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CAPITAL vs LABOR |
rffrydr
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 Posted: Tue Jan 17, 2006 1:22 pm Post subject: CAPITAL vs LABOR |
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Of course this the oldest and fundamental cyle when it comes to econmics--and it precisely because of this that the answers to questions of it's twists and turns cannot fully or finally be answered within its confines.
The ultimate direction will come, I think, from the greater worLd of politics and culture. While, doubtless, there are times when economics has held both within it's grip, i.e. the rise of japan in the 70's or, say, the french love of "hollyvooood." Ultimately, culture will decide.
Presently, in regards to the latest newsletter, we have the GM Chairman and his open "letter" to america. This may be dismissed as a Chrysler-like appeal for Washington to bail GM's fast ailing ass out (I, incidently bought their bonds a few weeks back) but it is framed in cultural terms, what we want as a society and how those values will (or can) be expressed our society's companies.
I would agree with you, Henry, that the american autos mark an ending in the cycle of cap vs labor. But I would say just the opposite. The Unions have been running GM for a long time: production has been set for at least these last years on employment balance rather to any regard for efficiency or profitability. GM and the american autos represent union power in its deaththroes. GM, for instance, allows for smoking on assembly lines and "ghost-workers." For christ's sake! the same company responsible for these guy's long-term (spiraling) health care!! The notion of an "economy" of the american auto has long-since collapsed under the weight of its own bloated worker. No amount of "offshore outsourcing" will save the Corvette (unlike the "american flyer" red wagon), captial and labor are bound by time, geography and scale. All things that "market-economies" don't handle well, if at all.
But yes, the cycle is turning, it is turning back in the direction of labor and it is turning exactly at the lowest rung in labor, where you would expect it to begin. The pinnacle of captial power is not GM but WalMart/Microsoft. The change is well underway. You mention the movies, the PR (Walmart now HAS to sponsor NPR, Katrina etc) on our side. But labor is reasserting itself where it wasn't supposed to exist: China.
Walmart doesn't site new manufacturing in coastal china anymore: good help is hard to find and even the assemblylines are not only not cheap anymore; they are beginning to cost. Agricultural reform, ironically price liberalization, is keeping more peasants on the farm and off the streets in Gunangzhou.
The first hint of this change was there for those who wanted to look 5 years ago when the 1billion plus dreamt cellphone distribution topped out at 250 million and China Mobile, the "darling" of "class A" shares went flatline. China now, as always, is bifurcated place, a land of those who can and those who will never be allowed to try. Those chinese who can make it work, make China the factory to the world, are in shorter supply than we imagine, and it's now becoming clear that limits are being pressed and costs going higher.
"Environmentalism" has come late and come by necessity in china. But it is now becoming a badge of western standards--a cultural marker. The proof is in the money: they are now hiring Vancouver companies to clean their water, for example. The most powerful symbol of all now driving China, the 2008 Olympics, is really all about acceptence, admittance, as western power--albeit a la japan! Can the transformation of labor from the country writing the greatest transformation of labor in the modern world be far behind?
It was in the concept of "shareholder" that chinese communism and western capitalism were united. Is there a more "communist" idea than this??? As capital has now found its resurgent power through this concept it has also, I think we are beginning to see, opened the door to its complement and opposite, labor.
And what of the "market," the ultimate driver of this capital investment. It takes more than a belief to fully exploit the labor/capital dynamic. It takes a complete infrastructure, all the little things that we in thw west now take for granted: the ability and right of transfer for real property, stable and fair legal framework for righting economic wrongs, a neighbor who wnats what you understand he wants etc. etc. etc. IN RE: Sachs vs. Soviet Empire
Take advertising (please!), the mother's milk of captialism, how much can you sell to those who can't read or write, what does "deoderant and tampons" mean to household without hot water?
It hasn't taken long for a generation of "little emporers" to appear in China. How much longer for a "fair and decent living."? Having a lot of poeple doesn't necessarily mean having and endless supply of labor. A means of production matching the modern needs of consumption I think will be self-limiting. --And come sooner than labor.
The pinacle for Capital in this cycle may have been marked by Microsoft and Yahoo selling out its represented western value of "free spreech" opening the door to cold Chinese cellblock for a few of its "customers." The reaction is already here (rembering Dow 1968-1982).
Next up: ROBOTS.
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HenryTo
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| Posted: Fri Mar 13, 2009 12:07 pm Post subject: |
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That Cramer could actually survive and thrive in light of his recommendations/writings in the late 1990s and the subsequent bear market of 2000 to 2002 was simply incredible, and of course, was a testament that risk-taking appetites were not dead, despite the big bear of 2000 to 2002.
The collapse of Bear Stearns and global equities in general has to be the final nail in the coffin for Cramer and CNBC. Not because of their bad calls, but because many retail investors will start tuning out of CNBC as they lose interest in the markets. We all know on this board that CNBC was simply entertainment. Of course, Main Street knew this too but they watched it anyway since they loved the bright lights, the rolling ticker, and the amusing guests. Even worse, some retail investors actually bought stocks on the advice of Cramer and others on the network. |
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:43 pm Post subject: |
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It's now blossomed fully as political struggle...from above!
http://www.latimes.com/business/personalfinance/la-fi-hiltzik4-2009mar04,0,1356927.column
| Quote: |
"Class warfare" comes in many flavors. There's the variety practiced by feudal overlords upon their serfs, and the variety waged by the Jacobins of the French Revolution against the monarchists.
Then there's the variety that Republicans claim to find in President Obama's proposed budget -- a taking from the rich to reward the undeserving poor. The rhetoric has spread quickly, moving from the libertarian Heritage Foundation to the ranks of GOP presidential hopefuls like flames leaping from tree to tree in the Angeles National Forest.
"Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff," says former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead, but a Union of American Socialist Republics is being born."
Yet the true class war of recent American history is the one that has pitted the upper 1% of income earners against almost everybody else. Over the last three decades, a period that spans Republican and Democratic administrations alike, average family income has scarcely budged an inch, while the wealthy have grown measurably wealthier. |
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 4:30 pm Post subject: |
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In '05The UAW already had seen the light--at, least so say the socialists:
| Quote: | It goes almost without saying that the UAW bureaucracy excludes any struggle against the destruction of tens of thousands of jobs. The union has an unbroken record in recent decades of labor-management collaboration and imposing the downsizing and cost-cutting demands of the auto bosses. But the present deal goes further.
The New York Times noted, “The agreement marks unprecedented cooperation by the union, which has been put in the position of convincing its members to give up jobs that the UAW has fought for decades to protect.” For a period of time, the strategy of the UAW bureaucracy was to defend the jobs—therefore the revenue flow from membership dues—of a core number of older workers at the Big Three auto companies—GM, Ford and Chrysler—while membership of the UAW overall fell from 1.53 million members in 1979 to 650,000 today.
By accepting this new round of corporate restructuring—which also includes Ford’s plans to eliminate 30,000 North American jobs—the union bureaucracy hopes that it can retain its perks and privileges by collaborating in a unprecedented rollback in the living standards and working conditions of the much reduced number of workers who remain in the auto industry. The benchmark for what future Big Three autoworkers will face is being set by Delphi, which is demanding a 60 percent wage cut from its remaining workers, from $27 an hour to as low as $12.50. |
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/mar2006/gemo-m23.shtml
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Mon Dec 22, 2008 9:04 am Post subject: |
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After dismissing GM as old-timey and driving off into their own Wall St. sunset--Barron's is back, taking a second look in this decidedly old time analysis.
http://www.tickerforum.org/cgi-ticker/akcs-www?post=75995
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rffrydr
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rffrydr
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| Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 11:53 am Post subject: |
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The Madman and self-described hedge-fund wizard has some choice words for his market-mavens:
| Quote: | The 'Free Market' Caused This Mess
By Jim Cramer
RealMoney.com Columnist
10/2/2008 8:56 AM EDT
Click here for more stories by Jim Cramer Try Jim Cramer's Action Alerts PLUS
CLICK HERE NOW
"The free market will take care of everything."
Oh, just great. That's the new rap, and it makes me sick. The free market got us in this mess. An unregulated free market gave us no incentive to be prudent and every incentive to be reckless.
A world where we let the market do it should produce gigantic unemployment -- no one is going to risk anything in this environment, as bank after bank will fail, has to fail and should fail because the free market is frozen.
We need to throw everything at this economy unless we want four banks and a couple of insurance companies that didn't take risks to get yield, and the rest will fail.
In fact, the only thing that has worked is totally not free market: the FDIC seizures of bad banks and their subsequent sale rather than the free-market solution of Lehman, which has been the BIGGEST disaster and isn't stopping. Every day we learn of more damage from Lehman.
That's the free market at work. I don't trust the free market as far as you can throw it. It didn't work before; it will take us down in a heartbeat now. |
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