On Mon, 29 Oct 2001, antonio callari wrote: > In response to Fred's and Jerry's thoughts: > That would be my "guess:" that the increasing level of endebtedness (which > I believe took place) over the 80s and 90s (a long process indeed) would > explain the transfer of funds to the financial sector (and, a whole range > of other activities might be identified as relevant here) even if interest > rates did not increase. The mechanism for the redistribution of surplus > value [a subsumed class payment] here might have taken an institutional, > rather than market, form. The best work that suggests such a change > remains, to my knowledge, Henwood's Wall Street, even if his history stops > in the early 90s. > What effects this will have on the "crisis" (whether it will be deep or > not), therefore, will, PARTIALLY, depend on whether there are blockages > (objective or not) to the flow of funds from the non-productive segment of > FIRE to the productive sector of the economy. In other words, there may be > a profit squeeze, but not necessarily a "capital" squeeze. > Just some speculation! > Antonio I think there are both a profit squeeze and a capital squeeze. Both net profit (net of interest) and gross profit (profit + interest) have declined since 1997, although the decline of net profit (25%) is greater than the decline of gross profit (13%) Fred
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