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8866 [lbo-talk] Fed: kitchen sink included -- rank: 1000

[This is quite aggressive - more than expected, I think. They're pushing short rates close to 0, and planning to expand their purchases of longer-dated paper.] <http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/monetary/20081216b.htm> Release Date: December 16, 2008 For immediate release The Federal Open Market Committee decided today to establish a target range for the federal funds rate of 0 to 1/4 percent. Since the Committee's last meeting, labor market conditions have deteriorated, a ...

Document Size:	7726
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 16 11:28:49 PST 2008

8867 [lbo-talk] Wall Street Coup D état (must read) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 16, 2008, at 1:03 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote: > Doug writes: > >> But it's gone now, and the obligations remain. > > Is it actually gone? I was referring to the argument that someone's loss was someone else's gain. (In a lot of derivatives contracts, not much money actually changes hands, but let's leave that aside.) If there was a gain, that money's probably long been applied elsewhere, and isn't easily recovered.

Document Size:	5337
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 16 10:27:13 PST 2008

8868 [lbo-talk] Official Economic stats (was: Roubini) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 16, 2008, at 8:05 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote: > Take for example the concept of the boundaries of production used in > national accounting, which in principle consists of all market > transactions. However, as feminist critiques of that concepts > pointed out, it leaves out a substantial chunk of productive > activities, namely those carried out within the household sector or > by unpaid labor (the latter is a bit more complicated and depends on > the instituional s ...

Document Size:	5790
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 16 08:55:32 PST 2008

8869 [lbo-talk] bourgeois stats: a maker speaks -- rank: 1000

[Someone who works at one of the USG's statistical mills asked me to forward this anonymously.] I can't pass for disinterested, but the major statistics have a de facto system of checks and balances. The Federal Reserve is never shy about calling, and their calls are answered. The private analysts who consume the data--who build their careers upon the data--are neither passive consumers nor without an audience for their challenges to the official stats. The policy factories such as Brookings ca ...

Document Size:	5559
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 16 08:42:47 PST 2008

8870 [lbo-talk] Pat Buchanan on the Toyota Republicans -- rank: 1000

The Toyota Republicans by Patrick J. Buchanan Posted 12/16/2008 ET "GOP to Detroit: Drop Dead!" So may have read the headline Friday, had not President Bush stepped in to save GM, Ford and Chrysler, which Senate Republicans had just voted to send to the knacker's yard. What are Republicans thinking of, pulling the plug, at Christmas, on GM, risking swift death for the greatest manufacturing company in American history, a strategic asset and pillar of the U.S. economy. The $14 billi ...

Document Size:	9941
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 16 08:33:49 PST 2008

8871 [lbo-talk] Wall Street Coup D état (must read) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 16, 2008, at 7:38 AM, double bluff wrote: > Hence the $8.5 trillion Dollars of bailouts, this money is simply > being transferred or funnelled from the taxpayers to a select band > of Wall Street insiders. Remember it is a zero sum game the > outsiders Bear Stearns, Wachovia, Citigroup LOST but somebody gained > an equivalent amount. But it's gone now, and the obligations remain.

Document Size:	5314
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Tue Dec 16 08:29:50 PST 2008

8872 [lbo-talk] Official Economic stats (was: Roubini) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 15, 2008, at 7:43 PM, joseph noonan wrote: > OK, this is as good a time to ask what I've been meaning to ask > since last spring when I read this article by Kevin Phillips in > Harper's: > > <http://www.tampabay.com/news/article473596.ece> > > Doug, I know that you are (in general) of the opinion that the > 'bourgeois' stats are pretty reliable and that it more of an issue > how they are read. I also know you don't write off Phillips as > merely a popul ...

Document Size:	6550
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Dec 15 17:55:43 PST 2008

8873 [lbo-talk] Progress and Cariucature (Was Re: Catholicism. . . ) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 15, 2008, at 11:58 AM, Michael Smith wrote: > Besides, making allowance for metaphor, the observation > is, well, factually correct, isn't it? To you & me, yeah. To most people who live in bourgeois society, not at all. It all looks free and natural, at least to some degree. Doug

Document Size:	5118
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Dec 15 09:10:57 PST 2008

8874 [lbo-talk] Towards a New WPA, was Re: Roubini/labor market stats -- rank: 1000

While the violinist as cab driver story has provoked an interesting thread, and a typically witty post from Cde Cox enthusiastically defending the mediocre (who are all of us), the point of the original story is that it's nearly impossible to define underemployment, much less measure it. Having made that geeky point, carry on.

Document Size:	5137
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Dec 15 08:28:52 PST 2008

8875 [lbo-talk] Progress and Cariucature (Was Re: Catholicism. . . ) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 15, 2008, at 6:35 AM, Michael Smith wrote: > He certainly hated capitalism. But his justification > for expropriating the expropriators isn't founded > on the immorality of the latter, is it? That would > presuppose some moral framework (founded on what?) > existing over and above or outside of the historical > dialectic. So what's behind an outburst like: "If money, According to Augier, 'comes into the world with a congenital blood-stain on one cheek,' capital c ...

Document Size:	5472
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Mon Dec 15 08:21:12 PST 2008

8876 [lbo-talk] Progress and Cariucature (Was Re: Catholicism. . . ) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 14, 2008, at 9:55 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > He was a curious guy who liked to figure things out, perhaps. Like > many of us, though smarter than most. But he didn't believe -- did > he? -- > that argument -- still less, moral argument -- was going to dethrone > the bourgeoisie and bring about -- what? Of course not. What's that line about between two such adversaries only might prevails? But really, why go to all that trouble if you didn't have an ethical beef with capit ...

Document Size:	5367
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Dec 14 20:35:29 PST 2008

8877 [lbo-talk] Progress and Cariucature (Was Re: Catholicism. . . ) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 14, 2008, at 9:20 PM, Michael Smith wrote: > How about: We want it, and we *will* have it? You mean Marx wrote all that stuff, when he could have just said, "Me. Want. Now!"? Why bother with decoding the phenomenal forms of profit, interest, and rent originating in uncompensated labor if you could just reduce it to the demands of a 3-year-old? And I'm not sure all that many people want to be "free" - of what? not sure (is there some inner essence distorted by no ...

Document Size:	5369
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Dec 14 18:35:06 PST 2008

8878 [lbo-talk] Progress and Cariucature (Was Re: Catholicism. . . ) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 14, 2008, at 9:04 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > I have no moral objections to capitalism. That is absurd, since the > only > "morality" available is cvapitalist morality. Marx does not 'oppose' > capitalism ideologically; but Rousseau does. For Marx, it is history; > for Rousseau, it is evil." Moralism always ends up with bourgeois > demands for equality rather than Marxist demands for freedom. So what are the grounds for these demands for freedom, if not some ...

Document Size:	5382
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Dec 14 18:09:27 PST 2008

8879 [lbo-talk] Progress? (Was . . . Re: Catholicism, ) -- rank: 1000

On Dec 14, 2008, at 5:40 PM, andie nachgeborenen wrote: > arx's promethean optimism Well that's our problem, isn't it? Too much left discourse today is about how things are getting worse, the earth is doomed, culture is depraved by commerce, etc. There's little sense that we've got the means to do a lot better. Of course you can't recreate that optimism out of nothing, and I'm not sure that there are any circumstances under which it could be revived. But without it, we're not going very ...

Document Size:	5224
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Dec 14 15:02:32 PST 2008

8880 [lbo-talk] Schumer -- rank: 1000

On Dec 14, 2008, at 1:03 PM, Jenny Brown wrote: > Schumer, according to this article, often raises the specter that > some European capital will take over from NYC as the center of > finance if Congress does pass whatever deregulatory measure he's > flogging. Was there really such a competition or is this pure > bullshit? My impression is that the U.S. was leading that race to > the bottom. There was a lot of talk during the boom about London eclipsing New York, in part beca ...

Document Size:	5130
Author:	Doug Henwood
Date:	Sun Dec 14 10:32:55 PST 2008