ALB

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  • in reply to: Egypt #94572
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I see that the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt is called Mohammed Badie.

    in reply to: Another local by-election #94506
    ALB
    Keymaster

    As for the by-election in January Lambeth Council are planning to put a photo of the candidates in Tulse Hill ward on their website and also a link to the candidates' websites. This, in a bid to increase interest and turnout.We have managed to get them to accept not a photo of the candidate ("the face") but of Head Office (the nearest we can get to "the case").                                                              As to website, we have revamped and un-named "Vaux Populi" and inserted a prominent link to our main website. Here's the link (the URL hasn't changed):http://spgb.blogspot.co.uk/Even though they say it's a one-off which they won't be able to repeat at next May's full council elections it's a pity other Councils are not as enterprising as Lambeth.

    in reply to: Robots in demand in China as labour costs climb. #90858
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Yes, it is. It brings out all the issues, as in this extract;

    Quote:
    To put it in economese, is the persistently high level of unemployment a result of cyclical factors (the traditional ups and downs of economic growth) or structural factors (new game-changing technologies, dramatic shifts in the global economy)? (…)From one decades-long leading student of the American economy came a succinct one-liner in favor of cyclicality: "This isn't a jobless economic recovery as everyone insists on calling it; it's simply just not yet a recovery."In other words, as painful as the waiting certainly is, the economy will heal — and once again, create jobs — in time."Brace yourselves," countered Eric Brynjolfsson, from MIT's Sloan School, co-author of "Race Against the Machine," a much-talked-about recent book which argues that the introduction of new transformative technologies has only just begun, and that we're dangerously unable to perceive what's actually going to happen.  He added:"Many of our intuitions about what's coming next are going to fail us. All the disruptions we've been talking about today about the past 10 years, the past 20 years — as important as they've been and as hard-hitting as they've been for so many people — are just a small glimmer of the much bigger disruptions that we think are in store for us in the next 10 and 20 years, at least the ones that are related to technology."Princeton University economist Alan Blinder, who served in the 1990s as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve, took a more measured view. He believes that both cyclical problems and disruptive technological change are at play, along with the changing face of the global economy:"In terms of the number of jobs, it looks like an awful lot of the problem is cyclical. That's the first problem."The second problem is the lagging average wage. Until a few decades ago, India, China, and the former Soviet Union were isolated and not really participating in the world economy. But now they have roughly doubled the world's labor force, in a couple of decades."What did they bring to the table? Capital? No. They had almost none. But they had a lot of labor. So, if you double the amount of world labor and you don't change the amount of world capital much, then loosely speaking, the returns to labor are going to go down while the returns to capital go up. And this is about to end. And it's not mainly about technology."But then there is the third problem: what's behind the trend toward greater wage inequality? The non-economist in me wants to think about institutions and social norms. Some of the increase in inequality has to stem from changing attitudes in our society. I just don't believe that it's only technology."
    in reply to: Egypt #94569
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Listen to John Humphrys get his come-uppance when he tried to argue down an eloquent opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 earlier this morning:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-23176860

    ALB
    Keymaster

    Here's another (rather long) one here:http://mustwesuccumb.wordpress.com/The first part about "anti-austerity" not being an alternative or even a programme is ok, but the later bit about needing leaders is not.

    in reply to: Freud and Infinite Demand #94561
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I thought this was going to be about Sigmund Freud's book Civilisation and Its Discontents in which he advances the human nature argument against socialism in no uncertain terms, but it turns out to be about his great grandson Lord Freud who is the Tory minister for "welfare".More on this hypocrite here:http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bedroom-tax-tory-lord-freud-1545677Mind you, it runs in the family as his great grandfather was a fraud whose theories are now generally debunked and discredited.

    ALB
    Keymaster

    What's sad about all this enthusiasm is that is that it's for a movement that won't even get off the ground let alone "win". For three main reasons:1. The Trotskyist sects are not going to stop their suabbling, entryism, manipulation and generally playing student politics.2. This niche on the political spectrum is already covered more or less by the Green Party (who were represented at the Assembly).3. The first-past-the-post electoral system.in any event, the policies they are advocating (basically, Bring Back Keynes) won't work even if they did "win".

    in reply to: The Spreaders of Jihad #94197
    ALB
    Keymaster

    As hundreds of thousands of people in Egypt demonstrate against the rule of President Morsi and his islamising Muslim Brotherhood, let's recall that this time last year the SWP called on workers in Egypt to "Vote Muslim Brotherhood" (without illusions of course)http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=28611

    in reply to: Arnie Graf: The man Ed Miliband asked to rebuild Labour #94530
    ALB
    Keymaster
    Quote:
    First, there was a need to deal with what Graf describes as the party's "bureaucratic rather than a relational culture". A new member coming into their first meeting should expect more than bureaucracy and hierarchy.Second, the party had to stop treating members as drones rather than leaders. Many of the party members Graf visited in the regions seemed to think that if there were genuine leaders in the party, they were all in London. Most orders came from the capital. It was in London that the leaflets were designed, the timetables set and the marching orders given.Thirdly, the party was too closed: Labour gatherings were often suspicious of outsiders, particularly people who were Labour sympathisers but not prepared to be members. It seemed hard for newcomers to break in.Finally, the party offered little inspiration to its members. Graf blew open a complacent consensus that branch meetings had to be boring. He could see that they could offer more, and dared them to be so: "We grow up and get meaning from relationships … politics should provide that."

    Do you think he went to some of our branch meetings too.

    in reply to: Speakers Corner Project #91081
    ALB
    Keymaster

    The first part ends by noting that some used to refer to us as "Tony Turner's party". This still lives on. We received a cut-off form back from an enquirer on 23 May who said that she had come into contact with us "Many many years ago in the days of Tony Turner — things haven't got any better in fact they are worse!"

    in reply to: The Spreaders of Jihad #94195
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I had to look up what a "Takfiri" is. Now I know: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TakfiriIt seems to be the word used by the present rulers of Iran to refer to extremist Sunni Muslims. After all, they could hardly call them "Islamists" or "JIhadists".

    in reply to: 300 years of crisis #94453
    ALB
    Keymaster

    I'm still not convinced but I suppose you could use the data used to calculate "total factor productivity" to calculate a rate of profit, e.g. the total stock of capital, but this assumes that GDP less capital's contribution to productivity less labour's contribution = total surplus value. But does it? I've not thought this through myself yet, because I've not found exactly how they calculate "capital's contribution" (it seems to the amount by which the value of the stock of capital increases, but I could be wrong). In any event, this rate of profit would not be TFP but TFP/Value of stock of capital.Most of those who have tried to calculate the rate of profit (mostly those in the Marxist tradition) have used the figure for profits (and interest and rent) in National Income and compared these with the total value of capital stock (the total value of capitalist firms). This seems a more direct measure.

    in reply to: Pro-Islamist Left #94463
    ALB
    Keymaster

    It's Andy Newman,  ex-Trotskyist (and ex-Respect Party member) and aspiring Labour councillor, who is wrong here. He's afraid that the stance of fellow Labourite, Anne-Marie Waters, will lose the Labour Party votes from Muslims. It might well but that doesn't make it wrong. It just shows what unprincipled vote-catchers Andy Newman and the Labour Party are. Newman is getting a well-deserved bollocking for this on Urban 75 and elsewhere.

    in reply to: 300 years of crisis #94451
    ALB
    Keymaster

    Just read it. You're right it contains some interesting stuff, eg that in the period 1830 to 1913, the average length of the trade cycle was 8 or so years and that fluctuations in investment were an important "driver" of the cycle while changes in consumption were an effect (so much for consumption-led recoveries). Also, that the period of downturn was longer in the period 1871 to 1913 (4.2 years) and the upturn shorter (4.2 years) than in the period 1830 to 1871 (2.6 years and 5.4 years). Crises in the 18th century don't seem to have been due to the workings of the economy itself but to the outside factors of bad harvests and wars.

    Young Master Smeet wrote:
    I find the chart 17 (page 286 (10th page of this article)) on Total Factor Productivity intriguing, as this would represent a chart of rate of profit in the UK since 1857 (or thereabouts).

    It's not supposed to measure this. In fact it's not clear what it's measuring. It's intended to be a measure of  the difference between the rate of growth of GDP per capita and the rate of growth of the stock of capital, which is taken as a measure of technological progress. The figures show that this goes up in a period of upturn and down in a downturn (though the article warns that this latter could also be partly due to companies "hoarding" labour when output falls rather than immediately laying workers off).The chart defines "Total Factor Productivity" as

    Quote:
    GDP growth minus the contributions of labour and capital weighted by their shares in output. The labour share includes the income of the self-employed.

    Capital is defined "as the non-housing whole economy capital stock" and labour as "the whole-economy total hours worked".  Profit doesn't seem to enter into it, at least not directly.

    in reply to: Brazil: “Free Access Movement” #94456
    ALB
    Keymaster

    More on the now correctly-named Free Pass Movement here.Meanwhile, in response to the unrest, the President of Brazil has been promising reforms, a factor to be taken into account when guessing how the last capitalist government might respond to a growing socialist movement.

Viewing 15 posts - 8,551 through 8,565 (of 9,540 total)