Kondratieff

        I have a question.  Ken says that the world-economy has been
depressed for the past 3 decades.  The general understanding among
world-systems people is that the world-economy entered a B-wave in the
Kondratieff cycle as early as 1968, and no later than the early 1970s.
Are we still riding that B-wave, 35 years down the road?  Isn't this a
longish time, and can anybody reasonably forecast the arrival of an A-wave
any time soon?  Or is Kondratieff no longer working?

        Warren


On Tue, 8 Apr 2003 KenRichard2002@aol.com wrote:

> Most of the world has been living in a state of economic depression for the
> past 3 decades so watching the US economy spin down the toilet would actually
> benefit local producers and consumers in the peripheral states in a number of
> ways:
> Local economies would not be so deeply penetrated with cheap mass produced
> goods from core economic states which the local producers cannot compete
> against and thus lose market share to;   local economies could then produce
> for local consumers instead of developing cash crops for export to core,
> foreign economies; local production and development could then meet local
> needs which are currently subservient to the demands of core, foreign
> economies.   During the economic boom of the last decade,  a great deal of
> real wealth flowed from the third world at dirt cheap prices and into the
> United States through our national version of Rotterdam,  -Shreveport,
> Louisiana.   I call it real wealth because it was composed of raw material
> items.  The artificial wealth being created in Silicon Valley at the time
> amounted to dot.coms minting their own currencies in the form of stock
> certificates and watching them inflate far beyond their true value.  So
> people who produced and transfered real wealth from the periphery only saw
> themselves becoming poorer due to depressed prices in the face of increased
> demand due to overproduction at the behest of international lenders while
> watching the gap between the wealth of the peripheral consumers deminish in
> relative, absolute and real terms to individuals in core economies, who were
> in the process of generating their wealth on the basis of illusion.
> Therefore, if the US economy tanked, the world would be far better off.
>
> KR
>