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41071 Basic Facts about Wealth and Poverty -- rank: 1000

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >But I do not want to quibble over details. Instead, I'd like to put things >in a different perspective: >-- do we have a real (as opposed to neoliberal propaganda) reason to belive >that US employment rates are higher than in Europe? In other words, what >is it about the US that Europe does not have (other than the invisible hand >of providence) and that causes higher employment rates. Why are the US >firms hire more people than their European co ...

Document Size:	6213
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jun 9 11:28:12 PDT 1998

41072 Consumer debt crunch and division by two -- rank: 1000

Jon Fine wrote: >I've seen the New Paradigm referred to fairly often, but I've never heard >of anyone actually espousing it. Are there actually any economists who >believe it? Alan Greenspan, every other month or so, (those months when he isn't worried about "irrational exuberance"). Lots of Wall Street economists say they believe it, but it does help sell securities. Paul Krugman seems to have appointed himself the New Paradigm's #1 enemy lately - he had a piece in the FT the ...

Document Size:	5172
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jun 9 09:54:00 PDT 1998

41073 Basic Facts about Wealth and Poverty -- rank: 1000

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >The second reason pertains to the numerator of the unemployment rate. BLS >uses headcount rather than full-time equivalent (FTE) to account for >employment. That is, a person who is employed only 10 hours a week counts >the same as the one who is employed 40 hours a week. This, BTW, is a >well-known weakness of the employment stats. Thus, significant numbers of >the under-employed can skew the employment rates upward, as compared to the >FTE ap ...

Document Size:	6816
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jun 9 09:25:24 PDT 1998

41074 race & religion -- rank: 1000

Hey, here's something that could liven things up - bringing together our recent race & religion threads. When American lefties talk about Christians, the (typically) unspoken assumption is white Christians, espeically of the conservative born again/evangelical sort. But what about black Christians? Aside from racial issues, the social attitudes of most black Christians are indistinguishable from socially conservative white Christians. And what about the role of the church in black political ...

Document Size:	5388
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jun 9 08:08:23 PDT 1998

41075 Consumer debt crunch and division by two -- rank: 1000

Rakesh Bhandari wrote: >Thanks to Doug and Jordan for the patient and helpful replies to my >queries. What I don't understand is how consumer debt can increase >effective demand in the long term or how the credit card has become a proxy >for Keynesian programs. Consumer credit is a way of transforming money capital into consumer demand. As long as the debt/income level is increasing, and there's no debt servicing problem, it's unambiguously expansive. >Obviously all consumer debt ...

Document Size:	10788
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jun 9 06:59:11 PDT 1998

41076 drug war -- rank: 1000

This post from Tom Kruse was addressed to owner-lbo-talk and not lbo-talk at lists.panix.com. ---- X-Sender: tkruse at albatros.cnb.net (Unverified) Mime-Version: 1.0 Date: Mon, 08 Jun 1998 22:29:42 -0400 To: owner-lbo-talk at dont.panix.com From: Thomas Kruse <tkruse at albatros.cnb.net> Subject: Coca Producers Perspective on the Drug War Cc: pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu Dear Friends: In the discussion on the drug war, the voices of the peasants who produce coca leaf, and suffer the brunt ...

Document Size:	17047
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jun 9 05:52:24 PDT 1998

41077 Query on Measuring of consumer debt -- rank: 1000

Carrol Cox wrote: >How do they calculate that part of credit card debt that is paid off at >the end of every month? The only time in 30 years of using credit cards >that I ever paid any interest was once when the envelope carrying the >payment slipped down between the car seat and the passenger door and only >showed up about 3 weeks later. Yet there have been times when, for the >period between making the charge and the arrival of the bill my balance >would have been very hi ...

Document Size:	5543
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jun 8 16:53:14 PDT 1998

41078 Consumer debt crunch and division by two -- rank: 1000

Justin Schwartz wrote: >I'd be very cautious about even appearing to advocate or counsel credit >fraud, bankruptcy fraud, etc. You could go to prison for a very long time >if you tried it and you could be nailed as a conspirator, liable for all >the crimes foreseeable in the conspiracy, for advocating it. Don't even >think about it. Justin, maybe law school took a toll on you. No one was counseling bankruptcy fraud. There is no objective measure of personal insolvency. If you file ...

Document Size:	5958
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jun 8 14:21:01 PDT 1998

41079 Consumer debt crunch and division by two -- rank: 1000

Edward E Skiba wrote: >It is my understanding that the government discontinued the research and >anaylsis necessary to determine the quit rate, along with several other >"minor" indices as part of the Reagan-era budget cuts. I can still remember >the uproar in, of all places, the Reagan-worshiping Barron's magazine at the >time this happened. Has the government returned to compiling this index? >If not I would be interested who is. The BLS reports the total number o ...

Document Size:	5353
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jun 8 13:53:01 PDT 1998

41080 mapping -- rank: 1000

This was addressed to me rather than the list... ---- Reply-To: <sawicky at epinet.org> From: sawicky at epinet.org (Max Sawicky) To: "Owner-Pen-L" <owner-pen-l at galaxy.csuchico.edu>, "Owner-Lbo-Talk" <owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Subject: Mapping Date: Mon, 8 Jun 1998 15:48:07 -0400 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.2106.4 Importance: Normal Anybody with expertise in run ...

Document Size:	5343
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jun 8 12:55:26 PDT 1998

41081 Consumer debt crunch and division by two -- rank: 1000

Rakesh Bhandari wrote: >Is income paid off to creditors counted as savings? Savings is estimated as income after taxes and tax-like payments (disposable personal income) less expenditures. Interest earned is counted as income, and interest paid as expenditures. (This doesn't include mortgage interest, if I'm remembering right, which is treated as an investment, not as a form of consumption.) Obviously these aggregate numbers hide a lot of distributional details - the savings rate of the riche ...

Document Size:	5614
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jun 8 12:42:41 PDT 1998

41082 Basic Facts about Wealth and Poverty -- rank: 1000

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >Another question, are the 296,000 new jobs full-time equivalent? Overwhelmingly, yes. The part-time share of the U.S. workforce is about flat since the early 1970s. Doug

Document Size:	4717
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jun 8 10:25:24 PDT 1998

41083 Consumer debt crunch and division by two -- rank: 1000

Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: >So I agree with Doug, a VISA or a MasterCard can be a way out of the debt >slavery, if used properly :). Last time I looked, it was very easy to go bankrupt and erase your credit card debt. The credit industry is trying to get U.S. bankruptcy law tightened, so file quickly! You can now buy shares in a venture capital fund on the web with your credit card; the SEC has apparently approved this. You too can become a venture capitalist! For just $1,000 you can join th ...

Document Size:	5186
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jun 8 10:22:38 PDT 1998

41084 We are all Keynesians now -- rank: 1000

Enrique Diaz-Alvarez wrote: >I don't think this is a fair comparison. 200 billion is less than 3% of >US GDP. The Japanese bail out would require on the order of $600 >billion, which is more than 25% of Japan's GDP. I don't know if the US >ruling class would have been able to come up with $2-3 trillion at the >drop of hat. $600 billion is more like 11% of Japan's GDP, but with all those zeros, who's counting? According to a Bank for International Settlements economic paper (No. 46 ...

Document Size:	5811
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jun 8 08:36:40 PDT 1998

41085 Basic Facts about Wealth and Poverty -- rank: 1000

Rob Schaap wrote: >Doug says of US 'fundamentals: > >'A balanced budget, 1.4% inflation, 4.3% unemployment, 296,000 new jobs in >May, 3% year-to-year real wage increases.... > >It may not be utopia, but who's doing better?' > >The Yen, every other Asian currency, and the Ozzie took a bath today. Last >year the Oz was above US 0.80, now a couple of quarters'll get you one. >And Oz can boast items 1,2,4 and (nearly) 5 of Doug's list - we can't boast >(3) coz we ha ...

Document Size:	5916
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Jun 8 08:11:14 PDT 1998