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5986 [lbo-talk] Firesale of the Empire -- rank: 1000

On Dec 18, 2009, at 4:04 PM, Ted Winslow wrote: > Do you mean that it's possible to have net saving exceed investment > in a period with the difference being available as cash to be dumped > into financial markets? At the risk of getting into S = I mysticism, yes.

Document Size:	4801
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Dec 18 17:11:41 PST 2009

5987 [lbo-talk] Firesale of the Empire -- rank: 1000

On Dec 18, 2009, at 3:20 PM, Ted Winslow wrote: > How is it possible to turn some part of existing physical productive > assets into "money" that can then be "reinvested in derivatives, > hedge funds and beyond"? The current owners can sell it, but it > still continues to exist under the new owners doesn't it You could do it, figuratively, by not reinvesting as the capital stock ages, and dumping the cash instead into the markets. Corps have been shoveling cash ...

Document Size:	5146
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Dec 18 12:26:22 PST 2009

5988 [lbo-talk] fresh punditry -- rank: 1000

fresh punditry (Fed, recovery, poverty, stimulus, inequality, GE, Obama & the bankers): http://bit.ly/Nhkhr

Document Size:	4648
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Dec 18 12:16:51 PST 2009

5989 [lbo-talk] Fw: Concerning your submission to *Science & Society* -- rank: 1000

On Dec 18, 2009, at 2:31 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote: > At 11:21 AM 12/18/2009, Doug Henwood wrote: > >> The rate of profit in the U.S. has been rising for the last few >> quarters, actually, but I don't suppose that matters to this sort of >> thing. > > Party pooper. Well, David Laibman once denounced me for being a vulgar empiricist, since I used empirical data to refute efficient market theory in Wall Street. A theory can only be refuted with another theory, he di ...

Document Size:	5426
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Dec 18 11:44:25 PST 2009

5990 [lbo-talk] Firesale of the Empire -- rank: 1000

On Dec 18, 2009, at 2:14 PM, Alan Rudy wrote: > It is quite likely I'm reading Harvey so that he says what I want > him to > say, that what he says confirms my sense of things. I read all of > Harvey's > neoliberalism stuff as a variation on a theme by the Condition of > Postmodernity argument that treating post-Fordism as if it didn't > have maybe > even a majority of Fordist and/or pre-Fordist production in it, or > post-modernity as if there weren't a condition bui ...

Document Size:	7355
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Dec 18 11:42:56 PST 2009

5991 [lbo-talk] Fw: Concerning your submission to *Science & Society* -- rank: 1000

The rate of profit in the U.S. has been rising for the last few quarters, actually, but I don't suppose that matters to this sort of thing. Doug

Document Size:	4966
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Dec 18 11:21:22 PST 2009

5992 [lbo-talk] madness in Texas: 8 years for graffiti -- rank: 1000

<http://animalnewyork.com/2009/12/texas-graffiti-writer-gets-8-years-of-prison-without-parole/ > Another Texas teenager is being inordinately punished for graffiti. 18- year-old Sebastian Perez was sentenced to 8 years in state prison after pleading guilty to three vandalism charges and one for pot possession. Unlike fellow writer Ralph Mirabel, who was given eight years by another Corpus Christi judge in August, Perez must serve his entire sentence with no possibility of parole. Despi ...

Document Size:	5708
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 17 08:59:05 PST 2009

5993 [lbo-talk] WBAI election results -- rank: 1000

On Dec 17, 2009, at 10:29 AM, Mitchel Cohen wrote: > I received 1,140 First Place votes. Lynne Stewart received 1,136. Congrats, Mitch. But, really, why did anyone nominate or vote for someone who won't be able to attend a meeting? For too long, the governance of WBAI has been in the hands of people who think their political resumes are more important than knowing something about how to run a radio station or raise money for a nonprofit. The candidate statements are full of claims like &q ...

Document Size:	5496
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 17 07:41:45 PST 2009

5994 [lbo-talk] interview with woman whose computer was shot by Israeli security -- rank: 1000

Her family's Jewish, she lives in Egypt and speaks Arabic, but she doesn't know the Jewish holidays. So they shot her MacBook: http://gizmodo.com/5428381/israeli-authorities-will-reimburse-girl-after-shooting-holes-through-her-laptop

Document Size:	5111
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Dec 17 06:17:07 PST 2009

5995 [lbo-talk] communists -- rank: 1000

On Dec 16, 2009, at 3:39 PM, Marv Gandall wrote: > Armed CP fighters alone - you can't get more "active" than that - > numbered in the tens of thousands in Spain and occupied Europe, and > the hundreds of thousands when China and other liberation movements > are included, at the peak of the Comintern's global influence > between 1935-45. Let me say this again, since people seem to be missing it: I think Hobsbawm was talking about hardcore members, professional revoluti ...

Document Size:	5098
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 16 12:46:39 PST 2009

5996 [lbo-talk] communists -- rank: 1000

On Dec 16, 2009, at 1:04 PM, Steven L. Robinson wrote: > How would Hobsbawm know? Did he have access to the comintern > archives? I don't know. He's a historian and a communist so I'd assume that he knew what he was talking about. I was looking for the original source, which I now can't remember. Doug

Document Size:	4712
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 16 10:50:24 PST 2009

5997 [lbo-talk] Sam Gindin, ON THE REVIVAL OF THE WORKING -- rank: 1000

On Dec 16, 2009, at 1:13 PM, Eric Beck wrote: > By the way, this is one of the reasons I can't get behind the naming > of the revolutionary vanguard. Doug's working class, Zizek's > slum-dwellers, and Hardt and Negri's immaterial workers all assume a > political subject before the actual politics has happened. That's not what I was thinking really. I was thinking that the subject would come into existence through political action - so if you had some unions that were worth a damn, ...

Document Size:	5422
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 16 10:49:30 PST 2009

5998 [lbo-talk] Sam Gindin, ON THE REVIVAL OF THE WORKING CLASS -- rank: 1000

On Dec 16, 2009, at 12:42 PM, MICHAEL YATES wrote: > Sam is right about class, as right as anyone can be. I don't know > that there is any contradiction what he says and what Zizek says. I'm not so sure of that. You quote Ralph Miliband (by the way, one "l," not two) as saying: "the 'primacy' of organized labour in struggle arises from the fact that no other group, movement or force in capitalist society is remotely capable of mounting as effective and formidable a chal ...

Document Size:	5706
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 16 10:00:57 PST 2009

5999 [lbo-talk] communists -- rank: 1000

On Dec 16, 2009, at 12:47 PM, Bhaskar Sunkara wrote: > Or was the quote just about the United States? That number doesn't > sound > that absurd. No, worldwide.

Document Size:	4575
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 16 09:53:22 PST 2009

6000 [lbo-talk] communists -- rank: 1000

I recall reading somewhere in Hobsbawm that at the peak of its influence the Communist movement had something like just 20,000 hardcore activists. Anyone know the details on this? Doug

Document Size:	4609
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Dec 16 09:40:38 PST 2009