>Cseniornyc at aol.com wrote:
>>
>>D Henwood wrote: "Well for one the 70s were a time of wildcat strikes and
>>Third World
>>rebellions; there's not much of that now."
>
>>Comment: I am really surprised by this reply. The whole Islamic world is in
>>revolt in three continents and, similarly, most of South America is
>>in a state
>> of political effervescence, especially against US corpos. The war in Iraq
>>continues to eat US fiscal resources away putting severe downward pressure on
>>the dollar and interest rates which in turn pulls down job creation
>>and income
>> generation,etc. Actually, a lot of etcs.
>>I have always been convinced that living in Manhattan or Brooklyn produces a
>>severe case of metropolitan insularity out of which the rest of the world
>>is seen in a foggy,cloudy state.
>>Cristobal Senior
>
>I thought that the pre-hurricane U.S. economy was relatively solid.
>Forecasts for real GDP growth are in the 3.5% range for 2005 and 3%
>for 2006. Employment data seem to be improving. A banker at a
>recent luncheon indicated that Finance is fairly happy with the
>situation right now. Getting back to the original question, it
>remains to be seen how serious the gas price shock will be to real
>growth.
There's a lot of militancy in the Islamic world, but how effective is it really? Israel is pretty much getting its way. Latin America is in a state of political effervescence, but only Chavez has mounted a serious challenge to the US. Contrast that with the early 1970s when the US had just been kicked out of Vietnam and there were serious challenges to bourgeois rule worldwide - and even at home. A late-1970s survey by the Harvard Business Review found most of its readers thinking capitalism was doomed; no one would even ask the question today.
Anything can happen. The Chavez challenge could spread. Israeli society could start falling apart from its own internal contradictions. Bush's failures could lead to a serious legitimation crisis in the US. But I don't see much point in exaggerating the challenge.
Manhattan as opposed to where? New Jersey? Kansas?
Doug