A India sob nova direcao: vai dar certo? - Le Monde

En Inde, les défis qui attendent Narendra Modi

Le Monde.fr | 16.05.2014 à 19h41Par Amandine Sanial

Narendra Modi, le leader du parti nationaliste hindou est en passe de devenir le nouveau premier ministre de l'Inde.

Son parti, le Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a remporté une victoire écrasante au terme de « la plus grande élection du monde », qui a mobilisé près de 551 millions d'électeurs après cinq semaines de vote, du 7 avril au 12 mai. Son triomphe met fin à la dynastie usée de Manmohan Singh et le parti du Congrès, au pouvoir depuis dix ans. 

• Qui est Narendra Modi ?

A la tête du BJP, le parti du peuple indien donné vainqueur selon les premiers décomptes effectués vendredi 16 mai, Narendra Modi s’apprête à remporter une victoire écrasante aux législatives. Son parti dépasserait la majorité absolue des 272 sièges sur 543 à la chambre basse du parlement, la « Lok Sabha ».

Modi est issu d’une famille pauvre de la communauté des ghanchis, groupe hindoue située au bas de l’échelle sociale. Adepte du yoga et végétarien strict, il a été imprégné de l'idéologie nationaliste hindoue lors de sa jeunesse passée au sein du Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), une organisation aux méthodes paramilitaires.

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Le RSS, qui défend une conception intransigeante de l’hindouisme, a été interdit plusieurs fois depuis l'indépendance et ses cadres font souvent preuve d'hostilité envers les musulmans, la plus grande minorité religieuse de l’Inde (14 % de lapopulation, contre 80 % d’hindous).

Lire notre portrait de Narendra Modi, hindou à l'extrême ?

• Pourquoi une victoire aussi nette ?

Face à l'arrogance des élites, Modi représente l'homme du peuple s'imposant par son seul labeur. Sa campagne repose essentiellement sur le bilan économique de son Etat du Gujarat, grâce auquel il s'est constitué une force de soutien chez les entrepreneurs et les chefs des grandes entreprises, leur promettant de relancerl'économie tout en réduisant la corruption.

Au-delà des nationalistes hindous, il a aussi rallié les classes moyennes et une partie des plus pauvres qui votaient traditionnellement pour le Congrès et ses programmes sociaux.

En face, le jeune candidat du Parti du Congrès, Rahul Gandhi, héritier de la dynastie Nehru-Gandhi, a subi une défaite cuisante en payant par les votes son manque de charisme et d’expérience, usé par des scandales de corruption à répétition et incapable de relancer la croissance du pays. La victoire du parti nationaliste marque donc un profond changement et une « nouvelle ère » après dix ans de pouvoir du Parti du Congrès.

• Pourquoi inspire-t-il des inquiétudes ?

A 63 ans, Narendra Modi incarne l'aile dure de son parti, suscitant la méfiance y compris dans son propre camp. Son arrivée au pouvoir fait d’ailleurs craindre une montée du nationalisme et la fin du pluralisme religieux, tout en ravivant le souvenirdes émeutes antimusulmanes orchestrées par des extrémistes hindous.

Le Parti du Congrès accuse notamment Narendra Modi de l’absence de réaction des forces de l’ordre dans les sanglantes émeutes intercommunautaires qui avaient secoué son Etat du Gujarat en 2002. Plus d'un millier de personnes, essentiellement des musulmans, avaient été tuées. L'Inde est officiellement un Etat laïc qui reconnaît et respecte toutes les religions, mais avec Modi au pouvoir, il faut s'attendre à ce que « l’hindouisation de l’Etat » s’accélère aux dépens des minorités religieuses.

• Quels défis attendent le nouveau régime ?

Dans un contexte de ralentissement de la croissance économique – après une décennie à plus de 9 %, elle a atteint 4,6 % en 2013 – et de hausse des prix, Modi devra faire à de nombreux défis hérités de l’ancienne coalition : sur le plan économique, il aura d’abord la lourde tâche de relancer la machine économique en espérant que son passé de dirigeant nationaliste hindou controversé ne la mette pas en péril.

Lire notre enquête (en édition abonnés) : Narendra Modi, une énigme indienne

Il héritera également de problèmes en matière de politique étrangère, notamment avec le Pakistan, dont le premier ministre Nawaz Sharif a pourtant salué sa« victoire impressionnante ».

Depuis leur indépendance en 1947, l'Inde et le Pakistan se sont affrontés à trois reprises, notamment pour le contrôle du Cachemire, région himalayenne revendiquée par les deux puissances voisines désormais dotées de l’armenucléaire.

Les relations entre les deux pays s'étaient encore détériorées après l'attaque contre un grand hôtel de Bombay en 2008 qui avait fait 166 morts, l'Inde imputant cette tragédie à des islamistes armés pakistanais.

Le décryptage du chercheur Christophe Jaffrelot : L'Inde face au péril nationaliste

Après plusieurs années de boycott par l’Europe et étant lui-même interdit de visa aux Etats-Unis, Modi devra enfin éclaircir ses relations avec l’Occident : convenance diplomatique oblige, l'arrivée de Narendra Modi au pouvoir devrait lui valoirfélicitations et promesses de coopération de la part des Etats-Unis comme de l’Europe, qui ne peut s'autoriser à bouder le nouveau dirigeant de ce poids lourd d'Asie du Sud, économie émergente de 1,2 milliard d'habitants.

• Amandine Sanial 
  Journaliste au Monde

O americano medio ja cansou de guerras? - Ron Paul (Mises Institute)

Why They Hate Peace by Ron Paul  Mises Institute, May 17, 2014 [Editor’s Note: This is a selection from the last chapter of Ron Paul’s A Foreign Policy of Freedom.] The most succinct statement about how governments get their people to support war came from Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials after World War II: Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. It is rather frightening that a convicted Nazi war criminal latched onto an eternal truth! It should be harder to promote war, especially when there are so many regrets in the end. In the last 60 years, the American people have had little say over decisions to wage war. We have allowed a succession of presidents and the United Nations to decide when and if we go to war, without an express congressional declaration as the Constitution mandates. Since 1945, our country has been involved in over 70 active or covert foreign engagements. On numerous occasions we have provided weapons and funds to both sides in a conflict. It is not unusual for our so-called allies to turn on us and use these weapons against American troops. In recent decades we have been both allies and enemies of Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and the Islamists in Iran. And where has it gotten us? The endless costs resulting from our foolish policies, in human lives, injuries, tax dollars, inflation, and deficits, will burden generations to come. For civilization to advance, we must reduce the number of wars fought. Two conditions must be met if we hope to achieve this. First, all military (and covert paramilitary) personnel worldwide must refuse to initiate offensive wars beyond their borders. This must become a matter of personal honor for every individual. Switzerland is an example of a nation that stands strongly prepared to defend herself, yet refuses to send troops abroad looking for trouble. Second, the true nature of war must be laid bare, and the glorification must end. Instead of promoting war heroes with parades and medals for wars not fought in the true defense of our country, we should more honestly contemplate the real results of war: death, destruction, horrible wounds, civilian casualties, economic costs, and the loss of liberty at home. The neoconservative belief that war is inherently patriotic, beneficial, manly, and necessary for human progress must be debunked. These war promoters never send themselves or their own children off to fight. Some believe economic sanctions and blockades are acceptable alternatives to invasion and occupation. But these too are acts of war, and those on the receiving end rarely capitulate to the pressure. More likely they remain bitter enemies, and resort to terrorism when unable to confront us in a conventional military fashion. Inflation, sanctions, and military threats all distort international trade and hurt average people in all countries involved, while usually not really hurting the targeted dictators themselves. Our bellicose approach encourages protectionism, authoritarianism, militant nationalism, and go-it-alone isolationism. Our government preaches free trade and commerce, yet condemns those who want any restraints on the use of our military worldwide. We refuse to see how isolated we have become. Our loyal allies are few, and while the UN does our bidding only when we buy the votes we need, our enemies multiply. A billion Muslims around the world now see the US as a pariah. Our military is more often used to protect private capital overseas, such as oil and natural resources, than it is to protect our own borders. Protecting ourselves from real outside threats is no longer the focus of defense policy, as globalists become more influential inside and outside our government. The weapons industry never actually advocates killing to enhance its profits, but a policy of endless war and eternal enemies benefits it greatly. Some advocate cold war strategies, like those used against the Soviets, against the unnamed “terrorists.” It’s good for business! Many neoconservatives are not bashful about this: Thus, paradoxically, peace increases our peril, by making discipline less urgent, encouraging some of our worst instincts, and depriving us of some of our best leaders. The great Prussian general Helmuth von Moltke knew whereof he spoke when he wrote a friend, “Everlasting peace is a dream, not even a pleasant one; war is a necessary part of God’s arrangement of the world. ... Without war the world would deteriorate into materialism.” As usual, Machiavelli dots his i’s and crosses the t’s: it’s not just that peace undermines discipline and thereby gives the destructive vices greater sway. If we actually achieved peace, “Indolence would either make (the state) effeminate or shatter her unity; and two things together, or each by itself, would be the cause of her ruin ...” This is Machiavelli’s variation on a theme by Mitterrand: the absence of movement is the beginning of defeat. (Michael Ledeen, Machiavelli on Modern Leadership) Those like Ledeen who approvingly believe in “perpetual struggle” generally are globalists, uninterested in national sovereignty and borders. True national defense is of little concern to them. That’s why military bases are closed in the United States regardless of their strategic value, while several new bases are built in the Persian Gulf, even though they provoke our enemies to declare jihad against us. The new Cold War justifies everything. War, and the threat of war, are big government’s best friend. Liberals support big government social programs, and conservatives support big government war policies, thus satisfying two major special interest groups. And when push comes to shove, the two groups cooperate and support big government across the board — always at the expense of personal liberty. Both sides pay lip service to freedom, but neither stands against the welfare/warfare state and its promises of unlimited entitlements and endless war. Note: The views expressed in Daily Articles on Mises.org are not necessarily those of the Mises Institute. Comment on this article. When commenting, please post a concise, civil, and informative comment. Comment Policy. Dr. Ron Paul is a former member of Congress and a Distinguished Counselor to the Mises Institute. See Ron Paul's article archives.

Oliveira Lima: um salto nas estatisticas de visita deste blog; o que houve com ele?

Por acaso repassando estatísticas de visitas a temas deste blog, deparei-me com esta coisa surpreendente: centenas de clicks em torno do nome do nosso diplomata-historiador de um século atrás.
Não sei a que se deve este interesse repentino...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Entrada	Visualizações de página
Oliveira Lima no Facebook do MRE 25/03/2014,	445
Oliveira Lima: biblioteca em Washington recupera s... 18/06/2011,	270

A Era dos Desconvites: o politicamente correto infesta as universidades americanas

Na verdade, mais o pensamento de esquerda, aqui chamado de ultra-liberal, do que propriamente politicamente correto, mas este é também afetado pela praga do multiculturalismo, do relativismo, do anti-Ocidentalismo, anti-imperialismo e outras bobagens.

Só falta chamarem o nosso colecionador de "horroris causae" para passar a fazer "commencement speeches" nas universidades americanas. Retrocesso mental atinge todo mundo...

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

After Protests, I.M.F. Chief Withdraws as Smith College’s Commencement Speaker

Richard Pérez-Peña
New York Times, May 12, 2014

A week before she was to speak at theSmith College commencement,Christine Lagarde, chief of theInternational Monetary Fund, has withdrawn from the event, citing protests against her and the fund, the college said Monday.

Her withdrawal comes after Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, withdrew from speaking at the Rutgers University commencement in the face of protests against her role in Bush administration foreign policy, and weeks after Brandeis University rescinded its invitation to the rights advocate Ayaan Hirsi Ali to receive an honorary degree at its commencement, after protests over her anti-Islam statements.

Such reversals have become more common in recent years, said Greg Lukianoff, president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, referring to this time of year as “disinvitation season.” What has changed is not so much the protests themselves, but the willingness of colleges and speakers to give in, adding that many apparently voluntary withdrawals are made at the college’s urging.

For years, critics of the I.M.F. have charged that in providing economic aid to poor nations, it has imposed conditions that favor Western nations and businesses, and propped up oppressive governments.

Christine Lagarde

CLIFF OWEN / ASSOCIATED PRESS

“The I.M.F. has been a primary culprit in the failed developmental policies implanted in some of the world’s poorest countries,” said an online petitionagainst Ms. Lagarde’s appearance at Smith, a women’s college. “This has led directly to the strengthening of imperialist and patriarchal systems that oppress and abuse women worldwide.”

In a statement posted online, Kathleen McCartney, the president of Smith, said Ms. Lagarde had told her over the weekend that she would bow out, so that protests would not detract from the celebration. Ruth J. Simmons, a former president of both Smith and Brown University, has agreed to take Ms. Lagarde’s place.

Ms. McCartney, who is in her first year as Smith’s president, wrote that she and many others had been looking forward to hearing Ms. Lagarde, adding that the protesters had gotten what they wanted, “but at what cost to Smith College?”

“An invitation to speak at a commencement is not an endorsement of all views or policies of an individual or the institution she or he leads,” Ms. McCartney wrote. “Such a test would preclude virtually anyone in public office or position of influence. Moreover, such a test would seem anathema to our core values of free thought and diversity of opinion.”

Last year, in the face of protests, Robert Zoellick, a former World Bank president, Goldman Sachs executive and Bush administration official, withdrew from the Swarthmore College commencement, and Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon and pundit who has spoken against gay marriage and evolution, pulled out of the Johns Hopkins University commencement.

There have been several other cases of rescinded invitations or speaker withdrawals involving campus events less august than graduation, and even more cases of speeches going ahead despite protests.

Most of the incidents have involved complaints from the left, usually aimed at conservative figures, but not all. Last year, Providence College, a Catholic school, withdrew a speaking invitation to John Corvino, a writer and advocate of gay rights.

50 anos da Great Society nos EUA: crescimento da dependencia e preservacao da pobreza

A criação de programas de assistência aos desprovidos nos EUA, em 1964, representou uma dramática alteração dos comportamentos sociais, com a preservação, não a eliminação, da pobreza. 

40 anos depois, o Brasil também tomava o mesmo caminho. 10 anos depois da criação do curral eleitoral do Bolsa Família, já se conseguiu consolidar um exército de assistidos significativamente maior: um terço da população vive da caridade pública.

 É essa a nação que gostaríamos de ter?

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Opinions

The slow decline of America since LBJ launched the Great Society

George F. Will

The Washington Post, May 16 at 7:34 PM

Standing on his presidential limousine, Lyndon Johnson, campaigning in Providence, R.I., in September 1964, bellowed through a bullhorn: “We’re in favor of a lot of things and we’re against mighty few.” This was a synopsis of what he had said four months earlier.

Fifty years ago this Thursday, at the University of Michigan, Johnson had proposed legislating into existence a Great Society. It would end poverty and racial injustice, “but that is just the beginning.” It would “rebuild the entire urban United States” while fending off “boredom and restlessness,” slaking “the hunger for community” and enhancing “the meaning of our lives” — all by assembling “the best thought and the broadest knowledge.”

In 1964, 76 percent of Americanstrusted government to do the right thing “just about always or most of the time”; today, 19 percent do. The former number is one reason Johnson did so much; the latter is one consequence of his doing so.

Barry Goldwater, Johnson’s 1964 opponent who assumed that Americans would vote to have a third president in 14 months, suffered a landslide defeat. After voters rebuked FDR in 1938 for attempting to “pack” the Supreme Court, Republicans and Southern Democrats prevented any liberal legislating majority in Congress until 1965. That year, however, when 68 senators and 295 representatives were Democrats, Johnson was unfettered.

He remains, regarding government’s role, much the most consequential 20th-century president. Indeed, the American Enterprise Institute’s Nicholas Eberstadt, in his measured new booklet “The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,” says LBJ, more than FDR, “profoundly recast the common understanding of the ends of governance.”

When Johnson became president in 1963, Social Security was America’s only nationwide social program. His programs and those they subsequently legitimated put the nation on the path to the present, in which changed social norms — dependency on government has been destigmatized — have changed America’s national character.

Between 1959 and 1966 — before the War on Poverty was implemented — the percentage of Americans living in poverty plunged by about one-third, from 22.4 to 14.7, slightly lower than in 2012. But, Eberstadt cautions, the poverty rate is “incorrigibly misleading” because government transfer payments have made income levels and consumption levels significantly different. Medicare, Medicaid, food stamps, disability payments, heating assistance and other entitlements have, Eberstadt says, made income “a poor predictor of spending power for lower-income groups.” Stark material deprivation is now rare:

“By 2011 . . . average per capita housing space for people in poverty was higher than the U.S. average for 1980. . . . [Many] appliances were more common in officially impoverished homes in 2011 than in the typical American home of 1980.. . . DVD players, personal computers, and home Internet access are now typical in them — amenities not even the richest U.S. households could avail themselves of at the start of the War on Poverty.”

But the institutionalization of anti-poverty policy has been, Eberstadt says carefully, “attended” by the dramatic spread of a “tangle of pathologies.” Daniel Patrick Moynihan coined that phrase in his 1965 report calling attention to family disintegration among African Americans. The tangle, which now ensnares all races and ethnicities, includes welfare dependency and “flight from work.”

Twenty-nine percent of Americans — about 47 percent of blacks and 48 percent of Hispanics — live in households receiving means-tested benefits. And “the proportion of men 20 and older who are employed has dramatically and almost steadily dropped since the start of the War on Poverty, falling from 80.6 percent in January 1964 to 67.6 percent 50 years later.” Because work — independence, self-reliance — is essential to the culture of freedom, ominous developments have coincided with Great Society policies:

For every adult man ages 20 to 64 who is between jobs and looking for work, more than three are neither working nor seeking work, a trend that began with the Great Society. And what Eberstadt calls “the earthquake that shook family structure in the era of expansive anti-poverty policies” has seen out-of-wedlock births increase from 7.7 percent in 1965 to more than 40 percent in 2012, including 72 percent of black babies.

LBJ’s starkly bifurcated legacy includes the triumphant Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965 — and the tragic aftermath of much of his other works. Eberstadt asks: Is it “simply a coincidence” that male flight from work and family breakdown have coincided with Great Society policies, and that dependence on government is more widespread and perhaps more habitual than ever? Goldwater’s insistent 1964 question is increasingly pertinent: “What’s happening to this country of ours?”

Read more from George F. Will’s archive or follow him on Facebook. 

Chantagem (o que mais sabem fazer os companheiros) da amante do presidente contra a presidenta ( Veja)

Rosemary Noronha fez chantagem contra o governo Dilma 

Dizendo-se abandonada, a ex-chefe do escritório da Presidência da República queria ajuda — e conseguiu

Robson Bonin

Veja, 17/05/2014

Rosemary Noronha

A discrição nunca foi uma característica da personalidade da ex-chefe do gabinete da Presidência da República em São Paulo Rosemary Noronha. Quando servia ao ex-presidente Lula em Brasília, ela era temida. Em nome da intimidade com o “chefe”, como às vezes também se referia a ele, Rose fazia valer suas vontades mesmo que isso significasse afrontar superiores ou humilhar subordinados. Nos eventos palacianos, a assessora dos cabelos vermelhos e dos vestidos e óculos sempre exuberantes colecionou tantos inimigos — a primeira-dama não a suportava — que acabou sendo transferida para São Paulo. Mas caiu para cima. Encarregada de comandar o gabinete de Lula de 2009 a 2012, Rose viveu dias de soberana e reinou até ser apanhada pela Polícia Federal ajudando uma quadrilha que vendia facilidades no governo. Ela usava a intimidade que tinha com Lula para abrir as portas de gabinetes restritos na Esplanada. Em troca, recebia pequenos agrados, inclusive em dinheiro. Foi demitida, banida do serviço público e indiciada por crimes de formação de quadrilha e corrupção. Um ano e meio após esse turbilhão de desgraças, no entanto, a fase ruim parece ter ficado no passado. Para que isso acontecesse, porém, Rosemary chegou ao extremo de ameaçar envolver o governo no escândalo.

Em 2013, no auge das investigações, quando ainda lutava para provar sua inocência, a ex-secretária Rosemary procurou ajuda entre os antigos companheiros do PT — inclusive Lula, o mais íntimo deles. Desempregada, precisando de dinheiro para pagar bons advogados e com medo da prisão, ela desconfiou que seria abandonada. Lula não atendia suas ligações. O ex-ministro José Dirceu, às vésperas da fase final do julgamento do mensalão, estava empenhado em salvar a própria pele e disse que não podia fazer nada. No Palácio do Planalto, a ordem era aprofundar as investigações. Em busca de amparo, Rose concluiu que a única maneira de chamar a atenção dos antigos parceiros era ameaçar envolver figuras importantes do governo no escândalo. Mensagens de celular trocadas pela ex-secretária com pessoas próximas mostram como foi tramada a reação. Magoada com o PT por ter permitido que a Casa Civil aprofundasse as investigações sobre suas traficâncias, Rose destila ódio contra a então ministra Gleisi Hoffmann. Em uma conversa com um amigo, em abril do ano passado, desabafa: “Tão chamando a ministra da Casa Civil de Judas!!! Ela bem que merece!!!”. O interlocutor assente: “Ela vazou a porcaria toda. Vamos em frente”. Rose acreditava que o próprio Palácio do Planalto estava por trás das revelações sobre o desfecho da sindicância — “a porcaria toda” — que apontava, entre outras irregularidades, o seu enriquecimento ilícito no cargo.

Com o fundo do poço cada vez mais próximo, Rosemary decidiu arrastar para dentro do escândalo figuras centrais do Planalto e, se possível, a própria presidente Dilma Rousseff. A estratégia consistia em constranger os antigos colegas de governo pressionando-os a depor no processo que tramitava na Controladoria-Geral da União. “Quero colocar o Beto e a Erenice Guerra”, diz Rose em uma mensagem. “Você quer estremecer o chão deles?”, questiona o interlocutor. “Sim”, confirma Rose. “Porque vai bombar. Gilberto Carvalho também?”, indaga. “O.k.”, devolve ela. As autoridades que deveriam “estremecer” não foram escolhidas por acaso. Atual chefe de gabinete da presidente Dilma Rousseff, Beto Vasconcelos era na ocasião o número 2 da Casa Civil. Ao lado da ex-ministra Erenice Guerra, ele servira a Dilma no Planalto durante anos. Rose os conhecia como a palma da mão e sabia que eles tinham plena consciência do seu temperamento explosivo. A conclusão da conversa no celular, resumida pelo interlocutor, revela as reais intenções da ex-secretária: “Vai rolar muito stress... Vão bater na porta da Dilma. Vão ficar assustados”.

O plano embutia um segundo objetivo. Rosemary também queria se reaproximar de um ex-amigo em especial. Ao tentar “estremecer” o chão de Gilberto Carvalho, o ministro da Secretaria-Geral da Presidência e homem de confiança de Lula, Rose tinha um propósito bem específico. Ela queria restabelecer as suas ligações com “Deus”, como a ex-secretária costuma se referir ao ex-presidente Lula. Em outra troca de mensagens de celular, um interlocutor diz a Rose que, com a indicação das testemunhas — Gilberto Carvalho, Beto Vasconcelos e Erenice Guerra — no processo da CGU, “o momento é oportuno para aproximação com Deus...”. Mas a ex-protegida de Lula se mostra cética e insatisfeita. “Vai ser difícil. Ele está com muitas viagens. Não posso depender dele”, diz Rose. Não se sabe exatamente o que aconteceu a partir daí, mas a estratégia funcionou. Um dos homens mais próximos a “Deus”, Paulo Okamotto, presidente do Instituto Lula, cuidou pessoalmente de algumas necessidades mais imediatas da família de Rosemary durante o processo. Além de conseguir ajuda para bancar um exército de quase quarenta juristas das melhores e mais caras bancas de advocacia do país, a ex-secretária reformou a cobertura onde mora em São Paulo e conseguiu concretizar o antigo projeto de ingressar no mundo dos negócios.

Rosemary comprou uma franquia da rede de escolas de inglês Red Balloon. Para evitar problemas com a ficha na polícia, o negócio foi colocado no nome das filhas Meline e Mirelle e do ex-marido José Cláudio Noronha. A estratégia para despistar as autoridades daria certo não fosse por um fato. A polícia já havia apreendido em 2012, na casa de Rose, todo o planejamento para aquisição da franquia. Os documentos mostravam que o investimento ficaria a cargo da quadrilha que vendia influência no governo. Na época, a instalação da escola foi orçada em 690 000 reais — padrão semelhante aos valores praticados atualmente no mercado —, dinheiro que Rosemary e seus familiares não possuíam. Como, então, a família que informava ter um patrimônio modesto conseguiu reunir os recursos? Procurada por VEJA, Meline Torres, responsável pela administração da escola, informou que todos os investimentos foram realizados a partir de “economias”. “Eu trabalhei muito durante a minha vida (Meline tem 29 anos). Trabalho desde os 18 anos com registro em carteira e tenho poupança. Meu pai também está me ajudando com recursos dele, aliás, do trabalho de uma vida”, explicou. Rosemary não quis se pronunciar.   

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Socialismo para os ricos (Piketty, etc.) - Marcos Troyjo (FSP)

Socialismo para milionários

• Autor: Marcos Troyjo
 
• em Artigos, Destaque
 
• 17/05/2014
 
• 0 comentários.

Pego emprestado título de um livro de Bernard Shaw para esta coluna. A frase é perfeita para descrever o atual frenesi em torno da dualidade “crescimento-desigualdade”.

Duas investidas recentes acirram o debate. A primeira é o Índice de Progresso Social (IPS), que busca aferir o desenvolvimento relativo dos países sem utilizar o referencial do PIB. A segunda, a acalorada recepção ao “Capital no Século 21″, de Thomas Piketty.

A repercussão de ambos é multiplicada, na Europa e nos EUA, pelos traumas não curados da Grande Recessão – sobretudo as elevadas taxas de desemprego.

Tanto o IPS quanto o “Capital” de Piketty apontam para a prevalência do investimento social “para além do crescimento da economia”. Convidam a retomar a questão da moralidade do capitalismo. Repisam (sobretudo em Piketty) a desproporção nas remunerações a capital e trabalho como principal obstáculo ao bem-estar social.

Para países como o Brasil, o grande desafio é encontrar seu próprio modelo de capitalismo competitivo que o permita pagar o preço da civilização

De acordo com esses apontamentos, a desigualdade, mal maior do capitalismo, poderia remediar-se com maior carga tributária e mais investimentos “no social”.

Sem entrar demais nos altos e baixos do IPS ou de Piketty, minha percepção é que ambos devem interessar mais a países avançados do que a nações em desenvolvimento. É papo para ricos.

Dos países que ocupam as 20 primeiras posições do IPS (em que supostamente o PIB não conta), todos apresentam renda per capita anual superior a US$ 30 mil. Ainda assim, mesmo para os que já se desgarraram da armadilha da renda média, como sustentar amplo acesso a educação e saúde pública sem crescimento ao longo do tempo?

Nesse contexto, o atual debate sobre desigualdade reflete, de ponta-cabeça, a binária consideração de “crescimento” ou “austeridade” como alternativas para países em crise de dívida soberana, caso da Europa mediterrânea em 2011.

Há mérito na crítica à inércia patrimonialista no Ocidente. As soluções tributário-distributivistas apontadas por Piketty, contudo, não tratam de questão–importante o suficiente para os ricos – e absolutamente essencial para países em desenvolvimento. Que padrão de economia política adotar para, ao final do dia, gerar excedentes que custeiem os trampolins sociais?

Decepciona, em Piketty, não ver referência a “empreendedorismo”, “competitividade”, “start-ups”, “papel da inovação”, ou à “destruição criativa” de Schumpeter.

A principal tensão do mundo contemporâneo não advém do conflito distributivo entre capital e trabalho. O cabo de guerra é entre empreendedores e burocratas, seja na forma da grossa camada de gestores cujo intuito é a autopreservação ou nas inúmeras esferas estatais que esclerosam o dinamismo econômico.

Para países como o Brasil, o grande desafio é encontrar seu próprio modelo de capitalismo competitivo que o permita pagar o preço da civilização.

Deixemos para amanhã manuais de instalação de um “Welfare State 2.0″, como o IPS ou o tijolo de Piketty. Concentremo-nos, agora, nas lições de Acemoglu e Robinson em “Por que as Nações Fracassam”.

Fonte: Folha de S.Paulo, 16/05/2014.

Into Africa: China's Wild Rush - Howard French

Into Africa: China's Wild Rush

Howard French

The New York Times, May 16, 2014

NAIROBI, Kenya — For nearly a decade, as China made a historic push for business opportunities and expanded influence in Africa, most of the continent’s leaders were so thrilled at having a deep-pocketed partner willing to make big investments and start huge new projects that they rarely paused to consider whether they were getting a sound deal.

China has peppered the continent with newly built stadiums, airports, hospitals, highways and dams, but as Africans are beginning to fully recognize, these projects have also left many countries saddled with heavy debts and other problems, from environmental conflict to labor strife. As a consequence, China’s relationship with the continent is entering a new and much more skeptical phase.

The doubts aren’t coming from any soured feelings from African leaders themselves, most of whom still welcome (and profit from) China’s embrace. The new skepticism has even less to do with the hectoring of Western governments, the traditional source of Africa’s foreign aid and investment (and interference). In a 2012 speech in Senegal, Hillary Rodham Clinton, then secretary of state, implicitly warned Africa about China. The continent needs “a model of sustainable partnership that adds value, rather than extracts it,” she said, adding that unlike other countries, “America will stand up for democracy and universal human rights even when it might be easier to look the other way and keep the resources flowing.”

Some Africans found Mrs. Clinton’s remarks patronizing. What’s most remarkable, however, is how passé this now seems, given skepticism about China from Africa’s own increasingly vibrant civil society, which is demanding to know what China’s billions of dollars in infrastructure building, mineral extraction and land acquisition mean for the daily lives and political rights of ordinary Africans.

This represents a tricky and unfamiliar challenge for China’s authoritarian system, whose foreign policy has always focused heavily on state-to-state relations. China’s leaders demonstrate little appreciation of the yawning gulfs that separate African people from their rulers, even in newly democratic countries. Beijing is constitutionally uneasy about dealing with independent actors like advocacy groups, labor unions and independent journalists.

After a decade of bland talk about “win-win” partnerships, China seems finally aware that it needs to improve both the style and substance of its push into Africa. Last week, at the start of a four-country African trip, Prime Minister Li Keqiang acknowledged “growing pains” in the relationship, and the need to “assure our African friends in all seriousness that China will never pursue a colonialist path like some countries did, or allow colonialism, which belongs to the past, to reappear in Africa.”

This language came in belated response to a sea change that arguably began with an op-ed essay last year in The Financial Times by Lamido Sanusi, who was recently suspended as Nigeria’s central bank governor. He wrote: “In much of Africa, they have set up huge mining operations. They have also built infrastructure. But, with exceptions, they have done so using equipment and labor imported from home, without transferring skills to local communities. So China takes our primary goods and sells us manufactured ones. This was also the essence of colonialism.”

Mr. Sanusi’s commentary prompted critical assessments of China’s involvement in countries like Botswana and Namibia, over issues like the takeover of local construction industries, or the proper execution of building projects, working conditions, and the proliferation of Chinese newcomers — many of them illegal migrants — who have begun to dominate low-level commerce in a number of countries.

In Ghana, an estimated 50,000 new migrants, most of whom are said to have hailed from a single county in southern China, showed up recently to conduct environmentally devastating gold mining. This set off a popular outcry that forced the Ghanaian government to respond, resulting in arrests of miners, many of whom are being expelled to China.

In Tanzania, labor unions that have historically been close to the ruling party have strongly criticized the government for opening the floodgates to Chinese petty traders.

In Senegal, neighborhood associations blocked a giant property deal that would have handed over a prime section of downtown real estate to a Chinese developer with a scant track record.

Independent media have played an important role in demanding more scrutiny of government deals with Beijing. A recent op-ed article in one of Kenya’s leading newspapers, The Daily Nation, questioned whether a huge new Chinese investment in a railroad that would run from the coast all the way to landlocked Uganda and beyond was truly a good deal. The project’s first phase will increase Kenya’s external debt by a third.

The writer, David Ndii, noted that Kenya could have sought the financing for a project like this through the World Bank, which would have cost as little as a third of the Chinese commercial loan. But that would have required time-consuming processes, from competitive bidding to rigorous environmental and feasibility studies. Kenya’s Constitution insists on “intergenerational equity,” but also requires that “public money be used in a prudent and responsible manner.” Mr. Ndii asked whether the deal with the Chinese was consistent with either provision.

As someone who recently spent a year traveling widely in Africa to research a book about Beijing’s relations with the continent, I find Mr. Sanusi’s assessment too pessimistic. Yet a dose of caution for Africa, and of public scrutiny about the high-level deal-making underway, was clearly long overdue.

The booming, fast-changing China offers potentially extraordinary upsides to Africa. Without question, the continent is badly in need of more and better infrastructure. Competition among foreign investors holds the prospect of better returns for African states. Immigration, which is the central topic of my own reporting, has begun to create serious tensions between China and its new African partners, but even this is insufficiently recognized for its potential dividends. The spread of trading and business diasporas throughout history, including that of China, have a deep and proven track record for wealth creation, and properly managed, this could prove true for Africa as well.

But because China seems to be in such a hurry, and is so often seen to be looking out for itself, the potential downsides for many Africans have begun more and more to stand out: accelerated environmental destruction via mining and other activities; disregard for labor rights; the hollowing out of local industry; and even the stalling of the continent’s democratization.

This isn’t simply a matter of Beijing’s doing business with odious dictators, whether Omar al-Bashir of Sudan or Robert G. Mugabe of Zimbabwe. From Zaire to Equatorial Guinea to Rwanda, the West clearly has its own deep and insufficiently acknowledged history of doing much the same.

Rather, the problem (though not limited to China) is relying on shady arrangements made at the very top of the political system, often in the president’s office itself. Contracts are greased with monetary bribes and other enticements like expense-paid shopping trips to China and scholarships there for elite children. Adding to the opacity, China typically favors its state-owned companies for African projects and bypasses open, competitive bidding procedures.

The best way for the United States and other rich countries that have economic and political interests in Africa to respond is not by warning Africans about the advance of China — but rather, helping to strengthen African civil society and, thereby, governance. Washington should also encourage China and other up-and-coming players in the international economy, from Brazil to Turkey to Vietnam, to abide by higher transparency standards — and to rigorously abide by them, too.

In the end, though, what will minimize any downsides of China’s involvement in Africa is the deepening of African democracy. Grass-roots activism and vibrant independent media are, everywhere, the ultimate check on corrupt legislators and on foreigners who get lucrative but unsound deals by handing over bags of cash.

 Howard W. French  is an associate professor of journalism at Columbia University, a former correspondent for The New York Times and the author, most recently, of “China’s Second Continent: How a Million Migrants Are Building a New Empire in Africa.”