[PEN-L:8168] RE: Re: Request: Summers Memo

["Craven, Jim" <jcraven@xxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Schaap [mailto:rws@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, June 21, 1999 8:32 PM
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>Subject: [PEN-L:8155] Re: Request: Summers Memo


Ah, Jim ... bard of ages ... what luscious lustrous voluptuous vituperative
vitriolic poetry!

I'm off to get this one framed!

You waxed thus:

>I wanted it as it so
>elegantly and succinctly sums up the essence, ugly nature behind the mask,
>twisted logic--reducio ad absurdum/nauseum, disgusting sycophancy, sick
>values, racism, imperialism and krypto-fascism inherent in the "logic",
>paradigm and "calculus" of the Strangelovian pukes among the
neoclassicals,
>"neo-liberal globalists" and academic whores who work and theory/policy
pimp
>for the DemReps or RepDems.

Hi Rob,

Well for vitriolic "poetry" embodied in the "positivist and
"free-of-'normative'-considerations calculus" of "rationality and
optimality", I can't match:

"I think the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the
lowest-wage country [or preferably Indian Reserve/Reservation] is impeccable
and we should face up to that."

I just loved the part about foregone earnings [opportunity costs] of people
who die prematurely or fall ill from toxic wastes are less in low-wage than
in high-wage countries and the poor have short lives anyway. or... Some
countries, particularly "...in Africa are vastly
under-polluted"...Consequently, the high air quality in these countries is
"inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City." and... Because
of their greater aesthetic sensitivity, rich people value clean air and
water more than the poor. and... Therefore, by the logic of free-market
economics, "human welfare" would be maximized by exporting the polluting
industries and toxic wastes of rich countries [and regions] to poor
countries [and regions].

This is basically from memory and I would appreciate someone publishing the
whole memo. It is so timely especially with this Strangelovian toady and
not-so-krypto racist, imperialist, fascist, and elitist up for Sec of
Treasury. It is, shall we say, soooo neoclassical, neo-liberal and soooo
revealing.

I have a captured SS document on the costs/revenues and benefits--per
prisoner--of genocide at Auschwitz (including uses of bones, ashes, hair,
gold teeth etc) It is a neoclassical's wet dream--"This marginalist stuff
really works"

Jim C