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Yoshie Furuhashi | 1 Nov 2004 01:24
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Re: David McReynolds on US election

I preface this post by a recommendation: vote for David McReynolds in New York.

That said, I should like to clarify where Peter Camejo stands:

At 3:21 PM -0500 10/31/04, Marvin Gandall posted:
>"The Truth is Always Concrete" - election thoughts, David McReynolds
<snip>
>First, "there is no difference between the two major parties" (a
>position Peter Camejo has argued with vigor, and which is shared by
>many in the Socialist Party). This position is nonsense. There are
>major differences between the two major parties and, more important,
>vast differences within them.

Actually, Peter Camejo has made a point of analyzing the precise
differences between the Democratic and Republican Parties:

<blockquote>The Republican Party has historically acted as the open
advocate for a platform which benefits the rule of wealth and
corporate domination. They argue ideologically for policies
benefiting the corporate rulers. The Republicans seek to convince the
middle classes and labor to support the rule of the wealthy with the
argument that "What's good for General Motors is good for the
country," that what benefits corporations is also going to benefit
regular people.

The Democratic Party is different. They act as a "broker" negotiating
and selling influence among broad layers of the people to support the
objectives of corporate rule. The Democratic Party's core group of
elected officials is rooted in careerists seeking self-promotion by
offering to the corporate rulers their ability to control and deliver
(Continue reading)

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Eubulides | 1 Nov 2004 01:32
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Re: Yukos question

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Perelman" <michael@...>

She is in France, I am pretty sure.  The article is important for much
more than the
Russians scandal, because it offers a glimpse into the difficulty of
controlling
international capital.  I wish more people on the list would look at it
and give me their
reaction.

===============

Britain is haven for money laundering, says report

Charlotte Moore
Saturday October 30, 2004
The Guardian

Britain's failure to regulate front and shell companies is making it a
haven for money laundering, a scathing report said yesterday.

The report, from the anti-corruption group Transparency International,
said it was "both regrettable and unacceptable" that while British
offshore jurisdictions had been forced to introduce regulation, the UK
itself had yet to do so.

It is estimated that between £25bn and £40bn of dirty money is laundered
in the UK each year. Because the City is an international centre of
expertise for setting up companies and trusts, it is a magnet for
(Continue reading)

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Eubulides | 1 Nov 2004 04:33
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externalities and Ms&As

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_45/b3907057_mz011.htm
NOVEMBER 8, 2004
NEWS: ANALYSIS & COMMENTARY

Melting Away Steel's Costs

When financier Wilbur L. Ross Jr. got into the steel industry three years
ago, he didn't have to spend much. Shopping the nation's bankruptcy
courts, Ross and his co-investors picked up the assets of five producers,
including giants Bethlehem Steel Corp. and LTV Corp., for $2.1 billion,
and melded them into International Steel Group Inc.

So what makes these cast-offs worth $4.5 billion today to London-based
steel tycoon Lakshmi N. Mittal? A resurgent industrial economy and a
much-shrunken payroll explains part of it. But what really makes ISG so
valuable is that it has shed the legacy costs that burden other old-line
manufacturers. Through bankruptcy, Ross shifted $14 billion in pensions to
the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), which is backed by the federal
government. He also passed off more than $5.9 billion in retiree
health-care costs onto either the former workers themselves or Medicare.

The transfers were entirely legal. Indeed, the United Steelworkers of
America endorsed the retiree-benefit cutbacks as the price of maintaining
jobs at the bankrupt steel mills. For now, the PBGC has been able to pick
up its new obligations through fees on other defined-benefit pension
plans. But the PBGC is warning that if major airlines follow Ross's
course, it may soon be overwhelmed and have to turn to taxpayers for
money.

For his three years of labor in steel, Ross is personally pocketing $300
(Continue reading)

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Michael Perelman | 1 Nov 2004 04:37
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Re: externalities and Ms&As

This is the sort of outrageous behavior that any real candidate for office should be
discussing.  I assume with the budget as bad as it is, the Pension Guarantee
operation will be cut back or else it will increase the charges on companies that
give penions, making them less likely to offer them in the first place.
 --
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
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Eubulides | 1 Nov 2004 05:00
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Re: externalities and Ms&As

----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Perelman" <michael@...>

This is the sort of outrageous behavior that any real candidate for office
should be
discussing.  I assume with the budget as bad as it is, the Pension
Guarantee
operation will be cut back or else it will increase the charges on
companies that
give penions, making them less likely to offer them in the first place.

=============

Lakshmi Mittal's road to ruin

Tony Blair championed him, but his company Ispat is diametrically opposed
to Labour ideals

Sue Konzelmann, Jonathan Michie and Frank Wilkinson
Sunday May 5, 2002
The Observer

LAKSHMI Mittal made news for donating money to New Labour and then buying
up the Romanian steel industry with the help of a letter from Tony Blair.
It has since been reported that Mittal's firm, LNM, described in the Prime
Minister's letter as 'British', is an offshore company with only a tiny
staff in Britain.

Its steel arm Ispat operates out of Rotterdam. As revealed in The Observer
(17 February), Mittal 'has spent hundreds of thousands of pounds in
(Continue reading)

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Eubulides | 1 Nov 2004 05:08
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Re: externalities and Ms&As

[gotta love Mittal's approach to creative destruction!]

US puts steel into trade war

Charlotte Denny and Ian Black in Brussels
Wednesday March 6, 2002
The Guardian

President Bush was on the brink of triggering a full-scale transatlantic
trade war last night with the announcement of tariffs of up to 30% on
steel imports.

White House sources said the president would lay out details of the plan
to protect America's ailing steel industry in a statement late yesterday.

The move is likely to bring retaliatory action from the European Union,
which has warned it cannot allow its industry to be swamped by imports
shut out of the American market.

Despite warnings from European leaders, including Tony Blair, that
America's trading partners would challenge the legality of the tariffs
before the World Trade Organisation, Mr Bush has apparently bowed to
demands from industry and unions for assistance. US steel makers claim
they are being undercut by cheap imports.

In a letter sent to Mr Bush last month, the prime minister said any
tariffs would be bad not only for the world economy but also for US
consumers who would be forced to pay more for steel products.

The issue has proved embarrassing for Mr Blair after it emerged that a US
(Continue reading)

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Shane Mage | 1 Nov 2004 06:04
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50th Anniversary of a calamitous adventure

Exactly 50 years ago, a dissident, secret, armed faction of
the Algerian mass party MTLD (Movement for the Triumph
of Democratic Freedoms) launched a series of armed attacks
against French government facilities in Algeria.  There followed
a long "liberation" war marked by a mounting series of atrocities
on both sides.  The result was separation of Algeria from the
French Republic, forcible expulsion of the whole "European"
(largely working class) population of Algeria, destruction of
France's Fourth Republic and installation of the semi-dictatorial
deGaulle regime, establishment in Algeria of a semi-fascist
military dictatorship (Boumedienne),  and an endless series of
calamities for the Algerian workers and peasants.  Who in
Algeria (except a handful of Officers, Bureaucrats, and Capitalists)
is not today much worse off from every point of view than
if Jacques Soustelle's offer of full integration had been
(per impossibile) accepted?

Shane Mage

   "Mortals immortals, immortals mortals,
   living their deaths, dying their lives"

Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 62
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michael perelman | 1 Nov 2004 06:51
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Really disgusting government behavior

*Here is environmental racism at its worst, corporate influence on
regulation .....

Study of Pesticides and Children Stirs Protests*
Staffers Fear EPA Project Endangers Participants

By Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 30, 2004; Page A02

An Environmental Protection Agency proposal to study young children's
exposure to pesticides has sparked a flurry of internal agency protests,
with several career officials questioning whether the survey will harm
vulnerable infants and toddlers.

The EPA announced this month that it was launching a two-year
investigation, partially funded by the American Chemical Council, of how
60 children in Duval County, Fla., absorb pesticides and other household
chemicals. The chemical industry funding initially prompted some
environmentalists to question whether the study would be biased, and
some rank-and-file agency scientists are now questioning whether the
plan will exploit financially strapped families.

In exchange for participating for two years in the Children's
Environmental Exposure Research Study, which involves infants and
children up to age 3, the EPA will give each family using pesticides in
their home $970, some children's clothing and a camcorder that parents
can keep.

EPA officials in states such as Georgia and Colorado fired off e-mail
(Continue reading)

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Louis Proyect | 1 Nov 2004 14:17
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Re: 50th Anniversary of a calamitous adventure

Shane Mage wrote:
> calamities for the Algerian workers and peasants.  Who in
> Algeria (except a handful of Officers, Bureaucrats, and Capitalists)
> is not today much worse off from every point of view than
> if Jacques Soustelle's offer of full integration had been
> (per impossibile) accepted?

The Washington Post, August 8, 1990, Wednesday, Final
Jacques Soustelle Dies;  Served in French Cabinet

PARIS -- Jacques Soustelle, 78, a former cabinet minister who clashed
with Gen. Charles de Gaulle over the Algerian conflict, died on Aug. 7
in the Paris suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. The cause of death was not
reported.

A distinguished anthropologist noted for his study of pre-Colombian
culture, Mr. Soustelle was named to the prestigious Academie Francaise
in 1983 for his studies outlined in such books as "Life of the Aztecs"
and "The Maya Civilization."

Jacques Emile Soustelle was born in the southern French town of
Montpellier Feb. 3, 1912, the son of a Protestant railway worker. He
studied letters at the Ecole Normale Superieure. A brilliant student, he
became a world-class expert in anthropology and ethnology, principally
that of Latin and Central America, where he was in 1939 at the outbreak
of World War II.

Strongly opposed to fascism, he was among the first to rally to de
Gaulle's appeal on June 18, 1940, from London to fight the Vichy
government that collaborated with Nazi Germany. Mr. Soustelle became
(Continue reading)

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Marvin Gandall | 1 Nov 2004 14:45
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Tacit foreign government support for Bush

(Today's Wall Street Journal, conceding that the Bush administration is
reviled by the world's peoples as dangerously arrogant and reckless,
suggests that not all of their governments are looking forward to its
replacement. It notes that the Russians, Indians, and Israelis have obvious
reasons to support the BA's focus on a global "war on terrorism". Others,
like the Japanese, Mexican and Central American governments, worry a
Democratic government would be more protectionist on trade issues. But even
the Iranians, Chinese and French governments wouldn't be dismayed by Bush's
reelection, the Journal says. The Chinese presently have a very favourable
trade and diplomatic relationship with the US. The Iranians hold the
Democrats responsible for sanctions against the country, and are reportedly
unconcerned about the Republicans' belligerent rhetoric. And the French and
Germans both don't want to have to say no to their ally, Kerry, on Iraq, and
think widespread European hatred of Bush helps their push for greater
European political integration. The Journal, of course, has an interest in
allaying its readers' fears that the administration is isolating America
internationally, and understates the concern virtually all governments,
except perhaps the Israeli, have about the destabilizing "Bush Doctrine" of
unilateral preventative war.)

MG
---------------------------------------
Bush Has Unlikely Supporters

Some Foreign Nations Root for the Incumbent -- And the Status Quo
By MARC CHAMPION in London, CHARLES HUTZLER in Beijing and JAY SOLOMON in
New Delhi Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
November 1, 2004; Page A12

Many governments and populations around the globe are rooting for Sen. John
(Continue reading)

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Gmane