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8176 [lbo-talk] Repugs: first China, now the New Deal -- rank: 1000

On Jan 25, 2008, at 1:06 PM, Joanna wrote: > Bloomberg brings you the New New Deal > > http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/bloomberg-embraces- > fdrs-new-deal/ I keep telling people, he's not bad for a bourgeois politician and billionaire. We could do far worse than have him as president. Doug

Document Size:	5109
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Fri Jan 25 10:29:32 PST 2008

8177 [lbo-talk] O-bomb-a's economic advisers -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2008, at 5:29 PM, nas wrote: > Ah, the audacity of bullshit. > > Austan Goolsbee, U. of Chicago neoclassicist and Sicko critic; David > Cutler, Harvard economist who believes that high health costs are good > for the economy; Jeffrey Liebman: another Harvard economist and former > Clinton adviser who favors privatizing social security. > > http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2008/01/09/obamas-economic-advisers/ I realize it's like parsing the levels of hell but ...

Document Size:	5259
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 19:08:28 PST 2008

8178 [lbo-talk] recession severity -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2008, at 11:19 PM, Eric wrote: > I wonder if perhaps this is the crisis that produces > neoliberalism's successor. You may be right. I don't by the end-of-America stuff, but it does look like our accumulation model might require at least a tune-up. That's going to take a different attitude toward state action. I'm wondering if the Bill Gates "capitalism must be nice" rap signifies some kind of shift from a Gilded Age consciousness to something like a Progressive Er ...

Document Size:	5094
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 19:06:01 PST 2008

8179 [lbo-talk] STICKS NIX HICK PIX -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2008, at 8:51 PM, John Thornton wrote: > Dennis Claxton wrote: >>> a jack-ass type response like Dennis did. >>> >>> John Thornton >>> >> >> >> Again with the country stuff? > > > At least you're consistently as asshole. Huh? Play nice. Doug

Document Size:	4904
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 18:24:23 PST 2008

8180 [lbo-talk] recession severity -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2008, at 4:25 PM, Seth Ackerman wrote: > The labor force grows by more than 1% per year. Even assuming no > productivity growth, a zero GDP growth rate over four years would put > the unemployment rate above 9%, the same as the trough of the 1974-75 > recession. Yup. Near-0 doesn't mean 0, and people drop out of the labor force if the job market sucks, but 7-8% isn't outlandish.

Document Size:	4889
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 18:19:20 PST 2008

8181 [lbo-talk] recession severity -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2008, at 3:17 PM, Steven L. Robinson wrote: > Which begs the question, what sectors will offset construction and > mortgage finance" Certainly not tech - at least here in the SF Bay > Area- with the layoffs from Yahoo. Not much. I'm guessing collection agents and repo men are pretty small sectors. Looking further down the road, if there's a Dem admin and a Dem Congress, I suspect we'll see big subsidies for what are now being called "green collar jobs." Doug

Document Size:	4987
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 12:30:51 PST 2008

8182 [lbo-talk] recession severity -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2008, at 2:57 PM, Steven L. Robinson wrote: > Would it be fair to say, though, that in some areas heavily > dependent on construction spending - e.g. Southern California - > that the recession might be steeper than nationally? For an > unemployed construction worker or mortgage consultant it would > certainly FEEL like a steep recession. For sure. Nor was there any boom in the midwest - instead, much of that region has been enduring the evisceration of the domestic au ...

Document Size:	5169
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 12:10:20 PST 2008

8183 [lbo-talk] recession severity -- rank: 1000

On Jan 24, 2008, at 2:34 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote: > It's hard to believe, given the magnitude of the excesses and the > degree to which the economy is organized around consumption, that > this is not going to be a long hard fall. It could just be a long slog - years of near-zero growth.

Document Size:	4849
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 11:43:15 PST 2008

8184 [lbo-talk] recession severity -- rank: 1000

A lot of Wall Street types are forecasting the worst recession since the 1930s. My first reaction to this was: worse than 1974-75, or 1981-82? Those were really nasty - GDP down around 3%, unemployment up to 9-10%. We haven't seen anything like that in decades, though we might this time. And there's nothing (yet) in the leading indexes to suggest that's in the offing. I asked a pal of mine who's one of Wall Street's leading business cycle forecasters if there's anything to this prediction ...

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Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 11:15:26 PST 2008

8185 [lbo-talk] ECB: bastion of sadomonetarism - and anti-communism -- rank: 1000

DAVOS-ECB's sole priority is price stability-Trichet Thu Jan 24, 2008 12:45pm EST DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 24 (Reuters) - Ensuring price stability is the European Central Bank's sole priority and not at odds with a goal of ensuring stable financial markets, President Jean-Claude Trichet said on Thursday. Speaking to a panel at the annual World Economic Forum, Trichet urged central banks to do everything to minimise the impact of financial risks. But he said those risks were an integral part ...

Document Size:	6405
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 09:58:50 PST 2008

8186 [lbo-talk] let's all pray for a depression -- rank: 1000

On Jan 23, 2008, at 10:48 PM, Michael Pollak wrote: > I thought India already was largely an inward-oriented economy. > FWIW, if > I'm reading these figures right, India exports less to the US in a > year > than China exports in a month: Yes, but how important has U.S. investment and outsourcing been to the development of the IT biz in India? Doug

Document Size:	5006
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 09:15:43 PST 2008

8187 [lbo-talk] let's all pray for a depression -- rank: 1000

On Jan 23, 2008, at 6:48 PM, Julio Huato wrote: > But back to the story: In international macro, the idea of decoupling > has been around for 10 or 15 years. Thanks for this interesting history - I didn't know anything about it. Needless to say, the Wall Street version is much more superficial. I think it was invented by portfolio managers who were long the BRICs. Doug

Document Size:	4989
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 09:15:03 PST 2008

8188 [lbo-talk] monopolist Bill Gates wants to sweeten capitalism -- rank: 1000

Wall Street Journal - January 24, 2008 Bill Gates Issues Call For Kinder Capitalism Famously Competitive, Billionaire Now Urges Business to Aid the Poor By ROBERT A. GUTH Free enterprise has been good to Bill Gates. But later today, the Microsoft Corp. chairman will call for a revision of capitalism. In a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the software tycoon plans to call for a "creative capitalism" that uses market forces to address poor-country needs that h ...

Document Size:	19869
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 09:01:28 PST 2008

8189 [lbo-talk] let's all pray for a depression -- rank: 1000

On Jan 23, 2008, at 11:42 PM, Patrick Bond wrote: > I see Soros has taken up the thread in the FT a couple of days ago, > with > this comment in the same spirit as Chuck and myself: "So, the current > financial crisis is less likely to cause a global recession than a > radical realignment of the global economy, with a relative decline of > the US and the rise of China and other countries in the developing > world." Soros must be short the dollar. Doug

Document Size:	5147
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Thu Jan 24 04:16:41 PST 2008

8190 [lbo-talk] McCain too liberal for Coulter -- rank: 1000

<http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=24635> 'Straight Talk' Express Takes Scenic Route to Truth by Ann Coulter Posted: 01/23/2008 John McCain is Bob Dole minus the charm, conservatism and youth. Like McCain, pollsters assured us that Dole was the most "electable" Republican. Unlike McCain, Dole didn't lie all the time while claiming to engage in Straight Talk. Of course, I might lie constantly too, if I were seeking the Republican presidential nomination after enthusias ...

Document Size:	11625
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 23 19:35:43 PST 2008