Re: [Marxism] Debunking Third World myths

[Steve Palmer <spalmer999@xxxxxxxxx>]

He makes Goebbels look like an amateur. Great demagogic style. Imagine trying 
to ask a question after he's warmed up the audience like that.

[And what a thoroughly appropriate choice of name for his foundation! The only 
London underground station where they have the 'Mind the Gap' warning is the 
Bank station, in the heart of the financial centre, with exits in the wall of 
the Bank of England, another by the Royal Exchange which used to house Liffe, 
another onto Lombard Street etc ... He takes ONE station as representative of 
ALL - and it just happens to be slap in finance capital's home territory ... a 
metaphor for his method]

Shows the power of using logarithmic scales to distort statistics visually - 
things only look 1/10th to 1/100th as bad as they really are ...

Of course he completely sidestepped the awkward questions about reliability of 
statistics from different countries (ask a professional statistician in any 
imperialist, sorry 'developed', sorry 'advanced' country how accurate GNP 
statistics are for the retail sector ...)

Were these current or 'constant' dollars?

If constant, how were they deflated?

Did they use official exchange rates, black market rates?

Were cost of living comparisons factored in and if so how?

etc etc.

But who cares, it was pretty and fun and we didn't have to think too hard and 
it took a load of guilt off our shoulders before we left to get a latte ...

--- On Fri, 1/30/09, Paula <Paula_cerni@xxxxxxx> wrote:

> From: Paula <Paula_cerni@xxxxxxx>
> 
> Great presentation


      

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