South Asian Socialism

#172 by arjun_m

... there are no paki billionaires ...

Wrong. I know of at-least three. Asif Zardari, Humayun Akhtar, and Ejaz-ul-Haq. Check your facts pal!

Oak,

Re your query on the lost opportunity board, the merchandise exports in Feb 2006 were $1,274.7 million and imports $2,210.5 million. This does not include services which run a net deficit of around $500-600 million per month.

Page 24 on latest release of Balance of Payments:
http://www.sbp.org.pk/reports/stat_reviews/May06/Pakistan_Balance_of_Payment.pdf

Half yearly BOP 2005-06:
http://www.sbp.org.pk/ecodata/BOP_Summary.pdf

that`s right...the poor indians are being exploited in the ship breaking industry..a job the rich pakis would never do..

Whatever floats your boat and helps you get over the uncomfortable fact that there is no paki company in the same league as Wipro/Infosys/Reliance and there are no paki billionaires when India has more than a few really really wealthy muslims..

#168 by behram1 on May 16, 2006 7:50am PT


O! my! why are the corporatists ranting against the Sarbanes-Oaxley act, I wonder?


Because it creates an undue burden without solving the problem..and it was a law passed to make it seem like congress is doing something, not to actually fix anything..

The GAO says the cost of compliance is higher than what congress estimated...

Above all, SOX is a gift for the corporate consulting companies like Deloitte...

#168 by behram1

“It is the corporatists who are squirming for those 12 million illegals in this country. It is the corporatists who want cheaper labor to destroy the family structure of the American middle class.”

I just enjoy your rants against the “Corporatists”. Carry on… But the hard fact is that the corporations and their structure is just the next right step in building capitalism.
(in fact, if marx was alive today, he would have accepted it as progression towards workers ownership.)

Corporations are not owned by some super rich families anymore (some still are but their days are numbered) Corporations are abt distributing wealth amongst the middleclass or anyone who can invest his/her dimes in mutual funds. It is the true distribution of wealth though some individuals have benefited from it and have become the new billionaires.

The “corporatists” are not from some “families” who have inherited wealth. They are the sons and daughters of American middleclass and they lead corporations in the most democratic way possible. Most of the corporations are good citizens and in fact they have taken their work ethics and social responsibilities beyond the US borders. The old families’ ownerships never did anything like that.

Just checkout how responsible the US corporations are in the third world where business ethics are most questionable. The US corporations have introduced better hiring practices, better work environments and improved upon the sweatshop environments that are readily seen in the third world countries.

Hamid
Last night I was watching a docu on Shipbreaking industry in India on Discovery HD. I would recommend you watch it too. (They would show it again.) After watching that gut wrenching docu, you or anyone else would never talk abt the Indian billionaires. But would know what the work conditions are for the millions upon millions of poor in India.

If the corporatists, that are being chided here, would invest in there, the first thing would be the change in the work conditions for those poor folks. The old school capitalists would never do that.

#161 by ntsyed on May 16, 2006 1:52am PT
Re: # 158

{{Ooooh baby...chill! looks like you`ve bitin` on them jalapenos more than you can handle. Or is it mexican serranos :-)~~ }}

Mr.ntsyed

Please, refrain calling me (baby). I am NOT your baby. This doesn`t look decent to call stranger female baby on internet.

No, you are the one who is crying out loud and screaming at me for no personal reason.

So, abviously who is burning on fire? obviously the one who started crocodile tears...........thank you

#166 by hamidm2 on May 16, 2006 6:38am PT

Dear Hamid mian:

Now, now, not so fast.

Please don`t take all the credit away from individual capitalists who have provided the bulk of wealth to the world. Yes, it was Willis H. Carrier (an individual) who started to air condition the world for the corporatists to get together and plot the destruction of the world. Yes, it was Tesla, who was the true electrical engineer and a fool, who allowed Thomas Edison to steal his ideas. Yes, it was all those bubbas who drilled in the barren fields of the world to bring oil for the industrial revolution. Yes, it was James Watt, an individual who started the industrial revolution. And yes, it was Bill Gates who started the information revolution.

And what do we see in return.

The corporatist Jack Welsh of GE, whose only claim to fame was to fire over 20,000 employees of GE, in 1982. Hence, is remebered as neutron Jack.

And now the corporatists are stealing away all the herbal medicinal values from India under the disguise of intellectual property rights. It is the corporatists who are squirming for those 12 million illegals in this country. It is the corporatists who want cheaper labor to destroy the family structure of the american middle class.

It is the american middle class, all those happy SUV drivers, all those soccer moms, and all those nascars dads, who are joining hands against the shenanigans of Walmart.

This is the true picture of corporatist, who has loyalty only to his fat ass, and not to the land that has given his lifestyle so much. O! my! why are the corporatists ranting against the Sarbanes-Oaxley act, I wonder?

Respectfully submitted,

Dear masadi:

So do you promise that you and your jihadi ilk would not roam around the world freely. Right? Like every other normal civilized people of the world, you will respect established geographical boundaries. Do you accept then that you have no God given right to invade other countires? Correct?

Or do you consider yourself to be some animal to roam freely around the world?

Respectfully submitted,

masadi mian,

...... let me tell you something about productivity .......... if us manufacturing productivity has gone up a 100% in the last 20 years it is because of guys like me and our clients, the ``corporatists`` who have invested billions of dollars in plant and equipment ........ it is not because bubba is busting his fat posterior - given half a chance, he still tries to sneak off to the mens room to take a nap, or meet up with mary beth under a tarp in an empty container .........

....... thirty years ago bubba used to babysit one machine and make one widget every five or ten minutes (between reading girlie magazines and trips to the mens room) ...... today, thanks to us and the capital invested by his bosses, he has to watch over five machines that spit out fifty widgets per minute ......... the good news for bubba is that he is now in an airconditioned room instead of sweating like a hog next to the furnace ............. thirty years ago five axis machines and unmanned transfer lines were a rarity in most industries, now they are the norm ....... the only reason they don`t turn off the lights in the factory is because mary beth is afraid of bubba in the dark ..............

............. thirty years ago the term ``takt time`` was not part of the english vocabulary and bubba and his team of four beer bellied buddies were happy if they putzed around all day and installed two hundred windshields in an eight hour shift ....... today a machine installs a hundred an hour without taking a break while bubba flips hamburgers at a leisurely pace unless he wants to go work for the japanese in kentucky where the takt time is 45 seconds, he has to pay for part of his health insurance premium, the pension plan is the same as ibm`s and he doesn`t have to pay union fees ............. productivity is way up and, surprisingly, the folks in kentucky are mighty happy (and productive) inspite of the fact that there is no union hall where they can go and shoot pool ...........

......... the notion that productivity is somehow related to working harder is a nonsensical idea thought up by tweedy social scientists who have never done an honest day`s work in their life ............. and it is not a choice - if mercedes keeps on making 11.6 cars per employee while the competition is making over 40, they will be out of business ........... luckily for them dieter dieter zetsche knows he has to fix the problem even if it means taking on the horrible german unions and the whiney commies ............

#152 by masadi on May 15, 2006 7:19pm PT


while inequality between rich and poor in this country has gone up


It`s hilarious when commies demand equality..if commies were in charge, we`d all be equal...equally poor..

#154 by behram1 on May 15, 2006 8:05pm PT


This means that Chinese goods are more expensive to the American consumers, and American exports are cheaper to export. This should bring more foreign exchange to the US coffers to satisfy some portion of the $70B per month.


The US is running a huge trade deficit which means impact of the higher yuan would be felt more on the import side than the export side..then again, don`t expect imports to drop just because the yuan went up..Most companies importing from China operate at really high margins..they can afford to keep prices almost the same and take a slight hit..

hamidm #155 after being a bit preoccupied with some happy family matters for a few days, I come back to chowk, look up the board with the largest number of interacts, see your name on the list of posters - and am rewarded with a well-reasoned, well-written post from you. What you say makes a lot of sense - even though it will undoubtedly fall on some deaf ears.

Anyway, great post and thanks for writing. cheers!

#154 by behram1

The Federal Reserve would raise interest rates further so that foreigners can continue trusting the purchasing power of the mighty US dollar.

Nope. Fed doesn`t raise rates to attract investment into the US$. It raises rates to contain inflation and overheating of the economy. The deficits are financed anyway regardless of rates by default by the exporting countries.

When interest rates go up, bond prices goes down. With rising interest rates, US housing market would suffer, and there could be lot of foreclosures.

Nope again. If you look at the US yield curve, it is flat from 1 month till 10 years, and actually inverted at 30yrs. This is because even though short term rates have gone up from 1% to 5% in less than two years, the long term rates have not moved. So no sign of danger to the housing market.

How high would the US domestic prime lending rates go, for some equilibrium to be attained? Anybody?

The Fed fund rate is said to have achieved `neutral` territory in terms of inflation Vs growth at 4.5%. Further raises will go as far as the growth data permits. At the moment, 5.5% seems likely.

Re: # 158

Ooooh baby...chill! looks like you`ve bitin` on them jalapenos more than you can handle. Or is it mexican serranos :-)~~

In #52 I was only thanking you for providing an evidence. Obviously you don`t react well to appreciation. Oh well, your loss! But then again, it never was mine.

And #56 wasn`t even addressed to you. Or is Hamidm your Big Daddy that you took an offence at the friendly suggestion I offered to my friend hamidm?

;-)~~

HP writes in #159 << Asadi,
I recommend you do a Google search and read the some really enlightening articles abt the US economy. My recommended phrase “US economy doubles in every thirty years”. >>>

HP sahib you are way off the mark this time. I am aware of that calculation that is how they calulate the doubling time of a population as well. Just because an economy doubles over time does not mean that people`s ``standard of living`` doubles as well. Taking that calcluation and a much higher rate of growth of third world economies we can make the same argument as you are making for the US and we would be just as wrong.

Further this growth does NOT translate into a higher standard of living for the masses, inequality figures and the gini index of the US quite clearly reveal that. Regarding health care, that a wealthy country like the US does not provide this basic need of a large percent of its population even as it is busy spending its public`s money in astronomical porportions is a big disgrace and a failure. You can try to defend this by spinning some reason for it to be, I see no justification whatsoever for it.

Regarding productivity, I do not need to read what hamidm, a total idiot as far as reasoning goes, has written on it. In fact he should be ashamed at how he has wasted 30 years of his life doing what he understands not, and the rest of what is left of his life will be spent sipping lattes (also a waste).


Here is a graph of US productivity growth in the manufacturing sector, inspite of a decline in jobs in the manufacturing sector to the 1950s level. Given that this is occurring and that the new jobs that are being created are mostly of the low paying, service, contingency and part time sort, claiming that US standard of living has gone up or doubled in the past 30 years is prepostrous. It has not happened and it wont happen.

#157 and more...
Asadi,
I recommend you do a Google search and read the some really enlightening articles abt the US economy. My recommended phrase “US economy doubles in every thirty years”.

Here is a quote that I have from some economist in my hard drive.

“You can figure out how long it takes income to double by dividing the growth rate into the number 72. If growth in the United States continues at the annual rate of 2.1 percent, income per capita will double every 34 years (72/2.1 = 34). In 102 years, income will increase eightfold. This increase is large, but not unprecedented.
In the United States, income per person grew by about this factor over the last 100 years. At the Japanese rate of 5.8 percent, incomes will double every 12 years. If this were sustained for 96 years, average income in Japan would increase by a factor of 256. “
A little Google would help you trace this too.

It will be a long discussion on productivity and I recommend that you read Hamid’s posts carefully on the subject.

I have some posts out there on US health care system on one of Saima Shah’s articles. I just don’t have time to find them right now and obviously wouldn’t wanna duplicate them. If you really would like a discussion on the US healthcare system, I will find those posts for you too. A blanket statement of 40 million uninsured would not suffice. There are many sides of the issue and knee-jerk statements can’t prove you right on the healthcare issue.

One can question the US political system and its hegemonic foreign policy but as I have said before, that is all to support the standards of living in the US. The primary goal of every US admin is to maintain that std of living. That is a major hurdle that the US policy makers just are too scared to handle and that ensures a progressively aggressive US foreign policy in the coming years.

We must also remember that as the US policy becomes aggressive, other countries would attempt to counter that to safeguard their own interests. That guarantees that there is no peace in the world in the next 200 years (at least).