Word: depressions
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...people in power use Third World people as a reserve labor force to depress wages, increase profits and maintain the status quo. They need a set of "objective" values which justify oppressive practices. This is the basis for institutional racism. Institutional racism in this society can take two forms: The first kind is the more obvious and thus more easily combatted, as in Jim Crow laws, immigration quotas, and grandfather clauses. The second, and more insidious kind, is contained in the institutions and social practices which are not inherently racist, but are racist in their effect. There are infinite examples...
Skinner, with Robert Epstein and Robert Lanza, set up an experiment involving two white male pigeons whimsically dubbed Jack and Jill. Kept in adjoining Plexiglas cubicles, the pigeons were taught by Skinner's conditioning techniques to recognize and depress keys that were identifiable either by color or by words or symbols embossed on them. If they hit the right key with their beaks, it would light up and, as a reward, they automatically got a little grain...
Finally Jack became skilled enough to initiate a "conversation" by depressing a key saying What color? Seeing Jack's key light up, Jill would promptly peek behind a curtain in his own cubicle. There, hidden from Jack's view, one of three bulbs (red, green and yellow) would light up. Having been taught to recognize the color, Jill, moving back in front of Jack, would depress a key identified by a letter representing that color. If Jill correctly chose red, for example, by pressing the R key, the key would light up, and Jack would react by depressing...
Eager for his own reward, Jack would then look back at the illuminated symbol key in Jill's cubicle, recognize the R, and depress a red key in his cage. If he deciphered the symbol correctly, he too would get some grain. The birds repeated the cycle again and again with 90% accuracy -sometimes for several hours...
...bullion and other precious metals to no more than 30% of the net asset value of the shareholders' equity. Thus some big West German banks, such as Dresdner and the Commerzbank, eventually might be forced to sell some of their huge gold and silver holdings, thereby helping to depress the price...