From: Jurriaan Bendien (adsl675281@TISCALI.NL)
Date: Mon Sep 10 2007 - 18:06:20 EDT
Hi Paul, Sure, a lot of Argentinians were ripped off, but as I have argued before, exploitation is a wider concept than the rate of surplus value. I am not very knowledgeable about Argentina, but this crisis should be studied by anyone interested in the theory of "capitalist collapse". I said, "with the aid of new credit". In 2006, Argentina actually re-entered international debt markets, selling US$ 500 million dollar-denominated bonds, mostly to foreign financial institutions. However, Goldman Sachs complained that "Instead of trying to restore its credibility with the broad capital markets, the government keeps on relying on Venezuela as its main credit supplier" (WSJ July 28, 2006). Argentina now owes Venezuela about US$4 billion or so (La Nacion, 28 July 2006). Supposing that the US attacked Venezuela, it would probably have quite a strong financial "ripple effect". It illustrates one "equilibrium problem" in Pentagon thinking - how and what can you actually attack, without destabilising the markets, and making all the problems you are trying to solve, worse? The answer to that seems to be, that you attack, when there is already a destabilised situation of some kind, in order to stabilise it. Or maybe, you create a "targeted" destabilisation first, and then you try to stabilise it militarily, installing a new regime. But whatever you do, it has to involve a lot of different players. Robert Gates recently stated an awareness that: "Reaching [our] goals cannot be achieved by any one nation alone - no matter how wealthy or powerful. And they certainly cannot be achieved solely by military means. To do all this, we all - the United States, Egypt, and other key players in the region - must be engaged. And we must lead. And we must work together." (speech in Cairo, April 18, 2007). Jurriaan
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