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8206 [lbo-talk] jottings on the current conjuncture... -- rank: 1000

On Jan 23, 2008, at 6:30 AM, Chris Doss wrote: > Anderson is somebody whose pomposity is only matched > by his ignorance. That's not fair. He can be really erudite and thoughtful too. But he is a pompous dude, no doubt about it. Doug

Document Size:	4898
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Wed Jan 23 04:40:16 PST 2008

8207 [lbo-talk] let's all pray for a depression -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 6:38 PM, Chuck wrote: > Why do American leftists > prefer armchair activism over action? So what should they/we be doing? Doug

Document Size:	4754
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 18:25:09 PST 2008

8208 [lbo-talk] Lenin in Fremont -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 5:18 PM, John E. Norem wrote: > http://www.roadsideamerica.com/attract/WASEAlenin.html Our son, Ivan, in Liza's arms, studies the great man: <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Ivan&VI.jpg>. According to the plaque next to that statue, it's one of the few in which Lenin is depicted as a warrior. Doug

Document Size:	4920
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 14:46:45 PST 2008

8209 [lbo-talk] let's all pray for a depression -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 4:49 PM, Patrick Bond wrote: >> The Chinese, Europeans and others don't appear to share his >> sanguine view >> that their economies have decoupled from the US, > > But that's precisely the point! You've read me ass-backwards, Marvin. > The fact that all these comprador regimes are in Washington's sewage > backwash means we need a major shake-up of world power to cut out that > hydraulic effect. It's only with a US crash that decoupling is > ...

Document Size:	6259
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 14:31:21 PST 2008

8210 [lbo-talk] a plausible scenario -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 4:56 PM, B. wrote: > Do you have a "hard" URL for this, so that if I wanted > to forward it to anyone else I could say something > more than "this was posted to a left-wing discussion > list?" We all know that that alone is the death knell > of credibility! :) It was a direct quote from Rosenberg. I'm on their press list, and I don't want to circulate their URLs for the whole world to see. Doug

Document Size:	4964
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 14:21:30 PST 2008

8211 [lbo-talk] a different view of U.S. mfg -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 3:25 PM, Patrick Bond wrote: > Bourgeois statistics again, Doug. They say nothing about partial > devalorisation, i.e., capacity that could (and sometimes is) brought > back into production when circumstances require it. That was also > Arrighi's mistake in the NLR crit of Brenner. > > Why am I not getting through on this basic point, old friend? Because these stats are the best evidence we have. Otherwise you can just say whatever you want to, with no real ...

Document Size:	6495
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 14:20:45 PST 2008

8212 [lbo-talk] a plausible scenario -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 4:02 PM, Michael J. Smith wrote: > I hope I haven't asked this before -- are there good time-series > numbers > to be had somewhere on this topic? I've got a bunch that I've laboriously assembled over the years, but I'm not into this web ethic of giving stuff away for free. You can see a not-updated-since-2005 chart at: <http://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Housing.html>. Doug

Document Size:	5030
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 13:36:56 PST 2008

8213 [lbo-talk] US stox off 1%, reversing most of morning's losses -- rank: 1000

MARKET ALERT from The Wall Street Journal. Jan. 22, 2008 The Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 128 points in a tumultuous session after the Federal Reserve cut its target for the federal- funds rate by three quarters of a percentage point to 3.5%. Stocks fell steeply early in the day, with the Dow shedding more than 460 points in the first few minutes of trading, after a broad two-day selloff that swept through stock markets in Europe and Asia. But the Fed's aggressive rate action cheered i ...

Document Size:	5658
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 13:31:19 PST 2008

8214 [lbo-talk] a plausible scenario -- rank: 1000

[This is from Merrill Lynch's chief economist, David Rosenberg. It seems plausible to me. To put this in context, there was essentially *no* consumer recession when the rest of the economy tanked in 2001.] The recession in housing has spilled over to the rest of the economy, in our view. We now expect an outright contraction in economic activity in the first three quarters of 2008. This downturn should be led by consumer spending. GDP is expected to average 0.8% in 2008 (was 1.6% before) an ...

Document Size:	6949
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 11:36:28 PST 2008

8215 [lbo-talk] WGA shocked to discover DNC in bed with big biz -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 4:51 AM, Jerry Monaco wrote: > Also, I am very curious about what anybody might think about this Page > 6 column. Gossip columinsts are notorious for being political tools > for the owners and bosses of Newspapers. "The strike... is expected > to last several months more," sounds more to me like a threat than > based on considered opinion. As it happens, Liza just wrote a piece for the Columbia Journalism Review on the Fox Business Channel, so she' ...

Document Size:	5422
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 11:25:14 PST 2008

8216 [lbo-talk] a different view of U.S. mfg -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 12:55 AM, Patrick Bond wrote: > Doug Henwood wrote: >> On Jan 21, 2008, at 10:49 AM, Patrick Bond wrote: >> >>> where's your marxian gut instincts, to hunt down all the >>> partially devalorised constant K that could be returned to >>> production >>> were there the will and the market (i.e. demand side) and protection >>> from competition? >>> >> I'm not sure what kind of system you're talking about he ...

Document Size:	6726
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 11:23:19 PST 2008

8217 [lbo-talk] indicator -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 1:11 PM, Seth Ackerman wrote: > Doug Henwood wrote: > >> Ok I'm starting to get calls from journalists about The Turmoil. In >> the past, this has been a sign that we're getting close to the end of >> a panic. We'll see if it works this time... >> >> I'm going to be on Al Jazeera this afternooon. I'm rather tickled. >> >> >> > > Doug, there's such a thing as being too anti-catastrophist. House > prices > still ...

Document Size:	5910
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 10:35:45 PST 2008

8218 [lbo-talk] Dick Morris: Billary playing the race card -- rank: 1000

New York Post - January 22, 2008 <http://www.nypost.com/seven/01222008/news/columnists/ theres_a_method_to_crafty_bills_madness_36682.htm> THERE'S A METHOD TO CRAFTY BILL'S MADNESS By DICK MORRIS January 22, 2008 -- WHY is Bill Clinton courting such intense publicity, in evitably much of it negative? Is he crazy? Crazy like a fox. He has two goals and is achieving them both spectacularly. First, he wants to be the same kind of lightning rod for Hillary that she was for him during his run ...

Document Size:	8698
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 10:11:34 PST 2008

8219 [lbo-talk] jottings on the current conjuncture... -- rank: 1000

On Jan 22, 2008, at 12:57 PM, Mark Rickling wrote: > Thanks. Although I can guess what you would say, can you sketch out > what these structural factors are? You know, high debt and falling house prices.

Document Size:	4862
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 10:06:07 PST 2008

8220 [lbo-talk] Obama and the black class split -- rank: 1000

Obama's Bid Turns Focus On Class Split Among Blacks By JONATHAN KAUFMAN ELGIN, S.C. -- Briana Parker, a 17-year-old African-American, drives her Honda every Wednesday from her suburban home here to the local Barack Obama headquarters to work the phone banks. Already accepted at six colleges, the high-school senior finds Mr. Obama an inspiration. "He reminds me that I can go and do things that others said I couldn't do," says Ms. Parker, who plans to double major at college and be ...

Document Size:	19143
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Jan 22 10:02:17 PST 2008