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1021 [lbo-talk] Russia's economy -- rank: 1000

"a future in which Russia looks like lots of other underdeveloped countries the industrialized world exploits for their resources -- a thin glaze of expensive Western chains imported for the benefit of a compliant comrador class while the rest of country suffers. Say why it ain't so." It ain't so because between 80 and 85 per cent of Russia's output is not oil or gas. Yes it is true that Russia is fortuitously oil-rich (as indeed is the US). But that does not account for all the growth ...

Document Size:	6916
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed May 9 09:17:55 PDT 2007

1022 [lbo-talk] Russia's economy (was Kvetching, Sarkozy etc.) -- rank: 1000

Doug, to Chris: "If oil prices were to fall hard, Russia would feel it. Investment rates of 18% of GDP are more like a developed economy (US, EU) than a "developing" one (China's at 40%, but that's almost outlandishly high). You can't sustain rapid internal growth with investment rates that low. They are consistent, though, with an oil- and credit-driven boom." But then Russia is a developed economy, in a way that China was not. Russia's development followed a slightly perve ...

Document Size:	6323
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed May 9 07:14:55 PDT 2007

1023 [lbo-talk] Kvetching and Sarkozy -- rank: 1000

On 5/8/07, James Heartfield <Heartfield at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote: > On the other hand, I > don't want the socialism of universal misery, Andy replied: "Unlike those of us in the Illuminated Order of Climatologists. Forward, against Progress!"In the 1970s the late Sir Keith Joseph made a speech saying that too many underclass babies were being born and that the National Health Service needed to provide better contracption. Private Eye ran the story with the hadline "I ...

Document Size:	5065
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed May 9 02:45:51 PDT 2007

1024 [lbo-talk] Russia (was kvetching...) -- rank: 1000

I think Andie has misread the statistics on Russia's investment levels and oil revenues. First, as an aside, I guess that Andie takes pleasure from the idea that Russia has been converted from an industrial power to a platform for raw material exports because it vindicates an argument he was making, not because he wants to see the Russian people prostrated before the developed west. In any event I do not believe that is what the figures show. I think the series of Gross Fixed Capital Formation a ...

Document Size:	6563
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Wed May 9 00:51:01 PDT 2007

1025 [lbo-talk] Russia's economy (was Kvetching, Sarkozy etc.) -- rank: 1000

It is not right to put Russian growth down to oil and gas alone. In fact between them, they account for twenty per cent of Gross Domestic Product (compared to eight per cent in 1999). Since 1999 Russia posted growth rates averaging 6 per cent of GDP a year, while the average of the G8 countries was just 2 per cent. Oil and gas are more important for overseas trade.One third of Russia's export earnings came from oil and gas in 1999, but by 2005 that had risen to 55 per cent. According to the RAND ...

Document Size:	6741
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue May 8 17:28:05 PDT 2007

1026 [lbo-talk] Kvetching and Sarkozy -- rank: 1000

"Yes I can. I've never missed an opportunity to denounce the nationalism of the antiglobal left. ...You can't get me on that one." Yes, sorry, of course you can. In fact, I think it was you that put me on to it. On regeneration, you're right it is not socialism, and improved neighbourhoods will not eradicate class difference, but on the contrary become goods that exemplify those class differences. On the other hand, I don't want the socialism of universal misery, so I prefer regenerati ...

Document Size:	5313
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue May 8 16:29:37 PDT 2007

1027 [lbo-talk] France looks to new Sarkozy era -- rank: 1000

Doug: "So Sarko's adoption of Le Pen rhetoric doesn't bother you?" Yes, it is pretty despicable, but maybe you cannot hear the cadences of the left's national chauvinism. The theme of French Social Solidarity endangered by Globalisation is a way of appealing to a coded nationalism, centred on France's "unique" welfare institutions. Of course the left does not have to make an issue out of Sarkozy's East European origins, they can leave that to Le Pen to spell out. All they hav ...

Document Size:	6081
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue May 8 14:23:57 PDT 2007

1028 [lbo-talk] Kvetching, was Sarkozy, France etc -- rank: 1000

Doug asked: "Just who are these lefty intelletuals who glorify misery? You have anyone in mind, or is this just another one of your feelings?" Just to re-cap, it was Wojtek who said the left was always "kvetching" a "a bunch of chronic complainers and crackpots" without an alternative. I must say I thought "kvetching" was pretty accurate. Here is Goerge Monbiot arguing that London's successful Olympic bid and the government's commitment to use the Olympics ...

Document Size:	7750
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue May 8 13:27:08 PDT 2007

1029 [lbo-talk] France looks to new Sarkozy era -- rank: 1000

On the French results, it would be a mistake to think that Sarkozy won, when more to the point is that Royal lost. The Socialists' vague appeal to Social Solidarity is a complicated code. To older workers it means the profession based system of occupational pensions and benefits, which though no great shakes, were there. But for younger immigrants, that social welfare system was not so well developed. A variety of newer projects were created to try to win loyalty to the state among those communi ...

Document Size:	6503
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue May 8 00:18:22 PDT 2007

1030 [lbo-talk] Save the Planet, Kill Yourself -- rank: 1000

Doug: "I'm guessing Andy F was fucking with you." Well, yes, I was rather hoping so myself (but any opportunity to get my favourite Cooper Clarke on) "I love human beings. (I like us better than animals, too.) I'd be sad to see us reduced in numbers. That's why I'm concerned about climate change - not because I want to reduce the human population." I would have said something like that to the Optimum Population Trust myself, as I was booked in to debate them, on BBC Radio ton ...

Document Size:	5302
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon May 7 13:25:10 PDT 2007

1031 [lbo-talk] Save the Planet: Kill Yourself -- rank: 1000

Andy writes of his chapter of the Voluntary Human Extinction movement: "I have to emphasize that our activities are for now strictly voluntary, and that we try to convince people of their essential worthlessness through gentle persuasion and reasoned argument." You could always try leading by example, I suppose. Does the 'for now' suggest that the more militant wing is straining at the leash? Were Timothy McVeigh or Ted Kaczynki part of a breakaway group, perhaps? What about the Hale B ...

Document Size:	6441
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon May 7 12:20:21 PDT 2007

1032 [lbo-talk] Save the Planet: Kill Yourself -- rank: 1000

The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is an informal organisation that has spent the past decade campaigning for the phasing out of the entire human race. ... Followers crusade under the slogan "may we live long and die out", and advocate a lemming-like approach to the problem of overpopulation. Mankind, they say, is a destructive force at the root of every environmental problem now facing the planet; as a result, it should now commit biological hara-kiri .http://news.independent.co. ...

Document Size:	6193
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Mon May 7 03:14:21 PDT 2007

1033 [lbo-talk] How populist conservatives in the USA see this modern world.... -- rank: 1000

How populist conservatives in the USA see this modern world.... Sounded pretty accurate to me. Under new rules here parents who want to organise after school clubs have to be vetted by the Criminal Records Bureau. Not surprisingly, this has led to a big fall-off of dad's doing football - not that they have criminal records, only that the whole process is intrusive and bureaucratic, and makes everyone feel like they are potential abusers when all they wanted to do was football.

Document Size:	5375
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Thu May 3 01:30:55 PDT 2007

1034 [lbo-talk] how we celebrate May Day in the US -- rank: 1000

[We don't celebrate May Day in the US; we celebrate Loyalty and Law!] which is a shame since, according to Rosa Luxemburg, the American labor movement was among the first to strike on May Day (after the Australians) http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1894/02/may-day.htm

Document Size:	5023
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue May 1 15:38:41 PDT 2007

1035 [lbo-talk] May Day -- rank: 1000

"Our aims most modest are, we only want the earth." James Connolly

Document Size:	4497
Author:	James Heartfield
Date:	Tue May 1 13:15:53 PDT 2007