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7066 [lbo-talk] Goldman Sachs: more big stimulus needed -- rank: 1000

US Views: More Stimulus Is Needed 1. When President-elect Obama takes office on January 20, 2009, he will face an economy that continues to sink. We now expect an unemployment rate of 81 2% by 2009 Q4, for a total increase of 4 percentage points since 2007 Q1. Assuming a modest further rise in 2010, this would imply the biggest cumulative increase of the postwar period. 2. We now also think that the Fed will cuts its funds rate target further from 1% to 50bp at the December 16 FOMC meeting. W ...

Document Size:	8747
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 13:04:20 PST 2008

7067 [lbo-talk] Massad reviewed -- rank: 1000

A more critical take on Joseph Massad's Desiring Arabs than our former virtual comrade Yoshie offered: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/node/1962>. Doug

Document Size:	4672
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 13:00:50 PST 2008

7068 [lbo-talk] Randians say... -- rank: 1000

...and would Ralph Nader disagree? ---- Dear Editor: Please consider this Op-Ed submission from the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights. Let Them Fail By Amit Ghate Everywhere today politicians are blaring that they must save America s financial institutions, alleging catastrophic risk to the economy were any to fail. Paulson and the entire Bush administration, in a discernible panic, are now pouring $700 billion into the big banks, having already bailed out AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, ...

Document Size:	9798
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 12:07:34 PST 2008

7069 [lbo-talk] why did Stygian Stiglitz back Volkisch Volker? -- rank: 1000

On Nov 10, 2008, at 1:29 PM, James Heartfield wrote: > We are talking as if regulation was a good thing. But regulation can > be a means to capitalst domination, just like deregulation. Well yeah. Which is why I said this: > Another point re: whether Paul Adolph Volcker is a neoliberal and/or > deregulator. There's a good chance that an Obama admin will tend > towards some Progressive Era-style rationalization of capitalism > after the wreckage of another Gilded Age. It will be ...

Document Size:	5721
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 10:40:58 PST 2008

7070 [lbo-talk] Juan Cole: Emmanuel Rahm deserves some slack on Israel -- rank: 1000

On Nov 10, 2008, at 2:20 AM, Michael Pollak wrote: > > FWIW: > > http://www.juancole.com/2008/11/emanuel-in-2002-details-of-us-and.html Mr. EMANUEL: Well--well, everybody--I mean, my sequence is the Palestinian state doesn't come on the front end. It's something you earn through the--through the process, which is exactly what was set up by Prime Minister Rabin, Netanyahu and even Shimon Perez. And that fact is it is the end goal as they prove themselves. And to date, you know, i ...

Document Size:	5562
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 10:31:10 PST 2008

7071 [lbo-talk] Why did Stiglitz endorse Volcker? -- rank: 1000

On Nov 10, 2008, at 12:44 PM, Patrick Bond wrote: > Hey, devoting massive amounts of income to debt repayment and > deindustrialising huge swaths of the Rust Belt weren't such easy > tasks for manufacturing fractions of capital during the Volcker > years. The turn to finance turned GM into a basket case, desperate > for profit flows from GMAC - until the real estate crunch. Abd the > ag and energy fractions weren't happy either. It's been a long time > since I read Greider's ...

Document Size:	5698
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 10:11:36 PST 2008

7072 [lbo-talk] a question -- rank: 1000

On Nov 10, 2008, at 12:46 PM, Rudy Fichtenbaum wrote: > Does anyone know the difference between value added in manufacturing > as measured by the Annual Survey of Manufacturers and the Census of > Manufacturers and value added in manufacturing as measured by the > BEA? Value added as measured in the ASM has been growing much more > rapidly than value added in manufacturing measured by the BEA. Call someone at the BEA. They'll tell you. Doug

Document Size:	4919
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 10:07:16 PST 2008

7073 [lbo-talk] Volcker & dereg -- rank: 1000

One of the reasons that Reagan didn't reappoint Volcker was that he was opposed to further bank dereg. And he wants more reg now. Doug ---- New York Times - June 3, 1987 VOLCKER OUT AFTER 8 YEARS AS FEDERAL RESERVE CHIEF; REAGAN CHOOSES GREENSPAN By ROBERT D. HERSHEY JR., SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES LEAD: President Reagan brought to a close today Paul A. Volcker's stewardship as one of the most powerful economic policymakers in the nation's history, nominating Alan Greenspan to succeed him ...

Document Size:	9422
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 09:22:37 PST 2008

7074 [lbo-talk] a question -- rank: 1000

[A question from The Note, reminiscent of the corporate governance literature - when you have millions of dispersed, unorganized shareholders, management gets a free hand.] Can you smell the conflicts coming? "Interest groups are furiously drawing up wish lists for the incoming Obama administration, many of them hoping to cash in on the investments they made -- in volunteers, political support, and campaign contributions - in Obama's commanding win," The Boston Globe's Scott Helm ...

Document Size:	5149
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 09:13:10 PST 2008

7075 [lbo-talk] Why did Stiglitz endorse Volcker? -- rank: 1000

On Nov 10, 2008, at 10:38 AM, Patrick Bond wrote: > No comrade, let me rephrase like this: shouldn't part of the task of > a left in such a period be to point out that the Volcker is another > neolib/dereg'er, oriented to maximising financial power? If you can't see a difference between Volcker and Greenspan, I give up. I'll try this tack. Why *financial* power? Why not capitalist power? Fortune 500 CEOs were just as happy with Volcker as Wall Streeters were. He broke working class po ...

Document Size:	5398
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 08:42:23 PST 2008

7076 [lbo-talk] Why did Stiglitz endorse Volcker? -- rank: 1000

Another point re: whether Paul Adolph Volcker is a neoliberal and/or deregulator. There's a good chance that an Obama admin will tend towards some Progressive Era-style rationalization of capitalism after the wreckage of another Gilded Age. It will be about consolidating capitalist power, but it won't look like the previous freewheeling era. Shouldn't part of the task of a left in such a period be to point out that the change might not be as radical as it looks to some? To misread Volcker ...

Document Size:	5148
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Nov 10 04:41:56 PST 2008

7077 [lbo-talk] Why did Stiglitz endorse Volcker? -- rank: 1000

On Nov 9, 2008, at 10:00 PM, Patrick Bond wrote: > I trust you (and Leo) on many many points, Doug. On this, though, I > trust Stuart Eizenstat (a jerk opposed to apartheid victims' use of > the Alien Tort Claims Act for reparations, though he did a deal with > German companies and Swiss banks to shake down several billion > dollars of reparations for Holocaust victims), explaining why Carter > chose him as Fed chair in July 1979: "Volcker was selected because > he was ...

Document Size:	6307
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Nov 9 19:50:37 PST 2008

7078 [lbo-talk] obama's end run around the democratic party? -- rank: 1000

On Nov 9, 2008, at 10:09 AM, Michael Pollak wrote: > Assuming arguendo this is true, this is different from the union > model of a base exactly how? They got more than a few bones? I wasn't comparing them to the unions, who aren't even whores, since they pay and get almost nothing in return. I'm comparing them with the hedge funders etc., who pay and get their calls returned. Doug

Document Size:	5135
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Nov 9 18:10:13 PST 2008

7079 [lbo-talk] obama's end run around the democratic party? -- rank: 1000

On Nov 8, 2008, at 9:10 PM, James Straub wrote: > fear expansions of the Palin-style right, of anti-immigrant > hysteria, of Ron paul-wierdness, but I think just as likely is a > move left for lots of people. Will we be ready? How should "we" prepare? And who are "we" exactly? Doug

Document Size:	5063
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Nov 9 06:56:31 PST 2008

7080 [lbo-talk] Why did Stiglitz endorse Volcker? -- rank: 1000

On Nov 9, 2008, at 5:12 AM, Patrick Bond wrote: > oes anyone know why Stiglitz would risk ridicule by trying to > contrast Volcker - who rapidly deregulated US banking in the 1980s > during his sado-monetarist reign - with Summers/Rubin? Volcker wasn't really about dereg - he was about breaking inflation. He's also an old-style, safety-and-soundness central banker who'd never have put up with the dot.com or housing bubbles. And these days he's making noises about inequality. So my gu ...

Document Size:	5577
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Nov 9 06:55:41 PST 2008