boddi satva wrote:
>Well, England has maintained its place in the world as a financial
>center far in excess of their GDP. Many British conventions such as
>LIBOR are international financial standards. Are they somehow more
>militarily protected than the rest of Wester Europe or could it be
>that they are leveraging their historical leadership in finance?
>
>In fact, Japan is a dramatic financial disadvantage these days and you
>don't have to ask my word for it. You can ask the Japanese. Let's
>remember that America hadn't nearly the empire that England had in the
>1880's and only 30-40 years later New York surpassed London. And by
>the way let's consider why it was England and not France, Germany or
>Italy on which the "sun never set" and which led the Industrial
>Revolution.
>
>In fact, the Cayman Islands are a great example of the importance of
>finance but a far better one is Singapore - hardly a world military
>power. Military power does not automatically attract liquidity. Russia
>has an outsized military and huge oil reserves but they are sucking
>wind economically. Why hasn't their military influence translated into
>money?
>
>The world's wealthy people are free to invest where they want and yet
>the world saves more than half its money in dollars and their savings
>almost inevitably pass through our system at some level. That is not
>inflicted militarily.
>
>The old, tired Leninist model is just uninformed and Marx lived in the
>stone age of modern finance. Finance is not just a system of
>expropriation, it's a system of cooperation, albeit among capitalists
>(that pretty much goes without saying). Cooperation is hard to foster.
>It takes work and innovation to realize a cooperative ethic. Economies
>are not a zero-sum game with the biggest army taking the most. It's
>not about distribution, it's about cooperation.
>
>BTW, Japan WAS very innovative financially when they developed their
>big industries. They got tremendous buy-in to their system from the
>Japanese bourgeoisie and thus tremendous liquidity and cooperation.
>They hit a wall, however. Meanwhile America has been able to borrow
>more and more and more from the world at excellent rates. Japanese
>bonds weren't seen as less safe that American bonds in the past ten
>years or so because there was some implicit greater military threat to
>Japan. People stopped trusting the Japanese banking system.
>
>boddi
>
>
>
>On 12/7/05, Travis Fast <tfast at yorku.ca> wrote:
>
>
>>And how pre tel did they do this. Boddi cmon. You are trying separate
>>the inseparable. The New York was able to become the center of the
>>financial world because it was the center of the new world and the
>>financial center of the American continental empire. And despite the
>>size of New York clearing houses in the 1880s the US dollar was far from
>>being the international currency. Why do you think the Yen still bats
>>below its weight as international reserve currency despite being the
>>second largest economy in the world. Wait I know they lack financial
>>innovation. Put it this way, do you think that if the Cayman Islands
>>were develop the most sophisticated and innovative financial instruments
>>it would become the destination of global savings and become the default
>>international currency?
>>
>>Travis
>>
>>boddi satva wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>It's also a mistake to ignore the fact that America has been a
>>>tremendous financial innovator, even while it di dnot have the
>>>dominant position it does now.
>>>
>>>Here is one example from a "Cyclopædia of Political Science, Political
>>>Economy, and the Political History of the United States by the Best
>>>American and European Writers" published in 1881 (can be found at:
>>>http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Lalor/llCy0.html )
>>>
>>>________________________________________________________________
>>>
>>>—The largest clearing house in the world is in the United States, and
>>>that country has the greatest number of clearing houses.
>>>
>>>—New York now surpasses London, the oldest clearing centre. in the
>>>amount of its average daily clearings. In 1880 the total clearings of
>>>the London clearing house were, in dollars, $28,197,659,227; those of
>>>New York were $38,614,448,223.06. But the largest clearings in one day
>>>up to the end of 1880 were those of Nov. 17, at London, which amounted
>>>to $302,900,000. The transactions of the New York clearing house in
>>>1880 were the largest ever made in any room on earth, and exceeded the
>>>sum of the payments ($18,334,854,202) and the receipts
>>>($18,570,348,647) of the United States government since its
>>>foundation. All this immense business was done without the loss of a
>>>cent, and with no errors. The largest clearings made in New York,
>>>before 1872, were $35,541,088,264, in 1869, when one-third of them
>>>were due to gold speculation. London's largest clearings were
>>>$29,544,268,442 in the year 1873. The New York clearing house was
>>>founded Oct. 11, 1853, with 52 banks. This number was reduced after
>>>the panic of 1857, to 47; rose to 60 in 1873; in 1880 was 57; and in
>>>June, 1881, was 59, at which time the capital of the clearing house
>>>banks was $60,875,000. New York does 78 per cent, of all the clearings
>>>made in the United States.—"The American," Mr. Ellis said, in his
>>>paper on 'The Clearing House System,' read before the English Bankers'
>>>Institute, Feb. 16, 1881, "seems to be the character most suited to
>>>the adoption of centralizing and clearing principles."
>>>______________________________________________________
>>>
>>>America came out of WW1 a creditor nation, again showing a tremendous
>>>capacity to raise money and New York thereafter surpassed London as
>>>the world investment capital.
>>>
>>>boddi
>>>
>>>___________________________________
>>>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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