Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, em viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas.
O que é este blog?
Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida;
Meu Twitter: https://twitter.com/PauloAlmeida53
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paulobooks
sexta-feira, 6 de setembro de 2013
A Russia perdeu um seculo inteiro (o Brasil vai fazer o mesmo?) - Alexei Bayer
quinta-feira, 9 de maio de 2013
Ferguson vs Keynes: Economic (Im)Possibilities of Our Grandchildren - The Globalist
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Harvard
historian Niall Ferguson recently asserted that John Maynard Keynes was
indifferent to the long-term consequences of deficit spending because Keynes
was gay and childless — and thus didn't care about future generations.
Ferguson apologized for his remarks. But he might not have made them in the
first place if he had read — as you can below — Keynes' "Economic Possibilities
for Our Grandchildren."
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sexta-feira, 1 de fevereiro de 2013
A globalizacao e a pobreza no mundo - The Globalist
Já escrevi alguns artigos sobre a redução da pobreza em nível mundial, apoiando-me nos trabalhos do economista catalão da Columbia University, Xavier Sala-i-Martin. Os interessados nesses meus trabalhos podem buscar no meu site (www.pralmeida.org) pelas palavras-chave "pobreza", "redução", ou pelo nome do economista, creio.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
The Globalist Quiz > Global Economy
Marketplace Globalist Quiz: How Poverty Shrinks Globally
By The Globalist | Thursday, January 31, 2013
The developed world's attention seems to shift all too briefly to the fight against poverty in the developing world. There are signs of progress in this fight, but there are also concerns about the impact of the global financial crisis. We wonder: What is the share of the population of developing countries that now lives in extreme poverty?
Answers:
A. Over half
B. About one-third
C. About one-fifth
A. Over half is not correct.
As recently a 1981, 52.2% of the population living in developing countries lived in extreme poverty. The World Bank defines this status as people living on no more than $1.25 a day (in constant dollars). Back in 1981, the total number of people living in extreme poverty was 1.94 billion.
Even today, the level of extreme poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa is still around that level, at 47% as of 2008 (the latest data available). However, many countries around the world — not just China, as is often assumed — have made big strides in reducing poverty levels.
Mexico's extreme poverty rate, for example, fell from 19% in 1999 to only 5%. And even in Ethiopia, Africa's second most-populous country, the level of extreme poverty fell by over 30 percentage points in a decade, from 86% in 1999 to 54% in 2008.
B. About one-third is not correct.
As recently a 1999, 34.7% of the population in developing countries lived in extreme poverty. That year, the total number of very poor people was 1.74 billion. The decline in percentage terms is all the more impressive, as the size of the developing world's population has increased by about 2.3 billion people since 1981, or by 66%.
Still, in the developing world outside China, the absolute number of people in extreme poverty — at 1.1 billion — is still the same as it was in 1981. While that number was on the rise in the 1980s and 1990s, it has been falling since 1999.
In the Middle East, extreme poverty is down to 2.7% of the population. In East Asia, it is down to about 14%, and in South Asia 36%.
C. About one-fifth is correct.
As of 2008, 22.4% of the population in developing countries — or 1.29 billion people — lived in extreme poverty. That is roughly equivalent to the current population of China.
Indications are that the steady decline of extreme poverty in the developing world has not been halted by the global financial crisis. It is estimated that the incidence of extreme poverty in developing countries had fallen to 20% by 2010.
That would not only move another 100 million people out of extreme poverty, but also mean that the first of the UN's Millennium Development Goals — cutting extreme poverty in half from its 1990 level — can been achieved before the 2015 deadline. Moreover, the absolute number of extremely poor people in developing countries is steadily decreasing to the one-billion level.
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terça-feira, 25 de dezembro de 2012
The Globalist's Top Books of 2012
December 25, 2012
From the legacy of British colonialism and the possibility of Hitler's assassination to Turkey's role in the Arab Middle East and Afghanistan's cotton fields, The Globalist Bookshelf crisscrossed the world and spanned centuries of history in 2012. As a year-end special, we present ten of the best books featured on The Globalist this year (along with five others for good measure).
1. Ghosts of Empire: Britain's Legacies in the Modern World
By Kwasi Kwarteng
Excerpt: How has the British and U.S. to desire to control Iraqi oil shaped the
country's recent history?
2. Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super-Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
By Chrystia Freeland
Excerpt: Why have Americans been so tolerant of the rising gulf between rich and poor?
3. Who Stole the American Dream?
By Hedrick Smith
Excerpt: Why has the American Dream slipped out of the reach of more and more of the middle class?
4. Waging War on Corruption: Inside the Movement Fighting the Abuse of Power
By Frank Vogl
Excerpt: How can transparency help end the fleecing of resource-rich countries by their corrupt leaders?
5. Economics After the Crisis: Objectives and Means
By Adair Turner
Excerpt: Why do economists — and the policymakers who heed their advice — need to reconsider the conventional wisdoms of their profession?
6. Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity
By Lester Brown
Excerpt: What can be done to help those on the lower rungs of the global economic ladder cope with rising food prices?
7. The Economics of Enough: How to Run the Economy as If the Future Matters
By Diane Coyle
Excerpt: What policies should governments focus on to ensure that future generations live at least well as the current generation?
8. Borrow: The American Way of Debt
By Louis Hyman
Excerpt: What is "patriotic" about cutting taxes for the rich? And how is the middle class "empowered" by piling up mountains of debt?
9. The Revenge of Geography
By Robert D. Kaplan
Excerpt: Will water make Turkey a greater power in the Arab Middle East in the 21st century than it was in the 20th?
10. Hitlerland: American Eyewitnesses to the Nazi Rise to Power
By Andrew Nagorski
Excerpt: How did Hitler's relationship with a young American woman change history in the 20th century?
Honorable mention:
Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy
By William H. Janeway
Excerpt: Can the United States muster the will to step into the 21st century world of energy?
Bull by the Horns
By Sheila Bair
Excerpt: Mitt Romney badly lost the women's vote. But are Republicans the only party with a "woman problem?"
Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Excerpt: Why would USAID not get behind an effort to turn Afghan farmers from poppy to cotton?
No One's World
By Charles A. Kupchan
Excerpt: Western dominance will wane in the 21st century, but what will take its place?
Exits from the Rat Race
By Robert Skidelsky and Edward Skidelsky
Excerpt: How did mid-century concerns about economic fairness give way to today's crisis-prone, Darwinian capitalism?
For a complete listing of books featured on The Globalist Bookshelf in 2012, click here.
Copyright © 2000-2012 The Globalist | 1100 17th Street, NW, Suite 605, Washington, DC 20036
sexta-feira, 30 de novembro de 2012
Brazil and India compared with each other ??? My God !!! (only in the mess...)
Acredito que o Brasil deve diminuir sua caótica situação doméstica em menos tempo do que isso: talvez só mais uns 150 anos...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
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ndia
has its reasons for self-confidence. By many indicators, from the
number of TV sets in the hands of consumers to the number of cars on the
road, to the large and increasingly young population, India does indeed
look much like China of the 1990s.
While China has summoned the willpower to produce a new round of landmark economic reforms every four or five years for some decades now, the once-dynamic reform cycle stopped in Brazil back in the 1970s. After that, the dynamism and optimism the world associated with the then-very modern buildings of Brasilia, its new capital city, began to languish. Brazil became self-absorbed and, before long, fell off the list of up-and-coming economies and entered the abyss of having to contend with one of the worst bouts of hyperinflation the world had ever seen. Both India and Brazil are "high-context" societies, a term popularized by the anthropologist Edward Hall. It describes cultures in which people are colorful, noisy, quick to make promises that cannot always be relied on, and a bit too casual about meeting times and deadlines. These societies also tend to be particularly family-oriented, with tight relationships even beyond the immediate family, based on close ties that are built over long periods of time. In an environment this familiar, there is a lot that goes unsaid — or is said very briefly — because values are deeply shared. By the same token, much is implicitly understood from context. The spoken word is often flowery and vague. Apologies are long and formal. In that regard, Indians and Brazilians are a lot more like Italians than, say, Germans.
India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, is fond of remarking that whatever can be said about his country, the exact opposite is also true. There is something to this — India is rife with contradictions, no doubt. But his remark also represents a convenient form of high-context analysis. It is a way of avoiding overt confrontation with hard facts — or with the side of India that could drag it down. A passage to IndiaOf course, Brazil and India are far from the only high-context cultures. This kind of social interaction is typical in much of Asia and Latin America. Yet I am convinced that there is a particular bond between Brazil and India. I feel it all the time when I visit these countries. The parallels range from the late dining habits and colorful personalities to casual informality and cultural choices.Attesting to this is that fact that the most popular soap opera in Brazil in recent time has been "A Passage to India." This is a Brazilian-Indian love story, filmed in the Indian cities of Agra and Jodhpur, and in which Brazilian actors play the Indian roles and pass easily for North Indians. To Indians who have seen it, the show is right on the mark in terms of look, mood and even lighting. At the same time, Indians and Brazilians are only very loosely aware of their connection, if at all. And yet the mutual admiration and emulation society works in some very ephemeral ways.
Social media habits and preferences aside, there is also a distinct Indo-Brazilian connection in politics. This is visible in the desire for state protection from life's risks — social welfare for the nation as one big in-group — to a degree that is rarely found in other high-context societies, such as China and Chile. The political elites of India and Brazil share a deep fondness for welfare-state liberalism. In addition, both countries' populations demand high levels of income support — even though their economies do not yet generate the necessary revenue to support a welfare state. Per capita income is about $12,000 in Brazil and only $1,400 in India. Brazil offered what was probably the emerging world's most generous, yet strategically placed and effective welfare program — the Bolsa Familia income supports. Not to be outdone, India's governing Congress Party has lately turned to generous spending in an effort to recover the political backing it lost in recent decades to an array of regional parties. In 2005, it pushed through the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), which guarantees the rural poor a hundred days of public-sector employment each year, at an annual cost to the Indian Treasury of nearly $10 billion. It was easy enough for India to increase spending in the midst of a global boom, but the spending has continued to rise in the post-crisis period. Inspired by the popularity of the employment guarantees, the government now plans to spend the same amount extending food subsidies to the poor.
Furthermore, under the current regime of drift in India, crony capitalism has become a real worry. Widespread corruption is an old problem, but the situation has now reached a stage where the decisive factor in any business deal is the right government connection. When I made this observation in a September 2010 Newsweek International cover story titled "India's Fatal Flaw," I was treated as a party spoiler. Top government officials in India told me that such cronyism is just a normal step in development, citing the example of the robber barons in 19th-century America. Since 2010, the issue has exploded in a series of high-profile scandals, ranging from rigged sales of wireless spectrum to the shoddy construction of facilities for the Commonwealth Games that India hosted that year. India's place in Transparency International's annual corruption perception index fell to 88 out of 178 nations in 2010. That was down from 74 in 2007. (A lower rank indicates higher official corruption.) India is approaching the point that Latin America and parts of East Asia reached in the 1990s. That was also the point in those countries when a backlash started to build against continued economic reforms — because any opening up of the economy was tragically, but not without reason, seen to favor just a select few. That delayed true growth strategies, which were very much needed to benefit the population at large, for well over a decade in many places.
But destiny can never be taken for granted. India's policymakers cannot assume that demographics will triumph and that problems such as rising crony capitalism and increased welfare spending are just sideshows instead of major challenges. These are, after all, exactly the factors that have prematurely choked growth in other emerging markets. Editor's note: This article is adapted from Breakout Nations: In Pursuit of the Next Economic Miracles (W.W. Norton & Co.) by Ruchir Sharma. Published by arrangement with the author. Copyright © 2012 by Ruchir Sharma. |
Brazil's Strategy for Economic and Social Sustainability -Brazil's Strategy for Economic and Social Sustainabilityds
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n
Brazil, the mood is very different from Europe. We don't have a
recession, we have mild growth. Of course, we don't have the same high
standards of living as either Europe or the United States.
That was a hard lesson. The first thing the new president, Dilma Rousseff, upon being inaugurated in January 2011 was to rein in fiscal expenditures. This, of course, coincided with a global economic slump. It is therefore no surprise that Brazil's growth slowed from 7.5% to around 2.5% to 3%. Our new president has also come under pressure from some of her own party's core constituencies — in particular, public-sector unions — to raise wages well in excess of current inflation. President Rousseff could have taken the easy path and said, "Well, let me raise wages by 5%, 7% or even 10%, while inflation is 4%." One might have expected her to give in to that demand — she is a socialist, after all. But she did not do that. She resisted. The impression that I get from what is happening in some other parts of the world is that political leaders do not have the courage to resist the excessive demands of the public sector. It is conveniently forgotten that someone always has to pay the bills. The European Union started out with countries that had very good credit positions and that could raise debt quite easily in the markets. Now, Europe faces a crisis whose root is not only financial, but concerns the ability to compete. There are clear downsides to the European consensus that growth shouldn't be measured just in terms of increases in GDP. One also has to be aware that if GDP basically "grows" at 0% for ten years, while other parts of the world are experiencing 5% or 9% growth in GDP, then one will become increasingly irrelevant.
At the present time, we are halfway between making most of the hard choices we need to make - and not doing so. Of course, an inclination to make half-decisions is the nature of things everywhere. We try to avoid the worst scenarios and then play according to those constraints. But the important matter is that we have to be ready to discuss the consequences of our partial inaction. If we do not do so, then things can become unmanageable quickly. This is especially true when it comes to matters such as the environment, trade (including protectionism), monetary policy, income distribution and access to energy. On each of these big agenda items, we are dealing with a dynamic process. We will have to choose between short-term and the long-term goals. Ultimately, the nature of politicians and the citizenry alike is to try and delay those decisions. The political and economic reality, especially in an integrating world economy, is if you don't make your choices, they will be made for you. They will arrive at your doorstep whether you want them to or not. The dynamic nature of this process is very interesting. You may be a loser in the short run, and you may be winning in the long run. There is a problem of credibility in the game. But if we have processes that entail faith and credibility among players, it is much easier. If we don't have those, it will be much more difficult.
The choice we face is between gambling our very existence on living in a world under climactic conditions that we have never known or not. The rational choice would be not to do that. On the other hand, given the very strong geopolitical competition that is going on for access of markets and access to natural resources, we are inclined not to devote any resources to anything but making gains in those arenas. Someone has to start playing the card of comparative gain rather than playing the card of non-cooperation. Other nations have to join this game and realize that this non-maximization is the best path. We have to be smart enough to think of what could happen to the world a few years from now if we don't change course. Are we going to continue on a path the consequences of which are going to be very difficult to repair within ten years? In my view, the best approach is to focus on two or three topics that represent the most important constraints on everyone, whether it is trade, labor mobility, technology transfer or the protection of our environment. If at least we could do that, much would be gained. Solutions, preferably market-based, will come soon afterwards. To be sure, each region and each country will have its own solutions according to its own politics, but the world as a whole will become more maneuverable. The way in which we are currently trying to proceed — by trying to interact on everything — is bound to make progress on anything impossible.
Measured against that mark, we Brazilians feel that we are moving in the right direction and are making a positive global contribution. We have learned the core lesson from our not-so-distant past. The border between being lax on dealing with pressing realities and falling into the trap of self-delusion is very thin. |
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