O homem mais idoso de Tóquio

"He was thought to be the oldest man in Tokyo - but when officials went to congratulate Sogen Kato on his 111th birthday, they uncovered mummified skeletal remains lying in his bed." (pelos vistos, o esqueleto esteve uns 30 anos a mumificar).


[Via Marginal Revolution]

Henrique Raposo, a ADSE e o Obama/RomneyCare

Henrique Raposo escreve que "o tal plano de saúde de Obama, aplicado a Portugal, seria mais ou menos isto de que falo – a extensão da ADSE a toda a gente".

Não, a extensão da ADSE a toda a gente seria o "single payer", o plano de saúde de Kucinich ou de Mike Gravel, em que o Estado substituiria as seguradoras privadas como pagador dos cuidados da saúde.

O plano de saúde de Obame consiste (numa versão simplificada) em:

- Toda a gente ter que comprar um seguro de saúde

- As companhias seguradoras não puderem discriminar entre os clientes (p.ex., recusando clientes com doenças crónicas)

- O Estado subsidiar a compra de seguros de saúde pelos clientes de menores rendimentos

Qual é a semelhança que o Henrique Raposo vê entre isto e uma ADSE para toda a gente?

Bakunin, 1870 (ou o anarquista versus o comunista)

"The State has always been the patrimony of some privileged class or other; a priestly class, an aristocratic class, a bourgeois class, and finally a bureaucratic class... . But in the People's State of Marx, there will be, we are told, no privileged class at all ... but there will be a government, which will not content itself with governing and administering the masses politically, as all governments do today, but which will also administer them economically, concentrating in its own hands the production and the just division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, finally the application of capital to production by the only banker, the State. All that will demand an immense knowledge and many "heads overflowing with brains" in this government. It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant, and contemptuous of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and pretended scientists and scholars"

Uns anos depois, dizia Trotsky:

"Was it so true," Trotsky asked, "that compulsory labor was always unproductive?" He denounced this view as "wretched and miserable liberal prejudice," learnedly pointing out that "chattel slavery, too, was productive" and that compulsory serf labor was in its times "a progressive phenomenon." He told the unions [at the Third Congress of Trade Unions] that "coercion, regimentation, and militarization of labor were no mere emergency measures and that the workers' Statenormally had the right to coerce any citizen to perform any work at any place of its choosing.""

"Communist life will not be formed blindly, like coral islands, but will be built up consciously, will be erected and corrected... . Even purely physiologic life will become subject to collective experiments. The human species, the coagulated Homo sapiens, will once more enter into a state of radical transformation, and, in his own hands, will become an object of the most complicated methods of artificial selection and psycho-physical training... (...) Man will make it his purpose ... to create a higher social biological type, or, if you please, a superman."

Retirado do artigo Trotsky: The Ignorance and the Evil, Ralph Raico

PS: Eu sempre tive a ideia que o estágio final do comunismo pode ser encontrado numa colmeia ou num formigueiro.

Ron Paul Comments on Afghan War

Le Monde diplomatique: «Gerar e gerir alternativas económicas a partir de baixo»

Um artigo meu na edição de Julho de Le Monde diplomatique (não está on-line, têm mesmo que o comprar para poder lé-lo).

Taxa juro fixada Versus Salário Mínimo

Cowen on Monetary Misperception

Tyler Cowen raises this question over at Marginal Revolution:

I have never heard a market-oriented economist argue that a rise in the minimum wage boosts the demand for labor. You might try this argument: "The government is certifying that these workers are worth this much. The government is defining the market price. Entrepreneurs will believe that price and hire workers in the expectation of finding an equivalent or even superior marginal product. The government said that was the right price."

No go. Market-oriented economists instead claim that entrepreneurs "see through" to the real marginal products of these laborers. The demand for labor, rather than rising, would fall and unemployment would result.

So what happens when the Fed "sets" short-term interest rates or influences other prices? What is postulated by monetary misperceptions theories, including Austrian business cycle theory? Entrepreneurs no longer see through to the fundamentals. Instead, entrepreneurs are taken to believe this Fed-influenced rate is the correct price and they make their plans accordingly.

What is the difference between these two cases?

Several commenters at MR are on the right track I think, but let me take a shot at it with some different language.

The difference is that when central banks create excess supplies of money and push interest rates below their natural level, there really are resources available to borrowers. Yes, the interest rate is sending a false signal about underlying time preferences, but the loans banks are making at the lower rate really do represent resources to the borrower. Of course those resources are not the result of real savings elsewhere and represent losses to the rest of society, but they are still a gain to the borrower. Hence there's nothing to "see through" in the sense that there's no binding constraint on the borrower in the same way that the underlying productivity of the worker binds the employer who is considering hiring at the minimum wage.

In supply and demand terms, a minimum wage law drives a wedge between quantity supplied and demanded with a price floor. Inflation pushes down the interest rate not by directly imposing a price but by shifting the supply of loanable funds curve outward through forced savings in a way that creates a credit market equilibrium interest rate (the market rate) that no longer reflects underlying time preferences (the natural rate). The fact that we trade time in the form of money, rather than somehow directly, is what makes this divergence possible and what distinguishes it from the labor market. Such a separation is not possible there and price controls will create shortage and surpluses.

As several commenters note: the minimum wage is a price control, but an inflation-driven fall in the market rate is a quantity adjustment masquerading as a false price. The low interest rate is the result of the underlying problem: too much credit. The credit, though, is "real" to the borrowers, even if it is an illusion with respect to voluntary savings.

During the boom, borrowers really do acquire resources and some will profit handsomely if they get out in time. The fact that the errors embedded in the boom take time to manifest, along with the idea that inflation is ultimately a distortion on the quantity axis not the price axis, enables borrowers to not face the immediate constraint that they do in the minimum wage case.

Tyler seems to be forgetting that money is different. Its "loose joint" properties mean things don't work quite the same way there.

Mais um terrível vídeo sobre o extremismo islâmico do Hamas em Gaza

Coisas sobre o sistema monetário que temos

1. Banco Central fabrica moeda, empresta com juro (baixo) a Bancos e estes compram Dívida Pública (a uma taxa superior):

"Bancos emprestaram ao Estado 3,6 mil milhões em dinheiro num mês: Em Maio, o Estado pediu emprestado à banca nacional 3.506 milhões de euros em dinheiro. Financiamento dos bancos portugueses junto do BCE supera os 40 mil milhões," negócios.pt

2. Banco comercial fabrica moeda, "depositando" contabilisticamente um valor em depósitos à ordem (como faz sempre no processo expansão de crédito), por contrapartida de concessão crédito a uma entidade (ilegal se própria, legal se for um cliente), e com isso aumenta o capital e melhora rácios de solvabilidade, sem ter acontecido absolutamente nada.

"Tribunal diz que BCP escondeu "offshores" de forma deliberada: "A primeira decisão de um tribunal sobre o caso BCP confirma a acusação das autoridades de supervisão de que o banco usou cerca de duas dezenas de "offshores" para financiar a compra de acções próprias com crédito da própria instituição." negócios.pt

Passo 1 - Situação inicial antes aumento capital

Activo (Crédito Concedido) = 100

Passivo= 50 (DO)

Capital Social = 50

Passo 2 - Concessão de Crédito a cliente (legal) ou entidade própria (ilegal)

Activo (Crédito Concedido) = 100 + 50

Passivo = 50 + 50 (DO), este movimento é virtual, os 50 a crédito foram possíveis pelo simples crédito de 50 da DO

Capital Social = 50

Passo 3 - Aumento de Capital

Activo (Crédito Concedido) = 100 + 50

Passivo = 50 (DO), o cliente foi debitado em 50 para comprar acções e o capital social aumentar

Capital Social = 100

Conclusão: Rácio de solvabilidade passou de 50/50 para 100/150. Giro não?

Um acto revolucionário conservador [Re: Hungria - uma sitação a seguir?]

Existe um caso conservador para no extremo um estado (a sua população, democraticamente?) renunciar à dívida pública, ainda que subversivo no domínio institucional. Teria um custo, nunca mais esse Estado conseguiria emitir dívida. O que vendo bem, seria mesmo um acto ortodoxo. Défices equilibrados por natureza. Teria a qualidade de colocar a suspeição sobre toda a dívida pública de todos os Estados, para sempre (se bem que sabemos que ao longo da história colapsos da dívida e da moeda acontecem... é o caminho inevitável de todo o sistema de uma moeda por fiat). Seria um acto revolucionário conservador.

Hungria - uma sitação a seguir?

Hungary's IMF revolt augurs ill for Greece, Daily Telegraph, 19/07/2001:

The collapse of Hungary's talks with the International Monetary Fund and the EU is a chilly reminder that sovereign debt crises do not end with a rescue package and a click of the fingers. As austerity drags on for year after year, democracies react.

We told the IMF/EU that further austerity was out of the question," said Hungary's economic minister Gyorgy Matolcsy, offering no hint that the Fidesz government is willing to back down despite yesterday's surge in Hungarian default costs by 51 basis points.

The Fidesz movement – an amalgam of libertarians and nationalists (...) – won a crushing victory in April on a campaign of defiance against both Brussels and the IMF. It has been spoiling for a fight ever since.

Lars Christensen, of Danske Bank, said events in Budapest are a warning of what may happen in the Baltics later this year, and then in Greece and other parts of EMU-periphery forced to undergo wage cuts and harsh fiscal tightening.

"It is incredible how long Hungary has been struggling to get over its imbalances. It first began austerity measures in 2006, but four years later is still not out of the crisis and there is massive discontent. The Greek problem is even bigger by any measure, whether budget deficit, current account or public debt," he said.

Hungary IMF talks suspended, Finantial Times, 18/07/2010:

Hungarian assets could come under selling pressure on Monday after the International Monetary Fund and European Union postponed the conclusion of a budgetary review in Budapest, insisting that the government must rethink its proposals.


Although Hungary is not in urgent need of IMF financing, the failure of the negotiations could unsettle investors who are uneasy about the country’s debt levels.

The talks had been expected to conclude early this week but were dogged from the outset by reports of serious disagreements between the IMF and ministers
 
(...)
 
The government had indicated before the talks that it would like to agree another precautionary IMF-EU facility for 2011 and 2012. However, this was not discussed because of the outstanding budgetary issues.


Analysts speculated that the government, which holds a two-thirds parliamentary majority following a landslide election victory in April, wants to delay unpopular spending and revenue decisions until after key regional elections in October.

Nevertheless, Peter Attard Montalto at Nomura described the breakdown of talks as a “very rare event … countries usually go out of their way to satisfy these missions.”

Já agora, o que poderemos dizer do estado da "esquerda" europeia, quando é um governo da direita mais conservadora o único a desafiar a bíblia da austeridade a todo o custo?

Bosnian Lessons by Gordon N. Bardos

Na National Interest

"...Consider the following: Bosnia & Herzegovina (population approximately 4.6 million) has received more international aid per capita than any country in Europe under the Marshall Plan. Kosovo (population approximately 2 million) has exceeded even that figure; according to one estimate, by 2005 Kosovo had received 25 times more aid per capita than Afghanistan. Postwar Bosnia in 1996 and postwar Kosovo in 1999 were militarily secured through the deployment of 60,000 and 30,000 international troops, respectively.

(...)

Bosnia's ethnic groups are still debating the same issues they were 20 years ago before the war even started—how to divide power between themselves, and the degree to which Bosnia should be a unitary or a federal state. By large majorities, Bosnian Serbs continue to favor either unification with Serbia or outright independence. (...)

The nation-building record in Kosovo is no better.(...) Last year, Human Rights Watch reported that there had been no visible improvement in the treatment of ethnic minorities in Kosovo since the 2008 declaration of independence, and Minority Rights Group International (MRG) claims the situation has even gotten worse. (...)

Kosovo's frozen conflict along the Ibar River has solidified, and in neighboring Macedonia, Albanian politicians have begun openly calling for a new ethno-territorial federalization of the country (which in the Balkans is usually the first step towards secession). A recent Gallup Balkan Monitor survey found that large majorities in both Albania and Kosovo expect the two states to merge. (...)

In no small measure, our decision to go to war in Iraq was based on the widespread Washington view that our Balkan efforts had worked. In 2002, former Assistant Secretary of State James Rubin claimed that "Kosovo has been a success," despite tremendous evidence to the contrary, not the least of which was the fact that the ICTY's own chief prosecutor had said that the ethnic persecution taking place in Kosovo under NATO's watch was just as serious as the ethnic persecution taking place in Kosovo under Slobodan Milosevic. Anticipating the invasion of Iraq, Rubin called for the creation of a high-level envoy for nation building ("with a budget to match"). "

Aguardam-se as saudações da direita proibicionista

Siria se suma a la ofensiva contra el niqab