Christine Lagarde, a pitonisa

The 14 prophecies of Christine Lagarde, por Paul Cotterill (Though Cowards Flinch), traduzido da versão original de Jean-Jacques Chavigné:

1. 17th Aug 2007, Le Parisien:

It’s not a crash….What we’re seeing is an adjustment, a financial correction – brutally certainly, but predictable.

Four months later, Northern Rock is nationalised. A year later, Lehman Brothers goes bankrupt, and recessions sweeps Europe.

2. 5th Nov 2007 on Europe 1:

The housing crisis and the financial crisis don’t seem to be having any real impact on the real US economy. There’s no reason to think that there will be any impact on the real French economy.

In October 2008, the US is hit by the housing bubble burst and the banking crisis. Unemployment rises to 10%. By the end of 2008, the recession has hit France and unemployment reaches 10% there too.

3. 10th Feb 2008, at G7 in Japan:

We don’t foresee a recession in Europe’s case.

By the end of 2008, recession has hit the US and Europe, and the economic crisis is being felt around the world.

4. 15th May 2008 on Europe 1:

This morning you have on your programme a Minister for the Economy [Lagarde] who is overjoyed, to tell the truth. I’m especially happy for our country [as a result of a revision of the 2007 growth figure]. By contrast, European predictions for the deficit in France are outrageously pessimistic.

By the end of 2008, the deficit reaches 7.5% of GDP, and 7.7% by the end of 2009.

5. 16th Sept 2008, press conference:

[The crisis] will have no recognisable or calculable effect on employment or unemployment levels.

In 2009, unemployment in France goes above 10%.

6. 10th May 2010 on Europe 1:

We have decided to send an extremely strong signal to the markets to protect the euro. I’m convinced the mechanism will work.

That was when the first rescue plan for Greece was being put in place by the IMF, and before Ireland (Nov. 2010), Portugal (Spring 2011), the second bailout for Greece (end of 2010) and now Bankia in Spain.

7. 25th June 2010:

France’s AAA credit rating is stable. There are other AAA rating which are less stable. I look to the other side of the Channel, for example. France’s rating is not under threat.

In January 2012, France loses its AAA rating. The UK keeps it.

8. 8th July ’10, Aix-en-Provence:

To the question of “Are we out of crisis?’ I replied in English at the St Peterburg Forum “We are in the middle of the beginning of the end” ; and I think that about where we are.

By the end of 2001, under the Merkozy austety plan, recession is knocking on the door of all European countries once again. By the beginning of 2012, even Germany is not being spared.

9. 9th July 2010:

I’m convinced that France will keep its AAA credit rating.

In January 2012, France loses its AAA rating.

10. 19th Dec 2010, De Tijd:

Debt restructuring is not the order of the day within the Eurozone.

By the end of 2011, the Greek debt has been restructured.

11. 25th Jan 2011, Davos Forum:

The euro has reached an important point, and the Eurozone now has the worst behind it.

In May 2012, the Eurozone is on the edge.

12. 13th Feb ’11, to Der Spiegel:

You’re on the wrong track. As long as I’m in this [ministerial] post, France will never lose its [AAA] status]

In January 2012, France loses its AAA rating.

13. 13th May 2011:

All the indicators are showing green.

By the end of 2011, France is in recession, and unemployment is 10%.

14. 4th June ’11, Télérama:

To protect the weak from the strong. That’s the essence of liberalism.

By May 2012, Lagarde apparently has a different view of the need to protec
t the weak, when asked about the impact of austerity on Greek children (Guardian interview, 25th May ’11):

Well, hey, parents are responsible, right? So parents have to pay their tax.

Para falar a verdade, creio que o exemplo 14 não se encaixa muito, porque aí não estamos a falar de previsões, mas de juízos de valor.

Experiências técnicas

HSBC tests cash machines in Athens for drachmas (This is Money, via Keep Talking Greece).

Contra a independência dos bancos centrais

 TIME TO ADMIT IT: Independent Central Banking Has Been A Failure, por Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry (Business Insider):

The idea of central bank independence was that it would guarantee good monetary policy. During the Great Moderation it certainly seemed that way. But now it's no longer the case.
During the crisis, small, sovereign and open countries like Israel, Switzerland, Iceland and Sweden devalued their currencies and bounced back. Meanwhile the central banks of the US and Eurozone are refusing to pursue expansionary policies, which is driving millions to be unemployed.

The obvious takeaway is that independent central banks don't work.

But the more subtle, and more important, point is that the choice between inflation and unemployment is a political, not a technical choice. What's "better"? To screw debtors or creditors? To make millions unemployed or to "debase the currency"? Those are very important questions. More important, they're questions that cannot be solved by economics. They can be informed by them, but at the end of the day what you prefer is going to come down to your own moral value system. In other words, it's a political choice. And the way we make political choices in modern countries is through the democratic process, not through unelected, unaccountable technocrats. (...)

If you said that national security was too important to be left to politicians and that the military and security services shouldn't have to answer to anyone because they're so competent, everyone would immediately see why that's an absurd and very dangerous idea. Instead we see civilian leadership of the military as a cornerstone of democratic governance even though we know democratic leaders screw up all the time because a) we view democratic accountability as an important principle and b) it's not at all obvious that political leaders will screw up more than military leaders.

The military can kill lots of people and engineer coups, but monetary policy can drive millions to the unemployment line and affect the political process. But as we've seen monetary policy is just as important, and central bankers are just as prone to "fighting the last war" and being prisoners of their own biases as generals.

Ler mais

O casamento homossexual e as mudanças no casamento heterossexual

How Straight Marriage’s Evolution Led to Obama’s Gay-Marriage Endorsement, por Stephanie Coontz (The Daily Beast):

 Over the past two decades, and particularly in the last three years, we’ve seen a sea change in public opinion. In the mid-’90s, almost 70 percent of Americans opposed same-sex marriage. Now, according to a Gallup poll published last week, half of Americans believe that same-sex marriages should be legally recognized as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages. The Pew Research Center reports slightly lower numbers, but also shows more Americans supporting same-sex marriage than opposing it. (...)

These changes in sentiment are not just about “tolerance.” They reflect a historic transformation in what heterosexuals expect from their own marriages.

For millennia, marriage was about property and power rather than mutual attraction. It was a way of forging political alliances, sealing business deals, and expanding the family labor force. For many people, marriage was an unavoidable duty. For others, it was a privilege, not a right. Servants, slaves, and paupers were often forbidden to wed, and even among the rich, families sometimes sent a younger child to a nunnery or monastery rather than allow them to marry and break up the family’s landholding.

The redefinition of traditional marriage began about 250 years ago, when Westerners began to allow young people to choose their partners on the basis of love rather than having their marriages arranged to suit the interests of their parents. Then, just 100 years ago, courts and public opinion began to extend that right even to marriages that parents and society disapproved.(...)

[T]he most important cultural change that has increased support for same-sex marriage is the equality revolution within heterosexual marriage.

For most of history, the subordination of wives to husbands was enforced by law and custom. As late as the 1960s, American legal codes assigned differing marital rights and obligations by gender. The husband was legally responsible for supporting the family financially, but he also got to decide what constituted an adequate level of support, how to dispose of family property, and where the family would live. The wife was legally responsible for providing services in and around the home, but she had no comparable rights to such services. (...)

Between the 1970s and 1990s, however, most Americans came to view marriage as a relationship between two individuals who were free to organize their partnership on the basis of personal inclination rather than preassigned gender roles. Legal codes were rewritten to be gender neutral, and men’s and women’s activities both at home and work began to converge.

Today, the majority of American children grow up in homes where their parents share breadwinning, housework, and child care. Some couples even decide to reverse traditional gender roles, with the woman becoming the primary breadwinner or the man becoming a stay-at-home dad.

The collapse of rigid gender expectations and norms has fostered the expectation that marriage should be an individually negotiated relationship between equals, replacing the older notion of marriage as a prefabricated institution where traditional roles and rules must be obeyed.

The result is a paradox. Marriage is now more optional than in the past, and people are far less willing to remain in a marriage that doesn’t feel fair, loving, and mutually respectful. On the other hand, as a result of these changes, many marriages have become more fulfilling and mutually beneficial than ever before.

Domestic violence rates have plummeted over the past 30 years, dropping by 50 percent since 1980. The divorce rate, which rose sharply in the 1960s and 1970s, has been falling since its peak in 1981, and it has fallen the most for educated couples, who are the most likely to mix and match traditional gender behaviors.

The growing acceptance of same-sex marriage is the result of these profound changes in heterosexual marriage. It’s not just the president’s views on marriage that have evolved. Marriage itself has evolved in ways that make it harder to justify excluding same-sex couples from its benefits and obligations.

 [Via Jesse Walker / Reason]

Deep Purple - Child in Time | Live 1970

KING CRIMSON - THE SHELTERING SKY

KING CRIMSON - FRAME BY FRAME

KING CRIMSON - ELEPHANT TALK

Keynesianismo

Eu resumo assim as crenças do keynesianismo:

 - A despesa cria o seu próprio rendimento
- O investimento cria a sua própria poupança
- A procura cria a sua própria produção

 Keynes como em muita coisa, falsificou o que os clássicos supostamente diziam, em especial, Say, que teria dito "a produção cria a sua própria procura", (coisa que não disse, mas que para mim nem está incorreta mesmo que assim formulado). O que Say explicou é que a produção de um qualquer bem vai servir como procura para trocar por outro bem. Nada que possa ser objectado. Podem sim existir rácios (preços) propostos não aceites (o vendedor não aceita em troca o produto produzido no rácio proposto), mas o sistema de lucro e perdas faz o ajustamento. O que interfere com esse processo é a moeda, o crédito e o sistema bancário. Desde há séculos que o mal subsiste. Nada de novo. Tudo reside na expansão de crédito por criação de moeda em vez de mobilização de poupança anterior e voluntária. Nada interessante para banqueiros nem para o poder político...nem economistas dependentes de ambos.

 PS: a esquerda não ganha nada em estar assente em erros económicos. Qualquer política de redistribuição e regulação não precisa de estar assente nem em défices públicos, nem num sistema bancário suicida que favorece e incentiva a expansão de crédito sem poupança prévia - causa das bolhas e crises. Eu já procurei aqui expor que um sistema ultraortodoxo de ouro e 100% de reservas beneficia na verdade as pessoas comuns tornando-as independentes do sistema bancário e financeiro, prevenindo as bolhas e crises e impedindo que uma oligarquia tire partido das fontes de criação de moeda e crédito.

Uma solução para a crise do euro?

A Alemanha (em vez da Grécia ou Portugal) sair?

O poder explicativo dos economistas

Os modelos económicos permitem-nos prever que um dado evento vai acontecer e também, mais tarde, explicar de forma convincente porque é que afinal o evento não aconteceu.

Igualdade económica e social

 The equality paradox, por "Rick" (Flip Chart Fairy Tales):

It is certainly true that income inequality rose after the 1970s and, with a small dip in the 2000s, it has carried on increasing ever since. In financial terms, British people are more unequal now than they were in the 1960s. (...)

But that’s not the whole story. While all this was going on, the phenomenon known as political correctness took root. The term was invented by the American left but is now used pejoratively by the right as a catch-all for anything protects or advances the rights of women, minorities and other disadvantaged groups.(...)

 The Tory years also saw an increasing number of women in the workforce and in senior positions. No attempt was made by this right-wing government to roll back sex-discrimination and equal pay laws (it would have been a bit difficult, perhaps, with a women prime minister) and throughout the Eighties and Nineties the gender pay gap continued to reduce.

While all this was going on, the decline of deference which had gathered pace during the 1960s, continued. If anything, the anti-establishment rhetoric of the Thatcher years boosted it. Spitting Image took the rise out of everybody from politicians to the royal family and, over time, Britain became a less formal and, at least outwardly, less hierarchical society. (...)

The decline of deference also changed things in the workplace. Shortly after I first joined the corporate world in the 1980s, I remember hearing a middle manager call one of the directors Sir, like Jerry did in the Good Life. Even in the early 1990s I worked with people who could not bring themselves to call directors by their first names. Nowadays directors sit in glass offices, or even in the open plan with everyone else, and we are all on first-name terms. Graduate trainees challenge the CEO in open meetings and email their unsolicited suggestions to senior managers. Hierarchy, at least in its formal sense, has been eroded.

And yet the gap in earnings between senior executives and the rest of the workforce is much greater now than it was in the 1970s. It seems that, over the past few decades, the closer people sat to their bosses, the further apart their salaries moved. Furthermore, a greater part of the workforce is casual and non-union than it was in the 1970s.(...)

So the paradox of the last thirty years extends into the workplace too. Formal hierarchies have broken down and we are expected to treat each other as equals now, regardless of social background, race, gender or sexual orientation. The Sir of the 1970s is now plain old Dave. But Dave earns a hell of a lot more than everyone else.

Talvez relacionado com isto, também o artigo Nostalgianomics, de Brink Lindsay, na Reason, onde este argumenta que o crescimento da desigualdade económica nos EUA será o resultado de mudanças sociais e culturais que foram largamente impulsionadas pela esquerda (mais abertura à imigração - aumentando a quantidade de trabalhadores pouco qualificados; maior participação das mulheres do mercado de trabalho - duplicando o rendimento de muitas famílias da classe alta em que antigamente a esposa ficaria em casa; a erosão do espírito do "homem da organização" de fato cinzento, que faz o que lhe mandam sem fazer ondas - reduzindo a lealdade dos executivos à empresa onde trabalham e tornando mais intensa a competição entre as empresas pelos "melhores").

Dois comentários meus:

Suspeito que as reivindicações de igualdade económica são largamente uma "proxy" para reivindicações de igualdade de poder e/ou status (e tenho um ou dois post enterrados nos rascunhos dedicados especificamente a isso): quando muita gente reclama que alguém ganha muito mais que eles, frequentemente a verdadeira razão de queixa é o estarem socialmente submetidos a esse alguém, não a diferença de rendimento - veja-se que o grupo social que é mais vítima da acusação de que "ganham muito" são os gestores (raramente são dirigidas criticas dessas a futebolistas ou a artistas de Hollywood), e que trabalhadores assalariados tendem mais a ser "de esquerda" do que trabalhadores por conta própria com o mesmo nível de rendimento.

Assim, é possivel que o crescimento da igualdade "social" possa levar a mais desigualdade económica - já que numa sociedade em que há maior igualdade de estatuto e menos deferência pelas hierarquias haverá menos reivindicações de redistribuição da riqueza (algumas das teorias explicativas de nunca ter havido um partido socialista influente nos EUA andam à volta disso - a inexistência nos EUA de uma cultura de "respeito pelos superiores", à maneira europeia, terá feito com que os operários norte-americanos não sentissem grande revolta contra o sistema).

Outra ponto que me ocorre é que uma economia assente nos "produtos imateriais", no "conhecimento", etc., pode favorecer ao mesmo tempo a igualdade social e a desigualdade económica:

- numa economia em que o trabalho de grande parte dos trabalhadores ande à volta de "pensar", a hierarquia não pode ser muito rígida/formal: afinal, se a função do trabalhador é "ter ideias", isso implica debater com os seus superiores hierárquicos qual a melhor maneira de fazer as coisas (em vez de simplesmente "executar")

- por outro lado, se grande parte do trabalho" consiste em "pensar", isso tende a gerar grandes economia de escala, podendo chegar ao ponto de mercados winner-take-all: como desenhar um modelo de uma máquina fotográfica custa o mesmo quer se vá produzir 100 ou 100.000 unidades, as empresas que conseguem vender mais têm muito menos custos unitários (veja-se como nos produtos da internet - que tendem a ser produtos em que os custos quase se resumem ao desenvolvimento técnico - há tendencia a surgir uma "marca dominante": o Google nos motores de busca, o Facebook nas redes sociais, a Wikipedia nas enciclopédias, etc. - diga-se que os browsers - onde o Chrome, o Firefox e o Internet Explorer têm mantido o equilíbrio - parecem ser uma excepção a esta regra). Ora, em mercados em que a empresa melhor sucedida tende a ficar com quase tudo e "o segundo é apenas o primeiro dos derrotados" (há uns 15 anos havia umas t-shirts a dizer isto), a competição tende a ser mais aguerrida (é mais um jogo de "vida ou morte"), o que pode levar a uma maior desigualdade salarial.

O programa de Jean-Claude Trichet para a Europa

Ex-ECB Chief Trichet Unveils Bold Plan to Save Euro (CNBC/Reuters):

 Europe could strengthen its monetary union by giving European politicians the power to declare a sovereign state bankrupt and take over its fiscal policy, the former head of the European Central Bank said on Thursday in unveiling a bold proposal to salvage the euro. (...)

 The monetary union has always defied economic principles, because the euro was launched ahead of European fiscal or political union. This has caused strains for countries running huge budget deficits - namely Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Italy - that have led to financing difficulties and over-stretched banking systems.

For the European Union, a fully fledged United States of Europe where nation states cede a large chunk of fiscal authority to the federal government appears politically unpalatable, Trichet said.  

An alternative is to activate the EU federal powers only in exceptional circumstances when a country's budgetary policies threaten the broader monetary union, he said.  

"Federation by exception seems to me not only necessary to make sure we have a solid Economic and Monetary Union, but it might also fit with the very nature of Europe in the long run. I don't think we will have a big (centralized) EU budget," Trichet said in a speech before the Peterson Institute of International Economics here.  

"It is a quantum leap of governance, which I trust is necessary for the next step of European integration," he said.  (...)

Trichet said the building blocks already are in place for moving ahead with his fiscal plan.  

Countries have agreed to surveillance of each other's budgets and they have agreed to levy fines on countries that run excessive budget deficits, giving them fiscal oversight authority.  

The next step would be to take a country into receivership when its political leaders or its parliament cannot implement sound budgetary policies approved by the EU. The action would have democratic accountability if it were approved by the European Council of EU heads of states and the elected European Parliament, he said.  

The idea earned a warm reception from leading economists and prominent Europeans attending the session. 

"It is a very radical proposal, couched as a modest step," said Richard Cooper, international economist at Harvard.  

Caio Koch Weser, former German economics minister, said he found it "very attractive" because it addresses the problem of a strong European Central Bank, a weak European Commission which acts as the EU's executive branch, and a confused European Council, which provides political leadership.  

Aparentemente, a ideia de Trichet é dar ao Parlamento Europeu e ao Conselho Europeu (aquela reunião - normalmente de 6 em 6 meses - entre o presidente de França e os primeiros-ministros dos outros países da UE) poder para assumir a gestão das finanças de algum país-membro se o acharem necessário. Ele diz que isso é "democrático"; mas será?

Para mim, os habitantes de cada país (ou, pelo menos, os seus representantes) decidirem a politica económica de cada país é (relativamente) democrático; o conjunto dos habitantes da UE (ou, pelo menos, os seus representantes) decidirem a politica económica do conjunto da UE também seria (relativamente) democrático; já não me parece que fosse "democrático" a politica económica de algum (ou alguns) país(es) especifico(s) ser decidida por órgãos supostamente representativos do conjunto dos habitantes da UE - mesmo que aceitássemos que o Conselho Europeu e o PE são efectivamente representativos dos povos da UE (o que já de sí é duvidoso), estaria-se a violar o principio do governo exercido pelos governados, já que os "governados" seriam os cidadãos do países A, B e C e o "governo" seriam os representantes dos cidadãos dos países A, B, C, D, E, F...

[Post publicado no Vias de Facto; podem comentar lá]

Um movimento a seguir com atenção

Manifesto of the Pirate Party of Germany: English Version

Translated by: Emal Ghamsharik and Julia Reda April 10th 2012 

website: Piratenpartei Deutschland

Agreed on at the founding Meeting on September 10th 2006 in Berlin. The Chapter „Education“ was added at the federal party conference 2009 on 5.7.2009 in Hamburg. The chapters „Risking more democracy“ and „Free, democratically controlled technical infrastructure“ were were added at 16.5.2010 in Bingen, the Section „Equality of Software“ was removed there. The Resolutions of the second federal party conference 2010 on 20./21. November 2010 in Chemnitz were added as well. The Chapters „For more diversity“ (originally separated in different single petitions), „Drug Policy“, „Addiction Policy“, the Subchapter „Open Contracts with Businesses“, the extension of the Chapter „Open Access to public Content“ and the Chapter „Abolishment of compulsory membership in chambers and associations (excepting associations for lawyers, notaries and physicians)“ were agreed upon on December 3th/4th 2011 at the federal party conference in Offenbach.

• PDF Version

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• 1 Preamble
• 2 Risking more democracy
  • 2.1 More participation
  • 2.2 Identifying new ways
  • 2.3 Reinforcing separation of powers and freedom
  • 2.4 More democratic elections
• 3 Copyright and non-commercial reproduction
  • 3.1 No restrictions on copying
  • 3.2 Free copying and free use
  • 3.3 Promotion of culture
  • 3.4 Reconciling interests between originators and the public
• 4 Patenting
  • 4.1 Opening of markets and dismantling of private monopolies
  • 4.2 Patents in the information society
• 5 Free, democratically controlled technical infrastructure
  • 5.1 Open standards
  • 5.2 Free software
• 6 Participation in digital life
  • 6.1 Access to digital communication
  • 6.2 Possible uses of digital communication
  • 6.3 Learning how to use digital technology
  • 6.4 Digital society worldwide
• 7 Privacy and data protection
  • 7.1 Privacy
  • 7.2 Informational self-determination
• 8 Transparency of the state
  • 8.1 Open contracts with businesses
• 9 Open access to public content
• 10 Education
  • 10.1 Education in a free democratic society
  • 10.2 The public education infrastructure
  • 10.3 Education as an individual process
  • 10.4 Democratization of educational facilities
  • 10.5 Early childhood education
  • 10.6 Media skills
  • 10.7 Learning goals instead of curricula
• 11 Right to secure livelihood and social participation
• 12 Gender and family policy
  • 12.1 Free self-determination of gender and sexual identity/orientation
  • 12.2 World-wide acknowledgment and protection of self-determined gender
  • 12.3 Free self-determination of cohabitation
  • 12.4 Free self-determination and support for families
• 13 Environment
  • 13.1 Sustainability (freedom for later generations)
  • 13.2 Livable environment (protecting livelihoods)
  • 13.3 Use of resources
  • 13.4 Energy policy
• 14 For more diversity
  • 14.1 Migration enriches society
    • 14.1.1 The development of the European Union also leads to the completely free movement of its citizens
    • 14.1.2 Discrimination of labor migrants for several generations is inhumane
    • 14.1.3 Europe needs economic migration
    • 14.1.4 Providing asylum from persecution and war
  • 14.2 Separation of state and religion
  • 14.3 United against racism
• 15 Drug policy
  • 15.1 New drug policy
  • 15.2 Regulation, help and guidance instead of punishment
  • 15.3 Protection of minors
  • 15.4 Research and medicine
• 16 Addiction policy
  • 16.1 Comprehensive, ideology-free education
  • 16.2 Responsibility and a culture of consumption
  • 16.3 Protection of minors and consumers
  • 16.4 Help for high-risk consumers
  • 16.5 Protection of non-consumers
• 17 Protection of whistleblowers
  • 17.1 Preamble
  • 17.2 Protection of whistleblowers
• 18 Law
• 19 Laws for freedom of information
• 20 Abolishment of compulsory membership in chambers and associations (excepting associations for lawyers, notaries and physicians)

[Os links para os vários pontos do manifesto não estavam a funcionar mas agora já estão]

A pirataria estimula a venda de música?

Um professor da Universidade da Carolina do Norte acha que sim:

Profit Leak? Pre-Release File Sharing and the Music Industry, por Robert G. Hammond.

Abstract:

It is intuitive that the potential for buyers to obtain a good without remuneration can harm the producer of the good. I test if this holds empirically in the music industry using data from an exclusive file-sharing website that allows users to share music files using the BitTorrent protocol. These are the most reliable file-sharing data available because they are from a private tracker, which is an invitation-only file-sharing network. The number of downloads is endogenous due to unobserved album quality, leading me to use an instrumental variable approach. In particular, I exploit exogenous variation in the availability of sound recordings in file-sharing networks to isolate the causal effect of file sharing of an album on its sales. The results strongly suggest that an album benefits from increased file sharing: an album that became available in file-sharing networks one month earlier would sell 60 additional units. This increase is sales is small relative to other factors that have been found to affect album sales. I conclude with an investigation of the distributional effects of file sharing on sales and find that file sharing benefits more established and popular artists but not newer and smaller artists. These results are consistent with recent trends in the music industry.

[Via Exame Informática, Boy Genious Report e TorrentFreak]

Os gregos querem mesmo ficar no euro?

Têm sido frequentemente referidas sondagens inidcando que cerca de 80% dos gregos querem permanecer no euro. Mas é mesmo isso que as sondagens indicam?

De acordo com esta sondagem, a opinião dos gregos será (tradução do Keep Talking Greece):

54% say “stay in Euro with sacrifices up to a certain extend, otherwise back to drachma”


34% say “Euro at any cost”

7% say “return to Drachma now”

5% say “Don’t know/Don’t answer”

Pode ser lido como "quase 90% dos gregos querem ficar no euro", mas há outras leituras possíveis.

O que é mais importante: movimentos sociais ou governantes?

The Strength of a Movement Is More Important Than the Warmth of a President's Heart, por Jesse Walker (Reason Hit and Run):

As I've said more than once, I'm less interested in electing officials who agree with me than in building movements that can pressure officials who don't agree with me. From January 2009 til yesterday, the president of the United States almost certainly agreed with the supporters of gay marriage but he wasn't willing to say so in public, thanks to the potential pressure to be felt from the other side. Then gay-rights activists organized some pressure of their own, and they got results.

(...) It isn't a big victory. But it's a victory, and it's a lesson in how victories are often achieved -- one that activists around other issues, such as the drug war, can learn from. At any rate, with gay marriage the most important battleground has always been the culture, not the government.

Mercado de Justiça

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A Maldade das Obras de Estado?

Maldade Das Obras De Estado, por Pedro Bandeira.

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