"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]
Friday, July 30, 2010
O homem mais idoso de Tóquio
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 15:30 0 comentários
Etiquetas: temas algo peculiares
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?
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 12:10 0 comentários
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
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"
Publicada por CN em 22:03 3 comentários
Etiquetas: Textos de Carlos Novais
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
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).
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 15:31 1 comentários
Friday, July 23, 2010
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.
Publicada por CN em 08:41 0 comentários
Etiquetas: teoria dos ciclos na economia, Textos de Carlos Novais
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Mais um terrível vídeo sobre o extremismo islâmico do Hamas em Gaza
Publicada por CN em 10:22 1 comentários
Etiquetas: Textos de Carlos Novais, Wars4StatusQuo
Coisas sobre o sistema monetário que temos
Publicada por CN em 09:19 0 comentários
Etiquetas: Textos de Carlos Novais
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.
Publicada por CN em 09:09 0 comentários
Etiquetas: Textos de Carlos Novais
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
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.Hungary IMF talks suspended, Finantial Times, 18/07/2010:
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.
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.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?
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.”
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 13:51 0 comentários
Bosnian Lessons by Gordon N. Bardos
Publicada por CN em 08:17 2 comentários
Etiquetas: Textos de Carlos Novais, Wars4StatusQuo
Monday, July 19, 2010
Aguardam-se as saudações da direita proibicionista
Publicada por CN em 10:07 3 comentários
Etiquetas: Textos de Carlos Novais
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Polansky - abuso de menores ou violação?
Ainda a respeito do caso de violação em que Roman Polansky este envolvido há 30 e tal anos, parece estar a criar-se a ideia que o realizador não foi acusado de "rape" (violação) mas sim "statutory rape" (sexo - consentido - com menores) - veja-se, p.ex., este comentário a um post do Arrastão ("Mais: não foi violação, mas sexo consentido. Aos 13, não se saber discernir se queremos ir para a cama com alguém? Há quem saiba.").
Não - o que a vítima acusou mesmo Polansky foi de violação. As declarações de Samantha Geimer ao "Grande Júri" (penso que uma espécie de "Tribunal de Instrução Criminal"):
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 17:05 0 comentários
Friday, July 16, 2010
Equação da inflação
Equação da Inflação = Estado emite dívida (a taxas de 3% a 4% ou 5%) + Bancos compram dívida + BCE financia Bancos (a taxas de 0.5 %)
Publicada por CN em 09:06 0 comentários
Etiquetas: Textos de Carlos Novais
Rafael Correa do Equador vs. índios
Spearheading dissent, em The Economist:
Indigenous groups accuse a radical president of selling outDiga-se que este me parece o género de conflitos que há uns anos atrás servia visto como uma oposição entre a "velha esquerda" (pró-industria pesada, estatista) e a "nova esquerda" (ecológica, comunitária/autogestionária).
(...)
WHEN Rafael Correa is mentioned in the foreign press, he is usually bracketed with Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and Bolivia’s Evo Morales as part of the leftist Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA). Yet whereas Mr Morales is Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Mr Correa has turned Ecuador’s indigenous movement against him. Last month, at an ALBA summit in Ecuador on racial diversity, Mr Chávez and Mr Morales saw hundreds of protesters bearing wooden spears break through security cordons and chant “Correa, racist, false socialist”.
(...)
During the 2006 election, indigenous groups gravitated to his anti-imperialist rhetoric. But they have since rebelled over his policies on resource extraction. Mr Correa supports open-cast mining to raise public revenues, which he says would be spent on social programmes. Indigenous leaders, citing a court case against Chevron, an American oil company, for up to $27 billion in environmental damage, fear further pollution. Similarly, Mr Correa backed a proposed water reform that would have given a new state agency control over irrigation resources. This caused a backlash from villages that manage their own water.
The combative Mr Correa has treated his former supporters little better than he does foreign bondholders. He has called Marlon Santi, the president of the indigenous umbrella group, “incompetent”, and referred to protests over potential oil exploration as “foolish”. His government tried to shut down the Shuar people’s radio station last year after it allegedly encouraged listeners to “bring their spears” to a protest. And following the skirmish at the ALBA summit, where a policeman lost a pair of handcuffs in the mêlée, the demonstrators’ leaders were called to testify in a terrorism inquiry.
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 01:42 1 comentários
Os assassinios de sindicalistas na Venezuela
Washington Post (via Bloggings by boz):
Though Colombia, with its slow-burning conflict, has historically recorded the most union slayings in the world, Venezuela appears to have surpassed its neighbor in the past two years and registered more.Já agora, ver também estes artigos do laclase.info.
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 01:28 0 comentários
Chomsky, conservador (ou "conservative")?
No site ultra-conservador Takimag, Charles Glass escreve sobre o que ele considera ser o "Inner Conservative" em Noam Chomsky ("since the death of Senator Barry Goldwater, no one is more deserving than Noam Chomsky of the title Mr. Conservative"), sugerindo que é por isso que o establishment "liberal" (i.e., de centro-esquerda) não o aprecia. No entanto, penso que esse raciocinio só fará sentido adoptando uma definição muito peculiar de "conservador" (grande parte das posições de Chomsky que ele considera "conservative" também poderão ser, e talvez melhor, consideradas "libertarian"; mas um post chamado Chomsky’s Inner Libertarian não teria grande apelo, já que ele efectivamente se diz "libertarian", ainda que atribuindo um sentido diferente à palavra).
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 01:14 0 comentários
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Peter Schiff Was Right 2006 - 2007 (2nd Edition)
Em resposta a um post de João Galamba mostrando e criticando uma intervenção actual de Peter Schiff vamos lá rever o célebre: "Peter Schiff Was Right 2006 - 2007 (2nd Edition)"
Publicada por CN em 11:19 0 comentários
Etiquetas: teoria dos ciclos na economia, Textos de Carlos Novais
Criminalizar a mentira (ou será as meias mentiras?)
Negócios.pt: "Boatos contra empresas na Internet dão até dois anos de prisão: Código Penal prevê crime de “ofensa a organismo, serviço ou pessoa colectiva” para quem difunde rumores como o que começou a circular sobre o BCP."
Publicada por CN em 09:33 1 comentários
Etiquetas: Textos de Carlos Novais
Realidade e ficção
http://squid314.livejournal.com/275614.html
O autor, após apontar várias incongruências na série Doctor Who, refere uma série ainda mais implausível que passa frequentemente no History Channel:
Let's start with the bad guys. Battalions of stormtroopers dressed in all black, check. Secret police, check. Determination to brutally kill everyone who doesn't look like them, check. Leader with a tiny villain mustache and a tendency to go into apopleptic rage when he doesn't get his way, check. All this from a country that was ordinary, believable, and dare I say it sometimes even sympathetic in previous seasons.[Via Ken MacLeod]
I wouldn't even mind the lack of originality if they weren't so heavy-handed about it. Apparently we're supposed to believe that in the middle of the war the Germans attacked their allies the Russians, starting an unwinnable conflict on two fronts, just to show how sneaky and untrustworthy they could be? And that they diverted all their resources to use in making ever bigger and scarier death camps, even in the middle of a huge war? Real people just aren't that evil. And that's not even counting the part where as soon as the plot requires it, they instantly forget about all the racism nonsense and become best buddies with the definitely non-Aryan Japanese.
(...)
Probably the worst part was the ending. The British/German story arc gets boring, so they tie it up quickly, have the villain kill himself (on Walpurgisnacht of all days, not exactly subtle) and then totally switch gears to a battle between the Americans and the Japanese in the Pacific. Pretty much the same dichotomy - the Japanese kill, torture, perform medical experiments on prisoners, and frickin' play football with the heads of murdered children, and the Americans are led by a kindly old man in a wheelchair.
Anyway, they spend the whole season building up how the Japanese home islands are a fortress, and the Japanese will never surrender, and there's no way to take the Japanese home islands because they're invincible...and then they realize they totally can't have the Americans take the Japanese home islands so they have no way to wrap up the season.
So they invent a completely implausible superweapon that they've never mentioned until now. Apparently the Americans got some scientists together to invent it, only we never heard anything about it because it was "classified". In two years, the scientists manage to invent a weapon a thousand times more powerful than anything anyone's ever seen before - drawing from, of course, ancient mystical texts. Then they use the superweapon, blow up several Japanese cities easily, and the Japanese surrender. Convenient, isn't it?
...and then, in the entire rest of the show, over five or six different big wars, they never use the superweapon again. Seriously. They have this whole thing about a war in Vietnam that lasts decades and kills tens of thousands of people, and they never wonder if maybe they should consider using the frickin' unstoppable mystical superweapon that they won the last war with. At this point, you're starting to wonder if any of the show's writers have even watched the episodes the other writers made.
I'm not even going to get into the whole subplot about breaking a secret code (cleverly named "Enigma", because the writers couldn't spend more than two seconds thinking up a name for an enigmatic code), the giant superintelligent computer called Colossus (despite this being years before the transistor was even invented), the Soviet strongman whose name means "Man of Steel" in Russian (seriously, between calling the strongman "Man of Steel" and the Frenchman "de Gaulle", whoever came up with the names for this thing ought to be shot).
So yeah. Stay away from the History Channel. Unlike most of the other networks, they don't even try to make their stuff believable.
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 01:32 0 comentários
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
WWI - História - Pormenores
Sobre o papel de Woodrow Wilson em forçar a abdicação do Kaiser (com os resultado que conhecemos na futura república), e enquadrado este meu interesse no argumento que Wilson forçou ou contribuiu também para abdicação da monarquia Austríaca (abrindo caminho lógico para uma grande Alemanha), e pelo caminho contribuiu para a queda da Czar (insistência em permanecer da Guerra, coisa que fez depois com Kerensky)... e com os resultados conhecidos.
Wikipedia - Wilhelm II, German Emperor
"October 1918 telegrams
The third German telegram was sent on 20 October. Wilson's reply on 23 October contained the following:
If the Government of the United States must deal with the military masters and the monarchical autocrats of Germany now, or if it is likely to have to deal with them later in regard to the international obligations of the German Empire, it must demand not peace negotiations but surrender. Nothing can be gained by leaving this essential thing unsaid.
—[Emil Ludwig, Wilhelm Hohenzollern (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1927), p. 489]
According to Czernin [p. 9]:
... Prince Hohenlohe, serving as councilor in the German Legation in Berne, Switzerland, cabled the German Foreign Office that 'a confidential informant has informed me that the conclusion of the Wilson note of 23 October refers to nothing less than the abdication of the Kaiser as the only way to a peace which is more or less tolerable."
Publicada por CN em 12:43 0 comentários
Etiquetas: Textos de Carlos Novais
Monday, July 12, 2010
Como um polvo pode prever o resultado de jogos de futebol
Imagino duas possíveis hipoteses:
1ª -
Vamos supor que o polvo tem tendência a abrir primeiro a caixa que tem uma bandeira conhecida na tampa (já que já sabe que as caixas com essa bandeira se conseguem abrir); ao fim de vários anos a "prever" jogos de futebol, ele estará mais habituado às bandeiras das melhores selecções do que às das piores (porquê? porque, devido ao sistema de eliminatórias, as melhores selecções jogam mais jogos). Assim, como ele tenderá a abrir primeiro a caixa com a bandeira de uma selecção "boa", há uma forte probabilidade de abrir a caixa correspondente ao futuro vencedor (este modelo tem um ponto fraco - ele está habituadissimo à bandeira alemã, mas abrir a caixa com a bandeira espanhola no jogo Alemanha-Espanha; no entanto, a semelhança entre as duas bandeiras - ambas têm três faixas horizontais, e as cores vermelha e amarela - pode ter algo a ver com isso)
2ª -
Imagine-se que, por todo o mundo, há gente a querer ver se os seus bichinhos acertam nos resultados dos jogos; a probabilidade de acertarem nos resultados de 8 jogos de seguida é muito pequena - 0.4%. Mas, se existirem 200 animais a serem testados, provavelmente um terá acertado sempre, por puro acaso; mas como só esse se torna famoso (e ninguém chega a ouvir falar dos outros 199), parece um fenómeno.
Questão adicional - será que eu devia ter perguntado à Kika (que desde a morte do Cinza tem andando deprimida) os resultados dos jogos?
Leitura adicional - Acerca da dificuldade de identificar um "bom gestor" (post meu no Vias de Facto)
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 01:12 0 comentários
Friday, July 09, 2010
Monday, July 05, 2010
Despesa pública e desigualdade de rendimentos
Publicada por Miguel Madeira em 10:00 0 comentários