[GJM] #844, My Posting Of #843 On 7 November Was A Thoughtless Mistake

Tue Nov 13 18:38:59 MST 2007

Dear Old Friends And Others,

On 4 November I posted #842 in delighted expectation 
of the constructive criticism I hoped for from members 
of list lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org who were having an informed 
discussion of the sub-prime credit crunch, the future of 
the speculative sector of the US economy, and how the 
rest of the world would be affected.  A prompt response 
advised that #842 was being held for the lbo moderator's 
approval, and would either be posted to the list or rejected.

Then on 7 November I mistakenly wasted this opportunity 
to get some new insight on my favorite topic by posting 
#843 before the lbo moderator had completed his evaluation 
of #842.  The prompt response this time read:  "This post 
is rejected. It reads like your personal obsession, sorry."

So, back to the shared question:  "How could the systemic 
defect of capitalist economies continue uncorrected in the 
USA from the 1898 annual meeting of the American Economic 
Association to date?"  Perhaps because the public was taught 
to curse capitalism, rather than  look into the inner structure 
of corporations and local governments acting in tandem.

Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] 30s Depression
On Nov 12, 2007, at 8:33 AM, Dennis Perrin wrote:

> Quick question for the wonks --
> 
> Was the Depression in the 1930s caused by Republican 
> domestic policies throughout the 1920s? Or was there 
> a global reason for the crash?
~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1,

On 12 Nov 2007 08:50:17 -0500, Doug Henwood replied:

The cause of the Depression is one of the great controversies in  
economics. Candidates for blame include: productivity outstripping  
wage growth, financial speculation, debt growth, increasing income  
inequality, bad central bank policies (e.g., Fed tightening too much  
in late 20s, loosening too late after crash), the gold standard,  
trade wars (competitive devaluations, Smoot-Hawley), bad banking  
regulations (e.g., U.S. prohibition of branch banking, which left  
lone banks much weaker than their Canadian counterparts, which had  
national branching). Etc. Vulgar eclecticist that I am, I'd say all  
contributed.

Doug
~~~~~~~~~~~~

On 12 Nov 2007 06:37:05 -0800 (PST) 
Robert Wrubel inquired:

Isnt it possible to rank these a little, from most
important to least?  Weren't some primary and
fundamental, and others only accessories?

Looking at the situation today, where many of the same
factors are present, which make you most worried?  

Or is it a matter of "tipping point", where all are
present creating instability, and one little push,
like a "credit crisis", topples the whole structure?

Bob
~~~~~~~~~~~~ 2,

On 12 Nov 2007 10:57:27 -0500, Doug Henwood added:

I'd have a hard time ranking them. Sometimes it's just the latest  
paper you've read that makes one stick out from the others. I think  
they all came together.

There are some parallels to today, but you could have said the same  
about the late 1980s and late 1990s. The major differences now are  
that government is big, providing a floor under spending, and central  
bankers are a lot better at their jobs than they were 80 years ago.

Doug
~~~~~~~~~~~~

On 12 Nov 2007 19:06:41 -0800 (PST), -- DRR, dredmond at efn.org
My claim to wonkitude is questionable, but I've always 
thought of the 1930s as the epicenter of two crashes. 
The first was the crash and burn of liberal-era capitalism, 
and the second was the crash and burn of the British 
Empire.  Monopoly capitalism had outgrown the economic 
and political framework of the liberal state, but the new 
forms of state-monopoly organization weren't yet in place. 
Result: carnage and mayhem, until the US took over.

That's why I think it's unlikely the self-evident demise of 
the US Empire will trigger anything similar. This time 
around, the global semi-peripheries -- places like Russia 
and China -- have constructed mighty developmental 
states, immune to the toxic background radiation of 
neoliberalism. And the state continues to grow like 
mad in the new metropoles, everywhere from the Bank 
of China to the Japanese postal savings bank, to the 
continent-sized infrastructures of the European
Union.

-- DRR
~~~~~~~~~~~~ 3,

On 12 Nov 2007 22:20:46 -0500, Doug Henwood commented: 

You can't accuse Nazi Germany of neoliberalism. It was, 
however,  something of a developmental state. Keynes 
admired it for a while, at least while he was writing the 
preface to the German edition of The General Theory.

Doug
~~~~~~~~~~~~

On 12 Nov 2007 20:24:56 -0800, Eubulides added:

The missing counter-narrative to the "varieties of capitalism" 
literature might be a "varieties of dirigisme" approach. 
A skeleton taxonomy might be:

The Hamiltonian school [US federalism-imperialism]

The Gladstonian school [British liberalism-imperialism]

The Listian-Bismarckian school [German hybrid of the others]

The Napoleanic school [French, duh :-)]

Tied to these would be the "sovereignty as organized 
hypocrisy" problem....

Ian
~~~~~~~~~~ 4,

After a long day, at 22:18:59 -0500, Doug Henwood answered 
our shared question: "How could the systemic defect of 
capitalist economies continue uncorrected in the USA from 
the 1898 annual meeting of the American Economic Association?" 
by posting To lbo-talk lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org:
<http://www.nysun.com/article/66314>

Columbia University Faculty Action Committee Statement 
of Concern November 12, 2007 updated 6:27 pm EST

We speak for a growing number of faculty members at 
Columbia  University who believe that President Bollinger 
has failed to make a  vigorous defense of the core principles 
on which the university is  founded, especially academic 
freedom. Academic freedom lies at the  heart of what we 
do as faculty members: teach, generate new  knowledge, 
and sustain the critical capacities of the society at  
large. It encompasses, among other values, the autonomy 
of the  University in the face of outside threats and pressures, 
a  determining role for faculty in the governance of the 
University and  especially in the shaping of its research 
and teaching programs, the  insulation of tenure and 
promotion decisions from outside interests,  and the 
creation of an environment that enables the fullest and  
freest exchange of ideas. The events of the past few 
years have  created a crisis of confidence in the central 
administration's  willingness to defend these principles.
~~~~~~ Snip balance of message ~~~~~~~~~~

Doug, I have been nursing this personal obsession since 
Figure 10c was published in the October 1966 issue of 
Fortune magazine, and I stumbled on Figure 10e a  few 
years later.  The attached Figure 12.gif (o Rev.) carries 
the object of my obsession forward from the first tithe 
(Gen. 14.18-20) B.C. 1913 (mirror year of the Federal 
Reserve System) to yesterday's postings to list lbo-talk. 
The point of Figure 12 is the slash through the word "Equals" 
which has continued uncorrected in the USA, but corrected 
else where beginning in 1946 with Germany and Japan under 
the watchful eyes of John J. McCloy and Douglas MacArthur.

Europe, Asia, and the American Clerisy seem to want to 
wait until after the Rapture, before they extend the global 
private sector solution to America's public sector.

Kind regards,

Wes Burt

   TOP and TWP are cognoscible by sixth graders from
         Fig. 7-9.gif on Dr. W. Curtiss Priest's web site:
          <http://www.epie.org/cyber-soc/default.htm>
 TOP = 100% Capitalism --- TWP = 0 to 50% Capitalism
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