Re: Re: US foreign investment

[<christian11@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lou wrote

>I take the question of development and statistics quite seriously. If Henwood wanted to respond to what I wrote, he could have explained why the statistics instead revealed some deeper truths about Nicaragua and Norway.

I am curious about the stats you chose. I guessed that you were trying to show something like the rate of exploitation (ie. that wages were a lower fraction of assets than income). But there is no clear reason why income should be a higher fraction of assets than any given expense (like wages) measured in the aggregate. Marx developed the idea of the rate of exploitation on the level of the firm, where the rate of profit was assumed and prices and wages moved accordingly. The yearly national accounts measure total profits rather than firm profits--and some firms could be profitable without their being aggregate nat'l profits. And there are limits to the flexibility of wages and prices.

I think it would be more interesting in this context to see the ratio of debt to assets and the proportion of debt held by foreigners.

Christian