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41461 WB GEP -- rank: 1000

The World Bank has just published its Global Economic Prospects and the Developing Countries, which is mostly about the Asian crisis & its aftermath. You can download a PDF version at <http://www.worldbank.org/prospects/gep98-99/full.htm>. Here's some of what Joseph Stiglitz, WB chief economist, has to say in his foreword. Doug ---- There are inevitably a multiplicity of factors that contribute to any complex phenomenon such as the crises that have beset East Asia. This is especially t ...

Document Size:	9736
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 2 16:00:15 PST 1998

41462 Servants and feminism -- rank: 1000

Nathan Newman wrote: >Home-based services, whether day care, cleaning women or yard work is not >necessarily an objectionable thing or even necessarily a harbringer of >Victorianism, but a welcome sign of the success of feminism in reordering >priorities and responsibilities within the home. Contracting out for domstic services to poor women, mainly immigrants impoverished by imperialism and structural adjustment, is a triumph of feminism? That's a slander against feminism, and one t ...

Document Size:	5513
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 2 13:04:47 PST 1998

41463 "My fellow Americans....I feel your pain." -- rank: 1000

Brad De Long wrote: >Except that there were no delays to other aircraft... > >A nice urban legend, but *think* about its political consequences as you >spread it. Its political consequences are exactly why it should be spread. It shows Clinton like the imperial boss he is, indifferent to spending $83k in public money - what, like 8 years of AFDC+Food Stamps, right? - on his personal convenience, whether it was a haircut or a blowjob. Even if no one else was delayed. Doug

Document Size:	5179
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 2 09:03:39 PST 1998

41464 "My fellow Americans....I feel your pain." -- rank: 1000

Sam Pawlett wrote: >from the 1999 Guinness Book of World Records p109. > MOST EXPENSIVE HAIRCUT >In 1993, President Bill Clinton went under the scissors of Monsieur >Christophe, a top Beverly Hills stylist, while sitting aboard Air Force >One on the Tarmac at Los Angeles Airport. The full cost of his "runway >trim" taking into account delays to other aircraft, was estimated at >more than $83,000. Actually I thought it later emerged that Clin ...

Document Size:	5224
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 2 07:59:28 PST 1998

41465 servants -- rank: 1000

[This bounced because it was posted from an address different from the subscription address. I'd say about 1/2 the residents of my apartment building on the upper west side of Manhattan have a "cleaning lady" come in once a week (me *not* among them), and none of them are "rich" by Max's narrow definition. These "servants" seem mostly to be recent immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean - one of the upsides of structural adjustment for metropolitan populatio ...

Document Size:	6848
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 2 07:52:57 PST 1998

41466 buying power -- rank: 1000

James Cramer writes in TheStreet.com: >Random musings: Those years of Exxon (XON:NYSE) buybacks paid off in a >currency high enough to bag the next biggest gun. Well done!! So Exxon's habit of buying its own shares out of its surplus of uninvestable profits allowed it to buy Mobil, and get a fresh supply of uninvestable profits. Capitalism is an endless wonder. Doug

Document Size:	4714
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 20:40:13 PST 1998

41467 Malthusian pessimism -- rank: 1000

Since we have two of the authors Harvey is talking about here - Michael Perelman and Jim O'Connor - how do you plead? Guilty of "a sad capitulation to capitalistic arguments"? Doug ---- [David Harvey, Justice, Nature, & the Geography of Difference, pp. 146-147] As Grundmann complains, Marx, at times, seems to assume that growth of productive forces implies an increasing power to dominate nature, when "there may be productive forces which do not lead" in that direction &qu ...

Document Size:	8795
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 15:55:57 PST 1998

41468 green reinsurers -- rank: 1000

[From Sam Smith's Progressive Review. Munich Re and Swiss Re profess great concern about climate change, since they bear lots of financial risk in disasters. US insurers and reinsurers seem a lot less interested than their European counterparts. Munich Re talks about its enviro program at <http://www.munichre.com/themes/themes5_eng.htm>] >THE HIDDEN STORY OF MITCH > >According to Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, which collaborated with >World Watch Institute on an inve ...

Document Size:	5890
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 15:35:21 PST 1998

41469 The biggest corporate acquisition of all time ... -- rank: 1000

Charles Brown wrote: >Does this have anything to do with The Phallus ? Actually you have to wonder. I review the largely poor record of mergers over the last 100 years in Wall Street, but mergers persist nonetheless. I'm not sure how far I'd like to take this, but surely there's some aspect of the lust for size is phallicized. Market penetration and all that, don't you think? Ditto the hunger for money. Harvey quotes Simmel: "money enlarges the diameter of the circle in which our antagon ...

Document Size:	5193
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 15:11:38 PST 1998

41470 The biggest corporate acquisition of all time ... -- rank: 1000

Carl Remick wrote: >Exxon-Mobil, is set to take place and not a word of comment on this >list so far. Surely this has some significance worth discussing. I see >it, for instance, as another major indicator of the ever intensifying >deflationary forces at work worldwide. Concentrate, concentrate - this is also Moses & the Prophets. These mergers are on a mindbogglingly vast scale, aren't they? 100s of billions on 100s of billions. So much for Kevin Kelley & the decentering o ...

Document Size:	5908
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 15:05:57 PST 1998

41471 Reply to Hinrich -- rank: 1000

Louis Proyect wrote: >The proper strategy would be one that operates on a clearly delineated >class basis. This means, first and foremost, that independent institutions >of the working class be strengthened. This includes unions, parties, >newspapers, mutual aid associations, etc. In addition, the social movements >should make every effort that they can to rely on their own strength rather >than collaborating with the ruling class. This means breaking with >"progressive ...

Document Size:	5203
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 12:51:05 PST 1998

41472 Reply to Hinrich -- rank: 1000

Louis Proyect wrote: >Hinrich, it would be presumptuous for me to make proposals for the US >working class when I am not even inside it. What class are you in then? And can useful proposals only come from within the working class, whatever that is exactly? >Doug >tosses around the possibility of "market socialism" in the conclusion of >"Wall Street" while Boris told me that "market socialism" made sense to him >the last time I saw him up at the Bre ...

Document Size:	5391
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 12:12:45 PST 1998

41473 "Fashionable Nonsense" -- rank: 1000

Ingrid Multhopp wrote: >I think >"Fashionable Nonsense" might launch some interesting discussions. It might, as long as discussants have read at least 100 pages by at least one of the targeted authors. Doug

Document Size:	4696
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 10:10:25 PST 1998

41474 sex and class -- rank: 1000

Tom Kruse wrote: >A question from the chuño gallery: could the republicans simply desist if >they wanted to? Or is there some impeachment machinery in motion that has >a life of it's own? The machinery is definitely underway, but the speed and route are still under human control. If the Rep leadership wanted to derail it, it could, but then they'd have to worry about their backbench maniacs. What's a chuño? It's not in my Spanish-English dictionary. Doug

Document Size:	4812
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 10:07:01 PST 1998

41475 LPO -- rank: 1000

Max Sawicky wrote: >I guess we've just received the first issue of the >Left Penis Observer, and none too soon. > >Just mind where you put the staples. Max, I think you're just trying to work through your mourning at not possessing the phallus. Though the staple is curiously brought in here - in its penetrative role? In its suturing role? Do tell, Max, and remember the fundamental rule, censor nothing! Awaiting the analyst's fee.... Doug

Document Size:	4766
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 1 10:01:42 PST 1998