pms wrote:
> Hey Sweetie-pie,
>
> Sorry, I guess my tendancy to ramble has made me hard to comprehend.
>
> Two questions. Related.
>
> 1) What did people in China do when they found out they'd have to pay their
> own medical bills?
Paula, the Chinese people are naturally unhappy, but their Confucian conditioning to respect authority keeps them from open protest, except in a few isolated locations where blatant injustice is practiced by a few unprincipled and corrupt officials. Most people try to go around the problem by seeking free medical services through personal contacts and special relationships (guanxi, a form of underground networking) that Western culture views as corruption. But people do not have only single issue interests. The question is more complex. People tend to prefer a trip to California than free medical care until they actually get sick. So they vote against health care as a trade off.
> 2) Did most Chinese think they had good health care, before current move to
> capitalism?
I doubt it in the Western high tech sense, but it was more eqalitarian and in terms of basic public health, yes. After reform, a small minority has better high tech care they can afford, the majority has better but unaffordable care (that they have to give up some other consumption to get), an unfortunate minority has less care and nothing to trade with. The general standard of public health has definitely declined, not even counting environmental causes, such as unsafe water, cancer causing food supply, etc.
> One question. Unrelated.
>
> 1) How are the NY Big Cigars that you KNOW feeling about economy and market?
>
NY Big Cigars make money when the market goes up and down. They only change strategy to match the trend. The bears never think they are wrong, just a matter of managing timing. There are a lot of institutional bears that are still betting with other people's money and sitting on paper losses that they are financing with low interest rates. The Lowe Corporation, owned by the Tisch family, is a good example. It is carrying around $2 billion (may be more) of paper losses from shorting the market. Has been for at least 3 years openly, or 5 years quietly. It can go on almost indefinitely until it hits the jackpot because Lowe has very good cash flow when the economy is up to carry the interest cost of the paper loss. A perfect hedge, betting against the economy when the cash flow from its strength. It is like going to Las Vagas with the US Treasury behind you. Heads I win, tails you lose. And the size of the winning is 1000 times larger than size of each loss, so the odd can be 999 to one, I still win. Who said captalism is based on fair compensation for risk? The victims take all the risks, the players take all the winnings and there is no capital gain taxes to pay on short winnings. Right there is a 28% advantage. These bears are very confident they will make a killing in 1999. They were almost right in 1998, but the Russian default ruined their party by forcing the Fed to lower interest rates in a overheated economy and to inject liqwuidity into the economy. It is called pre-emptive correction - an euphemism for a bubble. The sentiment is that 1999 is going to be a tough year, but then so was the first three quaters of 1998, until November. Volatile markets now is a reality that most institutions are set up to profit from it. Remember, it take two opposing views to make a market. A long bet requires a short bet to get a transaction. Debt will have increased penalty and cash will be able to buy cheaply at some point during 1999. The economy will continue to be a bubble.
The reality is that there will be bubbles within bubbles, so when one layer bursts, its does not bring the whole system down. This is where a younger Doug Henwood made his misjudgment a few years ago. But Doug is now more seasoned. Capitalism is like slavery. It will not end by its own internal logic. It will only end by political action, the ultimate of which is war. But the environment for political end is created by capitalism's internal defects.
Hope this helps. Remember, Paula, I am as lost as your are, but you and I are both less lost than Clinton. That is why there is hope.
Henry
>