Re: Crisis and US economy

[Greg Nowell <GN842@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Actually, Mine, in addition to these factors (& the effect on US & other
countries' commodity prices in grain, etc.) there was one big plus: the panic
induced decline in interest rates that was a great fillip to the construction
industry in the U.S.  I myself refinanced the mortgage at the trough and am
saving a $150 a month thanks to the ruin and famine in SE Asia.  Millions of
other Americans did the same. There was a great boom in the US housing market,
a major sector, obviously   -gn.

"J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." wrote:

> Mine,
>      You're welcome.
>      The SE Asian crisis had two offsetting effects on the US
> economy.  One was a drag in terms of declining exports to
> the region.  Certain sectors in the US economy felt that.  The
> other, which appears to have been more important, was a
> disinflationary effect due to the decline in their currencies and
> the lower prices of their goods, and, perhaps most important,
> downward pressure on the price of oil due to their reduced
> demand.  The significance of the latter is now more obvious
> as it has been undone and we now see a much heightened
> price of oil, although the manipulations of OPEC are part of
> that, especially as they responded to the extremely low prices
> that were prevailing a year ago.
> Barkley Rosser
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: POST-KEYNESIAN THOUGHT <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Date: Friday, April 07, 2000 6:42 PM
> Subject: Crisis and US economy
>
> Clifford, Matthew, Barkley, thanks for the citations. they are very
> useful. Actually, Kindleberg's _World in Depression 1929_ is a mandatory
> reading in IPE course here, but I was not specifically occupied with some
> of his other writings such as Financial history of the West or Maniacs and
> Panics..Particulary, I have found John Kenneth Galbraith's writings on
> intenational economic disorder quite useful in terms of providing
> a preliminary background to the issue i am struggling to deal with.
>
> btw, Cliford, Turkey is in the semi-periphery, not in the periphery of
> the world system. You were right, I thought you had semi-periphery in your
> mind. World System people generally classify southern europe as a semi-
> peripheral zone. For this, you may like to see  Giovannin Arrighi's "The
> Stratification of the World Economy: An Exploration of the Semiperipheral
> Zone", _Review_ (Journal of Fernand Braudel Center) 1986, 10, 1, summer
> 9-74.
>
> now, let me ask an entirely diffrent question to the list!
>
> Do you think that the South Asian financial crisis had a really
> significant impact on the performance of US economy and domestic
> capitalist classes (with respect to business investment, profit, bank
> capital etc..)? there is a general preoccupation that the US economy
> became immune to crisis after 1980s because of the rapid economic growth
> and recent technological innovations. so it seems interesting to look at
> the  hows and whys of this stability in a core economic power like the US.
> for this reason, do you think that the South asian crisis is "worth
> comparing" to the stock market collapse of 1929 interms of understanding
> the US business response to these two comparatively? The only disadvantage
> is that there is a huge time difference between these two crises, so there
> may have been other factors in the political economies of these periods
> that may not be simply attributable to crises per se. So it may seem
> obvious that they are different because of entirely different
> circumstances and political economies. I want to make sure if my
> comparison of 1997 and 1929 methodologically and theoretically makes sense
> or not.
>
> what do you think?
>
> thanx...
>
> Xxxx Xxxxxx

--
Gregory P. Nowell
Associate Professor
Department of Political Science, Milne 100
State University of New York
135 Western Ave.
Albany, New York 12222

Fax 518-442-5298