I know I've heard Robert Heilbroner mentioned on this list, but can't remember the general opinion of him. Pretty good stuff? Just found The Making of Economic Society, apparently an old thrift store buy. Reading about his analysis of the crash of '29 is something! The general economic conditions he mentions sound awfully familiar. I still think somehow they will come up with one last leg of the bull though. They are just too damn close to getting folks to beg for an end to Social Security "as we know it" to let this opportunity pass. If the Naz breaks the March highs in the next year of so the people who protest SS "reform" will face violence, especially if Gore becomes Prez, which I still can't believe won't happen. Who will get the Dems in Congress to so openly screw their constituency? Can Bush pull off a NAFTA expansion?
Hey, how 'bout those French, eh? I've lost the damn document but what a shock when the French official said the US had made a devil of Saddamn in order to get our military into the Mid-east! Shades of a two theatre war.
BTW, do any Leftist types theorize that the 29 Crash was very purposely brought about? Back in the 70's I remember thinking that now that minorities and women were looking like they were for sure gonna get a bit bigger slice of the pie, the Big Cigars would make the pie disappear. After watching Capitalism close-up for 15 hours a day for 28 months or so, I'm convinced that's not only about to happen in a drastic way, but that it's been a long time in preparation. And then yesterday when I started reading this Heilbroner, it seemed like it had happened very much the same way in 1929. I'm anxiously awaiting Zinn's People's History so I can see if there was a lot of status quo threatening stuff that preceded that era. Heilbroner quotes Herbert Hoover talking about the end of poverty. An early version of the kinder, gentler Repug? Heilbroner's statement that the monetary authorities "unwittingly" pursued policies which further weakened t he banking system, seems to make some unwarrented assumptions about the desired outcome, by the really big Cpitalists I read that a Business Week poll showed a majority of their readers, I guess, thought that corporations were out of hand and irresponsible. The mag suggested this was a warning to the corps. I think maybe they got that warning years ago and are heading for unglutted markets while making sure there are plenty of good domestics for hire here at home. Cheap.
Would appreciate a repeat of that other historian That it was recommended I read? I'm also looking for a comprehensive history of the stock market, heavy with statistics, charts and a lot of stuff about what general economic/labor/foriegn policy went along with larger market trends. Or something like that. Any suggentions?
Did I mention the GM press release where the company spokesman, in talking about GM setting up it's own consumer-friendly online buying system, says 'the days of the guys in plaid coats are over'. Pretty checky, no? There's a mobile device now that can take a warehouse order, get it picked and packed and the employee doesn't even have to know how to read. General Magic, that crazy $2 stock (now) that keeps saving my ass, just got awarded the first patent for creating intelligent, psycologically pleasing personalities (you just wanna slap most of these personalities) that we can have conversations with, making customer-care more cost effective, ie, fewer bodies. And of course the network really is becoming the computer and it's only just begun, so that even skilled programmers will eventually lose their market edge. Sorry to ramble on so but I'm really getting scared and it seems like Europa is just around the corner.
Anyway that's how it seems from down here in the Rube Gallery.
smooches paula
ps. Carroll. I have been HEY-ELED of my decades old depression. Seriously. Tapping. Thought Field Therapy. I mean, of course the old depths of hell stuggles and the searching and the Wellbutrin. The Epiphany thing. But it just so happened that this all finally fell into place following the first session Callahan exposed me to the tapping stuff. About a week later after I had forgotten all about the session. Wild huh?