Search LBO-Talk Archives

40621 Fed cuts rates; crisis over? -- rank: 1000

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. But I'm starting to think the worst of the wor ...

Document Size:	5018
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Oct 15 12:28:37 PDT 1998

40622 WSJ erupts -- rank: 1000

[For those of you who missed this eruption from what Saul Bellow called the moronic inferno, for all the wrong reasons - this is from today's Wall Street Journal editorial page - Doug] WALL STREET JOURNAL - October 14, 1998 Another Nobel Laureate's Stalinist Past By STEPHEN SCHWARTZ Well, they did it again. A year after they awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to Dario Fo, a repulsive anticlerical buffoon from Italy, the Swedish Academy has continued its run of leftist nostalgia, handing the ...

Document Size:	9665
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Oct 14 20:00:29 PDT 1998

40623 unobserved skill -- rank: 1000

alec ramsdell wrote: >Galbraith cites a study by Chinhui Juhn, Kevin Murphy, and Brooks Pierce >that separates "three distinct patterns of rising inequality, of >approximately equal importance." The third is "unobserved skill," a >category in the discussion of income inequality, originating in the late >60s. Can anyone explain this category a little? Galbraith calls it the >"mysterious third factor," that it's "a residual unattributable to ...

Document Size:	5685
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Oct 14 12:48:05 PDT 1998

40624 Evolution of FED thinking--humor -- rank: 1000

Chuck Grimes wrote: >Since we had had these conversations about software and OS systems >before, I ask if the Fed was a real bank, you know with money >downstairs. Sure enough. So how much? About 3.5-4 billion in cash and >another larger some odd billion in coin. Now, that perked up my >ears. So, what happens when us grotty prols get our hammers and >sickles and march over with torches to break down the door? Is some >rent-a-cop going to stop us or join us? Well, see, this i ...

Document Size:	5971
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Oct 14 09:05:22 PDT 1998

40625 Sen's Nobel -- rank: 1000

<http://www.nobel.se/announcement-98/economics98.html> Information Further information is available at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Information Department, Box 50005, SE-104 05 Stockholm, Sweden Phone: +46 8 673 95 25, Fax: +46 8 15 56 70 E-mail: info at kva.se, Website: www.kva.se This press release is also available in Swedish The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 1998 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel to Professor Amar ...

Document Size:	19432
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Oct 14 07:19:47 PDT 1998

40626 enough = enough? -- rank: 1000

michael at ecst.csuchico.edu wrote: >I suspect that Monica et al is doing us a favor. By distracting Congress, >they are doing less damage. Also, since Clinton's only support is from >the liberals, he is behaving a bit more like a liberal. I have very mixed feelings about this. I hate Clinton, hate hate hate, but persecuting a guy for a blow job is a very bad precedent. The people behind it are horrid snoops & social disciplinarians. Doug

Document Size:	4878
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 20:51:20 PDT 1998

40627 enough = enough? -- rank: 1000

[A friend writes...] Dear Friend, I am part of a grass roots movement to speak out against the madness of the Clinton-Lewinsky investigation. It is time for us to take action. We are circulating this petition, via the Internet, to all our acquaintances, with the intention of gathering massive numbers of signatures to be forwarded to newspapers, radio and television, and to Congress. If you agree with our statement, please visit our site -- http://www.EnoughIsEnough.org/ -- and add your name. PET ...

Document Size:	5934
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 20:03:10 PDT 1998

40628 A note on the American century (not what you think) -- rank: 1000

Greg Nowell wrote: >It does not seem likely that the century >will be American. I mean, what about investing in a >"British Century" fund in 1898? Yow! Ok, so whose will be the 21stC? Doug

Document Size:	4909
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 19:49:47 PDT 1998

40629 life expectancy in FSU -- rank: 1000

[This bounced as a nonmember submission. To answer the question, I first picked up this fact in the World Bank's journal Transition. - Doug] >Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 14:59:05 -0700 >From: John Dinardo <jdinardo at uci.edu> >X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (X11; I; SunOS 5.5.1 sun4u) >MIME-Version: 1.0 >To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com >Subject: Life Expectancy in former Soviet Union/Eastern Europe >References: <199810131850.OAA07342 at dont.panix.com> >Content-Type: text/ ...

Document Size:	7213
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 15:50:53 PDT 1998

40630 Sachs, nationalizer -- rank: 1000

SACHS CALLS FOR NATIONALIZING ASIAN BANKS Reuters Financial Report Tuesday, October 13, 1998 2:06:00 PM MEXICO CITY, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Harvard University economist Jeffrey Sachs on Tuesday called for temporarily nationalizing Asian banks to help pull the region out of recession, according to a column in a Mexican newspaper. The influential economist has emerged as a leading critic of how the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has handled the Asian financial crisis. In a column appearing in Span ...

Document Size:	5470
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 15:40:33 PDT 1998

40631 Japanese bank bailout -- rank: 1000

[The lead paragraphs of an email update from the Grant's Interest Rate Observer conglomerate. It's written by Jeff Uscher, editor of Grant's Asia Observer. A $513 billion recapitalization is a serious bailout. It took the U.S. economy about 5 years to recover after the thrift/bank bailout was launched in 1989, but the stock market did just fine. - Doug] >Japan To Pass Y 60 Trillion Bank Bailout Legislation Tonight >October 12, 1998 > >Late in the evening of October 12 (Tokyo time) th ...

Document Size:	5883
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 14:02:48 PDT 1998

40632 The End of Welfare as We Don't Know It -- rank: 1000

Michael Cohen wrote: >Certainly American elites appear deficient from close up In what sense? They seem ruthless and successful, enjoying the greatest empire ever seen. That's ugly, but I wouldn't call it deficient. Doug

Document Size:	4776
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 12:59:16 PDT 1998

40633 The End of Welfare as We Don't Know It -- rank: 1000

Michael Cohen wrote: >1. >Suppose we took the income of the top 1% and capped it at $75,000 per year >transferring all the income to the bottom of the socio-economic >distribution so >that the mean income below a certain point was flat, what would that >income be? >If possible ditto for wealth which is much harder. >This speaks to the issue of the maximum which can be accomplished by direct >wealth transfers at the current time and what a radical program might take &g ...

Document Size:	6771
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 11:32:45 PDT 1998

40634 The End of Welfare as We Don't Know It -- rank: 1000

Carl Remick wrote: >Re Max's: "Bottom line is that the rich will not finance >socialism, social-democracy, or even national >health insurance. Not even close." > >Well, that's it. Max has just "proved" this list is a waste of time and >we can all go home. Doug, you want to turn out the lights? They won't finance it voluntarily, of course, but Max, you're surely not arguing that the rich don't have money, are you? Personal income for the first half of the ...

Document Size:	5680
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 10:32:06 PDT 1998

40635 Paula's query on investing -- rank: 1000

Tom Lehman wrote: >Does this mean you think the S&P 500 has bottomed out? Who knows? The reason you can't beat the market is that it's almost impossible to predict it. Doug

Document Size:	4604
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Oct 13 10:12:55 PDT 1998