Dope
Limited Inc is thinking of changing the name for the Remora category. And let's be interactive about it, shall we? A little contest, my many many eager readers? Or at least my one or two. We need a label that is as au courant as an Enron exec's Swiss bank account , but as ironic as one of David Foster Wallace's footnotes. Please, use the little comment machinery thingy.
On another note, we should keep you up to date on our impoverishment -- always a big theme here at Limited Inc. Yes, December has passed, and our workload has seemingly gone down the old toilet -- we query, we query, and we receive the rare word back that this year, media is re-engineering, renewing its faith in the automatic 20% per year profit margin by getting rid of its deadwood -- the book sections, the freelancers, etc. That means, no eatin' in February for us! It is, of course, hard to get through a month without eating, but Limited Inc is stocking up on the vodka now, in order to weather the storm. An old trick from the de-kulakization days.
Now, down to serious business. And for that, what better place than the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal? Having an asset they have no intention of distributing for free, the WSJ isn't linkable. But we read Mark Falcoff's op-ed piece, Argentina has a choice: Peronism or Modernity, and we couldn't think of a better example of the iron logic of globalisation in its Post-Keynsian guise.
Key graf for us is near the end:
" ... let no one assume that Argentina can solve its problems by moving backwards. In recent weeks there has been much talk about the "good old days" of classic Peronism, with boom and psen populism delivering effortless wealth to every Argentine family. Presumably, experiments with a new, floating currency,a default on foreign debts, or subsidies for unproductive (and uncompetitive) industries could put people back to work, but not for long. In the past, such policies could only be financed through heavy foreign borrowing. With the country in virtual default on $132 billion dollars in obligations, that expedient is simply not a prospect."
Ah, the wonders of globalisation. Nations, like kine being lead down the corridor to the slaugher chamber, are continually being told they can't "move backwards." Why? Because the butchers aren't going to let them. Butchers usually tranquilize the ungulates to make them more pliable. Falcoff spots the butcher's drug in his last sentence, but because he is wearing ideological blinders, he doesn't ponder its essential wonder. If he were more, let us say, Marxist, he might be curious about the historical provenance of that debt. He might even do a little research, and that research would tell him that the majority of the first 60 billion dollars was accumulated under the military junta, with the strong support, until that unfortunate Falklands business, of the US government. He might even wonder why else they would be lending to Argentina at that time -- was Citycorp so tenderhearted under Walter 'Santa Claus' Wriston that they lent to make sure the Argentine family had a guaranteed, inefficient job? And Falcoff might even, in this Marxist moment, ask about the accumulation of the other 60 billion dollars worth of debt. Guess what? It was taken on under Menem and Cavallo's shock treatment regime, when the enterprises were freed, the peso was matched to the dollar, and according to the WSJ, Argentina was proving that Reaganism on the international level was the only way to go (a self fulfilling prophecy -- you can't go backwards when you've sold off your assets to the most corrupt bidder. You especially can't go home again when you torched it and don't even have enough in your budget to pay the firemen).
And say Falcoff decided to throw caution to the wind and even become Leninist. Then he might ask about the motives international lenders have for loaning 130 billion dollars to a country that now "makes up around 20 per cent of JP Morgan's Emerging Market Bond Index Global," according to the Financial Times. Emerging Market hucksters have said, aw shucks, the ratio between debt and GDP will be just fine if Argentina grows at 4.3%. That it has experience negative growth for the last three years, a pretty spectacular correction of -3.5% in 99, doesn't bother the Emerging Marketeer for good reason -- they are in the unique situation of having their risks cared for by such international organizations as the IMF and the World Bank. If Argentina defaults, and Limited Inc sees reason to think it will, the Emerging Marketeers will finally have to face up to the real world -- if you give excessive credit to an excessive debtor because the interest rate and the options on the interest rate are way cool, and you get your kneecaps blown off -- well, a version of caveat emptor, as the crack dealers say, kicks in.
Tuesday, January 08, 2002
Sunday, January 06, 2002
Remora
What did you do in the Great Recession, Daddy?
Well, as analysts on Wall Street bubble with bull opportunities afforded by the rest of this year -- that good old V bounce to the recession -- reality out there isn't so happy. With the Federal Reserve becoming, basically, the Office of Moral Hazard, always willing to cut rates in order to keep equities from finding traditional p/e levels that would bring the Dow Jones Average crashing 2000 some points, the market in housing and autos was banner last year. But banner at what cost? Enron shows what happens when a company is taken apart by the whitewater currents of the futures market -- small bets can become big losses, as was the experience of Barings, of Long Term Capital Management, of the Orange County Teachers retirement fund, of... well, the list goes on.
In order to prevent sales from slumping, Detroit used the Fed's party-time philosophy to finance an incredible issue of credit. This is a balancing act that is reminiscent of the situation the S&Ls faced in 1979 -- in that year, they had to balance the sharp, short term spike on interest with long term housing loans that were pegged to yesteryear's lesser interest rate. Inflationary discounted inflow did not make up for inflationary magnified outflow. Result: changes in the usury and loaning laws that eventually wrecked the industry. Here, we have the inverse situation, with short term interest unnaturally low. If the Fed ratchets up the rate this year, as any good and prudent monetarist would advice, it is going to squeeze Detroit like a sucked lemon. The game plan seems to have been, avoid a sales downturn by any means necessary. But if you hold the firesale, you better have had a fire. Well, this year the story is going to be about a fire foretold. This means legislation will soon be trucking through congress to give the Big Three some special and stupid breaks. We won't hear from any congressmen about how stupidly these companies have used their credit -- unlike the preaching we heard from the high and mighty Senate when they were crafting bankruptcy laws to penalize the poor individual debtor.
If that doesn't happen -- well, take away Limited Inc's prophecy licence and throw our body to the street, where the dogs can lick up our blood. What was good enough for Jezebel is good enough for us.
Here's the NYT:
"In 2001, total auto sales stayed at a near- record level, especially after Sept. 11, largely because G.M. and Ford leaned heavily on their financing businesses to pump up sales. But that burst of interest-free financing deals was just the latest in a string of deal making that led to swelled portfolios of leases and car loans taken on by Ford Motor Credit and the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (news/quote), known as G.M.A.C., in the last five years.
Unlike their foreign rivals, which have developed stables of models that buyers actually will pay more for, Ford and G.M. have relied more on incentives like low- interest loans and cheap leases to attract customers. The automakers have ponied up billions of dollars to their financing units to make up the difference on the below-market financing."
Fun facts to know and tell:
Ford Motor Credit financed more than half of the vehicles Ford Motor sold last year. G.M.A.C. financed more than 40 percent of G.M. sales. At G.M.A.C., 85 percent of loans made in 2000 had some subsidy.
This is a huge shift in loaning practice, to corporate subsidiaries who have every interest in making unsafe loans. If there's a large fall out in those loans, watch the Federal Gov come up with some cozy loan insurance plan.
What did you do in the Great Recession, Daddy?
Well, as analysts on Wall Street bubble with bull opportunities afforded by the rest of this year -- that good old V bounce to the recession -- reality out there isn't so happy. With the Federal Reserve becoming, basically, the Office of Moral Hazard, always willing to cut rates in order to keep equities from finding traditional p/e levels that would bring the Dow Jones Average crashing 2000 some points, the market in housing and autos was banner last year. But banner at what cost? Enron shows what happens when a company is taken apart by the whitewater currents of the futures market -- small bets can become big losses, as was the experience of Barings, of Long Term Capital Management, of the Orange County Teachers retirement fund, of... well, the list goes on.
In order to prevent sales from slumping, Detroit used the Fed's party-time philosophy to finance an incredible issue of credit. This is a balancing act that is reminiscent of the situation the S&Ls faced in 1979 -- in that year, they had to balance the sharp, short term spike on interest with long term housing loans that were pegged to yesteryear's lesser interest rate. Inflationary discounted inflow did not make up for inflationary magnified outflow. Result: changes in the usury and loaning laws that eventually wrecked the industry. Here, we have the inverse situation, with short term interest unnaturally low. If the Fed ratchets up the rate this year, as any good and prudent monetarist would advice, it is going to squeeze Detroit like a sucked lemon. The game plan seems to have been, avoid a sales downturn by any means necessary. But if you hold the firesale, you better have had a fire. Well, this year the story is going to be about a fire foretold. This means legislation will soon be trucking through congress to give the Big Three some special and stupid breaks. We won't hear from any congressmen about how stupidly these companies have used their credit -- unlike the preaching we heard from the high and mighty Senate when they were crafting bankruptcy laws to penalize the poor individual debtor.
If that doesn't happen -- well, take away Limited Inc's prophecy licence and throw our body to the street, where the dogs can lick up our blood. What was good enough for Jezebel is good enough for us.
Here's the NYT:
"In 2001, total auto sales stayed at a near- record level, especially after Sept. 11, largely because G.M. and Ford leaned heavily on their financing businesses to pump up sales. But that burst of interest-free financing deals was just the latest in a string of deal making that led to swelled portfolios of leases and car loans taken on by Ford Motor Credit and the General Motors Acceptance Corporation (news/quote), known as G.M.A.C., in the last five years.
Unlike their foreign rivals, which have developed stables of models that buyers actually will pay more for, Ford and G.M. have relied more on incentives like low- interest loans and cheap leases to attract customers. The automakers have ponied up billions of dollars to their financing units to make up the difference on the below-market financing."
Fun facts to know and tell:
Ford Motor Credit financed more than half of the vehicles Ford Motor sold last year. G.M.A.C. financed more than 40 percent of G.M. sales. At G.M.A.C., 85 percent of loans made in 2000 had some subsidy.
This is a huge shift in loaning practice, to corporate subsidiaries who have every interest in making unsafe loans. If there's a large fall out in those loans, watch the Federal Gov come up with some cozy loan insurance plan.
Saturday, January 05, 2002
Remora
Tom Paine got Colin Woodard, whose book, Ocean's End, was one of our favorite books last year, to put the heat on The Skeptical Environmentalist
.
But Tom Paine is a little late to the game, compared to Limited Inc., as our lucky readers (the few, the bold, the brave, the ones looking for girles+Arabia+sex) know. For those of you who missed it, this is a reprint of our post in August about Lomborg's miserable tract:
8/8/2001 10:40:02 AM
Bjorn Lomborg seems set to be the most quoted environmentalist of the season. The reason? He has a conversion story. There he was, according to himself, your average know nothing Greenpeace schmoe, kvetching about mass extinction and Global Warming on Planet Gaia, when he got knocked down (spiritually, that is) by libertarian skeptics of the environmental model. No doubt, like Saul, he had his days of reclusion and blindness, the night sweats, the fever - but a vision of Gale Norton apparently visited him, saying, in an unearthly voice, go and tell all mankind about the wonders of cost benefit analysis! So he arose from his bed and now he's come out with a book, and at such a convenient time, too! What with the trashing of the Kyoto accords and all, which looks so terrible in the press. The book plays a theme dear to the corporate mindset - that is, that environmentalists exaggerate, and that such things as climate change, or environmental damage, are myths generated by inaccurate or skewed stats and projections of enviro- Nazis. Of course, modern day converts never convert all the way - they want to bring their cultural capital with them, otherwise they become just another Jack in the Pack. So instead of taking the mantle of libertarian debunker, Lomborg, of course, is still describing himself as an environmentalist. He is of that less dogmatic type, undisturbed when they blacktop those pristine redwood forests in California. Plenty more where that came from! Hell, wonders of biotech nowadays, we'll just fix us up a batch in a laboratory. So come on down, Butterfly!!!
Lomborg summarizes these views in an Economist article. He has developed a handy name - the Litany - for the general complaints about ecological degradation bandied about by environmentalists. He goes through the four major points in the Economist article.
I actually agree with one of his points - I have no sympathy with the population control crowd. In fact, the Litany is very skewed, itself, to the kind of environmentalism represented by Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome, which has always been very alarmist about the depletion of natural resources and the danger of over-population.
It is his third and fourth points I find extremely shaky. First, there is the threat of biodiversity loss. Lomburg says this is exaggerated. But his base for that loss is extinction. He doesn't defend this as a standard. He writes, for instance, of predictions of extinction, "...the data simply does not bear out these predictions. In the eastern United States, forests were reduced over two centuries to fragments totalling just 1-2% of their original area, yet this resulted in the extinction of only one forest bird." Presumably he means the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, or perhaps the Carolina Parakeet (that I can name two candidates off the top of my head - and I'm no ornithologist - makes me think that his claim is probably factually dubious). Lomburg simply ignores monoculture, and the destruction of biodiverse habitats. If the loblolly pine takes over the ecological niche of, say, the live oak in Southern Georgia, sure, that doesn't entail the extinction of the live oak - it simply entails its rarity, its being thrusted to the periphery. The whooping crane is not extinct - but the number of the whooping crane is such that its former environmental role is, basically, non-existent. In other words, bio-diversity certainly doesn't mean that species that hang on in severely diminished numbers are some kind of proof that the ecology has remained unimpaired.
As for the claim that "pollution is also exaggerated," this point is much too uniform to hold. Lomburg shows that London air was much more polluted in the 1880s then now. His claim is, presumably, about particulate pollution. But the harm of a pollutant isn't necessarily in its quantity - small quantities of certain pollutants are much more harmful than large quantities of other pollutants. Take Lead. When lead was put into gasoline, it was emitted in quantities that were less than, say, the quantity of carbon dust released by coal energy - but lead is much more toxic. Also, Lomburg simply ignores the complexity of pollution. London is a good example - after the killing fogs of the fifties, a concerted effort was made to clean up the London air. But the clean-up inadvertantly lead to ozone problems, as the sunlight could now interact with car emissions - in other words, smog.
Finally, Lomburg engages in some suspicious cost analysis. For instance, he quotes a chart showing how much it costs to save a persons life in terms of regulation, and enforcing the use of various pollution reduction devices. This is a very common fallacy among the anti-enviro set - that there is only one set of costs. What is never done is to ask - what does pollution cost if it isn't cleaned up? The tacit assumption is that pollution control is some kind of bizarre luxury. If your car emits certain gases, well, that's a moral problem, but surely not an economic one. Right? Wrong. Pollution is not a free lunch. The question is: who pays for the social cost of pollution? This question is evaded by giving us the unilateral costs to businesses of pollution clean-up - which is like being given one side of an accounting ledger. If it costs 800 dollars to install seat belts, for instance, what isn't asked is - how much does it cost to pay for the additional injuries that would result from lack of seat belts? If it costs a million dollars to install filters on a coal burning power plant, how much does it cost, in terms of life and property degradation, when the unfiltered pollution is allowed to spread from the plant? In fact, this is where environmentalists, far from being alarmists, have been sleepwalking - partly because they don't think in terms of, say, property values. The anti-enviro crowd is happy enough with that - they can pass the cost of skewed statistics onto the back of the average citizen, in the shape of using them to justify dirty public policy.
I've written a little essay on the social costs of doing business which I ought to post this week, to continue this discussion.
Anyway, all my caveats aren't going to matter - Lomburg is on his way as the corporate environmentalist du jour. He is handsome, he has a conversion story, and he uses models preferred by the business crowd. What could be better?
Tom Paine got Colin Woodard, whose book, Ocean's End, was one of our favorite books last year, to put the heat on The Skeptical Environmentalist
.
But Tom Paine is a little late to the game, compared to Limited Inc., as our lucky readers (the few, the bold, the brave, the ones looking for girles+Arabia+sex) know. For those of you who missed it, this is a reprint of our post in August about Lomborg's miserable tract:
8/8/2001 10:40:02 AM
Bjorn Lomborg seems set to be the most quoted environmentalist of the season. The reason? He has a conversion story. There he was, according to himself, your average know nothing Greenpeace schmoe, kvetching about mass extinction and Global Warming on Planet Gaia, when he got knocked down (spiritually, that is) by libertarian skeptics of the environmental model. No doubt, like Saul, he had his days of reclusion and blindness, the night sweats, the fever - but a vision of Gale Norton apparently visited him, saying, in an unearthly voice, go and tell all mankind about the wonders of cost benefit analysis! So he arose from his bed and now he's come out with a book, and at such a convenient time, too! What with the trashing of the Kyoto accords and all, which looks so terrible in the press. The book plays a theme dear to the corporate mindset - that is, that environmentalists exaggerate, and that such things as climate change, or environmental damage, are myths generated by inaccurate or skewed stats and projections of enviro- Nazis. Of course, modern day converts never convert all the way - they want to bring their cultural capital with them, otherwise they become just another Jack in the Pack. So instead of taking the mantle of libertarian debunker, Lomborg, of course, is still describing himself as an environmentalist. He is of that less dogmatic type, undisturbed when they blacktop those pristine redwood forests in California. Plenty more where that came from! Hell, wonders of biotech nowadays, we'll just fix us up a batch in a laboratory. So come on down, Butterfly!!!
Lomborg summarizes these views in an Economist article. He has developed a handy name - the Litany - for the general complaints about ecological degradation bandied about by environmentalists. He goes through the four major points in the Economist article.
I actually agree with one of his points - I have no sympathy with the population control crowd. In fact, the Litany is very skewed, itself, to the kind of environmentalism represented by Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome, which has always been very alarmist about the depletion of natural resources and the danger of over-population.
It is his third and fourth points I find extremely shaky. First, there is the threat of biodiversity loss. Lomburg says this is exaggerated. But his base for that loss is extinction. He doesn't defend this as a standard. He writes, for instance, of predictions of extinction, "...the data simply does not bear out these predictions. In the eastern United States, forests were reduced over two centuries to fragments totalling just 1-2% of their original area, yet this resulted in the extinction of only one forest bird." Presumably he means the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, or perhaps the Carolina Parakeet (that I can name two candidates off the top of my head - and I'm no ornithologist - makes me think that his claim is probably factually dubious). Lomburg simply ignores monoculture, and the destruction of biodiverse habitats. If the loblolly pine takes over the ecological niche of, say, the live oak in Southern Georgia, sure, that doesn't entail the extinction of the live oak - it simply entails its rarity, its being thrusted to the periphery. The whooping crane is not extinct - but the number of the whooping crane is such that its former environmental role is, basically, non-existent. In other words, bio-diversity certainly doesn't mean that species that hang on in severely diminished numbers are some kind of proof that the ecology has remained unimpaired.
As for the claim that "pollution is also exaggerated," this point is much too uniform to hold. Lomburg shows that London air was much more polluted in the 1880s then now. His claim is, presumably, about particulate pollution. But the harm of a pollutant isn't necessarily in its quantity - small quantities of certain pollutants are much more harmful than large quantities of other pollutants. Take Lead. When lead was put into gasoline, it was emitted in quantities that were less than, say, the quantity of carbon dust released by coal energy - but lead is much more toxic. Also, Lomburg simply ignores the complexity of pollution. London is a good example - after the killing fogs of the fifties, a concerted effort was made to clean up the London air. But the clean-up inadvertantly lead to ozone problems, as the sunlight could now interact with car emissions - in other words, smog.
Finally, Lomburg engages in some suspicious cost analysis. For instance, he quotes a chart showing how much it costs to save a persons life in terms of regulation, and enforcing the use of various pollution reduction devices. This is a very common fallacy among the anti-enviro set - that there is only one set of costs. What is never done is to ask - what does pollution cost if it isn't cleaned up? The tacit assumption is that pollution control is some kind of bizarre luxury. If your car emits certain gases, well, that's a moral problem, but surely not an economic one. Right? Wrong. Pollution is not a free lunch. The question is: who pays for the social cost of pollution? This question is evaded by giving us the unilateral costs to businesses of pollution clean-up - which is like being given one side of an accounting ledger. If it costs 800 dollars to install seat belts, for instance, what isn't asked is - how much does it cost to pay for the additional injuries that would result from lack of seat belts? If it costs a million dollars to install filters on a coal burning power plant, how much does it cost, in terms of life and property degradation, when the unfiltered pollution is allowed to spread from the plant? In fact, this is where environmentalists, far from being alarmists, have been sleepwalking - partly because they don't think in terms of, say, property values. The anti-enviro crowd is happy enough with that - they can pass the cost of skewed statistics onto the back of the average citizen, in the shape of using them to justify dirty public policy.
I've written a little essay on the social costs of doing business which I ought to post this week, to continue this discussion.
Anyway, all my caveats aren't going to matter - Lomburg is on his way as the corporate environmentalist du jour. He is handsome, he has a conversion story, and he uses models preferred by the business crowd. What could be better?
Remora
Limited Inc realizes that our fascination with some of the tedious arguments in the dismal science is not winning this site any popularity awards. Actually, according to our site meter, our most popular posts inevitably include the words Lolita, or tits, of sex, or girles -- so we included them in this sentence to trap the unwary, horny surfer. Ha ha.
But Limited Inc has always pricked up its ears at the sound of a trumpet, the old gray battle horse within stirring to scenes of past Agincourts. Today, the trumpet resounds from the Center for Economic Policy, curtesy of a link on the Arts and Letters site. Let us go then, you and I, to the article entitled A Closer Look at the World Bank's Most Recent Defense of Its Policies by Mark Weisbrot, Dean Baker, Robert Naiman, and Gila Neta. You'll notice the date on this paper -- August 2000. We can't explain why the A & L people spotlighted it a year later, but the paper foregrounds some future post we will no doubt be writing concerning the current turmoil in Argentina. The meat, here, is in the comparison of growth figures. The world bank paper that Mssrs. Weisbot, et al are replying to makes the banal point that growth is good for the poor. It extrapolates that point into another point: that the IMF doctrine of "anti-inflationary" fiscal policy, liberalisation of global financial markets, and openness to international trade are good for the poor. The inference being, these are growth oriented policies. The further inference being, past policies were not growth oriented.
Well, this is a sand castle of an argument, and W.B.N.N. knock it down with one swift kick, consisting of a graph comparing growth rates. The gross and oh so out of fashion Keynsian world displays the kind of growth undreeamt of in the sleek IMF model. If we are looking for policies that help the poor (and this is not something the IMF really is set up to do), unsurprisingly, the poor aren't helped by accident. They aren't, in other words, helped by helping the rich, which is what the IMF all neo-liberal political economics would have us believe. The comparison is strikingly in favor of the Keynsian mix of inflationary/ anti-inflationary measures, and national policies that regulate exports and imports.
Here are some important grafs:
In Latin America, for example, GDP per capita grew by 75 percent from 1960-1980, whereas in the latter period it has only risen 6 percent. For sub-Saharan Africa, GDP per capita grew by 36 percent in the first period, while it has since fallen by 15 percent.
These are enormous differences by any standard of comparison, and represent the loss to an entire generation-- of hundreds of millions of people-- of any chance of improving its living standards. Even where growth was significant, as in Southeast Asia, it was still better in the earlier period. The only exception to this trend was East Asia, which grew faster from 1980 to 1998 than in the previous period. But this is due to the quadrupling of GDP, over the last 18 years, in China (which has 83 percent of the population of East Asia).
In short, there is no region of the world that the Bank or Fund can point to as having succeeded through adopting the policies that they promote-- or in many cases, impose-- upon borrowing countries. (They are understandably reluctant to claim credit for China, which maintains a non-convertible currency, state control over its banking system, and other major violations of IMF/Bank prescriptions).[6]
One cannot stress too strongly the failure of these policies on the measure of economic growth, even ignoring income distribution. The debate over Dollar and Kraay's paper, for example, has simply assumed-- as the authors have-- that IMF/Bank policies do promote growth, and the only question is how well the poor have fared under the growth that has resulted from these policies."
The last is the assasin graf -- the look, the Emperor has no clothes graf. But before Limited Inc puts down our money on Keynsian policies, we feel like these statistics have to be fed into, well, reality. The era of spectacular growth spotlighted the Mssrs. et. al might, indeed, be impossible to replicate even with Keynsian economics. The reason for this is simple: a snapshot of the political economy of, say, Brazil in 1900 compared to Brazil in 1980 is going to be incredibly different; but it is hard to imagine the same technological/sociological/economic alteration occuring in the next twenty years under no matter what economic regime.
A further caveat has to do with the environment. The stats for the first half of the century simply ignore environmental degradation. But we are now more keenly aware that there are social costs to dams, irrigation projects, monocultural agriculture, and other featurs of growth. This impinges, of course, on both sides of the argument, but it is too little taken into account by the same groups who, admirably, dissent from the current model of IMF growth.
Limited Inc realizes that our fascination with some of the tedious arguments in the dismal science is not winning this site any popularity awards. Actually, according to our site meter, our most popular posts inevitably include the words Lolita, or tits, of sex, or girles -- so we included them in this sentence to trap the unwary, horny surfer. Ha ha.
But Limited Inc has always pricked up its ears at the sound of a trumpet, the old gray battle horse within stirring to scenes of past Agincourts. Today, the trumpet resounds from the Center for Economic Policy, curtesy of a link on the Arts and Letters site. Let us go then, you and I, to the article entitled A Closer Look at the World Bank's Most Recent Defense of Its Policies by Mark Weisbrot, Dean Baker, Robert Naiman, and Gila Neta. You'll notice the date on this paper -- August 2000. We can't explain why the A & L people spotlighted it a year later, but the paper foregrounds some future post we will no doubt be writing concerning the current turmoil in Argentina. The meat, here, is in the comparison of growth figures. The world bank paper that Mssrs. Weisbot, et al are replying to makes the banal point that growth is good for the poor. It extrapolates that point into another point: that the IMF doctrine of "anti-inflationary" fiscal policy, liberalisation of global financial markets, and openness to international trade are good for the poor. The inference being, these are growth oriented policies. The further inference being, past policies were not growth oriented.
Well, this is a sand castle of an argument, and W.B.N.N. knock it down with one swift kick, consisting of a graph comparing growth rates. The gross and oh so out of fashion Keynsian world displays the kind of growth undreeamt of in the sleek IMF model. If we are looking for policies that help the poor (and this is not something the IMF really is set up to do), unsurprisingly, the poor aren't helped by accident. They aren't, in other words, helped by helping the rich, which is what the IMF all neo-liberal political economics would have us believe. The comparison is strikingly in favor of the Keynsian mix of inflationary/ anti-inflationary measures, and national policies that regulate exports and imports.
Here are some important grafs:
In Latin America, for example, GDP per capita grew by 75 percent from 1960-1980, whereas in the latter period it has only risen 6 percent. For sub-Saharan Africa, GDP per capita grew by 36 percent in the first period, while it has since fallen by 15 percent.
These are enormous differences by any standard of comparison, and represent the loss to an entire generation-- of hundreds of millions of people-- of any chance of improving its living standards. Even where growth was significant, as in Southeast Asia, it was still better in the earlier period. The only exception to this trend was East Asia, which grew faster from 1980 to 1998 than in the previous period. But this is due to the quadrupling of GDP, over the last 18 years, in China (which has 83 percent of the population of East Asia).
In short, there is no region of the world that the Bank or Fund can point to as having succeeded through adopting the policies that they promote-- or in many cases, impose-- upon borrowing countries. (They are understandably reluctant to claim credit for China, which maintains a non-convertible currency, state control over its banking system, and other major violations of IMF/Bank prescriptions).[6]
One cannot stress too strongly the failure of these policies on the measure of economic growth, even ignoring income distribution. The debate over Dollar and Kraay's paper, for example, has simply assumed-- as the authors have-- that IMF/Bank policies do promote growth, and the only question is how well the poor have fared under the growth that has resulted from these policies."
The last is the assasin graf -- the look, the Emperor has no clothes graf. But before Limited Inc puts down our money on Keynsian policies, we feel like these statistics have to be fed into, well, reality. The era of spectacular growth spotlighted the Mssrs. et. al might, indeed, be impossible to replicate even with Keynsian economics. The reason for this is simple: a snapshot of the political economy of, say, Brazil in 1900 compared to Brazil in 1980 is going to be incredibly different; but it is hard to imagine the same technological/sociological/economic alteration occuring in the next twenty years under no matter what economic regime.
A further caveat has to do with the environment. The stats for the first half of the century simply ignore environmental degradation. But we are now more keenly aware that there are social costs to dams, irrigation projects, monocultural agriculture, and other featurs of growth. This impinges, of course, on both sides of the argument, but it is too little taken into account by the same groups who, admirably, dissent from the current model of IMF growth.
Friday, January 04, 2002
Dope
Some further comments on Senator Torricelli's Houdini like escape from prosecution seem called for.
The question on the mind of the spectator must be: why would the Repugs go along on this deal? After all, damn Senator T with the black spot and Senator Lott will once more be the majority leader, talked to, even, by tv reporters and such.
Well, let's speculate a little bit, children. When one of D.C.'s pirates is caught with his hand in the till, very often a delicate situation arises. Because so many other pirates on the ship have been quietly amassing as much loot as their natural greed allows them. It is a tradition that goes back to the Roman senate. So if Senator T.'s skin is graciously unflayed, one looks around for who else could be outrageously vulnerable to charges of pilfering. And the eye alights on a certain Texas senator, Phil Gramm. Phil and his wonderful and rich wife, Wendy, have made quite a killing in the past decade from their association with Enron corporation, of blessed memory. There's a Public Citizen release that counts the ways Enron loved the Gramms, and the Gramms loved Enron. Consider that Wendy, high spirited free marketer that she is, was appointed by Bushie the elder to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This is a sad sack commission ostensibly armed to police the derivatives market -- but armed like a boyscout with a peashooter facing down the Nazi Wehrmacht. Even so, you never know when some nasty regulation will actually enforce transparency on futures or options trading, the biz Enron was massively in. So our heroine, Wendy, came to Enron's rescue by exempting trading in futures contracts by Enron, in 1993. It was one of her last acts as a truly altruistic public personality, because she then resigned her chairmanship and, five weeks later, took on an entrepeneurial role on the Enron board of directors. Now, reader, you are thinking that this is merely a coincidence; and besides, boards of directors are notoriously composed of crash test dummies, rubberstamping the decisions of the CEO. But our dear Wendy also served on the Enron Audit committee (this part of her story should be scored to that all time popular hit, "Three blind mice'). So double hitting for that innovator in spot prices in power for you and me, she made off with around a million five. Hey, I'm sure that Phil was uninfluenced by that chunk of change, but you know how a loving, christian couple, in the depth of the night, abed, sometimes talks about the meaning of it all, and our redeemer's beautiful life story, and wouldn't it be nice if some properly motivated senator snuck a provision onto some bill de-regulating the power commodity markets. Probably these sweet whispers were in vain, given Phil adamantine integrity, but maybe something, well, unconscious kicked in, cause golly, Phil did muscle in the bill Enron wanted. For good Laissez Faire reasons, no doubt.
Yes, the money rolls in, but Phil's ambitions no longer play out on the national level, and his mind has turned to contemplating the blank verse of The Prelude or something -- those sweet retirement thoughts. But still, with Enron falling apart this year with a speed and desperation much like that of the East German government in 1989, the Gramms probably also had some heart to hearts about those pesky laws constraining politicians from accepting bribes in too public and outrageous a fashion -- laws which, as we all know, are stronger in the spirit than the letter, but still... Maybe it is time to fold your tent and creep home, with the couple millions of Enron bucks under your belt or in your portfolio to watch over you in the golden years. This will no doubt be used by invidious nabobs of negativism to explain why Phil gave a press conference on September 2 announcing his retirement from the Senate, even though he had amassed a 4 million dollar reelection warchest.
Warms your heart, doesn't it, reader? And so maybe Senator T gets traded for Senator G. in the game. We are not of course suggesting anything so cynical went down in D.C. in reality. In reality, all Senatorial transactions are motivated by the unwavering patriotism of the members of that hallowed chamber. All Limited Inc is doing is, well, muddying the waters. Spewing negativism. Speculating, as is our wont, in an idle and destructive manner.
Some further comments on Senator Torricelli's Houdini like escape from prosecution seem called for.
The question on the mind of the spectator must be: why would the Repugs go along on this deal? After all, damn Senator T with the black spot and Senator Lott will once more be the majority leader, talked to, even, by tv reporters and such.
Well, let's speculate a little bit, children. When one of D.C.'s pirates is caught with his hand in the till, very often a delicate situation arises. Because so many other pirates on the ship have been quietly amassing as much loot as their natural greed allows them. It is a tradition that goes back to the Roman senate. So if Senator T.'s skin is graciously unflayed, one looks around for who else could be outrageously vulnerable to charges of pilfering. And the eye alights on a certain Texas senator, Phil Gramm. Phil and his wonderful and rich wife, Wendy, have made quite a killing in the past decade from their association with Enron corporation, of blessed memory. There's a Public Citizen release that counts the ways Enron loved the Gramms, and the Gramms loved Enron. Consider that Wendy, high spirited free marketer that she is, was appointed by Bushie the elder to head the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. This is a sad sack commission ostensibly armed to police the derivatives market -- but armed like a boyscout with a peashooter facing down the Nazi Wehrmacht. Even so, you never know when some nasty regulation will actually enforce transparency on futures or options trading, the biz Enron was massively in. So our heroine, Wendy, came to Enron's rescue by exempting trading in futures contracts by Enron, in 1993. It was one of her last acts as a truly altruistic public personality, because she then resigned her chairmanship and, five weeks later, took on an entrepeneurial role on the Enron board of directors. Now, reader, you are thinking that this is merely a coincidence; and besides, boards of directors are notoriously composed of crash test dummies, rubberstamping the decisions of the CEO. But our dear Wendy also served on the Enron Audit committee (this part of her story should be scored to that all time popular hit, "Three blind mice'). So double hitting for that innovator in spot prices in power for you and me, she made off with around a million five. Hey, I'm sure that Phil was uninfluenced by that chunk of change, but you know how a loving, christian couple, in the depth of the night, abed, sometimes talks about the meaning of it all, and our redeemer's beautiful life story, and wouldn't it be nice if some properly motivated senator snuck a provision onto some bill de-regulating the power commodity markets. Probably these sweet whispers were in vain, given Phil adamantine integrity, but maybe something, well, unconscious kicked in, cause golly, Phil did muscle in the bill Enron wanted. For good Laissez Faire reasons, no doubt.
Yes, the money rolls in, but Phil's ambitions no longer play out on the national level, and his mind has turned to contemplating the blank verse of The Prelude or something -- those sweet retirement thoughts. But still, with Enron falling apart this year with a speed and desperation much like that of the East German government in 1989, the Gramms probably also had some heart to hearts about those pesky laws constraining politicians from accepting bribes in too public and outrageous a fashion -- laws which, as we all know, are stronger in the spirit than the letter, but still... Maybe it is time to fold your tent and creep home, with the couple millions of Enron bucks under your belt or in your portfolio to watch over you in the golden years. This will no doubt be used by invidious nabobs of negativism to explain why Phil gave a press conference on September 2 announcing his retirement from the Senate, even though he had amassed a 4 million dollar reelection warchest.
Warms your heart, doesn't it, reader? And so maybe Senator T gets traded for Senator G. in the game. We are not of course suggesting anything so cynical went down in D.C. in reality. In reality, all Senatorial transactions are motivated by the unwavering patriotism of the members of that hallowed chamber. All Limited Inc is doing is, well, muddying the waters. Spewing negativism. Speculating, as is our wont, in an idle and destructive manner.
Remora
Here are three grafs from the story announcing Senator Torricelli won't be prosecuted for his buyability.
"Even before Ms. White took over the case from the campaign task force early last year, many legal experts had emphasized the difficulty of successfully prosecuting sitting politicians in cases involving bribery or illegal gifts.
Such cases have been especially difficult when the accusers had legal problems of their own. In Mr. Chang, the prosecutors had a witness whom they themselves had called a liar before he agreed to plead guilty.
The senator himself has never denied that he accepted gifts from Mr. Chang, but said merely that he considered Mr. Chang a friend and that he never took any "illegal gifts." Congressional ethics rules allow legislators to accept certain gifts from friends when they are of limited value and are promptly reported."
Limited Inc is only mildly astonished that there will be no trial before a jury of Senator T.'s peers. Instead, he is going to have to negotiate with the Senate Ethics committee, which holds a position vis-a-vis potentially corrupt politicians similar to the position the Taliban held to Al Quaeda. It would be feeble irony to call the Senate Ethics committee an oxymoron. It is, rather, an offense to the word Ethics. Far better to abolish it once and for all, than to pretend that anything like ethics transpires in the Senate.
The up front thievish behavior of Torricelli was testified to by his "friend," Mr. David Chang. On the semantic salience of friendship in this case, there is a nice little article by Jason Zengerle that prefigures the non-prosecutorial conclusion of the Torricelli investigation; although when Zengerle wrote it, he probably thought he was nailing Senator T. Unfortunately, since legislators decide for themselves those laws that they will have to obey and have riddled them with friendly little loopholes, it looks like Torricelli will emerge unjailed from this contretemps because David Chang is just the kind of sleezeball that Torricelli proudly (and intermittently) claims as a friend. As a friend, apparently, the sky's the limit in terms of giving gifts and getting favors. Limited Inc has experienced this ourselves. Our friends often come over with wads of cash to give to us, rolex watches, and such; sometimes our friends, just like Senator T.'s, insist on taking us to tailor shops and buying us ten thousand dollar suits. That's how friends are, God love em.
The fruits of amity are listed at this NYT site. One is reminded of Charles Keating, of S & L debacle fame, who once commented, when asked whether his 'contributions' influenced political figures, I want to say in the most forceful way I can: I certainly hope so.
Here are three grafs from the story announcing Senator Torricelli won't be prosecuted for his buyability.
"Even before Ms. White took over the case from the campaign task force early last year, many legal experts had emphasized the difficulty of successfully prosecuting sitting politicians in cases involving bribery or illegal gifts.
Such cases have been especially difficult when the accusers had legal problems of their own. In Mr. Chang, the prosecutors had a witness whom they themselves had called a liar before he agreed to plead guilty.
The senator himself has never denied that he accepted gifts from Mr. Chang, but said merely that he considered Mr. Chang a friend and that he never took any "illegal gifts." Congressional ethics rules allow legislators to accept certain gifts from friends when they are of limited value and are promptly reported."
Limited Inc is only mildly astonished that there will be no trial before a jury of Senator T.'s peers. Instead, he is going to have to negotiate with the Senate Ethics committee, which holds a position vis-a-vis potentially corrupt politicians similar to the position the Taliban held to Al Quaeda. It would be feeble irony to call the Senate Ethics committee an oxymoron. It is, rather, an offense to the word Ethics. Far better to abolish it once and for all, than to pretend that anything like ethics transpires in the Senate.
The up front thievish behavior of Torricelli was testified to by his "friend," Mr. David Chang. On the semantic salience of friendship in this case, there is a nice little article by Jason Zengerle that prefigures the non-prosecutorial conclusion of the Torricelli investigation; although when Zengerle wrote it, he probably thought he was nailing Senator T. Unfortunately, since legislators decide for themselves those laws that they will have to obey and have riddled them with friendly little loopholes, it looks like Torricelli will emerge unjailed from this contretemps because David Chang is just the kind of sleezeball that Torricelli proudly (and intermittently) claims as a friend. As a friend, apparently, the sky's the limit in terms of giving gifts and getting favors. Limited Inc has experienced this ourselves. Our friends often come over with wads of cash to give to us, rolex watches, and such; sometimes our friends, just like Senator T.'s, insist on taking us to tailor shops and buying us ten thousand dollar suits. That's how friends are, God love em.
The fruits of amity are listed at this NYT site. One is reminded of Charles Keating, of S & L debacle fame, who once commented, when asked whether his 'contributions' influenced political figures, I want to say in the most forceful way I can: I certainly hope so.
Thursday, January 03, 2002
Remora
It is said that passengers of the great dirigibles experienced flight in a much different way than the passengers of other aircraft: for the passengers on the Hindenburg, the landscape moved by in vast visionary sweeps.
The commentariat often write themselves into a sort of dirigible view of events, vast visionary sweeps which, unlike those available to those lucky balloonists of yore, have nothing to do with this or any other planet.
Limited Inc has just finished Stan Crock's column in Business Week on the "third reason" for toppling Saddam Hussein's regime and the feeling of dreamy irreality couldn't be more complete. Here's the middle grafs, bodying forth his argument:
"But let's consider the Unspoken Argument. The cumulative impact of seeing secular moderates such as the opposition Iraqi National Congress assuming power in Baghdad so soon after a moderate secular regime came to power in Kabul could have a transforming impact on the entire Middle East. For too long, the blithe assumption has been that the two alternatives for government in the region are the current corrupt, antidemocratic, oppressive regimes or the radical fundamentalists.
However, Afghanistan and Iraq could demonstrate a Third Way. The secular traditions of a Turkey or Indonesia could take hold in other parts of the Islamic crescent. Look at Morocco, which is already is starting to transform itself into a more modern political and economic model.
Iraq's enemy, Iran, could be one of the first to change. Without a dangerous neighbor like Saddam, the more moderate forces in Tehran may be able to wrest power from the archconservative mullahs. Jordan and Egypt also could evolve."
Love love love. In Mr. Crock's benign view, a government that hasn't even yet been installed in Afghanistan (a country where the rapid turnover of governments and the dissolution of the countryside into a patchwork of warlord domains isn't the exception, but the rule) is already offering tax exemptions to its native software start-ups. As for the secular traditions of "a Turkey or Indonesia" (and we particularly love the placement of the indefinite article, "a" -- with the implication that these nations are mere interchangeable tinker toys for the can do American spirit), this elides the tricky question of nationality big time. Behind Mr. Crock's back, no doubt, Indonesia recently went through a revolution, and a war in East Timor that many might describe as something other than a secular Woodstock. And Turkey is being buffeted by a debt crisis that is only going to play into the hands of the "Virtue" party. As for the bloodshed in the guerilla war waged by the Kurds, this is out of Mr. Crock's purview entirely.
This isn't to disagree with Mr. Crock's view that there has to be another option for the Middle East besides dictatorship and fundamentalism. But that option is definitely not going to arrive, like the tooth fairy's quarter for the baby tooth under your pillow, by amassing American troops for a unilateral action against Iraq.
It is said that passengers of the great dirigibles experienced flight in a much different way than the passengers of other aircraft: for the passengers on the Hindenburg, the landscape moved by in vast visionary sweeps.
The commentariat often write themselves into a sort of dirigible view of events, vast visionary sweeps which, unlike those available to those lucky balloonists of yore, have nothing to do with this or any other planet.
Limited Inc has just finished Stan Crock's column in Business Week on the "third reason" for toppling Saddam Hussein's regime and the feeling of dreamy irreality couldn't be more complete. Here's the middle grafs, bodying forth his argument:
"But let's consider the Unspoken Argument. The cumulative impact of seeing secular moderates such as the opposition Iraqi National Congress assuming power in Baghdad so soon after a moderate secular regime came to power in Kabul could have a transforming impact on the entire Middle East. For too long, the blithe assumption has been that the two alternatives for government in the region are the current corrupt, antidemocratic, oppressive regimes or the radical fundamentalists.
However, Afghanistan and Iraq could demonstrate a Third Way. The secular traditions of a Turkey or Indonesia could take hold in other parts of the Islamic crescent. Look at Morocco, which is already is starting to transform itself into a more modern political and economic model.
Iraq's enemy, Iran, could be one of the first to change. Without a dangerous neighbor like Saddam, the more moderate forces in Tehran may be able to wrest power from the archconservative mullahs. Jordan and Egypt also could evolve."
Love love love. In Mr. Crock's benign view, a government that hasn't even yet been installed in Afghanistan (a country where the rapid turnover of governments and the dissolution of the countryside into a patchwork of warlord domains isn't the exception, but the rule) is already offering tax exemptions to its native software start-ups. As for the secular traditions of "a Turkey or Indonesia" (and we particularly love the placement of the indefinite article, "a" -- with the implication that these nations are mere interchangeable tinker toys for the can do American spirit), this elides the tricky question of nationality big time. Behind Mr. Crock's back, no doubt, Indonesia recently went through a revolution, and a war in East Timor that many might describe as something other than a secular Woodstock. And Turkey is being buffeted by a debt crisis that is only going to play into the hands of the "Virtue" party. As for the bloodshed in the guerilla war waged by the Kurds, this is out of Mr. Crock's purview entirely.
This isn't to disagree with Mr. Crock's view that there has to be another option for the Middle East besides dictatorship and fundamentalism. But that option is definitely not going to arrive, like the tooth fairy's quarter for the baby tooth under your pillow, by amassing American troops for a unilateral action against Iraq.
Wednesday, January 02, 2002
Remora
We recommend the Round Table in today's NYT Biz section. if you want a pretty good cross-section of Wall Street thinking about the economy. Limited Inc, of course, is not a consensus type of entity -- that the predictions of the three players interviewed average out to a Dow around 11-3 -- that in other words, the p/e will continue at around 23 -- seems incredible. However, the incredibility of a figure has never stopped Wall Street from hitting it. The question is, why should we care. There is something wierd going on in the economy, and everybody knows it. The weird thing is what, exactly, the equities markets are measuring. Here's a quote from one of the roundtable guys (Byron Wien) which should be plumbed slowly:
"You've got to look at what you're entitled to as an investor. In my view all you're entitled to is the profit growth plus the dividend. In the 20-year period from 1981 to 2001, that was about 10 percent. The market during that period gave you about 15 percent. So you got five extra percentage points of reward in relation to how much earnings were increasing. That left the market at a point where, particularly if profits are struggling, there could be some adjustment. And that's why the returns from the market may be below the long-term average of 10 percent."
Coincidentally, this is also the period in which the derivatives market exploded. Except that we don't think this is a coincidence -- we think the meta-investment structure, the market in indexes, options, and the whole bestiary of exotic financial instruments wielded by hedge fund managers is driving that extra five percent.
We recommend the Round Table in today's NYT Biz section. if you want a pretty good cross-section of Wall Street thinking about the economy. Limited Inc, of course, is not a consensus type of entity -- that the predictions of the three players interviewed average out to a Dow around 11-3 -- that in other words, the p/e will continue at around 23 -- seems incredible. However, the incredibility of a figure has never stopped Wall Street from hitting it. The question is, why should we care. There is something wierd going on in the economy, and everybody knows it. The weird thing is what, exactly, the equities markets are measuring. Here's a quote from one of the roundtable guys (Byron Wien) which should be plumbed slowly:
"You've got to look at what you're entitled to as an investor. In my view all you're entitled to is the profit growth plus the dividend. In the 20-year period from 1981 to 2001, that was about 10 percent. The market during that period gave you about 15 percent. So you got five extra percentage points of reward in relation to how much earnings were increasing. That left the market at a point where, particularly if profits are struggling, there could be some adjustment. And that's why the returns from the market may be below the long-term average of 10 percent."
Coincidentally, this is also the period in which the derivatives market exploded. Except that we don't think this is a coincidence -- we think the meta-investment structure, the market in indexes, options, and the whole bestiary of exotic financial instruments wielded by hedge fund managers is driving that extra five percent.
Tuesday, January 01, 2002
Remora
We admire The Economist. Hell, we've written for The Economist. And since we venerate the great media ancestors - the Smart Set Crowd, the Blackwoods writers, Ford Maddox Ford's transition, Dwight McDonald's politics -- we of course find the fullblooded Tory history of the Economist cause for awe and bending of the knees. It is in the pantheon.
But even so... in the Christmas edition's article about the Bridget Jones economy -- the political economy of affluent singlehood that is shaping urban culture -- we are bugged. Bugged by the writing.
Now, Limited Inc isn't so snobbish as to think that trendspotting articles are automatically idiotic. And this one is about a genuine trend. A NY Magazine article of recent memory, the one about single Japanese girls with beaucoup disposable income in Tokyo, also spotted this trend, which means that it is a trend -- the relationship between trend and spotting being one of those performative truths.
Well, we expect gravitas and wit in the Economist. Unfortunately, what we get in this article are the worst vices of the trend article. We get the bogus analogy. We get the uncontextualized, and thus dubious, statistics. We get the exaggeration. We get the feeling that the trend has probably secretly peaked behind the writer's back -- for writing so clueless implies a writer on whom no trend makes an impression until it is pointed out to him by an editor. And as we know, editors live in sealed glass capsules, meaning that when the editor becomes conscious of a trend, it has long passed. Here are two grafs in the middle of the article. This kind of writing is surely making the ghost of Walter Bagehot think seriously about visiting Bill Emmott, the current editor, for one of those Marley to Scrooge talks spirits so love during the holiday season:
"What explains the trend? The key seems to be the higher education of women. In most rich countries, more women than men now go to university; in particular, women make up more than half the students taking professional qualifications in subjects such as law and medicine. As new job opportunities unfold, they often earn as much as similarly qualified men. They find work is fun and it pays well, so they put off marriage. Husbands and babies can wait. �Today, people know that they are going to be married till they are 80. So 40 is the new 30,� says Marcus Matthews of Kaagan Research, a market-research firm.
[Stop the presses for a second, gentle reader. Let's think about this. Is 40 the new 30, or the new 271/2? And notice that Marcus Matthews is ignoring that pesky thing, divorce. Which means that most people don't know that they are going to be married until they are 80. Or at least they don't know if they are going to be married to the people they are marrying. This makes, hmm, a lot of difference. Then there is the "they find work is fun and it pays well..." Is this Ally McBeal, or is it real life? In real life, fun is a word which can cover things like, work 12 hours a day, stay in traffic 2 hours a day, no time for anything else a day. So that what explains the trend might be -- the compensation from all that sensual deprivation. Marcuse, not Faith Popcorn, is the reference here. And do new job opportunities "unfold?" Unfold is such a nice, organic word -- here's the tree of job opportunities, and here's the unfolding jobs, in 'fun' professions, such as law and medicine. And speaking of "fun" - there's another little statistic which has popped up more and more in the literature about medicine: the number of doctors who are dissatisfied with doctoring. The question, would you become a doctor if you had it to do over again has increasingly been answered in the negative by new doctors, who, Lacoon-like among the HMO red tape, might not be aware they are in a "fun" profession]
"Up to now, that has been a strategy that makes sense. More people marry today�at least once�than ever before. Thus fewer than 7% of Americans in their early 50s have never married. Compare that, says Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, with America in the late 19th century. Then, the marriage market was far less efficient and 20-25% of women never married. The result, he says, has been a sort of democratisation of marriage and motherhood, where almost all women marry and most have at least one child."
Can one say enough about the jargon in this graf, or shall we maintain an embarrassed silence? The democratisation of marriage? Democratisation has automatically come to mean: "more people do." If more people eat chocolate sundaes, it is the democratisation of chocolate sundaes. If do it yourself enema boxes are mass marketed in Walmarts, it means the democratisation of enemas. Democratisation, here, can't debauch itself any more. Jargon, like counterfeit money, finds its own value on the market -- under its own guise, it is equivalent to zero.
As for (shudder) "the marriage market was far less efficient..."
Well:
By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, �
when we remembered Zion.
As for our lyres, we hung them up �
on the willows that grow in that land.
For there our captors asked for a song,
our tormentors called for mirth: �
'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'
How shall we sing the Lord's song �
in a strange land?
We admire The Economist. Hell, we've written for The Economist. And since we venerate the great media ancestors - the Smart Set Crowd, the Blackwoods writers, Ford Maddox Ford's transition, Dwight McDonald's politics -- we of course find the fullblooded Tory history of the Economist cause for awe and bending of the knees. It is in the pantheon.
But even so... in the Christmas edition's article about the Bridget Jones economy -- the political economy of affluent singlehood that is shaping urban culture -- we are bugged. Bugged by the writing.
Now, Limited Inc isn't so snobbish as to think that trendspotting articles are automatically idiotic. And this one is about a genuine trend. A NY Magazine article of recent memory, the one about single Japanese girls with beaucoup disposable income in Tokyo, also spotted this trend, which means that it is a trend -- the relationship between trend and spotting being one of those performative truths.
Well, we expect gravitas and wit in the Economist. Unfortunately, what we get in this article are the worst vices of the trend article. We get the bogus analogy. We get the uncontextualized, and thus dubious, statistics. We get the exaggeration. We get the feeling that the trend has probably secretly peaked behind the writer's back -- for writing so clueless implies a writer on whom no trend makes an impression until it is pointed out to him by an editor. And as we know, editors live in sealed glass capsules, meaning that when the editor becomes conscious of a trend, it has long passed. Here are two grafs in the middle of the article. This kind of writing is surely making the ghost of Walter Bagehot think seriously about visiting Bill Emmott, the current editor, for one of those Marley to Scrooge talks spirits so love during the holiday season:
"What explains the trend? The key seems to be the higher education of women. In most rich countries, more women than men now go to university; in particular, women make up more than half the students taking professional qualifications in subjects such as law and medicine. As new job opportunities unfold, they often earn as much as similarly qualified men. They find work is fun and it pays well, so they put off marriage. Husbands and babies can wait. �Today, people know that they are going to be married till they are 80. So 40 is the new 30,� says Marcus Matthews of Kaagan Research, a market-research firm.
[Stop the presses for a second, gentle reader. Let's think about this. Is 40 the new 30, or the new 271/2? And notice that Marcus Matthews is ignoring that pesky thing, divorce. Which means that most people don't know that they are going to be married until they are 80. Or at least they don't know if they are going to be married to the people they are marrying. This makes, hmm, a lot of difference. Then there is the "they find work is fun and it pays well..." Is this Ally McBeal, or is it real life? In real life, fun is a word which can cover things like, work 12 hours a day, stay in traffic 2 hours a day, no time for anything else a day. So that what explains the trend might be -- the compensation from all that sensual deprivation. Marcuse, not Faith Popcorn, is the reference here. And do new job opportunities "unfold?" Unfold is such a nice, organic word -- here's the tree of job opportunities, and here's the unfolding jobs, in 'fun' professions, such as law and medicine. And speaking of "fun" - there's another little statistic which has popped up more and more in the literature about medicine: the number of doctors who are dissatisfied with doctoring. The question, would you become a doctor if you had it to do over again has increasingly been answered in the negative by new doctors, who, Lacoon-like among the HMO red tape, might not be aware they are in a "fun" profession]
"Up to now, that has been a strategy that makes sense. More people marry today�at least once�than ever before. Thus fewer than 7% of Americans in their early 50s have never married. Compare that, says Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, with America in the late 19th century. Then, the marriage market was far less efficient and 20-25% of women never married. The result, he says, has been a sort of democratisation of marriage and motherhood, where almost all women marry and most have at least one child."
Can one say enough about the jargon in this graf, or shall we maintain an embarrassed silence? The democratisation of marriage? Democratisation has automatically come to mean: "more people do." If more people eat chocolate sundaes, it is the democratisation of chocolate sundaes. If do it yourself enema boxes are mass marketed in Walmarts, it means the democratisation of enemas. Democratisation, here, can't debauch itself any more. Jargon, like counterfeit money, finds its own value on the market -- under its own guise, it is equivalent to zero.
As for (shudder) "the marriage market was far less efficient..."
Well:
By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept, �
when we remembered Zion.
As for our lyres, we hung them up �
on the willows that grow in that land.
For there our captors asked for a song,
our tormentors called for mirth: �
'Sing us one of the songs of Zion.'
How shall we sing the Lord's song �
in a strange land?
Monday, December 31, 2001
Dope
Limited Inc and a friend spent some time by a highway last night, looking at the moon. It was a moon well worth looking at.
"Well," our readers comment, jejeune to the point of jaundice, "a moon's a moon's a moon, right? Excuse me, but once we sent a few retread fighter pilot types up there and line drived a few golf balls, that was it with the moon thing. Like, boring, lifeless, dusty, full of craters, and there goes ten billion dollars."
Yes to all of the above. The moon is certainly a de-mystified object, it is certainly the victim of a sort of cultural pollution -- there's no awe in us anymore about it, there's a false sense that we've peed on it, that now the territory is claimed -- but Limited Inc loses all skepticism in the ghostly white shimmer of it, feels that there is definitely a werewolf pull to the moon, some obscure but distinct disturbance in the blood, some ritual passage negotiated between eros and thanatos that eludes cynical dismissal. We've seen the moon in the dark hollow of the New Mexico country night, when darkness seemed more absolute than civilization, and the moon kept spreading out, visibly becoming enormous above the mesas, fantastically hatched there in the bright glare of constellations, its interstellar closeness -- because in solar system terms, the moon isn't that far away from us -- finally comprehensible to the senses, and a bit terrible.
Of course, we've also seen, with the inattention of the urbanite, the moon as a mere shell, or the moon as a mere sign -- there it is again above the freeway, there it is again above the parking lot. Last night we pursuaded a friend to go out with us and salute it with glasses of vodka. The night got cold, the cars going by were rare, and probably a few of the drivers wondered who the hell the lunatics were, sitting there raising glasses to the moon. My friend had a few things she wanted to say to the moon, and so did Limited Inc. Finally it got cold enough that we were shivering and it was making less sense to sit there on the concrete post among the rustling brown grass. So we left. But we left with some faint lunar afterimage inside us, which I hope both assuages the terrible gods of this year, and portends something powerful for next year. And to hell with it if we didn't time it directly on New Years Eve.
Limited Inc and a friend spent some time by a highway last night, looking at the moon. It was a moon well worth looking at.
"Well," our readers comment, jejeune to the point of jaundice, "a moon's a moon's a moon, right? Excuse me, but once we sent a few retread fighter pilot types up there and line drived a few golf balls, that was it with the moon thing. Like, boring, lifeless, dusty, full of craters, and there goes ten billion dollars."
Yes to all of the above. The moon is certainly a de-mystified object, it is certainly the victim of a sort of cultural pollution -- there's no awe in us anymore about it, there's a false sense that we've peed on it, that now the territory is claimed -- but Limited Inc loses all skepticism in the ghostly white shimmer of it, feels that there is definitely a werewolf pull to the moon, some obscure but distinct disturbance in the blood, some ritual passage negotiated between eros and thanatos that eludes cynical dismissal. We've seen the moon in the dark hollow of the New Mexico country night, when darkness seemed more absolute than civilization, and the moon kept spreading out, visibly becoming enormous above the mesas, fantastically hatched there in the bright glare of constellations, its interstellar closeness -- because in solar system terms, the moon isn't that far away from us -- finally comprehensible to the senses, and a bit terrible.
Of course, we've also seen, with the inattention of the urbanite, the moon as a mere shell, or the moon as a mere sign -- there it is again above the freeway, there it is again above the parking lot. Last night we pursuaded a friend to go out with us and salute it with glasses of vodka. The night got cold, the cars going by were rare, and probably a few of the drivers wondered who the hell the lunatics were, sitting there raising glasses to the moon. My friend had a few things she wanted to say to the moon, and so did Limited Inc. Finally it got cold enough that we were shivering and it was making less sense to sit there on the concrete post among the rustling brown grass. So we left. But we left with some faint lunar afterimage inside us, which I hope both assuages the terrible gods of this year, and portends something powerful for next year. And to hell with it if we didn't time it directly on New Years Eve.
Saturday, December 29, 2001
Remora
On the Optimism Front
We packed our Schopenhauer for our LA jaunt last week -- which should tell you that Limited Inc is not a member of the Optimists club, if you were wondering. However, Schopenhauer's extensive pessimism -- the sort of grief only a philosopher could manage, shedding tears over the pain and irrationality of individuation, and even more tears, acidically tinged, over the incongruous and unheard of reputation of Hegel, the contemporary Schopenhauer most despised -- is not a good guide to short range economic forecasts for first quarter GDP growth.
An optimism about such things has reigned in the columns of American newspapers for the past month. One wonders if this is a real boomlet, or if this is mere puffery. Although short term memory loss is the norm in this wonderful land of ours, still, there are those who remember the Y2K year -- the year that the Dow became unhinged, the year that lunatic predictions from George Gilder and James Glassman were seriously debated, even as the stuffing was dropping out of the structure.
Here's the WP today:
Reports Suggest Economic Recovery
Experts See Clear Signs Recession Is Fading by John Berry
"For the first time in many months, a series of economic indicators, released yesterday, all contained solidly positive news, suggesting to many analysts that the recession that hit the U.S. economy last spring may end soon.
The Labor Department reported that initial claims for unemployment benefits last week remained below the 400,000 level for the third week in a row....
Meanwhile, the Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, said its consumer confidence index jumped nearly nine points, to 93.7 this month, after being depressed in October and November following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The increase brought the confidence index back in line with the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index, which began to recover last month."
But let's look at what that index means. Here's the AP version:
"The Conference Board said consumers� assessment of the current economic climate was slightly more positive in December than November. Consumers rating current business conditions as good increased to 17 percent from 16.8 percent.
However, the board said consumers who felt business conditions were bad rose to 21.7 percent from 20.7 percent last month.
Nontheless Americans are still feeling more optimistic about the near future. The percentage of consumers who expect business conditions to improve rose to 22.2 percent from 17.7 percent in November, the report said. Those expecting conditions to sour declined from 11.6 percent from 16.9 percent."
In essence, Schopenhauerians still seem to outnumber optimists among the hoi polloi.
Limited Inc would like to be optimistic. No, that's not quite right -- Limited Inc would like to benefit from the optimism of others by placing beaucoup articles among the resurgent media. But Limited Inc would also like to be contrarian and hip and regard it all as a bubble. And the small contradiction can only be maintained if there is some wave of money coming in from the East. In the media world, though, it is hard to see that wave. More newspapers are cracking down on freelancers, shrinking book sections, getting the business editor to take over the recipe section when the old coot that used to do it died, etc. Magazines are still not seeing that advertising outreach to the highly confident consumer postulated by the Conference Board. And there's the gnawing question of debt -- as was remarked in the nineties, public debt shrank while private debt exploded. Now public debt is growing -- and there's only so much room in debt space, even with the whacky Fed jiggling us down to 0 down, O percent. I do have to say that the Fed has the best spin in the business -- articles like the WP one are routinely full of the goodies that Greenspan has given us because we were nice, not naughty -- all those car sales! all those home sales! without paying attention to the red that is accumulating because of all those car sales! and the debt load that is not shifting because of all those home sales! and the propadeutic example of Japan, liquidity trap city, which we are all politely avoiding -- a car wreck we are passing by, or at least we hope we are passing by.
On the Optimism Front
We packed our Schopenhauer for our LA jaunt last week -- which should tell you that Limited Inc is not a member of the Optimists club, if you were wondering. However, Schopenhauer's extensive pessimism -- the sort of grief only a philosopher could manage, shedding tears over the pain and irrationality of individuation, and even more tears, acidically tinged, over the incongruous and unheard of reputation of Hegel, the contemporary Schopenhauer most despised -- is not a good guide to short range economic forecasts for first quarter GDP growth.
An optimism about such things has reigned in the columns of American newspapers for the past month. One wonders if this is a real boomlet, or if this is mere puffery. Although short term memory loss is the norm in this wonderful land of ours, still, there are those who remember the Y2K year -- the year that the Dow became unhinged, the year that lunatic predictions from George Gilder and James Glassman were seriously debated, even as the stuffing was dropping out of the structure.
Here's the WP today:
Reports Suggest Economic Recovery
Experts See Clear Signs Recession Is Fading by John Berry
"For the first time in many months, a series of economic indicators, released yesterday, all contained solidly positive news, suggesting to many analysts that the recession that hit the U.S. economy last spring may end soon.
The Labor Department reported that initial claims for unemployment benefits last week remained below the 400,000 level for the third week in a row....
Meanwhile, the Conference Board, a New York-based business research group, said its consumer confidence index jumped nearly nine points, to 93.7 this month, after being depressed in October and November following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The increase brought the confidence index back in line with the University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index, which began to recover last month."
But let's look at what that index means. Here's the AP version:
"The Conference Board said consumers� assessment of the current economic climate was slightly more positive in December than November. Consumers rating current business conditions as good increased to 17 percent from 16.8 percent.
However, the board said consumers who felt business conditions were bad rose to 21.7 percent from 20.7 percent last month.
Nontheless Americans are still feeling more optimistic about the near future. The percentage of consumers who expect business conditions to improve rose to 22.2 percent from 17.7 percent in November, the report said. Those expecting conditions to sour declined from 11.6 percent from 16.9 percent."
In essence, Schopenhauerians still seem to outnumber optimists among the hoi polloi.
Limited Inc would like to be optimistic. No, that's not quite right -- Limited Inc would like to benefit from the optimism of others by placing beaucoup articles among the resurgent media. But Limited Inc would also like to be contrarian and hip and regard it all as a bubble. And the small contradiction can only be maintained if there is some wave of money coming in from the East. In the media world, though, it is hard to see that wave. More newspapers are cracking down on freelancers, shrinking book sections, getting the business editor to take over the recipe section when the old coot that used to do it died, etc. Magazines are still not seeing that advertising outreach to the highly confident consumer postulated by the Conference Board. And there's the gnawing question of debt -- as was remarked in the nineties, public debt shrank while private debt exploded. Now public debt is growing -- and there's only so much room in debt space, even with the whacky Fed jiggling us down to 0 down, O percent. I do have to say that the Fed has the best spin in the business -- articles like the WP one are routinely full of the goodies that Greenspan has given us because we were nice, not naughty -- all those car sales! all those home sales! without paying attention to the red that is accumulating because of all those car sales! and the debt load that is not shifting because of all those home sales! and the propadeutic example of Japan, liquidity trap city, which we are all politely avoiding -- a car wreck we are passing by, or at least we hope we are passing by.
Remora
As our readers probably expect, Limited Inc is a devotee of William Greider. We loved the Fed book, we loved that it was so thick, so textured, so bought, so little read. We loved the story of Jimmy Carter accidentally causing a crisis in the economy by getting consumers to stop using their credit cards (a mistake we will never make again -- conservative Bushies would rather have consumers max their Visas on porno than not whip those cards out at all). We loved One world, ready or not. We loved to compare it to the Olive and the Lexus Tree, a relic of the nineties that ranks up there, as an artifact of decade delusions, with Strachey's thirties book on the inevitability of communism, The Coming Struggle for Power. Which okay, we probably have readers who aren't exactly conversant with agit-prop from the thirties. So our references are esoteric. Sue me.
Anyway, given our admiration, what is it that keeps us from reading Greider's pieces in the Nation? It is, we think, a sense that we have to make a long slog with this guy. Through some very depressing stuff. Still, we recommend his latest on the relationship of China to the rest of the underpaid third world, especially the maquilladora zone of Mexico. Greider writes that the contrast between the 1.25 per hour wage in Mexico and the .25 per hour wage in China is tipping the GEs and Toshibas of the world. So Mexico is finding itself in the unique position of railing against cheap labor. Two grafs of especial note:
"Achieving more meaningful economic and social integration obviously involves huge, complex issues, from Mexican immigration and US development aid to the relationships between currencies, legal systems and environmental standards. But the most difficult issue, one that cannot be evaded, is wages. No one should pretend that US-Mexican wage tensions can be entirely reconciled--of course not--but what is required is a wage-floor trade agreement that, as labor likes to say, "brings the bottom up, instead of pulling the top down." Mexico could only accept this arrangement if it had a genuine preferential status with the United States and Canada--including both significant trade privileges and investor guarantees of long-term commitments as well as serious aid for education, health and infrastructure. Think of this "North American union" as a first step toward someday imposing an international "living wage" standard on the production of traded goods, enforced by penalty tariffs on countries and companies that decline to participate. Producers would have a choice: Pay decent wages to their workers or pay penalty tariffs on their exports, the money to be recycled into development aid.
Obviously, the world is not ready for this (neither are Mexican and American politics), but the road to global reform has to start with a few like-minded nations willing to experiment with new terms because they see mutual self-interest in the bargain. A healthier, self-sustaining Mexico would be a lot better for the United States than a cheap-labor export zone that makes a few people very rich but survives on the backs of desperate immigrants and drug smugglers. US consumers might have to pay marginally higher prices on some items, but US commerce would gain a far more promising market for its exports, and that would help to reduce US trade deficits. Mexico would regain a measure of self-determination, the ability to chart its own course free of the neoliberal straitjacket. "
I think this is a point to make over and over again - while Capital has long internationalized, labor remains the last redoubt of the antiquarian position. Labor has thereby lost its great advantage. There's no reason that the Boeing's Chinese factories and their American factories can't join at the grassroots. Along the border, it is more than time to wake up.
As our readers probably expect, Limited Inc is a devotee of William Greider. We loved the Fed book, we loved that it was so thick, so textured, so bought, so little read. We loved the story of Jimmy Carter accidentally causing a crisis in the economy by getting consumers to stop using their credit cards (a mistake we will never make again -- conservative Bushies would rather have consumers max their Visas on porno than not whip those cards out at all). We loved One world, ready or not. We loved to compare it to the Olive and the Lexus Tree, a relic of the nineties that ranks up there, as an artifact of decade delusions, with Strachey's thirties book on the inevitability of communism, The Coming Struggle for Power. Which okay, we probably have readers who aren't exactly conversant with agit-prop from the thirties. So our references are esoteric. Sue me.
Anyway, given our admiration, what is it that keeps us from reading Greider's pieces in the Nation? It is, we think, a sense that we have to make a long slog with this guy. Through some very depressing stuff. Still, we recommend his latest on the relationship of China to the rest of the underpaid third world, especially the maquilladora zone of Mexico. Greider writes that the contrast between the 1.25 per hour wage in Mexico and the .25 per hour wage in China is tipping the GEs and Toshibas of the world. So Mexico is finding itself in the unique position of railing against cheap labor. Two grafs of especial note:
"Achieving more meaningful economic and social integration obviously involves huge, complex issues, from Mexican immigration and US development aid to the relationships between currencies, legal systems and environmental standards. But the most difficult issue, one that cannot be evaded, is wages. No one should pretend that US-Mexican wage tensions can be entirely reconciled--of course not--but what is required is a wage-floor trade agreement that, as labor likes to say, "brings the bottom up, instead of pulling the top down." Mexico could only accept this arrangement if it had a genuine preferential status with the United States and Canada--including both significant trade privileges and investor guarantees of long-term commitments as well as serious aid for education, health and infrastructure. Think of this "North American union" as a first step toward someday imposing an international "living wage" standard on the production of traded goods, enforced by penalty tariffs on countries and companies that decline to participate. Producers would have a choice: Pay decent wages to their workers or pay penalty tariffs on their exports, the money to be recycled into development aid.
Obviously, the world is not ready for this (neither are Mexican and American politics), but the road to global reform has to start with a few like-minded nations willing to experiment with new terms because they see mutual self-interest in the bargain. A healthier, self-sustaining Mexico would be a lot better for the United States than a cheap-labor export zone that makes a few people very rich but survives on the backs of desperate immigrants and drug smugglers. US consumers might have to pay marginally higher prices on some items, but US commerce would gain a far more promising market for its exports, and that would help to reduce US trade deficits. Mexico would regain a measure of self-determination, the ability to chart its own course free of the neoliberal straitjacket. "
I think this is a point to make over and over again - while Capital has long internationalized, labor remains the last redoubt of the antiquarian position. Labor has thereby lost its great advantage. There's no reason that the Boeing's Chinese factories and their American factories can't join at the grassroots. Along the border, it is more than time to wake up.
Thursday, December 27, 2001
Dope
Limited Inc, with a disgruntled expression on our face, could be found staring out at the jets taxing up and down the concourse at the Phoenix airport yesterday. A considerable portion of our Christmas was lost to the greed of America West. This airline has apparently taken as it's motto the famous words of J.P. Morgan: the public be damned. Damning that small section of the public which had bought tickets on a one o'clock flight from Phoenix to Austin in the naive faith that there actually was a one o'clock flight from Phoenix to Austin, America West gave us a little lesson in corporate irresponsibility that made those of us who had some knowledge of airline deregulation long for the days of the CAB. We approached the representatives of AW, poor sods, who produced this excuse: somehow, a flight crew couldn't be assembled for this flight. Now, let's try to look beyond the implication that America West is run in much the same way as high school plays are mounted ("hey everybody, let's buy a jet or somethin', and like fly it for people and all, and like they can buy tickets and everything... let's pretend to be an airline!"), there is something odious about a company that is willing not only to cut corners -- for surely the real reason Limited Inc and his fellow Austinites were stranded for four hours was that there weren't enough tickets sold for this particular flight -- but to cut those corners while blaming its staff.
Well, we had too good a time in LA to post regularly. We know that there are issues (the fall of the Argentine government, the mole like behavior of Osama Bin Laden, the whole "will these shoes go with my new plastique bomb kit" fashion scene) with which we should manfully grapple. But today our host, blogspot, is experiencing trouble of some cyber-weird kind. We will resume tomorrow with the bons mots, don't worry.
Limited Inc, with a disgruntled expression on our face, could be found staring out at the jets taxing up and down the concourse at the Phoenix airport yesterday. A considerable portion of our Christmas was lost to the greed of America West. This airline has apparently taken as it's motto the famous words of J.P. Morgan: the public be damned. Damning that small section of the public which had bought tickets on a one o'clock flight from Phoenix to Austin in the naive faith that there actually was a one o'clock flight from Phoenix to Austin, America West gave us a little lesson in corporate irresponsibility that made those of us who had some knowledge of airline deregulation long for the days of the CAB. We approached the representatives of AW, poor sods, who produced this excuse: somehow, a flight crew couldn't be assembled for this flight. Now, let's try to look beyond the implication that America West is run in much the same way as high school plays are mounted ("hey everybody, let's buy a jet or somethin', and like fly it for people and all, and like they can buy tickets and everything... let's pretend to be an airline!"), there is something odious about a company that is willing not only to cut corners -- for surely the real reason Limited Inc and his fellow Austinites were stranded for four hours was that there weren't enough tickets sold for this particular flight -- but to cut those corners while blaming its staff.
Well, we had too good a time in LA to post regularly. We know that there are issues (the fall of the Argentine government, the mole like behavior of Osama Bin Laden, the whole "will these shoes go with my new plastique bomb kit" fashion scene) with which we should manfully grapple. But today our host, blogspot, is experiencing trouble of some cyber-weird kind. We will resume tomorrow with the bons mots, don't worry.
Friday, December 21, 2001
Remora
Limited Inc, like a rattled heroine in a Joan Didion novel looking for nembutal, went riding around the highways of LA for three hours yesterday with a jazz musician from Riverside who had only recently, at the age of 30, received his license. Being the fearless passenger type, we did not flinch at the Magoo like structure we traced as we headed the wrong way on the Hollywood Freeway, going vaguely in the direction of Pasedena when we meant to be going to Venice Beach. However, as the countryside became more, rather than less mountainous, we eventually realized that we were, like so many travellers in California (the Donner party comes to mind), wandering in a labyrinth of our own illusions that had little to do with geographic reality.
This morning, we read with interest the story of the fall of De La Rua's government in Argentina. Of course, readers of this humble rag will remember our predictions on this score from months ago, when the IMF restructured the Argentine debt. As you will no doubt recall (ah, the passages from our column that are no doubt burned into your brains, my dears, like grill marks on a sizzling hamburger), at that time we pointed out that the headline money from these deals is not exactly pouring into the pockets of the Argentine people -- rather it is, by routes that show the true Yanqui ingenuity in devising shifts of wealth that reward the Lord's true husbandmen, those frisky emerging money market manager s we so know and love - cycling to the temperate zone. This fact notwithstanding, Yanqui newspapermen are pretty certain they know what's been happening down South American way: it is the laziness in the blood. Here's the LA Times editorial that revamps our old friend, the lazy Latino, in a little more sophisticated form:
"To reactive the economy, mired in a three-year-old recession, the new government must bring down unemployment, now at a staggering 20%. It must also find a way to manage a public debt of $155 billion while reducing a fiscal deficit that this year hovers around $8 billion. A recent article in an Argentine newspaper illustrates how imperative it is for the new government to overcome the political elite's devastating corruption and inefficiency. According to the story, the Argentine Congress boasts thousands of employees who are known not so affectionately as gnocchi. Gnocchi, you see, are the potato dumplings that Argentines eat on the 29th day of each month, a custom that is supposed to bring good luck. The employees got that nickname because they show up to work only once a month--always on payday. Civil service law prohibits their firing. But if forced to show up more often, they'd have nothing to do."
Notice the contrast between our own fiscal policy, which would never pump money unnecessarily into the system, with those gnocchi. The Lord has truly blessed us is the moral Limited Inc draws from this sad debacle.
Wednesday, December 19, 2001
Limited Inc. flew out to LA yesterday. We
are spending a week at a friend's house.
Last night we went to Track 16 to hear a
series of male and mostly bald Southern
Cal writers read sketches or stories on
the rather vague theme of holidays. The
one female writer, a statuesque, frizzy
haired blond, read what she called a rant
in a voice that had seeped through Mae
West and Janis Joplin to arrive in her
throat, jazzing up what was otherwise a
rather weak referencing to what all the unwashed and disgruntled, or the leather clad and the smokers, know about Christmas � what an essentially sad time it is to stage a holiday, and how bogus its cause, and how mendacious its sentiments.
Track 16 is an art gallery stuck in a warehouse district, the m.o. for galleries from San Antonio�s Blue Star to the bright and shining tax dodges of Providence, Rhode Island. Still, Limited Inc is moved by the replacement of boxes of screws, or tubs of cement, or shelves of PVC pipe, by track-lit spaces that direct one�s attention to what�s hanging on the wall. Is this the only universal left to art, that track-lit symbol of the work�s isolation? That self-standing which wavers teasingly between art and a box of U-Valves?
Still, this is too melancholy a thought to express our happiness about being at Track 16, and seeing these good hearted people turned out to applaud their friends, or perhaps turned out in curiosity, or a genuine interest in new talent. The MC was one of those youngish (say around 32) balding men who�ve gone through the hair loss process happily, and gleam with such unabashed nudity of forehead that the eyes slip, catch on the heavy eyebrows, and then on down to the nearly fattish cheeks beneath. Broadbeamed in a gray comfortable suit which was not altogether suitish � his blue sneakers defining a limit to any assumption that his gray suitcoat might lead you to make � he read his story in a voice that seemed to issue from some velvet lined cell. The story featured tits � tits, I believe his phrase was, out to Sunday � and this, it seemed, was the real theme of these stories. In all of them, tits stood in for the eternally feminine, negative but observably bouncy space.
The deal about this reading was that, unlike readings I�ve been to in NYC, these guys were stand-up. They were funny, or at least the audience, and not just that part of it composed of friends, laughed. But even so, in the original medium in which these stories and sketches existed � ink on paper � it was all subpar. Whereas NYC writers read as though it were a death march through the vocables that they were making for your sake, reader, yet one feels some basic comfort with the written as written. As if reading were not a bad habit to be denied, not something to be negated in performance. Maybe this is what we feel is so often wrong with LA writing � this urge to please or shock immediately. It is the sign of an unconscious cultural fear of being caught reading.
are spending a week at a friend's house.
Last night we went to Track 16 to hear a
series of male and mostly bald Southern
Cal writers read sketches or stories on
the rather vague theme of holidays. The
one female writer, a statuesque, frizzy
haired blond, read what she called a rant
in a voice that had seeped through Mae
West and Janis Joplin to arrive in her
throat, jazzing up what was otherwise a
rather weak referencing to what all the unwashed and disgruntled, or the leather clad and the smokers, know about Christmas � what an essentially sad time it is to stage a holiday, and how bogus its cause, and how mendacious its sentiments.
Track 16 is an art gallery stuck in a warehouse district, the m.o. for galleries from San Antonio�s Blue Star to the bright and shining tax dodges of Providence, Rhode Island. Still, Limited Inc is moved by the replacement of boxes of screws, or tubs of cement, or shelves of PVC pipe, by track-lit spaces that direct one�s attention to what�s hanging on the wall. Is this the only universal left to art, that track-lit symbol of the work�s isolation? That self-standing which wavers teasingly between art and a box of U-Valves?
Still, this is too melancholy a thought to express our happiness about being at Track 16, and seeing these good hearted people turned out to applaud their friends, or perhaps turned out in curiosity, or a genuine interest in new talent. The MC was one of those youngish (say around 32) balding men who�ve gone through the hair loss process happily, and gleam with such unabashed nudity of forehead that the eyes slip, catch on the heavy eyebrows, and then on down to the nearly fattish cheeks beneath. Broadbeamed in a gray comfortable suit which was not altogether suitish � his blue sneakers defining a limit to any assumption that his gray suitcoat might lead you to make � he read his story in a voice that seemed to issue from some velvet lined cell. The story featured tits � tits, I believe his phrase was, out to Sunday � and this, it seemed, was the real theme of these stories. In all of them, tits stood in for the eternally feminine, negative but observably bouncy space.
The deal about this reading was that, unlike readings I�ve been to in NYC, these guys were stand-up. They were funny, or at least the audience, and not just that part of it composed of friends, laughed. But even so, in the original medium in which these stories and sketches existed � ink on paper � it was all subpar. Whereas NYC writers read as though it were a death march through the vocables that they were making for your sake, reader, yet one feels some basic comfort with the written as written. As if reading were not a bad habit to be denied, not something to be negated in performance. Maybe this is what we feel is so often wrong with LA writing � this urge to please or shock immediately. It is the sign of an unconscious cultural fear of being caught reading.
Tuesday, December 18, 2001
Remora
This is the NYT front web page article :
"US. Again Placing Focus on Ousting Hussein
By PATRICK E. TYLER
With Muslim backing, the option of taking the war against terrorism to Iraq has gained significant ground in recent weeks, according to administration officials."
Now, the eye-catching with Muslim backing makes one expect, well, some Muslim backing. The article, instead, recites the diplomatic coughing of Turkey, and this:
"In the past two weeks, at least one prominent Arab envoy in Washington has reversed his view that an American-led military operation in Iraq would be a disaster, or that it would fan the flames of Arab dissent and perhaps lead to the overthrow of some weaker rulers. (His reversal, though important, is not shared uniformly in Arab capitals.)
The diplomat, who refused to be identified, noted that most countries in the region harbor a latent desire to be rid of Mr. Hussein. He argued that the current military success in Afghanistan, the demonstration of a new model of warfare there and the undermining of Osama Bin Laden's radical message have created a new opportunity to act in Iraq.
"I now think it is doable," the diplomat said, adding that his own government might oppose such an operation in public until it became clear it was going to succeed. "This would require a lot of governments to accept big political risks, but I believe that in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, the governments are strong enough to hold the people and not have an uprising."
There you have it folks, Muslim backing in a nutshell. If this doesn't seem like a wave rolling from the Jordan to the Straits of Gibraltar to you, you aren't with the program. "At least one prominent Arab envoy" -- wow. I mean, even for newspaperdom, in their infinite bending over before the Bushy Blitzkrieg, this is pretty extraordinary stuff. Here's my suggestion: NYT should pluck some of the Style people to cover foreign affairs. At least they would know how to spot a trend, as opposed to how to desperately spin a conservative political agenda.
This is the NYT front web page article :
"US. Again Placing Focus on Ousting Hussein
By PATRICK E. TYLER
With Muslim backing, the option of taking the war against terrorism to Iraq has gained significant ground in recent weeks, according to administration officials."
Now, the eye-catching with Muslim backing makes one expect, well, some Muslim backing. The article, instead, recites the diplomatic coughing of Turkey, and this:
"In the past two weeks, at least one prominent Arab envoy in Washington has reversed his view that an American-led military operation in Iraq would be a disaster, or that it would fan the flames of Arab dissent and perhaps lead to the overthrow of some weaker rulers. (His reversal, though important, is not shared uniformly in Arab capitals.)
The diplomat, who refused to be identified, noted that most countries in the region harbor a latent desire to be rid of Mr. Hussein. He argued that the current military success in Afghanistan, the demonstration of a new model of warfare there and the undermining of Osama Bin Laden's radical message have created a new opportunity to act in Iraq.
"I now think it is doable," the diplomat said, adding that his own government might oppose such an operation in public until it became clear it was going to succeed. "This would require a lot of governments to accept big political risks, but I believe that in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria, the governments are strong enough to hold the people and not have an uprising."
There you have it folks, Muslim backing in a nutshell. If this doesn't seem like a wave rolling from the Jordan to the Straits of Gibraltar to you, you aren't with the program. "At least one prominent Arab envoy" -- wow. I mean, even for newspaperdom, in their infinite bending over before the Bushy Blitzkrieg, this is pretty extraordinary stuff. Here's my suggestion: NYT should pluck some of the Style people to cover foreign affairs. At least they would know how to spot a trend, as opposed to how to desperately spin a conservative political agenda.
Remora
Limited Inc is, as our many happy readers know, ahead of the curve. Perhaps our more unhappy readers are doubtful; perhaps our happiest reader also writes this rag. A week or two back, Limited Inc was talking about death toll politics. We shopped our pitch around, actually, trying to awaken various editors to the brilliance of our idea, and the need to pay us for putting it all in a nice cohesive shape, but of course a prophet is without profit in his own country, and our pitch was pitched.
Now here's the WP, Sunday: What Counts
The Death Toll Is Far Less Than Feared. Can We Accept That? by Peter Freundlich.
This is the graf that makes his point - or rather points his question. And remember, kids, the question mark is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for tragedy. Which is why newspapers really hate it -they prefer their tragedies to be car accidents.
"Is it that we need the higher number, to shore up our fury? Is it that the sight of those sinking skyscrapers, in which, God knows, 10 times as many people might just as well have died, opened a hole in us that simply won't close? Does it somehow seem a betrayal of the dead to reduce their number? Or is this perhaps American grandiosity -- a desire to dwarf other tragedies the way the Trade Center towers for a short time dwarfed all other buildings in the world?
As if 3,000 people weren't enough. Or as if the intent weren't clear."
Revenge feeds on numbers. Elias Canetti was not the first to notice this, but was the most thorough explorer of the dark side of crowd psychology. We wonder how all the people we know were in there got out. The escape story still needs to be told, in some bold and beautiful way.
Limited Inc is, as our many happy readers know, ahead of the curve. Perhaps our more unhappy readers are doubtful; perhaps our happiest reader also writes this rag. A week or two back, Limited Inc was talking about death toll politics. We shopped our pitch around, actually, trying to awaken various editors to the brilliance of our idea, and the need to pay us for putting it all in a nice cohesive shape, but of course a prophet is without profit in his own country, and our pitch was pitched.
Now here's the WP, Sunday: What Counts
The Death Toll Is Far Less Than Feared. Can We Accept That? by Peter Freundlich.
This is the graf that makes his point - or rather points his question. And remember, kids, the question mark is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for tragedy. Which is why newspapers really hate it -they prefer their tragedies to be car accidents.
"Is it that we need the higher number, to shore up our fury? Is it that the sight of those sinking skyscrapers, in which, God knows, 10 times as many people might just as well have died, opened a hole in us that simply won't close? Does it somehow seem a betrayal of the dead to reduce their number? Or is this perhaps American grandiosity -- a desire to dwarf other tragedies the way the Trade Center towers for a short time dwarfed all other buildings in the world?
As if 3,000 people weren't enough. Or as if the intent weren't clear."
Revenge feeds on numbers. Elias Canetti was not the first to notice this, but was the most thorough explorer of the dark side of crowd psychology. We wonder how all the people we know were in there got out. The escape story still needs to be told, in some bold and beautiful way.
Monday, December 17, 2001
Remora
A heady column this morning from the LA Time's Robert Scheer. Scheer is, perhaps, exaggerating when he writes that Enron's rise and fall is the stuff of major presidential scandal; there is a whiff, a smell, a certain ripeness there. There is the always potent netting of Texas capitalism, there is what we know of how the network works from the S and L scandal and the culture that just moved on, no lessons learned. Never learn. Like remember the Alamo, it is a slogan with a certain force. If there were no war going on, Bushypoo would be on the spot right now about his friendship with Ken Lay. Enron, the beached whale that was a whale balloon, all the time. We can poke gingerly at it, but remember: whales or their simulacra make friends with all types. It wasn't Bushy's era, it was Clinton.
Scheer's column doesn't present any new content. What he does is pose the right questions. The dead and dumb Dems won't pose them, until people like Scheer makes a big enough stink in the press. Now, here's a litmus test for you: what media vehicle would dare to do that right now? Where's Hardball, where's MSNBC, where are all the aghast outlets of yesteryear, the death of outrage pumping in their seedy veins?
The so far clearest indication that Enron held undue influence with the Bushies is in a graf midway through the column:
"This emerging scandal makes Whitewater seem puny in comparison; clearly there ought to be at least as aggressive a congressional inquiry into the connection between the Bush administration and the Enron debacle. Facts must be revealed, beginning with the content of Lay's private meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney to create the administration's energy policy...
"What was Lay's role in the sudden replacement of Curtis Hebert Jr. as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman? As the New York Times reported, Hebert "had barely settled into his new job this year when he had an unsettling telephone conversation with Kenneth L. Lay, [in which Lay] prodded him to back ... a faster pace in opening up access to the electricity transmission grid to companies like Enron." Lay admits making the call but in an unctuous defense of his influence peddling said, "The final decision on [Hebert's job] was going to be the president's, certainly not ours." Soon after, Hebert was replaced by Texan Pat Wood, who was favored by Lay."
ABC news has a different take on Hebert, but they, too, claim that Lay, in sinister convention with our odious VPotus, damned him with the black spot of non-cooperation. Hebert wasn't a team player, evidently:
"As Bush assumed the presidency, Enron had unusual access to the new administration's deliberations about energy policy and appointments to important posts. Lay served on the Bush transition team and helped interview candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees the gas pipelines and electricity grids that are key to Enron's business. Earlier this year, the commission's chairman, Curtis Hebert, who was being considered for reappointment by the White House, declared himself "offended" by Lay's lobbying efforts. Hebert later quit the panel.
When Vice President Dick Cheney drafted a new energy policy, he met with Lay and other Enron executives. Enron was reportedly the only company to be granted such a meeting.
Lay declined to be interviewed for this story."
John Ashcroft was quoted as saying that it must might be the case that questioning Bush's connection to Enron is helping the terrorists.
Ahh, got ya! Ashcroft hasn't said anything like that.... yet.
A heady column this morning from the LA Time's Robert Scheer. Scheer is, perhaps, exaggerating when he writes that Enron's rise and fall is the stuff of major presidential scandal; there is a whiff, a smell, a certain ripeness there. There is the always potent netting of Texas capitalism, there is what we know of how the network works from the S and L scandal and the culture that just moved on, no lessons learned. Never learn. Like remember the Alamo, it is a slogan with a certain force. If there were no war going on, Bushypoo would be on the spot right now about his friendship with Ken Lay. Enron, the beached whale that was a whale balloon, all the time. We can poke gingerly at it, but remember: whales or their simulacra make friends with all types. It wasn't Bushy's era, it was Clinton.
Scheer's column doesn't present any new content. What he does is pose the right questions. The dead and dumb Dems won't pose them, until people like Scheer makes a big enough stink in the press. Now, here's a litmus test for you: what media vehicle would dare to do that right now? Where's Hardball, where's MSNBC, where are all the aghast outlets of yesteryear, the death of outrage pumping in their seedy veins?
The so far clearest indication that Enron held undue influence with the Bushies is in a graf midway through the column:
"This emerging scandal makes Whitewater seem puny in comparison; clearly there ought to be at least as aggressive a congressional inquiry into the connection between the Bush administration and the Enron debacle. Facts must be revealed, beginning with the content of Lay's private meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney to create the administration's energy policy...
"What was Lay's role in the sudden replacement of Curtis Hebert Jr. as Federal Energy Regulatory Commission chairman? As the New York Times reported, Hebert "had barely settled into his new job this year when he had an unsettling telephone conversation with Kenneth L. Lay, [in which Lay] prodded him to back ... a faster pace in opening up access to the electricity transmission grid to companies like Enron." Lay admits making the call but in an unctuous defense of his influence peddling said, "The final decision on [Hebert's job] was going to be the president's, certainly not ours." Soon after, Hebert was replaced by Texan Pat Wood, who was favored by Lay."
ABC news has a different take on Hebert, but they, too, claim that Lay, in sinister convention with our odious VPotus, damned him with the black spot of non-cooperation. Hebert wasn't a team player, evidently:
"As Bush assumed the presidency, Enron had unusual access to the new administration's deliberations about energy policy and appointments to important posts. Lay served on the Bush transition team and helped interview candidates for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which oversees the gas pipelines and electricity grids that are key to Enron's business. Earlier this year, the commission's chairman, Curtis Hebert, who was being considered for reappointment by the White House, declared himself "offended" by Lay's lobbying efforts. Hebert later quit the panel.
When Vice President Dick Cheney drafted a new energy policy, he met with Lay and other Enron executives. Enron was reportedly the only company to be granted such a meeting.
Lay declined to be interviewed for this story."
John Ashcroft was quoted as saying that it must might be the case that questioning Bush's connection to Enron is helping the terrorists.
Ahh, got ya! Ashcroft hasn't said anything like that.... yet.
Saturday, December 15, 2001
Limited Inc, with our unholy talent for screwing up -- there must be an equation for this showing that Limited Inc's single life of screwing up is equal, in number of screwups, to the total of at least three other people put together (one named Larry, one named Mo, and one named Curly) -- made a mess of our income, survival chances for winter, and mental health yesterday. We've been writing on money laundering, we've been on the phone to fabulous Paris and London -- and by the way, the British phone service has gone the way of so many things in Post-Thatcher England, from convenience to nuisance -- we've talked to investigators and libertarian freaks and friends of the Somali peoples and what happens, what happens with this overload of carats? We come in with a piece that is too long and too late. We don't know yet if the newspaper that commissioned it on spec is going to throw it back at us, but we are afraid, very afraid. And the worst part is that we very much wanted to bootstrap from this article to another article about Mexico's dirty war, the secrets about which are now starting to spill.
Limited Inc's excuse for this state of affairs is so piss poor it doesn't deserve to survive in prose. But we will no doubt return to our private Tora Bora, our cave of misfortune and chaos, at another time.
In the meantime, the News! Yes, we are aware that crazy Sharon is staging a firesale of Israel statehood (everything must go!); we are aware that bin Laden might be captured any minute now; we are aware that the first collateral damage from Enron's collapse is hitting; but none of these things move us, no, enchant us like Robert Gottlieb's review, in the NY Obs, of Uplift: The Bra in America
Is this the way to begin a review or what?
"You may have worn a brassiere, you may have helped a friend or two take off a brassiere, but have you ever really thought about the brassiere? It�s not too late. �Brassieres must do more than fit a multitude of bodies �. They must accommodate the same body as it changes through the monthly cycle and through the life cycle. They must provide for movement of the torso and arms in many directions without chafing or binding and without slipping out of position. As if that were not enough, brassieres must also retain their own structure through multiple wearings and launderings; must not abrade in contact with clothing; must remain, as a rule, inconspicuous beneath the outer clothing while harmonizing with the desired silhouette; and must be priced to sell to many customers. No wonder hundreds of attempts have been made to design the ideal breast supporter over the past 140 years.�
Limited Inc's excuse for this state of affairs is so piss poor it doesn't deserve to survive in prose. But we will no doubt return to our private Tora Bora, our cave of misfortune and chaos, at another time.
In the meantime, the News! Yes, we are aware that crazy Sharon is staging a firesale of Israel statehood (everything must go!); we are aware that bin Laden might be captured any minute now; we are aware that the first collateral damage from Enron's collapse is hitting; but none of these things move us, no, enchant us like Robert Gottlieb's review, in the NY Obs, of Uplift: The Bra in America
Is this the way to begin a review or what?
"You may have worn a brassiere, you may have helped a friend or two take off a brassiere, but have you ever really thought about the brassiere? It�s not too late. �Brassieres must do more than fit a multitude of bodies �. They must accommodate the same body as it changes through the monthly cycle and through the life cycle. They must provide for movement of the torso and arms in many directions without chafing or binding and without slipping out of position. As if that were not enough, brassieres must also retain their own structure through multiple wearings and launderings; must not abrade in contact with clothing; must remain, as a rule, inconspicuous beneath the outer clothing while harmonizing with the desired silhouette; and must be priced to sell to many customers. No wonder hundreds of attempts have been made to design the ideal breast supporter over the past 140 years.�
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