<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> <META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2722" name=GENERATOR></HEAD> <BODY id=role_body style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt; COLOR: #000000; FONT-FAMILY: Arial" bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 topMargin=7 rightMargin=7><FONT id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=2> <DIV>Doug Henwood declares:" Yeah, but people have been saying things like this for 30 years. Know the enemy, man."</DIV> <DIV>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^</DIV> <DIV>Saying things like what?  30 years ago the US wasn't  facing twin deficits approaching one trillion dollars. The financial sector was at the service of a powerful industrial one instead of being the leader of the economy as it is now..The economy was generating solid high wage jobs instead of low wage retail/service ones. Dollar hegemony was just beginning and the US currency reigned supreme .There was not serious competition from China and SEA for global resources, especially oil. This is a different kind of oil shock with farther reaching consequences. There were not asset bubbles whose deflation create serious disadjustments in the economy, etc,etc. So, honestly I don't know what do  you mean by this statement. Also, do you subscribe to the type of logical reasoning such that because it rained yesterday it follows it'll rain tomorrow?</DIV> <DIV>Cristobal Senior<BR></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>