with various OECD and >press reports, ...

Document Size:	6094
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 16 17:32:02 PDT 1998

40614 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Louis Proyect wrote: >I have no idea what "financial stabilizing" is supposed to mean with >respect to excess capacity in South Korea, Thailand and Japan. It means that currency, stock, and credit markets are ceasing to behave like the end of the world is near, and owners of financial capital are no longer racing for the security of U.S. Treasury paper. The scramble for cash (or cash-equivalents like government paper) is an essential aspect of any economic/financial crisis, and t ...

Document Size:	8068
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 16 16:50:40 PDT 1998

40615 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Louis Proyect wrote: >You have to look at things globally, as anybody trained in Marxism should. I am looking at things globally. The Japanese bank bailout is an important part of the picture, as are the almost-certain rate cuts from European central banks. And though I don't think Asia is about to boom, there's a financial stabilizing that could be a prelude to one in the real sector. Of course there's plenty that could go wrong (or right, if you're rooting for collapse) - Russia or Brazil o ...

Document Size:	5192
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 16 10:07:27 PDT 1998

40616 unobserved skill -- rank: 1000

Doug Henwood wrote: >Andrew Kliman wrote: > >>(3) EVEN WITHOUT the "unobserved skill" dodge, the work that >>tries to attribute wage differentials to HC or skill >>differences -- in other words, HC empirical work as a whole -- is >>COMPLETELY BOGUS, PURE CRAP. The basic reason is that it is >>impossible to divide wage differentials into a portion due to >>skill differentials, a portion due to discrimination, etc. >> >>For instance ...

Document Size:	5793
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 16 09:50:16 PDT 1998

40617 unobserved skill -- rank: 1000

Andrew Kliman wrote: >(3) EVEN WITHOUT the "unobserved skill" dodge, the work that >tries to attribute wage differentials to HC or skill >differences -- in other words, HC empirical work as a whole -- is >COMPLETELY BOGUS, PURE CRAP. The basic reason is that it is >impossible to divide wage differentials into a portion due to >skill differentials, a portion due to discrimination, etc. > >For instance, one's years of schooling is supposedly a key HC >variabl ...

Document Size:	5410
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 16 08:02:54 PDT 1998

40618 new dow -- rank: 1000

rklose at tampatrib.com wrote: > 1) Companies occasionally are changed in the Dow Jones industrial > average as a result of mergers or other factors. Examples, in 1997, > Westinghouse, Texaco, Bethlehem Steel and Woolworth, all were dropped. > Although adjustments are made to the weighting, has anybody ever > closely examined how the Dow index would have fared if obviously > lagging companies hadn't been removed? I don't know of any formal studies, but a ...

Document Size:	6176
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Oct 16 07:38:25 PDT 1998

40619 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Doug Henwood wrote: >The Federal Reserve just cut its target for the fed funds rate by 0.25 >percentage points, and lowered the discount rate by the same amount. The >Dow is up 250 points as I type, with financial stocks strong. That doesn't >mean that people in Thailand will be trading their dinners of tree bark for >ones of chicken in green curry sauce anytime soon, of course. Nor does it >mean that the U.S. stock market will turn in 25% annual returns for the >next decade ...

Document Size:	5329
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Oct 15 13:15:09 PDT 1998

40620 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

Louis Proyect wrote: >This is just impressionism, Doug. The issue is not financial crisis, but >economic crisis which the stock markets only indirectly reflect. Not entirely. The relations between the financial and real aren't so simple, nor is the financial a simple reflection or derivative of the real. And since the recent crisis first appeared in the financial sector, has been transmitted internationally through finance, and threatened to undermine the real through a severe credit crunc ...

Document Size:	7220
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Oct 15 13:01:33 PDT 1998