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41446 oil pricing -- rank: 1000

>From an article in the November 26 Financial Times: "Much of the personal wealth of the ruling families, who have the final say on oil price policy, is held in international stocks. It will not have gone unnoticed that on Monday, when Brent oil futures hit a record low on London's International Petroleum Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange hit a record high." Talk about class consolidation through the financial markets.... Doug

Document Size:	4771
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Dec 4 10:20:29 PST 1998

41447 letters to Straw -- rank: 1000

Jim heartfield wrote: >A note of caution on opening up a conversation with Jack Straw. When my >parents lived in Leeds when Jack Straw was president of the University >Student's Union, my father once got talking to him over a drink and >invited him back. Five hours of tedium later, my mother said 'don't ever >bring him into this house again, or we'll die of boredom.' Isn't Straw the one whose kid was busted for marijuana possession? Has he tried a malignant boredom defense? Doug

Document Size:	4865
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Dec 4 09:44:19 PST 1998

41448 servants -- rank: 1000

[another bounced from Daniel - please post from the address you're subscribed to!] Reply-To: <daniel at wholarts.com> From: "Daniel" <drdq at m5.sprynet.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Subject: servants Date: Thu, 3 Dec 1998 21:14:37 -0800 Message-ID: <000601be1f44$fd0a4b20$11e2afce at default> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Maile ...

Document Size:	6979
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Dec 4 08:48:53 PST 1998

41449 Europe eases -- rank: 1000

rc&am wrote: >interest rates have been lowered here in auastralia too in the last couple of >days, though it's hard to beleive this has anything to do with social >democratic pressures, given the liberal-national govt. > >nonetheless, i'm prepared to think that there may well be a shift toward >freeing up money and credit, but what do you think this might be in aid of? Keeping speculative capitals afloat, keeping capital from fleeing Brazil, and giving an inch or two on Eur ...

Document Size:	4972
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 20:02:43 PST 1998

41450 Brazil -- rank: 1000

Tom Kruse wrote: >I caught a snippet of the Brazil issue the other day. Seems the congress is >not preprared to legislate the austerity Cardoso wants in it's entirety. >Is this a good sign? How could it be a bad sign, unless you're long stocks? Doug

Document Size:	4601
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 16:42:49 PST 1998

41451 "activism" -- rank: 1000

Alex LoCascio wrote: >There IS something down here calling itself the "Progressive Alliance," Where's this? Is the New Party involved? Doug

Document Size:	4543
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 16:21:30 PST 1998

41452 Brazil -- rank: 1000

DICKENS, EDWIN (973)-408-3024 wrote: >>Or is the truly Marxist position to believe that cause and effect flow >>just one way, from the real/productive to the psychosocial/financial? > >This is precisely the question that makes your work so compelling. Do you >agree that crises are rooted in production? Yes, I suppose so, but, to pursue your root metaphor, things that happen in the bark or in the leaves can do some serious damage to a tree. >If not, then what is your argu ...

Document Size:	5899
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 16:18:33 PST 1998

41453 letters to Straw -- rank: 1000

Anyone wanting to make his or her opinion known on the Pinochet affair can write to British Home Secretary Jack Straw at <gen.ho at gtnet.gov.uk> Doug

Document Size:	4530
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 15:49:33 PST 1998

41454 Brazil -- rank: 1000

DICKENS, EDWIN (973)-408-3024 wrote: >Doug, so willing to say the crisis was over, You're forgetting just how qualified that declaration was, and how many caveats followed it. >now says that, if Brazil >devalues, "it'll be time to dust off the diaster scenarios again." It's a >lousy commentary on our debates on the causes of crises that we can change >our opinions about whether or not a crisis exists just because a >government decides to devalue. Maybe we should seek ...

Document Size:	6372
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 13:09:56 PST 1998

41455 Brazil -- rank: 1000

Rumor of the day on Wall Street, or so the chattering heads on CNBC say, is that Brail is going to devalue. If that happens, it'll be time to dust off the disaster scenarios again. Doug

Document Size:	4479
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 12:05:50 PST 1998

41456 "activism" -- rank: 1000

Alex LoCascio wrote: >The fact of the matter is that most "activism" in this >country IS reformist and NOT ideological. And a lot of the "activists" I've come across are proudly, deeply anti-intellectual - a perfect mirror image of those intellectuals who are proudly, deeply anti-activist (e.g. Jameson's denunciation of Bob Fitch for being an "activist"). An opposition that leads to the impoverishment of both. Doug

Document Size:	4840
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 09:28:44 PST 1998

41457 buying power -- rank: 1000

Anderson, Bob wrote: >For us uneducated, please explain uninvestable profits...thanks Profits in excess of a firm's ability to invest them in sufficiently profitable projects. "Sufficiently" is not easy to define, but Wall Street generally wants something in the neighborhood of a 20% return, which is well above what Exxon could generate. So, the shareholders demand that instead of being reinvested in the business at a mere 5, 10, or 15% return, the excess profits should be turned ov ...

Document Size:	4870
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 09:04:10 PST 1998

41458 article in Monthly Review -- rank: 1000

Sam Pawlett wrote: >The article on the union drive at Mc'ds was excellent. I grew up,live and >work in Squamish where the union drive is taking place. Squamish(pop. >12,000) is a union town bar none. The townscouncil contains mostly >socialists and the union density is very high, i would estimate that about >75% of the jobs here are union. We has an excellent demo here this past >weekend in support of the youngsters at Mcdonalds. Some council members gave >speechs. The Mc'ds ...

Document Size:	6317
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 08:39:52 PST 1998

41459 more on ECB -- rank: 1000

"We hate deflation as much as we hate inflation." - European Central Bank boss Wim Duisenberg, quoted in the Times (London) this past Sunday. To anyone who's studied European central banking culture, this would come as a surprise. Doug

Document Size:	4548
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 06:36:15 PST 1998

41460 Europe eases -- rank: 1000

10 European central banks, including Germany's Bundesbank but not the Bank of England, have just lowered interest rates, mostly to a common rate of 3% (except Italy, 3.5%). European stock markets are ecstatic. Bundesbank boss Hans Tietmyer denied that political pressure (meaning, in his case, from the new SocDem government) had anything to do with it, but that's hard to believe. Doug

Document Size:	4684
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 3 05:47:34 PST 1998