[lbo-talk] lbo-talk Digest, Vol 1787, Issue 3

cfinn at berkeley.edu cfinn at berkeley.edu
Tue Dec 20 18:37:27 PST 2011


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-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org Sender: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 12:15:20 To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: lbo-talk Digest, Vol 1787, Issue 3

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Today's Topics:

1. Re: move your money campaign (Jordan Hayes)

2. Re: The Planet is Fine (// ravi)

3. Re: The Planet is Fine (Jordan Hayes)

4. Boots Riley on Occupy the Hood (c b)

5. Re: My Letter To CH (// ravi)

6. Re: The Planet is Fine (Doug Henwood)

7. Re: My Letter To CH (Doug Henwood)

8. Re: move your money campaign (shag carpet bomb)

9. Re: move your money campaign (Doug Henwood)

10. Re: move your money campaign (Jordan Hayes)

11. Re: The Planet is Fine (Jordan Hayes)

12. Re: move your money campaign (Doug Henwood)

13. Re: The Planet is Fine (Doug Henwood)

14. Re: My Letter To CH (123hop at comcast.net)

15. Re: move your money campaign (Dennis Redmond)

16. Re: My Letter To CH (Doug Henwood)

17. Re: move your money campaign (shag carpet bomb)

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Message: 1 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 10:44:48 -0800 From: "Jordan Hayes" <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] move your money campaign To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Message-ID: <529652E42B3A475CBF9164582647DDD5 at PAVEPAWS> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";

reply-type=original


>> a flood of new deposits/members would harm [credit unions]

Doug thinks so, but I'm not so sure. First of all, we're not talking about a huge amount of money. There is some limit where a credit union would lose its effectiveness; but there *are* "large" credit unions, and they don't seem to be part of the problem.


> They'll put the influx into Ginnie and Fannie.

And that's bad exactly how?

Joe Nocera has a good op-ed today:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/opinion/nocera-an-inconvenient-truth.html

An Inconvenient Truth By JOE NOCERA

[...]

Fannie and Freddie could have led a housing recovery - if they hadn't become crippled wards of the state instead.

Yet these real sins have been largely overlooked in favor of imagined ones.

[...]

Over at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, two resident scholars, Peter Wallison and Edward Pinto, have concocted what has since become a Republican meme: namely, that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were ground zero for the entire crisis, leading the private sector off the cliff with their affordable housing mandates and massive subprime holdings.

[...]

The truth is the opposite ...

[...]

------------------------------

Message: 2 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:51:19 -0500 From: // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The Planet is Fine To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <96031754-8B31-4994-80B5-CAFD5CCE03C2 at platosbeard.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

On Dec 20, 2011, at 1:35 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote:
> Doug writes:
>
>> the trip we're about to take to Gloucester, Mass., for the hols.
>> The three of us on Amtrak, about $300 roundtrip, not counting
>> getting from Boston to Gloucester. By car, about $50.
>

I used to travel round-trip Worcester <-> New York for $50 by Amtrak in the early 90s. Those were simpler times? :-)

?ravi

------------------------------

Message: 3 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:06:06 -0800 From: "Jordan Hayes" <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The Planet is Fine To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Message-ID: <3DE8004DB3F44A9D99E73AFACAAF1DB0 at PAVEPAWS> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";

reply-type=response


>> The three of us on Amtrak, about $300 roundtrip ...

The killer in that trip, by the way, is the connection in downtown Boston. Amtrak has service to South Station, while MBTA has commuter rail service to Gloucester from North Station. If you ask the MBTA's web site what's the best way to connect, they don't tell you to take the Red Line to Park St. and then the Green line to North Station ... they say to *walk* to Downtown Crossing and catch the Orange Line!

Imagine arriving into NY Penn Station from Washington and being told to walk to Grand Central for your train to Forest Hills!

/jordan

------------------------------

Message: 4 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:10:56 -0500 From: c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> Subject: [lbo-talk] Boots Riley on Occupy the Hood To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Message-ID:

<CAF490LYNh2sA_AGWod4S7_aTWKU1+Nfr41yYAMaStP-B+pU6+A at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

Carrol Cox

The Concrete Goals listed in the Communist Manifesto came from the practice of the Communist League; they were not theoretically derived. The general goal of socialism as something which could be proclaimed as a goal was also rooted in the practice of the European proletariat during the first half of the 19th-c. In fact, the Manifesto is NOT a theoretical document. For Marx's _theory_ you have to go to his Critique of Political economy: Theories of Surplus Value, Capital, Grudrisse.

Carroi

^^^^

Engels would seem to disagree that the Manifesto is not a theoretical document, a theory of history, ?here:

The 1872 German Edition

The Communist League, an international association of workers, which could of course be only a secret one, under conditions obtaining at the time, commissioned us, the undersigned, at the Congress held in London in November 1847, to write for publication a detailed _theoretical_ (emphasis added -CB) and practical programme for the Party. The practical programme in the Manifesto follows from the long historical materialist theory that proceeds it in the document.

and here

1. ?This proposition,? I wrote in the preface to the English translation, ?which, in my opinion, is destined to do for history what Darwin? s _theory_ ( emphasis added -CB) has done for biology, we both of us, had been gradually approaching for some years before 1845. How far I had independently progressed towards it is best shown by my Conditions of the Working Class in England. But when I again met Marx at Brussels, in spring 1845, he had it already worked out and put it before me in terms almost as clear as those in which I have stated it here.? [Note by Engels to the German edition of 1890]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/preface.htm

Carrol's implication here and repeated refrain over the years that Marx and Engels held his view on the relationship between theory and practice is nonsense.

------------------------------

Message: 5 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:30:02 -0500 From: // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] My Letter To CH To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <2CBD7460-4C89-4C15-BCA3-11D3D3617219 at platosbeard.org> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252

On Dec 19, 2011, at 2:56 PM, // ravi wrote:
> On Dec 17, 2011, at 12:20 PM, Carl G. Estabrook wrote (quoted):
>> "There?s one other aspect to the adulation of Hitchens that?s quite revealing. There seems to be this sense that his excellent facility with prose excuses his sins."
>
>
> ?One of us? syndrome?
>

Grace (on FB) pointed to Galloway?s comments on Hitchens:

http://blogs.dailyrecord.co.uk/georgegalloway/2011/12/lets-just-hope-god-is-merciful-chris.html


>From which:


> Ultimately, the real reason for the ?tear-stained eulogies from the British media commentariat for the late Mr Hitchens is that, by and large, the writers and editors are weeping for themselves.
>
> They share his guilt over the Iraq War and deep inside they know it.
>
> But all the salty tears in the world will not out that damned spot. The next reason is class.
>
> Hitchens was a toff, a Lord. And the English-speaking world, it seems, still likes to love a Lord.

?ravi

------------------------------

Message: 6 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:34:53 -0500 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The Planet is Fine To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <0B4D39AA-E14C-450A-AF36-8D73111933F6 at panix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Dec 20, 2011, at 1:35 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote:


> Gas isn't the only cost of your trip; AAA estimates about $0.70/mi all-in for an average car.

For sure, but it's not visible.


> Gar makes a great point -- that you've dismissed on-list before -- that without commensurate investment in alternatives, just making it expensive won't keep you from doing it. You'll just further stratify the inequality in the US.

I've dismissed it? If I did, I withdraw & apologize. This prob is so big that there's No One Answer.

By the way, my pal Charlie Komanoff says that gas taxes are nowhere near as regressive as people think. I'll write him for the details.

Doug

------------------------------

Message: 7 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:36:38 -0500 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] My Letter To CH To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <43FBCA91-6299-4FF6-98E6-345D9F6ED9DE at panix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Dec 20, 2011, at 2:30 PM, // ravi wrote:


> Hitchens was a toff, a Lord. And the English-speaking world, it seems, still likes to love a Lord.

As more than one person has pointed out, he was from the "lower upper middle class" - he wasn't a lord. Thus the social climbing. A real aristocrat, like Cockburn, doesn't need to do all that climbing, and so can sit in Petrolia with a cockatiel on his shoulder.

Doug

------------------------------

Message: 8 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:37:22 -0500 From: shag carpet bomb <shag at cleandraws.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] move your money campaign To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org, <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Message-ID: <6.1.2.0.2.20111220143442.051e2ef8 at mail.cleandraws.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

i'd like to know why as well. would their investing the money in fannie and ginnie be anathema to the goals of the virginia organizing projects campaign? At 01:44 PM 12/20/2011, Jordan Hayes wrote:
>>>a flood of new deposits/members would harm [credit unions]
>
>Doug thinks so, but I'm not so sure. First of all, we're not talking
>about a huge amount of money. There is some limit where a credit union
>would lose its effectiveness; but there *are* "large" credit unions, and
>they don't seem to be part of the problem.
>
>>They'll put the influx into Ginnie and Fannie.
>
>And that's bad exactly how?
>
>Joe Nocera has a good op-ed today:
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/20/opinion/nocera-an-inconvenient-truth.html
>
>An Inconvenient Truth
>By JOE NOCERA
>
>[...]
>
>Fannie and Freddie could have led a housing recovery - if they hadn't
>become crippled wards of the state instead.
>
>Yet these real sins have been largely overlooked in favor of imagined ones.
>
>[...]
>
>Over at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, two resident
>scholars, Peter Wallison and Edward Pinto, have concocted what has since
>become a Republican meme: namely, that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were
>ground zero for the entire crisis, leading the private sector off the
>cliff with their affordable housing mandates and massive subprime holdings.
>
>[...]
>
>The truth is the opposite ...
>
>[...]
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)

------------------------------

Message: 9 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:39:30 -0500 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] move your money campaign To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <A35845CC-5FBE-484C-879C-AC3DA6769342 at panix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Dec 20, 2011, at 1:44 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote:


>> They'll put the influx into Ginnie and Fannie.
>
> And that's bad exactly how?

Not from my point of view. But all these people who think that by putting their money in a CU they're keeping it local, they ain't.

The inflow of cash into CUs in the third quarter was minor. We'll see what happened in the fourth quarter, when the move your money thing got going, when the flow of funds accounts come out in March.

------------------------------

Message: 10 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:51:00 -0800 From: "Jordan Hayes" <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] move your money campaign To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Message-ID: <89A6E61306F04F21A7BE9675DA5E3439 at PAVEPAWS> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";

reply-type=original

Doug writes:


>>> They'll put the influx into Ginnie and Fannie.
>>
>> And that's bad exactly how?
>
> Not from my point of view. But all these people who think that
> by putting their money in a CU they're keeping it local, they ain't.

Since the GSEs are now 90+% of the residential mortgage market, giving it to them is in some sense keeping it local as opposed to where BofA is using their capital.

Besides, I didn't see anyone saying "put it in a credit union, keep it local!" ... I saw it more as "put it in a credit union, don't reward the bastards who almost completely fucked us" ...

Also: perhaps the biggest impact on banks like BofA in this has been perceptions that have helped drive their stock price down to historic lows. BofA trades at less than 25% of book value! Woo!

/jordan

------------------------------

Message: 11 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 11:52:40 -0800 From: "Jordan Hayes" <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The Planet is Fine To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Message-ID: <6F7DA951C7E14A0CA144935412BA5FF4 at PAVEPAWS> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";

reply-type=original

Doug:


>> Gar makes a great point -- that you've dismissed on-list
>> before -- that without commensurate investment in alternatives,
>> just making it expensive won't keep you from doing it.
>
> I've dismissed it? If I did, I withdraw & apologize. This prob
> is so big that there's No One Answer.

Not 30 minutes ago you said simply that gas prices have to be more expensive than bottled water. You said numerous times that you think you can change people's behavior by changing the price of it. We had a protracted debate (which I do not wish to revisit!) about raising the toll to drive into Manhattan, wherein you swore up and down that it would make people stop doing it.

You've just proved the opposite: even if gas prices were as high as you'd like, you'd still drive. You quoted $300 for the train, $50 for gas. Gas is probably $3.75 at your house and along that route ... so you're saying that if it was $22.50/gal you'd *still* drive, because it would be (ahem) cheaper than the train.

Right? Am I feeling you?

At what price/gallon, with nothing else being different, *would* you take the train(s)?

You've already said that you're willing to sweep the actual cost of driving under the rug; where is the limit?


> By the way, my pal Charlie Komanoff says that gas taxes are
> nowhere near as regressive as people think. I'll write him for
> the details.

In my part of the country, gas taxes are fixed per gallon, so they've been getting less regressive steadily over the last 4 years :-) but the proposals I've seen are all percentages, which are heavily regressive.

Ask your pal Charlie if "not as regressive" is in any way related to "more regressive than other alternatives" ...?

Compare it to, say, the federal income tax. Because that's my alternative proposal: get rid of all taxes at all levels except for income at the federal level and property taxes at the county level.

/jordan

------------------------------

Message: 12 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:00:33 -0500 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] move your money campaign To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <624C4533-8610-4D64-A792-BAAB44117DC0 at panix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Dec 20, 2011, at 2:51 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote:


> Also: perhaps the biggest impact on banks like BofA in this has been perceptions that have helped drive their stock price down to historic lows. BofA trades at less than 25% of book value! Woo!

When's Buffett going to buy?

THeir propaganda is all about "community" and "local." Securitized assets are neither.

The Move Your Money site does not recommend Amalgamated Bank for my zip code, even though it's union-owned. They still recommend Apple Savings Bank, which has 3/4 of its money in securities, and very little of it in local loans.

------------------------------

Message: 13 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:01:19 -0500 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] The Planet is Fine To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <E16C1F97-4483-46CD-BBED-858D9E4A1510 at panix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Dec 20, 2011, at 2:52 PM, Jordan Hayes wrote:


> You've just proved the opposite: even if gas prices were as high as you'd like, you'd still drive. You quoted $300 for the train, $50 for gas. Gas is probably $3.75 at your house and along that route ... so you're saying that if it was $22.50/gal you'd *still* drive, because it would be (ahem) cheaper than the train.

Yo, the train should be cheaper.

------------------------------

Message: 14 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:03:42 +0000 (UTC) From: 123hop at comcast.net Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] My Letter To CH To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID:

<1065645510.1359804.1324411422724.JavaMail.root at sz0014a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8

That would give him a similar background to Orwell, but Orwell never grovelled. (Well OK, a bit at the end, but it was for a pretty face.)

Joanna

----- Original Message -----

On Dec 20, 2011, at 2:30 PM, // ravi wrote:


> Hitchens was a toff, a Lord. And the English-speaking world, it seems, still likes to love a Lord.

As more than one person has pointed out, he was from the "lower upper middle class" - he wasn't a lord. Thus the social climbing. A real aristocrat, like Cockburn, doesn't need to do all that climbing, and so can sit in Petrolia with a cockatiel on his shoulder.

Doug ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk

------------------------------

Message: 15 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:07:17 -0600 From: Dennis Redmond <metalslorg at gmail.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] move your money campaign To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID:

<CAKUiU_2HZoabcGNgD0-Bko=V0eY8vmAdJSJ65zrivkZLvbfF0g at mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 1:51 PM, Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:


> Besides, I didn't see anyone saying "put it in a credit union, keep it
> local!" ... I saw it more as "put it in a credit union, don't reward the
> bastards who almost completely fucked us" ...

"Move the money" is a perfectly fine short-term goal, and will hopefully get people thinking about the role of finance in their lives.

Of course, the long-term goal has to be to take over the banks completely. Turn 'em into a public utility. A system which works fine in Russia, India, China, and yes, even Germany (publicly-owned banks are one-third of the banking system). Occupy the bailout!

-- DRR

------------------------------

Message: 16 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:08:10 -0500 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] My Letter To CH To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <2D0668BF-288D-44E1-8AE1-8F46129D56AE at panix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

On Dec 20, 2011, at 3:03 PM, 123hop at comcast.net wrote:


> That would give him a similar background to Orwell, but Orwell never grovelled.

He did name names to the authorities.

------------------------------

Message: 17 Date: Tue, 20 Dec 2011 15:14:53 -0500 From: "shag carpet bomb" <shag at cleandraws.com> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] move your money campaign To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID:

<1c296d91141bcb6beab689f3edf90bfd.squirrel at webmail.cleandraws.com> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

the VA organizing project wants to pull the money out of banks for the reason Jordan says.

Additionally, they think that a collective boycott can be a way to demonstrate the power of this sort of collective action. If you show big banks that they'll be punished for their behavior, then you show people the power of acting collectively and show banks and politicians that people will put their money where their politics are. It's kind of like holding a demo, only you don't have to stand outside in the cold or hang around stinky hippies.

The organizers seem to think, also, that it's not about destroying big banks and making them small, or seeing to it that there are only small credit unions, but that we should keep banks, regardless of size, and work on regulating them. So, the action is more about symbolic shunning of a banks to send a message.

Doug: <>> Not from my point of view. But all these people who think that <>> by putting their money in a CU they're keeping it local, they ain't.

Jordan writes: <> Since the GSEs are now 90+% of the residential mortgage market, giving <> it to them is in some sense keeping it local as opposed to where BofA <> is <> using their capital. <> <> Besides, I didn't see anyone saying "put it in a credit union, keep it <> local!" ... I saw it more as "put it in a credit union, don't reward <> the <> bastards who almost completely fucked us" ... <> <> Also: perhaps the biggest impact on banks like BofA in this has been <> perceptions that have helped drive their stock price down to historic <> lows. BofA trades at less than 25% of book value! Woo! <> <> /jordan <> <> ___________________________________ <> http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk <>

-- http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)

------------------------------

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