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40921 Indonesia -- rank: 1000

This from Brad de Long bounced because it originally came with a Wall Street Journal article attached. Anyone wanting the article, email me privately - these megabytes cost me! Doug ---- Received: from econ.Berkeley.EDU (econ.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.105.2]) by dont.panix.com (8.8.8/8.8.8/PanixLC1.4) with ESMTP id NAA11584 for <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>; Fri, 15 May 1998 13:30:31 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [128.32.105.161] (econ161.Berkeley.EDU [128.32.105.161]) by econ.Berkeley.EDU (8.8.5/ ...

Document Size:	11465
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri May 15 10:38:32 PDT 1998

40922 taxi! taxi! -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >Given the $250,000 cost of a cabbie medalion, it is not clear to me that >eliminating that monopoly barrier to entry into the cab business is the worst >thing in the world for workers. Yes, more cabs will depress revenues, but if >cabbies don't have to spend half their time paying the mortgage for their >leased >medalions on top of the cost of the cab itself, might they not come out ahead? > >What are the economics of this for cabbies? If a guy wit ...

Document Size:	5290
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri May 15 09:37:46 PDT 1998

40923 taxi! taxi! -- rank: 1000

Les Schaffer wrote: >whats going on with the taxi drivers and Giuliani down there? > >'war gas been declared on the taxi-driver' Lesly Princival (New York >Times, today) The NYT actually did a half-decent piece on the cabbies today. The prevailing system now is that drivers lease their vehicles for a high fixed rate, so they have to work their asses off - a 12-hour shift might yield them $100-120. Ok, some of them don't drive very well, don't know where every street is, and don't sp ...

Document Size:	6233
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri May 15 08:06:52 PDT 1998

40924 Clinton the "Phantom Liberal", or, the utility of surveys -- rank: 1000

William S. Lear wrote: >The results were a strong reminder of a terra firma of >leftish belief among the US citizenry, despite the droning of >corporate propaganda and all variety of sleaze and distraction. As far as I can tell, there hasn't been any coverage of the Australian wharfies strike in the U.S. corporate media. This continues a long tradition of ignoring popular rebellion abroad (though the NY Times did a heart-rending story on how hard it was to get fresh baguettes during the ...

Document Size:	5680
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri May 15 07:56:55 PDT 1998

40925 Western exceptionalism -- rank: 1000

Mark Jones wrote: >As you have also pointed out, it is >possible for oil to be 'cheap' and 'plentiful' while 75% of >human still have to forage for wood and dung for fuel... This is entirely true, of course, but is there any reason this state of affairs can't continue indefinitely? I'm sitting on an island with some of the richest people in the world living only blocks from some of the poorest in the northern hemisphere, and we have relative social peace and the system reproduces itself ...

Document Size:	4948
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri May 15 07:18:11 PDT 1998

40926 GI killers? -- rank: 1000

John M. Legge wrote: >You may be having fun, but you are destroying my day and giving me RSI >deleting 70 messages of no possible interest to anyone who took Doug's >stated aims in setting up this list seriously. I want to read LBO issues: >contemporary, left economics, but the jewels on this list are buried in tons >of mud. I am on the point of unsubbing out of self preservation I understand the volume problems, though there's always the digest option. But people who complain a ...

Document Size:	4963
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri May 15 06:56:47 PDT 1998

40927 investment scams -- rank: 1000

C. Petersen wrote: >Can anyone tell me about some of these guys who have commercials on the >radio selling stock market investment guides and seminars. 'Wade Cook' is >one of them. They try to encourage people to get into futures and >commodities markets, giving 'inside tips' like "We think that the price of >oil will rise due to el nino!". Just the fact that they can afford so much >advertising at prime times seems to indicate that they are very effective >at what ...

Document Size:	5425
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu May 14 18:26:55 PDT 1998

40928 Ehrlich -- rank: 1000

Louis Proyect wrote: >It is important to understand that in James's peculiar blend of >libertarianism and Marxism, the late Julian Simon and Ron Arnold of the >"Wise Use" movement are not reactionaries. They are both outspoken >defenders of capitalist progress, which is really a contradiction in terms. >James's group has simply taken some of Marx and Engels ideas about the need >to defend a revolutionary bourgeoisie against the feudal aristocracy and >universalized ...

Document Size:	5895
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu May 14 16:06:48 PDT 1998

40929 Homeownership -- rank: 1000

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >But that was not the question. The question was about percent of >homeowners among different age groups (rather than % of owner occupied >dwellings). The latter can actually go up when the homelessness goes up >(e.g. gentrification of the rental units). Info by age is at <http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/hvs/annual97/ann97t15.html>. Doug

Document Size:	4808
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu May 14 11:53:37 PDT 1998

40930 Huntin' Shootin' Fishin' and Fornicatin', -- rank: 1000

Frances Bolton (PHI) wrote: >There seems to be a strong(ish) antiGreen sentiment on the list. Why is >that? Not from this corner. The anti-Greens are mainly our British car-loving, foxhunting friends in & around LM, a journal once known as Living Marxism. One of my intentions in starting this little forum was to get reds & greens to talk to each other. The browns are noisy, but a small minority. It's useful to have them around, though, just to remind us what the problem is. Doug

Document Size:	5080
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu May 14 10:09:00 PDT 1998

40931 What did the Anti-War Movement Lead To? -- rank: 1000

Rakesh Bhandari wrote: >Doug might be impressed by Adorno's skepticism of the demand that theory >must have direct political implications, but to compare the juvenille >demand to elicit immediately the political consequence of a theory to >the Gestapo's demand for papers is itself a juvenille debating tactic. I am impressed by that, if only because I'm so bad at answering the What is To Be Done question myself, as I'm impressed by a lot in Adorno. But his line on the antiwar moveme ...

Document Size:	5937
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu May 14 09:09:20 PDT 1998

40932 Homeownership -- rank: 1000

Yoshie asked how many U.S. households own their cribs outright, as opposed to still paying the mortgage. Unfortunately the Census reports don't have that info, but one interesting clue - the Fed estimates that home mortgages totaled 43.3% of the value of residential real estate in 1997, an all-time high (though it's been fairly flat over the last 4 years) - up from 37.7% in 1990, and around 30% in the early 1980s (and 13.7% in 1945). This reflects not only bigger loans and smaller downpayments, ...

Document Size:	5348
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu May 14 06:43:28 PDT 1998

40933 Kinking the list -- rank: 1000

Bill Rosenberg wrote: >Seriously though - the Fire Commission which employs all New Zealand >firefighters has announced it is sacking all 1600 of them and telling >them to apply for the several hundred less jobs that remain. I ran into a NZer who works for the UN the other day at a party, and he said he was on the verge of renouncing citizenship, disgusted as he is by the indifference to and/or acceptance of the ravages imposed by successive governments on your poor country. What do the ...

Document Size:	5071
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu May 14 06:33:13 PDT 1998

40934 Homeownership (was What did the Anti-War Movement Lead To?) -- rank: 1000

Max B. Sawicky wrote: >My guess is that this >is the force behind an apparent age effect, since >such family heads tend to be younger than average. But there's also a steepening of the age-wage curve, no? Or is it just that a two-tier system prevails at the macro level, with younger cohorts at a lower starting level (relative to elders), and economists are being optimistic projecting steep increases for them? Doug

Document Size:	5190
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 13 18:31:51 PDT 1998

40935 Homeownership (was What did the Anti-War Movement Lead To?) -- rank: 1000

Yoshie Furuhashi wrote: >Hasn't homeownership become more and more difficult for younger people to >attain for the last couple of decades in the US? Any stats? In the U.S., homeownership rates declined in the 1980s, from a peak of 65.8% in the third quarter of 1979, to bottom out at 63.7% in 1990. They've since risen to 65.9% in the first quarter of 98, a hair under the 66.0% record of the third quarter of 1997. But that increase in the average is heavily driven by higher rates among over- ...

Document Size:	5565
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed May 13 17:20:53 PDT 1998