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136 how big are MNCs -- rank: 1000

At 06/02/02 14:54 -0500, Doug quoted the FT article: >Does anybody doubt that the US legal system could break up Microsoft if it >wanted to do so? But does anybody doubt that in class terms the influence of finance capital on the political system would be so great that a monopoly like Microsoft would not automatically be broken up. Or that a company like Enron could finance, what is it, two thirds of the members of Congress, and both political parties in Britain? And that when it comes to ...

Document Size:	5159
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Feb 6 23:26:02 PST 2002

137 Japan's demographic crisis -- rank: 1000

The extreme concentration of capital in Japan and its partial sharing with the majority of the population has added a severe demographic problem to Japan's capitalist problem. It needs labour power fast. from http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,644033,00.html >>> 500,000 off of the population every year until 2050, when one in three will be of retirement age. If the trend continues to 2100, the number of Japanese will have halved and many vibrant cities will be ghost to ...

Document Size:	5374
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Feb 3 00:31:06 PST 2002

138 slogans -- rank: 1000

At 28/01/02 22:20 -0800, you wrote: >On Tue, 29 Jan 2002, Michael Pollak wrote: > > > Personally I incline to the belief that the most creative thing protesters > > could have done was skip this meeting without making a statement and hit > > the next one. > >I know what you mean, but I can't help but think that the time for >standing down has passed (or maybe I'm just getting theological in my old >age). The global Left has got to show some maturity, and move ...

Document Size:	6489
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Jan 28 23:32:37 PST 2002

139 Fight Club: Psychosis -- rank: 1000

At 26/01/02 17:22 -0500, you wrote: >Just watched the DVD "Special Edition" of the brilliant film "Fight Club," >and wondered, what with all the anti-capitalist/consumerist, >pseudo-nihilist dialogue and imagery, capped with the final shot of >several large commercial buildings being blown up (to erase credit card >debt everywhere) and the base of operations called Ground Zero, why no one >has pointed to this as irresponsible or worse? I mean, doesn't Andrew ...

Document Size:	6281
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jan 27 23:23:22 PST 2002

140 German firm avoided Enron -- rank: 1000

Pricewaterhouse consultants apparently (report leaked from their sources?) helped a German firm steer clear of Enron in 1999: >But VEBA also became concerned about the level of Enron's debt burden and >with what a senior executive said were Enron's "aggressive accounting >practices." Consultants from PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP told VEBA that >Enron, through complex accounting and deal-making, had swept tens of >millions of dollars in debt off its books, making its balanc ...

Document Size:	5534
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jan 27 23:08:01 PST 2002

141 Revolution at Deutsche Bank -- rank: 1000

Deutsche Bank is about to shake up not only the personelle but the style of leadership. The board is to be reduced from 8 to 4 members and much more power for quick decision making is going to be given to a CEO, significantly coming from the investment section of the bank. This is seen, almost certainly correctly, as a move to Anglo-Saxon methods of managing finance capital. It is a switch from the collegiate stability of German banks and their interconnected holdings in German industry, to a mu ...

Document Size:	5617
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sun Jan 27 23:05:07 PST 2002

142 success of former communist parties -- rank: 1000

At 22/01/02 18:00 +0300, you wrote: >Wow, Bulgaria, Moldova, Poland and now Berlin. The old communist parties are >doing swimmingly. > >I note also that the communists have 72 of 75 seats in the Mongolian >parliament. > >Chris Doss >Ths Russia Journal >--------------------------- These parties have abjured open political repression by the state and are really social democratic parties. But their strong showing is more than a folk memory of times when the cash nexus and ...

Document Size:	5886
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Jan 22 23:21:31 PST 2002

143 Marconi crash -- rank: 1000

The former finance director of Marconi (formerly GEC) in the UK has broken his silence and is the lead story on the front page of the Financial Times. Among various self-serving remarks directed against other board members especially the new CEO, he suggests no scandal, but a major liquidity problem in the spring of last year: >"What is not widely realised is that the US acquisitions had to be made >for cash, as GEC was not compliant with the US Foreign Corrupt Practices >Act and s ...

Document Size:	5909
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Jan 17 23:14:26 PST 2002

144 new global juridical forms -- rank: 1000

Two major areas of controversy this week confirm the prediction at the beginning of "Empire" that new juridical forms for a global capitalist system, are at stake. 1) The major WTO ruling against the USA about subsidies to its largest capitalist companies, opens the door to a programme of retaliatory measures by the European Union. Interestingly although the EU is by far the smaller economy in turnover, it is larger in population and appears to have the political will to carry this str ...

Document Size:	5845
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Wed Jan 16 23:59:15 PST 2002

145 Conspiracism -- rank: 1000

I see from a review in the International Herald Tribune there is a new book on the USA's love for conspiracy theories: Enemies Within:The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America, by Robert Alan Goldberg. I presume this is a populist trend that indignantly fails to understand the class prejudices of older societies. In England, the "old boy network" is a term that is well understood and immediately links to class. The IHT review does not get to class issues, but it does note that the or ...

Document Size:	5282
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Tue Jan 15 23:35:58 PST 2002

146 Anger and the spirit of socialism -- rank: 1000

From the latest New Scientist: An artificial experiment but one that may actually explain why socialists are so bad tempered ! Of course presented in a reductionist way, that it is all about anger. In fact to the extent it is true, it is a manifestation of the fact that the social context is crucial in all our lives. Only the fetishism of commodity exchange obscures the fact that we live in a highly complex social environment, which, of course, should be under democratic social control. http://w ...

Document Size:	5204
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Sat Jan 12 10:21:11 PST 2002

147 Quest for a word -- rank: 1000

At 11/01/02 01:09 -0600, you wrote: >There should be a single word (adjective) for the following complex. >Suppose someone knows about China and knows about metaphysics -- and >therefore believes that he knows about Chinese Metaphysics. That is a >_______ mode of thought. Or one could say to her, "You are being >______________." > >Carrol It might be easier in German. Chris Burford

Document Size:	4827
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Jan 10 23:43:05 PST 2002

148 New Democracy in AFGHANISTAN -- rank: 1000

In the very broadest terms something like New Democracy is probably the best to be hoped for in Afghanistan, and the chances of this would only have been complicated by the fierce clashes between Brezhnev's Soviet Union, and Mao's China. But it may be worth thinking of the issues again, as the only way to help Afghanis to resist the domination of global finance capitalism and of the Empire, would be to focus on what would be the objectives of national reconstruction from the point of view of a n ...

Document Size:	9008
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Jan 7 16:27:07 PST 2002

149 Red-red Berlin -- rank: 1000

Negotiations have been completed between the SPD and the PDS about the coalition government of Berlin following their election successes last year, and the failure of the coalition attempts between SPD, Greens and FDP. The PDS representing almost 50% of the voters of the former East Berlin will be responsible for 3 out of the 8 departments: those for health, social affairs, and consumer protection, arguably the less important ones. Gregor Gysi former chairperson and their leading candidate in th ...

Document Size:	5651
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Mon Jan 7 15:39:25 PST 2002

150 Marxism is a science -- rank: 1000

At 03/01/02 17:39 -0500, you wrote: >On the state whithering away, you are premature to claim that it >won't, if we take Marx to be speaking of a multigenerational process, >epoch in length, which is reasonable for a world revolution. Are not openly violent repressive means of control being replaced by more subtle ways of controlling social and economic processes? Even the use of the death penalty is dropping even in the USA. Chris Burford. London

Document Size:	4884
Author:	Chris Burford
Date:	Thu Jan 3 16:08:04 PST 2002