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For those who don't recall the debt crises of the 80's ... the push to recycle the current account surpluses of the OPEC oil exporters in the later 70's was a big part of laying the foundation for the debt crises of the 80's.

The first cabs off the rank in that series of debt crises were those developing nations like Brazil that has a strategy of relying on heavy foreign borrowing, where the knock on its current account from the oil price shocks suddenly left it unable to service its overseas obligations. But the push to recycle oil incomes made that worse as well ... when Brazil was in the stage of borrowing to meet existing debt obligations, the push by major money center banks looking to attract oil country funds by offering high returns meant that Brazil was able to dig itself far deeper into a hole than it should have been able to do.

The big change now is that we have just gone through a big wave of the same thing, except this time recycling the profit income gained by appropriating basically all productivity gains for nearly a decade, rather than splitting them with labor roughly 50:50 as under the Fordist regime. How the challenge of recycling oil incomes is going to work out in the current climate is anyone's guess.

A good counterpoint to some of the blind spots of even General Theory macro is Jane Jacobs Cities and the Wealth of Nations.

We always have a lovely tym, at doggerel-by-the-yard.rym

Jay Conner (Not the author...I do not know who wrote it)

Now Christopher is treating us to a new type of squealing grumpiness that he's newly add to his repertoire. It's very impressive.

I dunno..

I like it though...

A pelasure

I think it's high time for a more authoritarian approach to the leadership of this blog.  Obviously the FPers cannot be relied upon to make the correct decision about what day it even is!

FORTUNA, Spain: Lush fields of lettuce and hothouses of tomatoes line the roads. Verdant new developments of plush pastel vacation homes beckon buyers from Britain and Germany. Golf courses - 54 of them, all built in the past decade and most in the past three years - give way to the beach. At last, this hardscrabble corner of southeast Spain is thriving.

There is only one problem with this picture of bounty: This province, Murcia, is running out of water. Spurred on by global warming and poorly planned development, swaths of southeast Spain are steadily turning into desert.

This year in Murcia farmers are fighting developers over water rights. They are fighting each other over who gets to water their crops. And in a sign of their mounting desperation, they are buying and selling water like gold on a burgeoning black market.

"Water will be the environmental issue this year," said Barbara Helferrich, spokesman for the European Union's Environment Directorate. "The problem is urgent and immediate."

"If you're already having water shortages in spring, you know it's going to be a really bad summer."

the stuff about getting rid of finantical control is new to me...

I think it is interesting to see that more people is interested in getting this stuff... it's not easy history and it's a mess always with rome.. but it is nice....

A pleasure

And it doesn't necessarily require that the content of the word be neo-liberal in substance.

In fact, in the face of resource scarcity, global climate change, and coming demographic challenges, there is no other way to address mankind's future than with socialism, to expropriate another powerful meme.

And what is socialism, in today's world, if not a fundamental reform of our present inefficient, unjust, inegalitarian and increasingly inhumane social organization?

The mantle of reform affirms that we look forward, not backward, which is why the mantle of reform is one which, objectively, will fit us more than it does the neo-liberals, who essentially want to send us back to the 19th century social organization once again.

How to write better web copy

Icelandic and Norwegian companies have begun exporting whalemeat to Japan.

About 60 tonnes of meat from fin whales caught in the 2006 Icelandic hunt was reportedly sent with a much smaller amount of minke meat from Norway.

Industry sources told the BBC that the meat had already arrived in Japan, although a Japanese official said no request to import it had been received.

Conservation groups say the trade will damage attempts to bridge the gap between pro- and anti-whaling nations.

And I am sure that there are countries where it is already Tuesday, June 3rd. :-)