Indignados brasileiros: enfim se movimentando? Duvido...

Não creio que vá dar certo, ou que venha a produzir os resultados esperados, mas em todo caso, a mensagem abaixo foi postada numa espécie de corrente da cidadania.
O Brasil ainda não piorou o suficiente para permitir tal tipo de mobilização...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Um milhão de pessoas na Avenida Paulista pela demissão de toda a classe política

Este e-mail vai circular hoje e será lido por centenas de milhares de pessoas. A guerra contra o mau político, e contra a degradação da nação está começando. Não subestimem o povo que começa a ter conhecimento do que nos têm acontecido, do porquê de chegar ao ponto de ter de cortar na comida dos próprios filhos! Estamos de olhos bem abertos e dispostos a fazer tudo o que for preciso, para mudar o rumo deste abuso.

Todos os ''governantes'' do Brasil até aqui, falam em cortes de despesas - mas não dizem quais despesas - mas, querem o aumentos de impostos como se não fôssemos campeões mundiais em impostos.

Nenhum governante fala em:

1. Reduzir as mordomias (gabinetes, secretárias, adjuntos, assessores, suportes burocráticos respectivos, carros, motoristas, 14º e 15º salários etc.) dos poderes da República;

2. Redução do número de deputados da Câmara Federal, e de seus gabinetes, profissionalizando-os como nos países sérios. Acabar com as mordomias na Câmara, Senado e Ministérios, como almoços opíparos, com digestivos e outras libações, tudo à custa do povo.

3. Acabar com centenas de Institutos Públicos e Fundações Públicas que não servem para nada e, têm funcionários e administradores com 2º e 3º emprego.

4. Acabar com as empresas Municipais, com Administradores a auferir milhares de reais/mês e que não servem para nada, antes, acumulam funções nos municípios, para aumentarem o bolo salarial respectivo.

5. Reduzir o nº de Senadores, de Deputados Federais, de Deputados Estaduais e de Vereadores se necessário, para se conseguir um padrão de conduta que permita o funcionamento digno e honesto dessas casas, aplicando cassações quando necessárias forem, para que funcionem de acordo com as leis e com a dignidade que a população espera, para que funcionem com o decoro que se espera dos políticos que representam o povo que os elegeram.

6. Fiscalizar o aumento patrimonial dos políticos, para que não continuem dilapidando o dinheiro, que deveria ser destinado a Educação, a Saúde, a Segurança, a Moradia, aos transportes e aos demais serviços básicos e necessários à população.

7. Redução drástica das Câmaras Municipais e das Assembléias Estaduais.

8 Acabar com o Financiamento aos partidos, que devem viver da quotização dos seus associados e da imaginação que aos outros exigem, para conseguirem verbas para as suas atividades. Aliás, 2 partidos apenas como os EUA e outros países adiantados, seria mais que suficiente.

9. Acabar com a distribuição de carros a Presidentes, Assessores, etc.., das Câmaras, Juntas, etc., que se deslocam em digressões particulares pelo País.

10. Acabar com os motoristas particulares 24 h/dia, com o agravamento das horas extraordinárias... para servir suas excelências, filhos e famílias e até, as ex-famílias...

11. Acabar com a renovação sistemática de frotas de carros do Estado.

12. Colocar chapas de identificação em todos os carros do Estado. Não permitir de modo algum que carros oficiais façam serviço particular, tal como levar e trazer familiares e filhos, às escolas, ir ao mercado a compras, etc.

13. Acabar com o vaivém semanal dos deputados e respectivas estadias, em hotéis de cinco estrelas pagos pelos contribuintes.
14. Controlar o pessoal da Função Pública (todos os funcionários pagos por nós que nunca estão no local de trabalho). HÁ QUADROS (diretores gerais e outros) QUE, EM VEZ DE ESTAREM NO SERVIÇO PÚBLICO, PASSAM O TEMPO NOS SEUS ESCRITÓRIOS DE CONSULTORIAS A CUIDAR DOS SEUS INTERESSES....

15. Acabar com as administrações numerosíssimas de hospitais públicos, que servem para garantir aos apadrinhados do poder. Há hospitais de cidades com mais administradores que pessoal administrativo... pertencentes ÀS oligarquias locais do partido no poder...

16. Acabar com os milhares de pareceres jurídicos, caríssimos, pagos sempre aos mesmos escritórios, que têm canais de comunicação fáceis com o Governo, no âmbito de um tráfico de influências que há que criminalizar, autuar, julgar e condenar.

17. Acabar com as várias aposentadorias por pessoa, entre o pessoal do Estado e entidades privadas, que passaram fugazmente pelo LEGISLATIVO.

18. Pedir o pagamento da devolução dos milhões dos empréstimos compulsórios confiscados dos contribuintes, e pagamento IMEDIATO DOS PRECATÓRIOS judiciais.

19. Criminalizar, imediatamente, o enriquecimento ilícito, perseguindo, confiscando e punindo os ladrões que fizeram fortunas, e adquiriram patrimônios de forma indevida e à custa do contribuinte, manipulando e aumentando preços de empreitadas públicas, desviando dinheiros segundo esquemas pretensamente "legais", sem controle, e vivendo à custa dos dinheiros que deveriam servir para o progresso do país, e para a assistência aos que efetivamente dela precisam.

20. Não deixar um único malfeitor de colarinho branco impune, fazendo com que paguem efetivamente pelos seus crimes, adaptando o nosso sistema de justiça a padrões civilizados, onde as escutas VALEM e os crimes não prescrevem com leis feitas à pressa, feitas à medida;

21. Impedir os que foram ministros, de virem a ser gestores de empresas que tenham beneficiado de fundos públicos ou de adjudicações, decididas pelos ditos.

22. Fazer um levantamento geral e minucioso de todos os que ocuparam cargos políticos, central e local, de forma a saber qual o seu patrimônio antes e depois.

23. Fazer os Bancos pagar impostos e, atender a todos, nos horários do comércio e da indústria.

24. Rever e mesmo proibir, repasses de verbas para todas e quaisquer ONGs.

25. Fazer uma devassa nas contas do MST, similares, e dos partidos políticos.

26.REVER imediatamente a situação dos Aposentados Federais, Estaduais e Municipais, que precisam muito mais que estes que vivem às custas dos brasileiros trabalhadores, e dos Próprios Aposentados.

27. Informar o povo, onde arranjam tantos bilhões para demolir estádios e
construir estádios novos para a copa do mundo...e não conseguem dinheiro
para pagar os aposentados com salário integral...não conseguem dinheiro..ou não se interessam em conseguir...para educação...construir escolas dignas para
que a nossa juventude tenha alguma esperança de um futuro melhor....Dizem que não tem dinheiro pra saúde....mas para copa!..ISSO TEM FACIL...FACIL...
PORQUE AÍ TEEM A OPORTUNIDADE DE ROUBAR O POVO.
28- Volta ao curriculum escolar a matéria de " Educação Cívica" para ensinar os direitos, deveres do povo, através da nossa constituição. Volta da cidadania, do orgulho pela pátria!!!!

Ao "povo", pede-se o reencaminhamento deste e-mail.
Se tiver mais algum item, favor acrescentar.

''O QUE ME INCOMODA NÃO É O GRITO DOS MAUS, E SIM, O SILÊNCIO DOS BONS'' (Martin Luther King)

A frase da semana: bits and bytes, bullets and bombs...

"No século 21, bits e bytes podem ser tão perigosos como balas e bombas.”

Vice-secretário de Defesa americano, William Lynn.

Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional – RBPI (1/2011)

Anunciamos o lançamento do número 1 do Volume 54 (1/2011) da Revista Brasileira de Política Internacional – RBPI, cujo sumário se vê abaixo.

Esta edição traz as seguintes contribuições:

Editorial

Guerra e Paz, traduções do nosso tempo, por Antônio Carlos Lessa

Artigos
Guerra Fria na Região Amazônica: um estudo da Missão Venturini no Suriname (1983), por Carlos Federico Dominguez Ávila
América Latina a inicios de la segunda década Del siglo XXI: entre El regionalismo estratégico y la regionalización fragmentada, por Lincoln Bizzorero
“Depois aconteça o que acontecer”: por uma rediscussão do Caso Panther e da política externa de Rio Branco: por Renato Amado Peixoto
A política externa brasileira e a “circunstância democrática”: do silêncio respeitoso à politização ruidosa, por Dawisson Belém Lopes
A União Européia como potência global? As alterações do Tratado de Lisboa na política externa e de defesa, por Antonio Goucha Soares
Los desafios a la reunificación de China y Taiwan: la Ley Antisecesión (2005) y El Acuerdo Marco de Cooperación Econômica (2010), por Isabel Rodriguez Aranda
Terrosim as war by other means: national security and state support for terrorism, por Faruk Ekmekci
Human Rights promotion in Serbia: a difficult task for the European Union, por Teresa Maria Cierco
De como o Brasil quase se tornou membro permanente do Conselho de Segurança da ONU em 1945, por Eugênio V. Garcia
Identity and the concept of the West: the case of Brazil and Índia, por Oliver Stunkel

Obituário
Katia de Queiroz Mattoso: obituário de um membro do Conselho da RBPI, por Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Venezuela: "a revolucao é eterna"; e o caudilho?

Bem, ele acredita que sim...

Venezuela: Chávez dice que su revolución es “eterna”
El presidente de Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, llamó este jueves a acelerar la transición del capitalismo hacia el socialismo bolivariano cantando en un acto de celebración del Bicentenario de la Independencia en Caracas, donde aseguró que la revolución socialista que lidera desde hace doce años es "eterna" y "más nunca" se irá del país.

En un consejo de ministros desde el Palacio de Miraflores en Caracas, Chávez instó a los venezolanos profundizar en el proceso de construcción del modelo socialista “con la planificación científica y luego en lo práctico”.

“Tenemos que avanzar mucho más hacia nuestro socialismo, el socialismo que está contenido en este proyecto constitucional. Socialismo a lo venezolano”, expresó Chávez.

El presidente de Venezuela, quien se encuentra en proceso de recuperación médica tras haber sido intervenido quirúrgicamente por un tumor canceroso, descartó nuevamente que hubiese algún tipo de pacto con factores de la derecha que buscan una supuesta “transición”.

“La única transición que habrá será la del capitalismo hacia el socialismo venezolano”, resaltó el mandatario, luego de agradecer el despliegue de su gobierno “en estos días especiales que he tenido que pasar en mi cuartel de retaguardia”.

Chávez enfatizó que mantiene su riguroso tratamiento y dedicó la primera parte de su intervención a recordar la importancia de los 200 años de la Firma del Acta de la Independencia de Venezuela.

Vestido con traje militar, el mandatario dio un breve discurso televisado en el que indicó que el cáncer que sufre le ha hecho sentir “un millón de veces más de amor” por su pueblo y por sí mismo y reiteró que está convencido de vencer esta “batalla” por la vida.

Chávez regresó a Venezuela el pasado día 4 tras ser intervenido de un tumor canceroso en Cuba y desde entonces mantiene un estricto plan de recuperación, que según dijo ayer ha entrado en una nueva etapa en la que podría ser necesario que se someta a radio y quimioterapia.

“Pa’lante es que vamos, como la Vinotinto anoche”, señaló Chávez al referirse a la selección de fútbol del país, que ayer empató 3-3 con Paraguay, durante los actos de celebración de los 200 años de la aprobación e izada de la Bandera Nacional el 14 de julio de 1811.

El gobernante juró que seguirá haciendo “todo lo que tenga que hacer” para vencer esta “difícil” batalla”. “Se lo juro un millón de veces viviré, viviremos, para la patria, para la vida”, exclamó.

“Nació nuestra revolución ahora comenzando el siglo XXI para convertirse en la revolución eterna, en la revolución permanente, en la revolución perpetua”, gritó.

Chávez terminó el acto cantando de forma animada música tradicional llanera junto al cantante popular Cristobal Jiménez en una plaza abarrotada por seguidores del presidente.

Desde que regresó a Venezuela, Chávez hace habitualmente comentarios a través de la red social Twitter y en intervenciones en la televisión nacional, pero no se ha prodigado en actos públicos.

========

Saúde ao coma andante...

Vou dar um pulinho em Washington e ja volto... (a book, of course...)

Se alguém tiver uma passagem sobrando, ou milhas em excesso, favor avisar.
Bem que gostaria de assistir a esse lançamento. O livro vai demorar um pouco para entrar no Abebooks (em todo caso, cabe conferir...). [Já conferi: abaixo...]

Hudson Institute cordially invites you to a book forum on...

History of the Future: The Shape of the World to Come Is Visible Today
Monday, July 18
12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

Human character has always been shaped by struggles against poverty, tyranny, and war. Hudson Institute co-founder and Senior Fellow Max Singer’s new book, History of the Future: The Shape of the World to Come Is Visible Today (Lexington Books), argues that poverty, tyranny, and war will be largely eliminated in the future. Without the struggles that have plagued humanity throughout history, Singer says we will have to find new ways to shape character. In this work which continues the research into the future that Singer began with Herman Kahn a half-century ago, Singer asks the important question: Will people really be better off when the whole world has become wealthy, free, and peaceful?

Professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita of New York University praises History of the Future, noting that “anyone who wants to understand where the world of politics, economics, and freedom is headed must read this book.”

Singer is a Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute and at the BESA Institute of Bar Ilan University in Israel. He is the author of Passage to a Human World: The Dynamics of Creating Global Wealth, with a foreword by Irving Kristol (Transaction Publishers, 2d ed. 1989); and of The REAL World Order: Zones of Peace/Zones of Turmoil, with Aaron Wildavsky (Chatham House, rev’d ed. 1996).

Hudson Institute has convened an illustrious panel to offer their thoughts on Singer’s insightful new work. Joining Singer to discuss the book will be Hillel Fradkin, Hudson Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World; Carol Lancaster, Dean of the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University; and Michael Mandelbaum, Christian A. Herter Professor of American Foreign Policy at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Hudson President and CEO Kenneth Weinstein will host and provide introductions for the event.

===========

Sacré Abeboks: já tem o livro, mas ainda está muito caro. Convém esperar um pouco...

History of the Future: The Shape of the World to Come Is Visible Today

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Impossible growth - Kenneth Rogoff

Too Much Debt Means the Economy Can’t Grow
Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff
Bloomberg News, July 14, 2011

As public debt in advanced countries reaches levels not seen since the end of World War II, there is considerable debate about the urgency of taming deficits with the aim of stabilizing and ultimately reducing debt as a percentage of gross domestic product.

Our empirical research on the history of financial crises and the relationship between growth and public liabilities supports the view that current debt trajectories are a risk to long-term growth and stability, with many advanced economies already reaching or exceeding the important marker of 90 percent of GDP. Nevertheless, many prominent public intellectuals continue to argue that debt phobia is wildly overblown. Countries such as the U.S., Japan and the U.K. aren’t like Greece, nor does the market treat them as such.

Indeed, there is a growing perception that today’s low interest rates for the debt of advanced economies offer a compelling reason to begin another round of massive fiscal stimulus. If Asian nations are spinning off huge excess savings partly as a byproduct of measures that effectively force low- income savers to put their money in bank accounts with low government-imposed interest-rate ceilings -- why not take advantage of the cheap money?

Although we agree that governments must exercise caution in gradually reducing crisis-response spending, we think it would be folly to take comfort in today’s low borrowing costs, much less to interpret them as an “all clear” signal for a further explosion of debt.

Changing Interest Rates

Several studies of financial crises show that interest rates seldom indicate problems long in advance. In fact, we should probably be particularly concerned today because a growing share of advanced country debt is held by official creditors whose current willingness to forego short-term returns doesn’t guarantee there will be a captive audience for debt in perpetuity.

Those who would point to low servicing costs should remember that market interest rates can change like the weather. Debt levels, by contrast, can’t be brought down quickly. Even though politicians everywhere like to argue that their country will expand its way out of debt, our historical research suggests that growth alone is rarely enough to achieve that with the debt levels we are experiencing today.

While we expect to see more than one member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development default or restructure their debt before the European crisis is resolved, that isn’t the greatest threat to most advanced economies. The biggest risk is that debt will accumulate until the overhang weighs on growth.

Historical Precedents

At what point does indebtedness become a problem? In our study “Growth in a Time of Debt,” we found relatively little association between public liabilities and growth for debt levels of less than 90 percent of GDP. But burdens above 90 percent are associated with 1 percent lower median growth. Our results are based on a data set of public debt covering 44 countries for up to 200 years. The annual data set incorporates more than 3,700 observations spanning a wide range of political and historical circumstances, legal structures and monetary regimes.

We aren’t suggesting there is a bright red line at 90 percent; our results don’t imply that 89 percent is a safe debt level, or that 91 percent is necessarily catastrophic. Anyone familiar with doing empirical research understands that vulnerability to crises and anemic growth seldom depends on a single factor such as public debt. However, our study of crises shows that public obligations are often hidden and significantly larger than official figures suggest.

Creative Accounting Devices

In addition, off-balance sheet guarantees and other creative accounting devices make it even harder to assess the true nature of a country’s debt until a crisis forces everything out into the open. (Just think of the giant U.S. mortgage lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, whose debt was never officially guaranteed before the 2008 meltdown.)

There also is the question of how broad a measure of public debt to use. Our empirical work concentrates on central- government obligations because state and local data are so limited across time and countries, and government guarantees, as noted, are difficult to quantify over time. (Until we developed our data set, no long-dated cross-country information on central government debt existed.) But state and local debt are important because they so frequently trigger federal government bailouts in a crisis. Official figures for state debts don’t include chronic late payments (arrears), which are substantial in Illinois and California, for example.

Public and Private Debt

Indeed, it isn’t unusual for governments to absorb large chunks of troubled private debt in a crisis. Taking this into account, chart 1, attached, shows the extraordinarily high level of overall U.S. debts, public and private.

In addition to ex-ante or ex-post government guarantees and other forms of “hidden debts,” any discussion of public liabilities should take into account the demographic challenges across the industrialized world. Our 90 percent threshold is largely based on earlier periods when old-age pensions and health-care costs hadn’t grown to anything near the size they are today. Surely this makes the burden of debt greater.

There is a growing sense that inflation is the endgame to debt buildups. For emerging markets that has often been the case, but for advanced economies, the historical correlation is weaker. Part of the reason for this apparent paradox may be that, especially after World War II, many governments enacted policies that amounted to heavy financial repression, including interest- rate ceilings and non-market debt placement. Low statutory interest rates allowed governments to reduce real debt burdens through moderate inflation over a sustained period. Of course, this time could be different, and we shouldn’t entirely dismiss the possibility of elevated inflation as the antidote to debt.

Extremely Rare

Those who remain unconvinced that rising debt levels pose a risk to growth should ask themselves why, historically, levels of debt of more than 90 percent of GDP are relatively rare and those exceeding 120 percent are extremely rare (see attached chart 2 for U.S. public debt since 1790). Is it because generations of politicians failed to realize that they could have kept spending without risk? Or, more likely, is it because at some point, even advanced economies hit a ceiling where the pressure of rising borrowing costs forces policy makers to increase tax rates and cut government spending, sometimes precipitously, and sometimes in conjunction with inflation and financial repression (which is also a tax)?

Even absent high interest rates, as Japan highlights, debt overhangs are a hindrance to growth.

The relationship between growth, inflation and debt, no doubt, merits further study; it is a question that cannot be settled with mere rhetoric, no matter how superficially convincing.

In the meantime, historical experience and early examination of new data suggest the need to be cautious about surrendering to “this-time-is-different” syndrome and decreeing that surging government debt isn’t as significant a problem in the present as it was in the past.

(Carmen M. Reinhart is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Kenneth S. Rogoff is a professor of economics at Harvard University. They are co-authors of “This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly.” The opinions expressed are their own.)

For more Bloomberg View op-eds.

To contact the writers of this column: Carmen M. Reinhart in Washington at creinhart@piie.com Kenneth S. Rogoff in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at krogoff@harvard.edu .

To contact the editor responsible for this column: Max Berley at mberley@bloomberg.net .

Find out more about Bloomberg for iPad: http://m.bloomberg.com/ipad/

Pausa para... medidas preventivas (ops, cinto de castidade para homens)

A vida está ficando perigosa, sobretudo para quem pensa em se divorciar...
Está na hora de pensar em certos cuidados elementares, com ativos especialmente preciosos...

Woman Accused of Severing Husband's Privates
By Stephen Spencer Davis
Slate, Wednesday, Jul. 13, 2011, at 10:41 AM EDT

Suspect tells police that the man “deserved it.”

A California woman could face life in prison after she allegedly drugged her husband, severed his penis with a kitchen knife, and then ground it up in a garbage disposal.

According to the Los Angeles Times, police arrived at the couple's home on Monday night to find the man tied to a bed and bleeding from his groin. In what the police described as a “spontaneous statement,” the woman, 48-year-old Catherine Kieu Becker, explained to officers what she had done, saying that her husband “deserved it.”

Although details of the incident remain sparse, the alleged crime will undoubtedly have people heading to Wikipedia for a refresher on Lorena Bobbitt, who infamously severed her husband’s penis in 1993.

Court records indicate that Becker and her husband were married a year and a half ago but began divorce proceedings in May. Police say they have no motive for the brutal act, but records suggest that it was the husband who initiated the divorce.

"On the surface, we have nothing more than the divorce proceeding," Lt. Jeff Nightengale of the Garden Grove Police Department told the Times. "We don't have any strong motive leading to this level of violence."

The severity of Becker’s alleged crime led detectives to classify it as “aggravated mayhem,” an offense punishable by life in prison.

The 51-year-old man, whose name has not been released, was taken to hospital for emergency surgery. Nightengale told ABC News that the man is in stable condition, but had no details on the surgery.

“Police were able to recover portions of the penis from the garbage disposal,” Nightengale said, but it was unclear if doctors would be able to reattach it.

Becker is currently being held on $1 million bail.

Os professores estao comecando a ficar furiosos: comparam salários (que absurdo!)

Só posso interpretar como frustração de carreira o movimento desses professores que ficam espalhando em nossas caixas de entrada correntes como a que segue abaixo.
Como é que eles pretendem, com suas aulinhas mal dadas, comparar-se a gênios da bola e a craques da política como esses que eles citam?
Um futebolista é um ser especial, que traz a alegria para os corações ansiosos de milhões de iluminados (inclusive professores que gostam de futebol e que torcem por algum time).
Um político é normalmente um representante de categorias profissionais, que está lá no Congreso para defender aumento de salários para categorias tão sofridas quanto a dos professores. Se eles não existissem, para quem -- ou de quem -- os professores poderiam reclamar? Por isso eles merecem os altos salários e outras prebendas que exibem, desavergonhadamente.
Os professores deveriam mirar-se nesses exemplos de cidadãos bem sucedidos e parar de reclamar.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Você estudou? - BEM FEITO!

Ronaldinho Gaúcho : R$ 1.400.000,00 por mês.
"Homenageado e condecorado pela Academia Brasileira de Letras"

Tiririca : R$ 36.000,00 por mês, fora os auxílios e mordomias;
- Mesmo sendo analfabeto, é "Membro da Comissão de Educação e Cultura do Congresso"...

Neymar jogador do Santos R$ 1.100.000,00 pormês e a partir de Setembro: R$1.500.000,00
Deixou de estudar na 8a. série, sem terminar.

Piso Nacional dos professores: R$ 1.187,00...

Moral da História:
Os professores ganham pouco é porque só servem para ensinar coisas inúteis, como ler, escrever e pensar.

Sugestão:
Mudar a grade curricular das escolas, que passaria a ter as seguintes matérias:
- Educação Física:
- Futebol
- Circo
- Música (Sertaneja, Pagode, Axé)
- História:
- Grandes Personagens da Corrupção Brasileira
- Biografia dos Heróis do Big Brother do Bial
- Involução do Pensamento das "Celebridades"
- História da Arte: De Carla Perez a Faustão
- Matemática:
- Multiplicação Fraudulenta do Dinheiro de Campanha
- Multiplicação dos seus ganhos 20 vezes a mais
- Cálculo Percentual de Comissões e Propinas
- Técnicas de "Como Fraudar o Fisco", "Como Abrir Empresas-Fantasma",
- "Como Aliciar Laranjas"
- Português e Literatura: Para quê? O último "prizidente" orgulhava-se de jamais ter lido um livro! E de sua mãe ter nascida analfabeta!
- Biologia, Física e Química: Desnecessárias, por excesso de complexidade.
- Educação Moral e Cívica: Manual do Guerrilheiro Urbano, Como Preparar Bombas Caseiras)

Assim está ecrito: "No final dos tempos, o homem sentirá vergonha de ser honesto."

=================

Paradoxo final (PRA):
Mesmo constatando tudo isso, professores, orientados por suas máfias sindicais, acabam votando por esses mesmos que prolongam sua agonia, especialistas nas disciplinas elencadas com tanta competência e bom humor...

Um importante alerta do economista Robert Lucas sobre a "retomada" americana

Os EUA estão ficando cada vez mais parecidos com a Europa, graças à Obamanomics, diz este prêmio Nobel de economia, Robert Lucas. Concordo.
Quando o Estado investe em mais welfare, em lugar de laissez-faire, a tendência é mais distributivismo e menos produtivismo. Ou seja, menor crescimento da produtividade e da inovação, e mais lazer e prazeres para todos.
Vão caminhar para menos riquezas e cada vez mais déficits públicos.
Em outros termos, para satisfazer os desejos de consumo da atual geração, vão sacrificar as perspectivas de bem-estar das gerações futuras, que deverão ser convidadas a pagar a conta.
Convidadas não é bem o termo: serão obrigadas a fazê-lo...
Bem, sempre tem chineses milionários dispostos a financiar esse desperdício.
O único problema será a obrigação de trabalhar para os chineses no futuro.
Nada que os chineses também não tenham feito em favor dos ocidentais durante dois séculos.
Assim vai o mundo...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

The Disappearing Recovery
By DANIEL HENNINGER
The Wall Street Journal, JULY 13, 2011, 7:28 P.M. ET

What if the weak recovery is all the recovery we are going to get?

Barack Obama, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell have been performing an intricate scorpion dance over spending, taxes and the debt ceiling, premised on the belief that this is the deal that would ignite the recovery.

But what if it's too late? What if that first-quarter growth rate of 1.8% is a portent of the U.S.'s long-term future? What if below-normal U.S. GDP is, as the Obama folks like to say, the new normal?

Robert Lucas, the 1995 Nobel laureate in economics, has spent his career thinking about why economies grow, and in particular about the effect of policy making on growth. From his office at the University of Chicago, Prof. Lucas has been wondering, like the rest of us, why, if the recession officially ended in the first half of 2009, there hasn't been more growth in the U.S. economy. He's also been wondering why this delayed recovery resembles the long non-recovery years of the 1930s. And he has been thinking about the U.S. and Europe.

What if the weak recovery is all the recovery we are going to get?

In May, Bob Lucas pulled his thoughts together and delivered them as the Milliman Lecture at the University of Washington, an exercise he described to me this week as "intelligent speculation."

Here is the lecture's provocative final thought: "Is it possible that by imitating European policies on labor markets, welfare and taxes, the U.S. has chosen a new, lower GDP trend? If so, it may be that the weak recovery we have had so far is all the recovery we will get."

The Obama-will-turn-us-into-Europe argument is a staple of the administration's critics. Prof. Lucas's intelligent speculation, however, carries the case beyond dinner-party carping.

The baseline reality for any discussion of where we're headed is that from 1870 to 2008, the U.S. economy has had average GDP productivity growth of about 3% and about 2% on a per-person basis. Despite displacements—wars, depressions—we've always returned to this solid upward trend. From 1870 till recently, real income per person has increased by a factor of 12—"an ongoing miracle," Prof. Lucas notes, "mainly due to free-market capitalism."

The Obama economists like to argue that this recession was the greatest meltdown since the Depression. Prof. Lucas agrees. Most recessions, he says, are not very important events. This one, though, has taken U.S. GDP almost 10% off its long-term growth trend. The only downturn comparable to this in the past century is the more than 30% decline during the Depression.

What discomfits him is the similarities in the policy choices that accompanied both delayed recoveries. By 1934, the Depression's banking crisis had been resolved, "yet full recovery was still seven years away," he said in the Milliman lecture. GDP stayed more than 10% below trend. "Why?" The answer, he says, was growth-suppressing policies, such as the Smoot-Hawley tariff, cartelization, unionization and, "most important but hardest to measure, FDR's demonization of business."

By the end of 2008, he notes, the primary storm of the financial panic was essentially over. We did get spending declines in GDP in that year's last quarter and in the first quarter of 2009. "But there is a world of difference," he says, "between two quarters of production declines and four years!" The persistence of growth 10 percentage points below its long-term trend line is troubling.

He credits the current Federal Reserve with avoiding the mistakes of the Depression, properly acting this time as the lender of last resort. With the financial side essentially in order and the recovery stalled, Prof. Lucas sees public-policy analogies to the 1930s: "The likelihood of much higher taxes, focused on 'the rich'; medical legislation that promises a large increase in the role of government; financial legislation that assigns vast, poorly defined responsibilities to the Fed and others."

The consensus assumption, however, is that the U.S. economy will return to its century-long growth trend. Prof. Lucas asks: "Is this really the case?"

Forgotten in most discussions of the U.S.-Europe comparison is that for the first 70 years of the 20th century, continental Europe's growth rose alongside that of the world-leading U.S. and U.K., especially after World War II. Through the 1960s, he says, there was every reason to expect a common, high living standard for all of us. Then, "in the 1970s, their catch-up stalled."

A 20% to 40% gap in income levels emerged between the U.S. and Europe, reflecting a lowered European work effort. In Prof. Lucas's view, that gap represents the cost (largely taxes) of financing a larger welfare state from 1970 onward. Other economists, he says, have cited a 30% loss in GDP per person in Western Europe since the 1970s.

The U.S.'s projected long-term welfare costs, including the new health-care law, are the justification the Obama economists give for pushing spending to 25% or more of GDP. The tax increase the president is fairly shrieking for this week isn't for the August debt limit. It's for the next 25 years.

"If we're going to move to a European welfare state," says Prof. Lucas, "we're going to have to pay a European price." And that price could be a permanently lower level of GDP per person. The U.S.'s amazing 100-year ride would slow.

Among the many things any such drop in GDP will siphon away is America's relentless productive vitality. "So much new happens in the United States," Prof. Lucas says. But will it still?

Write to henninger@wsj.com

Uau! Passei de 400 seguidores...

Constato agora, na coluna da direita, que passei de 400 seguidores.
Não tenho ideia se estes são 402 "leitores", ou simples curiosos, mas a constatação me dá muito mais responsabilidade na manutenção deste instrumento que eu vejo basicamente como um espaço de informação, de debate e de "divertissement", se me permitem a expressão, ou seja, um repositório de materiais para uma distração bem informada.

As coisas realmente sérias eu deixo para o meu site, o que não impede que eu possa postar aqui também matérias mais reflexivas e de pesquisa acadêmica...

Grato a todos pela confiança. Espero poder continuar desfrutando desse privilégio e dessa honra.
Vale!
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Livros PRAlmeida no Google Books: A Grande Mudanca (2003)

Descubro, aos poucos, que vários livros meus já estão no Google Books, sem que eu jamais tenha sido consultado (ou minhas editoras, suponho) para autorizar essa reprodução, ainda que parcial, de textos que se encontram sob cobertura de copyright.

Agora descobri que este livro escrito em 2002, A Grande Mudança, está também "googlelizado", o que aparentemente concorre para torná-lo mais conhecido, mas aumenta, também, as possibilidades de infração ao direito autoral.
Não que eu dependa disso para "sobreviver", mas suponho que as editoras não vejam esse tipo de prática com bons olhos.

A Grande Mudança (no meu site)

A Grande Mudança (em preview do Google)

Divirtam-se...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Proliferacao: a contribuicao da America Latina (cada um faz como pode...)

E depois dizem que a América Latina é uma zona isenta de riscos...

Chile: la erupción del volcán Puyehue equivale a 70 bombas atómicas
Infolatam/Efe, 13 de julio de 2011

Las claves
La diseminación de cenizas ha provocado la cancelación de cientos de vuelos domésticos e internacionales y la declaración de "emergencia agropecuaria" en las sureñas provincias argentinas de Chubut, Río Negro y Neuquén.
La potencia de la erupción del complejo volcánico chileno Puyehue-Cordón Caulle equivalió a la energía liberada por 70 bombas atómicas o al dos por ciento de la potencia eléctrica mundial, según un estudio publicado por investigadores argentinos.

Buenos Aires - Tres físicos de la Universidad Nacional de Río Negro, una de las provincias argentinas más afectadas por el volcán, calcularon que el Puyehue expulsó cien millones de toneladas de ceniza, arena y piedra pómez, “una cantidad comparable a la carga de 24 millones de camiones de transporte de áridos”.

En el estudio, que publican en la web de la entidad académica, plantearon como hipótesis que el área cubierta por el material expulsado por el volcán es de unos 1.700 kilómetros cuadrados, con un espesor promedio de diez centímetros.

El 4 de junio pasado el complejo volcánico, situado en la cordillera de Los Andes, hito fronterizo entre Argentina y Chile, entró en una actividad que expulsó cenizas y otros materiales durante cinco horas “con una altura promedio de la pluma de 5.000 metros”.

La energía necesaria para elevar esa masa de materiales a tal altura fue de mil kilotones, equivalente a la energía liberada por 70 bombas nucleares, calcularon los expertos, dos de ellos miembros del Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas y de la Comisión Nacional de Energía Atómica.

“La magnitud de la energía puesta en juego en este fenómeno geológico es equivalente a doce veces la potencia eléctrica instalada en Argentina o al dos por ciento de la potencia eléctrica mundial”, destacaron.

Los investigadores explicaron que hicieron este estudio desde la óptica que hubiera aplicado Enrico Fermi (1901-1954), físico italiano reconocido, entre otros motivos, por haber desarrollado el primer reactor nuclear, en 1942.

La erupción del Puyehue genera millonarias pérdidas económicas en Argentina, donde siguen afectados los vuelos comerciales con el consiguiente impacto en el turismo más de un más después de la entrada en actividad del complejo volcánico chileno.

La diseminación de cenizas ha provocado la cancelación de cientos de vuelos domésticos e internacionales y la declaración de “emergencia agropecuaria” en las sureñas provincias argentinas de Chubut, Río Negro y Neuquén, donde están los principales centros de turismo invernal del país.

Por que nao existem indignados no Brasil? - um ensaio de resposta (Reinaldo Azevedo)

Concordo em grande parte com o jornalista em questão, embora eu ainda acrescentaria, às máfias sindicais, a própria máfia patronal, que foi comprada com dinheiro público também (BNDES) e com proteção tarifária.
Já vivemos há muito tempo em república sindical, com um peronismo de fancaria sem qualquer substrato ideológico por trás, pura e simples mistificação, oportunismo e roubalheira descarada.
As simple as that...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Por que o brasileiro não se indigna e não vai à praça protestar contra a corrupção? Ensaio uma resposta antes de alguns dias de folga
Reinaldo Azevedo, 13/07/2011

Juan Arias, correspondente do jornal espanhol El País no Brasil, escreveu no dia 7 um artigo indagando onde estão os indignados do Brasil. Por que não ocupam as praças para protestar contra a corrupção e os desmandos? Não saberiam os brasileiros reagir à hipocrisia e à falta de ética dos políticos? Será mesmo este um país cujo povo tem uma índole de tal sorte pacífica que se contentaria com tão pouco? Publiquei, posts abaixo, a íntegra de seu texto. Afirmei que ensaiaria uma resposta, até porque a indagação de Arias, um excelente jornalista, é procedente e toca, entendo, numa questão essencial dos dias que correm. A resposta não é simples nem linear. Há vários fatores distintos que se conjugam. Vamos lá.

Povo privatizado
O “povo” não está nas ruas, meu caro Juan, porque foi privatizado pelo PT. Note que recorro àquele expediente detestável de pôr aspas na palavra “povo” para indicar que o sentido não é bem o usual, o corriqueiro, aquele de dicionário. Até porque este escriba não acredita no “povo” como ente de valor abstrato, que se materializa na massa na rua. Eu acredito em “povos” dentro de um povo, em correntes de opinião, em militância, em grupos organizados — e pouco importa se o que os mobiliza é o Facebook, o Twitter, o megafone ou o sino de uma igreja. Não existe movimento popular espontâneo. Essa é uma das tolices da esquerda de matriz anarquista, que o bolchevismo e o fascismo se encarregaram de desmoralizar a seu tempo. O “povo na rua” será sempre o “povo na rua mobilizado por alguém”. Numa anotação à margem: é isso o que me faz ver com reserva crítica — o que não quer dizer necessariamente “desagrado” — a dita “Primavera Árabe”. Alguém convoca os “povos”.

No Brasil, as esquerdas, os petistas em particular, desde a redemocratização, têm uma espécie de monopólio da praça. Disse Castro Alves: “A praça é do povo como o céu é do condor”. Disse Caetano Veloso: “A praça é do povo como o céu é do avião” (era um otimista; acreditava na modernização do Bananão). Disse Lula: “A praça é do povo como o povo é do PT”. Sim, responderei ao longo do texto por que os não-petistas não vão às ruas quase nunca. Um minutinho. Seguindo.

O “povo” não está nas ruas, meu caro Juan Arias, porque o PT compra, por exemplo, o MST com o dinheiro que repassa a suas entidades não exatamente para fazer reforma agrária, mas para manter ativo o próprio aparelho político — às vezes crítico ao governo, mas sempre unido numa disputa eleitoral. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva e Fernando Haddad, ministro da Educação e candidato in pectore do Apedeuta à Prefeitura de São Paulo, estarão neste 13 de julho no 52º Congresso da UNE. Os míticos estudantes não estão nas ruas porque empenhados em seus protestos a favor. Você tem ciência, meu caro Juan, de algum outro país do mundo em que se fazem protestos a favor do governo? Talvez na Espanha fascista que seus pais conheceram, felizmente vencida pela democracia. Certamente na Cuba comuno-fascistóide dos irmãos Castro e na tirania síria. E no Brasil. Por quê?

Porque a UNE é hoje uma repartição pública alimentada com milhões de reais pelo lulo-petismo. Foi comprada pelo governo por quase R$ 50 milhões. Nesse período, esses patriotas, meu caro Juan, se mobilizaram, por exemplo, contra o “Provão”, depois chamado de Enade, o exame que avalia a qualidade das universidades, mas não moveram um palha contra o esbulho que significa, NA FORMA COMO EXISTE, o ProUni, um programa que já transferiu bilhões às mantenedoras privadas de ensino, sem que exista a exigência da qualidade. Não se esqueça de que a UNE, durante o mensalão, foi uma das entidades que protestaram contra o que a canalha chamou “golpe da mídia”. Vale dizer: a entidade saiu em defesa de Delúbio Soares, de José Dirceu, de Marcos Valério e companhia. Um de seus ex-presidentes e então um dos líderes das manifestações que resultaram na queda de Fernando Collor é hoje senador pelo PT do Rio e defensor estridente dos malfeitos do PT. Apontá-los, segundo o agora conservador Lindbergh Farias, é coisa de conspiração da “elites”. Os antigos caras-pintadas têm hoje é a cara suja; os antigos caras-pintadas se converteram em verdadeiros caras-de-pau.

Centrais sindicais
O que alguns chamam “povo”, Juan, chegaram, sim, a protestar em passado nem tão distante, no governo FHC. Lá estava, por exemplo, a sempre vigilante CUT. Foi à rua contra o Plano Real. E o Plano Real era uma coisa boa. Foi à rua contra a Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal. E a Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal era uma coisa boa. Foi à rua contra as privatizações. E as privatizações eram uma coisa boa. Saiba, Juan, que o PT votou contra até o Fundef, que era um fundo que destinava mais recursos ao ensino fundamental. E onde estão hoje a CUT e as demais centrais sindicais?

Penduradas no poder. Boa parte dos quadros dos governos Lula e Dilma vem do sindicalismo — inclusive o ministro que é âncora dupla da atual gestão: Paulo Bernardo (Comunicações), casado com Gleisi Hoffmann (Casa Civil). O indecoroso Imposto Sindical, cobrado compulsoriamente dos trabalhadores, sejam sindicalizados ou não, alimenta as entidades sindicais e as centrais, que não são obrigadas a prestar contas dos milhões que recebem por ano. Lula vetou o expediente legal que as obrigava a submeter esses gastos ao Tribunal de Contas da União. Os valentes afirmaram, e o Apedeuta concordou, que isso feria a autonomia das entidades, que não se lembraram, no entanto, de serem autônomas na hora de receber dinheiro de um imposto.

Há um pouco mais, Juan. Nas centrais, especialmente na CUT, os sindicatos dos empregados das estatais têm um peso fundamental, e eles são hoje os donos e gestores dos bilionários fundos de pensão manipulados pelo governo para encabrestar o capital privado ou se associar a ele — sempre depende do grau de rebeldia ou de “bonomia”do empresariado.

O MST, A UNE E OS SINDICATOS NÃO ESTÃO NAS RUAS CONTRA A CORRUPÇÃO, MEU CARO JUAN, PORQUE SÃO SÓCIOS MUITO BEM-REMUNERADOS DESSA CORRUPÇÃO. E fornecem, se necessário, a mão-de-obra para o serviço sujo em favor do governo e do PT. NÃO SE ESQUEÇA DE QUE A CÚPULA DOS ALOPRADOS PERTENCIA TODA ELA À CUT. Não se esqueça de que Delúbio Soares, o próprio, veio da… CUT!

Isso explica tudo? Ou: “Os Valores”
Ainda não!

Ao longo dos quase nove anos de poder petista, Juan, a sociedade brasileira ficou mais fraca, e o estado ficou mais forte; não foi ela que o tornou mais transparente; foi ele que a tornou mais opaca. Em vez de se aperfeiçoarem os mecanismos de controle desse estado, foi esse estado que encabrestou entidades da sociedade civil, engajando-as em sua pauta. Até a antes sempre vigilante Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil flerta freqüentemente com o mau direito — e o STF não menos — em nome do “progresso”. O petismo fez das agências reguladoras meras repartições partidárias, destruindo-lhes o caráter.

Enfraqueceram-se enormemente os fundamentos de uma sociedade aberta, democrática, plural. Em nome da diversidade, da igualdade e do pluralismo, busca-se liquidar o debate. A Marcha para Jesus, citada por você, à diferença do que querem muitos, é uma das poucas expressões do país plural que existe de fato, mas que parece não existir, por exemplo, na imprensa. À diferença do que pretendem muitos, os evangélicos são um fator de progresso do Brasil — se aceitarmos, então, que a diversidade é um valor a ser preservado.

Por que digo isso? Olhe para a sua Espanha, Juan, tão saudavelmente dividida, vá lá, entre “progressistas” e “conservadores” — para usar duas palavras bastante genéricas —, entre aqueles mais à esquerda e aqueles mais à direita, entre os que falam em nome de uma herança socialista e mais intervencionista, e os que se pronunciam em favor do liberalismo e do individualismo. Assim é, você há de convir, em todo o mundo democrático.

Veja que coisa, meu caro: você conhece alguma grande democracia do mundo que, à moda brasileira, só congregue partidos que falam uma linguagem de esquerda? Pouco importa, Juan, se sabem direito o que dizem e são ou não sinceros em sua convicção. O que é relevante é o fato de que, no fim das contas, todos convergem com uma mesma escolha: mais estado e menos indivíduo; mais controle e menos liberdade individual. Como pode, meu caro Juan, o principal partido de oposição no Brasil pensar, no fim das contas, que o problema do PT é de gestão, não de valores? Você consegue se lembrar, insisto, de alguma grande democracia do mundo em que a palavra “direita” virou sinônimo de palavrão? Nem na Espanha que superou décadas de franquismo.

Imprensa
Se você não conhece democracia como a nossa, Juan, sabe que, com as exceções que confirmam a regra, também não há imprensa como a nossa no mundo democrático no que concerne aos valores ideológicos. Vivemos sob uma quase ditadura de opinião. Não que ela deixe de noticiar os desmandos — dois ministros do governo Dilma caíram, é bom deixar claro, porque o jornalismo fez o seu trabalho. Mas lembre-se: nesta parte do texto, trato de valores.

Tome como exemplo o Código Florestal. Um dia você conte em seu jornal que o Brasil tem 851 milhões de hectares. Apenas 27% são ocupados pela agricultura e pela pecuária; 0,2% estão com as cidades e com as obras de infra-estrutura. A agricultura ocupa 59,8 milhões (7% do total); as terras indígenas, 107,6 milhões (12,6%). Que país construiu a agropecuária mais competitiva do mundo e abrigou 200 milhões de pessoas em apenas 27,2% de seu território, incluindo aí todas as obras de infra-estrutura? Tais números, no entanto — do IBGE, do Ibama, do Incra e da Funai — são omitidos dos leitores (e do mundo) em nome da causa!

A crítica na imprensa foi esmagada pelo engajamento; não se formam nem se alimentam valores de contestação ao statu quo — que hoje, ora veja!, é petista. Por quê? Porque a imprensa de viés realmente liberal é minoritária no Brasil. Dá-se enorme visibilidade aos movimentos de esquerdistas, mas se ignoram as manifestações em favor do estado de direito e da legalidade. Curiosamente, somos, sim, um dos países mais desiguais do mundo, que está se tornando especialista em formar líderes que lutam… contra a desigualdade. Entendeu a ironia?

Quem vai à rua?
Ora, Juan, quem vai, então, à rua? Os esquerdistas estão se fartando na lambança do governismo, e aqueles que não comungam de suas idéias e que lastimam a corrupção e os desmandos praticamente inexistem para a opinião pública. Quando se manifestam, são tratados como párias. Ou não é verdade que a imprensa trata com entusiasmo os milhões da parada gay, mas com evidente descaso a marcha dos evangélicos? A simples movimentação de algumas lideranças de um bairro de classe média para discutir a localização de uma estação de metro é tratada por boa parte da imprensa como um movimento contra o… “povo”.

As esquerdas dos chamados movimentos sociais estão, sim, engajadas, mas em defender o governo e seus malfeitos. Afirmam abertamente que tudo não passa de uma conspiração contra os movimentos populares. As esquerdas infiltradas na imprensa demonizam toda e qualquer reação de caráter legalista — ou que não comungue de seus valores ditos “progressistas” — como expressão não de um pensamento diferente, divergente, mas como manifestação de atraso.

Descrevi, meu caro Juan, o que vejo. Isso tem de ser necessariamente assim? Acho que não! A quem cabe, então, organizar a reação contra a passividade e a naturalização do escândalo, na qual se empenha hoje o PT? Essa indagação merecerá resposta num outro texto, que este já vai longe. Fica para depois do meu descanso.

Do seu colega brasileiro Reinaldo Azevedo.

Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations: CFR Report 2011

Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations
http://www.cfr.org/brazil/global-brazil-us-brazil-relations/p25407

Relatório final do Task Force do CFR. Uma radiografia da inserção internacional do Brasil nos anos Lula/Dilma.

Overview

July 12, 2011—Over the course of a generation, Brazil has emerged as both a driver of growth in South America and as an active force in world politics. A new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)-sponsored Independent Task Force report asserts “that it is in the interest of the United States to understand Brazil as a complex international actor whose influence on the defining global issues of the day is only likely to increase.”
Brazil currently ranks as the world’s fifth-largest landmass, fifth-largest population, and expects to soon be ranked the fifth largest economy. The report, Global Brazil and U.S.-Brazil Relations, recommends that “U.S. policymakers recognize Brazil’s standing as a global actor, treat its emergence as an opportunity for the United States, and work with Brazil to develop complementary policies.”
The Task Force is chaired by former secretary of energy Samuel W. Bodman and former president of the World Bank James D. Wolfensohn, and directed by CFR Senior Fellow and Director for Latin America Studies, and Director of the Global Brazil Initiative Julia E. Sweig.
Recognizing Brazil’s global role, the report recommends that the Obama administration now fully endorse the country’s bid for a seat as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). It argues that “a formal endorsement from the United States for Brazil would go far to overcome lingering suspicion within the Brazilian government that the U.S. commitment to a mature relationship between equals is largely rhetorical.”
Domestically, Brazil’s “inclusive growth has translated into a significant reduction of inequality, an expansion of the middle class, and a vibrant economy, all framed within a democratic context.” Consequently, Brazil has been able to use its economic bona fides to leverage a stronger position in the international, commercial, and diplomatic arena.
The report stresses the importance of regular communication between the presidents of both countries. “Cooperation between the United States and Brazil holds too much promise for miscommunication or inevitable disagreements to stand in the way of potential gains.” A mature, working relationship means that “the United States and Brazil can help each other advance mutual interests even without wholesale policy agreements between the two,” notes the report.
The Task Force further recommends that
- the U.S. Congress “include an elimination of the ethanol tariff in any bill regarding reform to the ethanol and biofuel tax credit regime.”
- the United States “take the first step to waive visa requirements for Brazilians by immediately reviewing Brazil’s criteria for participation in the Visa Waiver Program.”
- the U.S. State Department create an Office for Brazilian Affairs and the National Security Council (NSC) centralize its efforts under a NSC director for Brazil in order to better coordinate the current decentralized U.S. policy.
The bipartisan Task Force includes thirty distinguished experts on Brazil who represent a range of perspectives and backgrounds. The report includes a number of additional views by Task Force members, including one that notes, “We believe that a more gradual approach [regarding Brazil’s inclusion as a full UNSC member] would likely have more success in navigating the diplomatic complexities presented by U.S. support for Brazil.” Another view asserts, “If the United States supports, as the Obama administration has said it does, leadership structures in international institutions that are more reflective of international realities, it must support without qualifications Brazil’s candidacy [for the UNSC].”


Task Force Members
Jed N. Bailey is an expert in energy markets in developing countries and the founder of the Popo Agie Group, an incubator focused on products and services that promote learning at all ages. He was previously vice president for applied research consulting at IHS CERA, where he was responsible for IHS CERA’s global bespoke research and consulting practice. Bailey is the author of over seventy IHS CERA reports and directed IHS CERA multiclient studies that examined the energy futures of Brazil, China, Mexico, South America, and Southeast Asia. He has been widely quoted in publications ranging from the Economist and the Financial Times to the Iran Daily and has appeared on Bloomberg Television and CNN International. His current projects at the Popo Agie Group include developing Kaleidoshapes, a large-scale construction and dramatic play toy for young children; experimenting with the graphical presentation of complex data; and exploring the use of narrative in corporate strategy and communications. Bailey holds a BS from the University of Wyoming and an MS from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Samuel W. Bodman served as U.S. secretary of energy from 2005 to 2009 and previously served as deputy secretary of the treasury and as deputy secretary of commerce. Bodman currently serves on the board of directors of the Hess Corporation, the AES Corporation, and Weatherford International. He is a trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cornell University, and the Carnegie Institution, as well as a lifetime trustee of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is also a chairman of the advisory board of the University of Texas Energy Institute and a member of the energy task force of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He serves on the international advisory council of the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. Bodman earned a BS from Cornell University and a PhD from MIT, where he was also associate professor of chemical engineering. He began his work in the financial sector as technical director of the American Research and Development Corporation. In 1983 he became president and CEO of Fidelity Investments and a director of the Fidelity Group of Mutual Funds. In 1987, he joined Cabot Corporation, where he served as chairman, CEO, and director.
R. Nicholas Burns is professor of the practice of diplomacy and international politics at the Harvard Kennedy School and director of the future of diplomacy project and faculty chair for the programs on the Middle East and on India and South Asia. He serves on the board of directors of the school’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and on the boards of several nonprofit organizations. Ambassador Burns served in the U.S. Foreign Service for twenty-seven years until his retirement in April 2008, serving variously as undersecretary of state for political affairs, U.S. ambassador to NATO and Greece, and State Department spokesman. He was senior director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia affairs on the National Security Council and special assistant to President William J. Clinton and, before that, director for Soviet affairs in the George H.W. Bush administation. He also served at the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem and the U.S. embassies in Egypt and Mauritania. He has received the Secretary of State’s Distinguished Service Award, Johns Hopkins University’s Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service, and Boston College’s Alumni Achievement Award. He has a BA from Boston College and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Louis E. Caldera is the vice president of programs with the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, where he leads the foundation’s scholarship and grant programs and is responsible for the foundation’s communications, information systems, program development, and evaluation functions. Caldera has a distinguished public service career that includes service as an officer in the U.S. Army, as a California legislator, as secretary of the army in the Clinton administration, and as president of the University of New Mexico. He also served in the Clinton administration as managing director and chief operating officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service. Prior to joining the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, Caldera was a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, where he focused on higher education, immigration, and other public policy matters affecting poor and ethnically and racially diverse communities in the United States. He served on President Barack Obama’s Department of Defense transition team and was an assistant to the president and director of the White House Military Office in the early months of the Obama administration. Caldera is a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and holds law and business degrees from Harvard University.
Eileen B. Claussen is the president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Strategies for the Global Environment. Claussen is the former assistant secretary of state for oceans and international environmental and scientific affairs. Prior to joining the Department of State, Claussen served for three years as a special assistant to the president and senior director for global environmental affairs on the National Security Council. She has also served as chairman of the United Nations Multilateral Montreal Protocol Fund. Claussen was director of atmospheric programs at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), where she was responsible for activities related to the depletion of the ozone layer, Title IV of the Clean Air Act, and the EPA’s energy efficiency programs. Claussen is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Ecomagination advisory board, the Harvard environmental economics program advisory panel, and the U.S. Commodity Future Trading Commission’s advisory committee. She is the recipient of the Department of State’s Career Achievement Award and the Distinguished Executive Award for Sustained Extraordinary Accomplishment. She also served as the Timothy Atkeson scholar in residence at Yale University.
Nelson W. Cunningham is managing partner and a cofounder of McLarty Associates. Under his leadership, McLarty Associates has developed into a firm with global reach and over four dozen employees and advisers stationed in Washington and around the world. Cunningham served as special adviser to President Clinton on Western Hemisphere affairs and as general counsel at the White House Office of Administration. He previously served as general counsel to Chairman Joseph R. Biden of the Senate Judiciary Committee, focusing on constitutional, judicial, and criminal justice matters. He also served as an assistant U.S. attorney in the southern district of New York from 1988 to 1994. Cunningham was a campaign adviser and member of the Obama-Biden transition team and was a foreign policy and trade adviser to John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign as well as to those of other Democratic candidates. He is an active member of the boards of the Institute of the Americas, the Business Council for International Understanding, the American Security Project, and the U.S.-India Business Council and is a member of the Yale president’s council on international activities, the Department of State’s advisory committee on international economic policy, the Export-Import Bank advisory committee, the Council of the Americas, and the Council on Foreign Relations. Cunningham is a graduate of Yale College and Stanford Law School.
Eli Whitney Debevoise II is a senior partner in the law firm of Arnold & Porter LLP, with particular involvement in international financial transactions, public policy, international arbitration, multijurisdictional litigation, banking, and international trade. The firm acts as legal counsel to Brazil on certain transactional and litigation matters. He rejoined Arnold & Porter LLP in 2010 after serving as U.S. executive director of the World Bank beginning in 2007. During his tenure at the bank, he had a leading role in capital increase and share realignment negotiations and participated in preparations for G8 and G20 summits. Debevoise has lectured at Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, and the Hungarian Institute for the Training of Bankers. In 2010, he gave the Lauder leadership lecture at the Lauder Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written articles on sovereign finance, international banking, international arbitration, securities regulation, World Trade Organization dispute resolution, U.S. export controls, and sovereign immunity. Debevoise graduated from Yale University and Harvard Law School. He holds an honorary doctorate in law from the Vermont Law School and is a recipient of the Order of Rio Branco.
Paula J. Dobriansky is the senior vice president and global head of government and regulatory affairs at Thomson Reuters. She is an adjunct senior fellow at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and holds the distinguished national security chair at the U.S. Naval Academy. From May 2001 to January 2009, Ambassador Dobriansky served as undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs; in February 2007, she was appointed the president’s special envoy on Northern Ireland. She served as senior vice president and director of the Washington office of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and as CFR’s first George F. Kennan senior fellow for Russian and Eurasian studies. Her other government appointments include associate director for policy and programs at the United States Information Agency, deputy assistant secretary of state for human rights and humanitarian affairs, and director of European and Soviet affairs on the National Security Council. From 1997 to 2001, she served on the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy. Ambassador Dobriansky received a BSFS from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and an MA and PhD from Harvard University. She is a recipient of various honors, including the secretary of state’s highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal.
Shepard L. Forman is director emeritus and senior fellow of the Center on International Cooperation at New York University. Prior to founding the center, he directed the human rights and governance and international affairs programs at the Ford Foundation. He serves on the boards of the International Peace Institute, the Global Fairness Initiative, Peace Dividend Trust, and Scholars at Risk, among others. Forman received his PhD in anthropology from Columbia University and did postdoctoral studies in economic development at the Institute of Development Studies in Sussex, England. He served on the faculty at Indiana University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Michigan and conducted field research in Brazil and East Timor. He has authored two books on Brazil and numerous articles and policy papers on humanitarian assistance and postconflict reconstruction assistance and statebuilding. He is coeditor, with Stewart Patrick, of Good Intentions: Pledges of Aid to Countries Emerging from Conflict and Multilateralism and U.S. Foreign Policy: Ambivalent Engagement; with Romita Ghosh of Promoting Reproductive Health: Investing in Health for Development; and, with Bruce Jones and Richard Gowen, of Cooperating for Peace and Security. He also edited Diagnosing America: Anthropology and Public Policy, which examines the application of anthropological studies to social problems in the United States.
José A. Fourquet serves as a managing director of the DBS Financial Group, one of the largest financial advisory firms in the state of Florida. Prior to that, Fourquet worked for four years as a managing director and head of the Miami private investment management branch of Lehman Brothers, Inc. Before joining Lehman, President George W. Bush nominated Fourquet and the U.S. Senate unanimously confirmed him to serve as U.S. executive director of the Inter-American Development Bank from 2001 to 2004. Prior, Fourquet worked for five years as a vice president in the fixed income, currency, and commodities division of Goldman, Sachs & Co., in New York. Fourquet began his career as an operations officer in the Central Intelligence Agency and spent over six years posted abroad in Latin America and the Caribbean, where he collected, evaluated, and reported high-priority intelligence of interest to U.S. policymakers. Fourquet graduated from Georgetown University with a BA in government and a School of Foreign Service special certificate in Latin American studies. He also obtained an MBA in finance from Columbia Business School, where he was inducted into the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society.
Maria C. Freire is president of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation. Prior to this, she led the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development, transforming the organization into a world leader in tuberculosis drug development. An internationally recognized expert in technology commercialization, Freire directed the Office of Technology Transfer at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) and established the Office of Technology Development at the University of Maryland at Baltimore and in Baltimore County. Freire obtained her BS at Universidad Peruano Cayetano Heredia (Lima, Peru) and her PhD in biophysics from the University of Virginia. Active on the NIH advisory committee to the director, the international advisory steering committee of the Instituto Carlos Slim de la Salud (Mexico), the Association of American Medical Colleges advisory panel on research, and the international advisory panel to the Ministerial Working Group on Scaling up of Primary Health Systems, Freire was one of ten commissioners selected for the World Health Organization’s Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health (CIPIH). A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of Science, she has received the Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service, the Arthur S. Flemming Award, and the Bayh-Dole Award.
Stanley A. Gacek* is a labor lawyer with both U.S. and international experience. He is a recognized expert on Brazilian labor and social issues and is the author of a thorough comparative analysis of the Brazilian and U.S. labor law systems, Sistemas de Relacoes do Trabalho: Exame dos Modelos Brasil-Estados Unidos. Gacek is currently serving as international relations officer in the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of International Affairs and is responsible for policy and comparative labor law analysis and for representing the U.S. government in its bilateral discussions with counterpart labor ministries throughout the world. Prior to his current job with the Labor Department, Gacek served as special counsel for international labor law at the Solidarity Center/AFL-CIO and associate director of the AFL-CIO’s international department. He was the AFL-CIO’s international affairs assistant director (Americas Region) from 1997 to 2005. He served as the assistant director for international affairs at the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) from 1984 to 1997 and was the UFCW’s assistant general counsel from 1979 to 1984. Gacek received his BA in social studies from Harvard University and his JD from Harvard Law School. He was an adjunct professor at Harvard University in 2008 and has been an active member of the District of Columbia Bar Association.
Sergio J. Galvis is a partner at Sullivan & Cromwell LLP and heads the firm’s practice in Brazil and elsewhere in Latin America. For more than twenty-five years, Galvis has worked on hundreds of matters involving parties from more than twenty-five countries in Asia, Europe, and Latin America. His recent experience in Brazil includes the proposed combination of LAN Airlines and TAM S.A. In 2010, he received the Distinguished Global Citizen Award at the Global Kids annual benefit. He was named by the National Law Journal as one of the 50 Most Influential Minority Lawyers in America and by Hispanic Business magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential U.S. Hispanics in 2008. He is a three-time recipient of the Burton Award for Legal Achievement, most recently in 2011 for his article “Introducing Dodd-Frank,” published in Latin Lawyer. In 2002, Galvis was part of a group of eminent practitioners convened by a G10 working group to help develop collective action clauses for sovereign debt financings.
Kevin P. Green joined IBM in November 2004 and leads IBM’s Department of Defense (DoD) and Intelligence Community business, which includes the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, Joint Commands and DoD agencies, and National Security Intelligence agencies. Prior to joining IBM, Admiral Green spent thirty-three years as a naval officer, completing his navy career as deputy chief of naval operations (DCNO) for operations, plans, and policy. As DCNO, he coordinated global naval operations, strategic planning, information operations, and naval policy development and managed service relationships with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the National Security Council staff, the U.S. military services, other federal agencies, and allied navies. As a flag officer, he commanded Naval Forces U.S. Southern Command, the Abraham Lincoln carrier battle group, and the Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Illinois. He served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Atlantic Fleet headquarters, and the Bureau of Naval Personnel and commanded a destroyer squadron and a guided missile frigate. He graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and the National War College and received an MS from the Naval Postgraduate School.
Donna J. Hrinak is vice president for global public policy at PepsiCo, Inc. She has served as U.S. ambassador to four countries—Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, and the Dominican Republic—and as deputy assistant secretary of state for Mexico and the Caribbean. She also had assignments in Colombia, Honduras, Mexico, and Poland. Ambassador Hrinak’s honors include the U.S. government’s Distinguished Public Service Award and the State Department’s Career Achievement Award. In 2005, she was named international businesswoman of the year by the Miami chapter of the Organization of Women in International Trade. She serves on the board of directors of the Inter-American Dialogue and on the board of counselors of McLarty Associates. She is based in Purchase, NY.
Robert L. Hutchings is dean of the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. Prior to this, Hutchings was diplomat in residence at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University. He was also faculty chair of the master in public policy program and served for five years as assistant dean. From 2003 to 2005, on public service leave from Princeton, he was chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council. He has also served as a fellow and director of international studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, as the National Security Council’s director for European affairs, and as special adviser to the secretary of state, with the rank of ambassador. Ambassador Hutchings was deputy director of Radio Free Europe and on the faculty of the University of Virginia, and he has held adjunct appointments at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies and Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He is a director of the Atlantic Council of the United States and the Foundation for a Civil Society and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the British-North American Committee, and the executive committee of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs.
G. John Ikenberry is the Albert G. Milbank professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University in the Woodrow Wilson School. He has also taught previously at Georgetown University and the University of Pennsylvania. He has held posts at the State Department, on the policy planning staff, and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, as a senior associate. Ikenberry has also been a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. During 2002–2004, he was a transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund. In 1998–99, Ikenberry was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 1997–98, he was a CFR international affairs fellow in Japan, sponsored by Hitachi Ltd., and spent a year affiliated with the Institute for International Policy Studies in Tokyo. He has published in all the major academic journals of international relations and written widely in policy journals in addition to authoring several books. He is also the reviewer of books on political and legal affairs for Foreign Affairs. Ikenberry has just published a new book, Liberal Leviathan: The Origins, Crisis, and Transformation of the American World Order. He received his PhD from the University of Chicago.
Timothy M. Kingston is a partner and managing director at Goldman, Sachs & Co., and coheads the global power effort within the investment banking division. He joined Goldman Sachs in May 1988, and his career has spanned various geographies and functional areas, including ten years in the Latin American group, where he served ultimately as chief operating officer and concentrated on Brazil. Kingston serves on the advisory boards of the Latin American studies program at Princeton University and the North American board of INSEAD and is a director of the North American Chilean Chamber of Commerce. He was previously a director of Mercado Libre. Kingston is a graduate of Princeton University and holds an MBA from INSEAD.
Thomas E. Lovejoy was elected university professor at George Mason University in March 2010. He also holds the biodiversity chair at the Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment and was president from 2002 to 2008. Starting in the 1970s, he helped bring attention to the issue of tropical deforestation, and in 1980, he published the first estimate of global extinction rates. Lovejoy has worked on the interaction between climate change and biodiversity for more than twenty years, coining the term biological diversity and originating the concept of debt-for-nature swaps. He is the founder of the public television series Nature and has served as the senior adviser to the president of the United Nations Foundation, the World Bank’s chief biodiversity adviser and lead specialist for the environment for the Latin American region, the Smithsonian Institution’s assistant secretary for environmental and external affairs, and executive vice president of World Wildlife Fund-U.S. He has served on advisory councils in the Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton administrations. In 2009 he was appointed conservation fellow by the National Geographic Society. He chairs the scientific and technical panel for the Global Environment Facility. He received his BS and PhD from Yale University.
Jennifer L. McCoy is director of the Carter Center’s Americas program and has been professor of political science at Georgia State University since 1984. As part of her responsibilities overseeing the Americas program, she directs the Carter Center’s Friends of the Inter-American Democratic Charter group, and she previously managed the Carter Center’s project on mediation and monitoring in Venezuela from 2002 to 2004. She has directed election-monitoring missions for the Carter Center in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Panama, Mexico, Venezuela, Jamaica, and Peru and has participated in election delegations to Indonesia, Haiti, Suriname, and Guyana. McCoy’s academic career has included extensive fieldwork in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Uruguay, where she conducted research as a Fulbright fellow in 1991 and 1992. A specialist on democratization, international collective protection and promotion of democracy, and Latin American politics, McCoy’s most recent book is International Mediation in Venezuela (with Francisco Diez). She is also editor and contributor to The Unraveling of Representative Democracy in Venezuela (with David Myers), Do Politicians Learn from Political Crises? and Venezuelan Democracy Under Stress.
Joy Olson is executive director of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) and is a leading expert on human rights and U.S. policy toward Latin America. Under Olson’s direction, WOLA is pioneering new approaches to human rights advocacy, focusing on the underlying causes of injustice, inequality, and violence. The Washington Post has recognized WOLA as one of the best-managed nonprofits in the Washington area. Olson specializes in military and security policy, and she has been a longtime advocate for greater transparency of military programs in Latin America. She cofounded the Just the Facts project, which makes information about U.S. military policy in Latin America publicly accessible. For more than a decade, she has coauthored an annual study on trends in U.S. security assistance, including the recent report Waiting for Change. Prior to joining WOLA, Olson directed the Latin America Working Group, a coalition of sixty nongovernmental organizations working to promote peaceful and just U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America. Olson has testified before Congress on Latin America policy issues ranging from human rights in Mexico to drug policy to the problems of poverty and inequality in the region. She is a frequent commentator in the media, including on CNN, CNN Español, the BBC, PBS NewsHour, National Public Radio, and an array of national and international news outlets. Olson earned an MA from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, following two years’ work in community development in Honduras.
Brian D. O’Neill is vice chairman of Lazard International. His responsibilities include Latin America and Canada. O’Neill has extensive experience working with governments, local and multinational corporations, and financial institutions. He is a director of Signatura Lazard in Brazil and MBA Lazard in Central and South America and partner assigned to the firm’s strategic alliance Alfaro, Davila y Rios S.C. in Mexico. O’Neill served as deputy assistant secretary in the U.S. Treasury from 2007 to 2009. For a five-month period in 2008, he was acting U.S. director of the Inter-American Development Bank. Prior to that, he worked for JPMorgan Chase for over thirty years, where he held multiple leadership roles, including chairmcan of investment banking for Latin America and Canada from 2001 to 2006. He lived and worked in South America for twelve years in Santiago, Chile; Buenos Aires, Argentina; and São Paulo, Brazil. O’Neill is a director of the Council of the Americas, the Americas Society, and the Inter-American Dialogue. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a member of the advisory committee for the David Rockefeller Center for Latin America Studies at Harvard University.
Michelle Billig Patron is senior director of PIRA Energy Group. Prior to joining PIRA, Patron was an international affairs fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and conducted energy research at Deutsche Bank. Earlier in her career, she served as an international policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) under the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations. During that time, she advised the U.S. energy secretary and other senior U.S. officials on relations with major energy-producing and -consuming countries, including Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, China, Nigeria, and the European Union. In 2001, Patron served as energy attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. Prior to the DOE, she worked at the International Energy Agency, the White House, UNICEF, and the Center for International Environmental Law. Patron holds a BA from Columbia University and an MA from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. She has served as a commentator to CNBC, BBC, NPR, the New York Times, and the Economist and has written for Foreign Affairs, the Financial Times, and the Los Angeles Times.
David Perez has served as a managing director with Palladium Equity Partners since 2003. Previously, he held senior private equity positions at General Atlantic Partners and Atlas Venture and also held positions at Chase Capital Partners and James D. Wolfensohn, Inc. Perez serves on the board of directors of Palladium’s privately held portfolio companies Aconcagua Holdings, Inc.; American Gilsonite Company; Capital Contractors, Inc.; DolEx Dollar Express, Inc.; Jordan Healthcare Holdings, Inc.; and Prince Minerals, Inc. Perez serves as the chair of the board of directors of the National Association of Investment Companies, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and is the president of the board of directors of Ballet Hispánico. Perez earned a BS/MS degree from the Dresden University of Technology, an MEng degree in engineering management from Cornell University, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Riordan Roett is the Sarita and Don Johnston professor of political science and director of Western Hemisphere studies at the Johns Hopkins Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). In 2004, SAIS announced the establishment of the Riordan Roett chair in Latin American studies. From 1983 to 1995, Roett served as a consultant to the Chase Manhattan Bank in various capacities; in 1994–95 he was the senior political analyst in the emerging markets division of the bank’s international capital markets group. Roett is a member of the board of directors of several mutual funds at Legg Mason, Inc. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Bretton Woods Committee and is a former national president of the Latin American Studies Association. He is author and editor of several books, including, most recently, The New Brazil. Roett received his BA, MA, and PhD from Columbia University.
David J. Rothkopf serves as president and chief executive of Garten Rothkopf. He is also a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and chairs the Carnegie Economic Strategy Roundtable and the National Strategic Investment Dialogue. He is also the author of Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and Superclass: The Global Power Elite and the World They Are Making. His next book, Power, Inc.: The Epic Rivalry Between Big Business and Government—and the Reckoning that Lies Ahead will be published in 2012. He also writes a daily blog for ForeignPolicy.com. Prior to the establishment of Garten Rothkopf, he was chairman, CEO, and cofounder of Intellibridge Corporation, a leading provider of international analysis and open-source intelligence. Prior to that, he was managing director of Kissinger Associates, the international advisory firm founded and chaired by former U.S. secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger. Rothkopf served as acting U.S. undersecretary of commerce for international trade, directing the 2,400 employees of the International Trade Administration. He joined the Clinton administration in 1993 as deputy undersecretary of commerce for international trade policy development. Rothkopf was cofounder, chairman, and CEO of International Media Partners, Inc., publisher of CEO magazine and Emerging Markets and organizer of the CEO Institutes.
Andrew Small currently serves as the director of the committee that oversees relations between U.S. bishops and the Catholic Church in Latin America and the Caribbean. Father Small was the foreign policy adviser for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops from 2004 to 2009. He has written extensively on the church’s role in the public square and has delivered testimony before the U.S. Congress on the impact of U.S. trade policy on developing countries.
Julia E. Sweig is the Nelson and David Rockefeller senior fellow for Latin America studies, director for Latin America studies, and director of the Global Brazil initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She is the author of Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know and Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century, as well as of numerous publications on Latin America and American foreign policy. She has directed several CFR reports on Latin America. Sweig’s Inside the Cuban Revolution: Fidel Castro and the Urban Underground received the American Historical Association’s Herbert Feis Award for best book of the year by an independent scholar.
Tanisha N. Tingle-Smith is the principal and founder of Verdade Consulting, a boutique Brazil-focused risk advisory and research consultancy. Her research specializes in Brazilian international relations, with particular focus on the geoeconomics of Brazil’s relations with the Global South. She has presented at and contributed to articles and book chapters for U.S. and international universities. In 2008–2009, she was a consultant at the United Nations Development Program on Brazil-Africa South-South development exchange. Earlier, she served as foreign policy analyst and adviser with the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency and the departments of State and Treasury. She received department recognition and awards for her analytic work. From 1995 to 2001, she was an analyst and assistant vice president for Latin America economic research with Salomon Smith Barney and Merrill Lynch. She is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She holds an MIA from the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.
James D. Wolfensohn is chairman of Wolfensohn & Company, LLC, chairman of Citigroup’s international advisory board, and adviser to Citigroup’s senior management on global strategy and on international matters. In 2006, he established the Wolfensohn Center for Development at the Brookings Institution. Wolfensohn was president of the World Bank Group from 1995 to 2005. He was special envoy for Gaza disengagement for the quartet of the Middle East; president and CEO of James D. Wolfensohn, Inc.; executive partner of Salomon Brothers, New York; executive deputy chairman and managing director of Schroders, London; president of J. Henry Schroders Banking Corporation, New York; and managing director of Darling & Co., Australia. He is chairman emeritus of the board of trustees of the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts and of Carnegie Hall. In addition, he has been president of the International Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Societies, chairman of the board of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University, director of the Business Council for Sustainable Development, chairman of the finance committee and a director of the Rockefeller Foundation and the Population Council, and a member of the board of Rockefeller University. He is an honorary trustee of the Brookings Institution, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the Century Association.

*Gacek participated in the Task Force under his previous affiliation with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. As a current administration official, he has not been asked to join the Task Force consensus.

The Road to Riches - Otaviano Canuto

Navigating the Road to Riches
Otaviano Canuto
Project Syndicate - A World of Ideas, July 12, 2011

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A switchover of global growth engines is taking place. Developing economies as a whole are now the source of more than half of global GDP growth. As a result, concern has naturally shifted to a new question: Are there risks that some or many of these developing countries could fall prey to the “middle-income trap”?

The “middle-income trap” has captured many developing countries: they succeeded in evolving from low per capita income levels, but then appeared to stall, losing momentum along the route toward the higher income levels of advanced economies. Such a trap may well characterize the experience of most of Latin America since the 1980’s, and in recent years, middle-income countries elsewhere have expressed fears that they could follow a similar path. Does moving up the income ladder get harder the higher one climbs?

In most cases of successful evolution from low- to middle-income status, the underlying development process is broadly similar. Typically, there is a large pool of unskilled labor that is transferred from subsistence-level occupations to more modern manufacturing or service activities that do not require much upgrading of these workers’ skills, but nonetheless employ higher levels of capital and embedded technology.

The associated technology is available from richer countries and easy to adapt to local circumstances. The gross effect of such a transfer – usually occurring in tandem with urbanization – is a substantial increase in “total factor productivity,” leading to GDP growth that goes beyond what can be explained by the expansion of labor, capital, and other physical factors of production.

Reaping the gains from such “low-hanging fruit” in terms of growth opportunities sooner or later faces limits, after which growth may slow, trapping the economy at middle-income levels. The turning point in this transition occurs either when the pool of transferrable unskilled labor is exhausted, or, in some cases, when the expansion of labor-absorbing modern activities peaks before the pool is empty.

Beyond this point, raising total factor productivity and maintaining rapid GDP growth depends on an economy’s ability to move up on manufacturing, service, or agriculture value chains, toward activities requiring technological sophistication, high-quality human capital, and intangible assets such as design and organizational capabilities. Furthermore, an institutional setting supportive of innovation and complex chains of market transactions is essential.

Instead of mastering existing standardized technologies, the challenge becomes the creation of domestic capabilities and institutions, which cannot be simply bought or copied from abroad. Provision of education and appropriate infrastructure is a minimum condition.

Today’s middle-income countries in Latin America saw the transfer of labor from subsistence-level employment slow well before they had exhausted their labor surpluses, as macroeconomic mismanagement and an inward-looking orientation until the 1990’s established early limits to that labor-transfer process. Nevertheless, some enclaves have been established in high positions on global value chains (for example, Brazil’s technology-intensive agriculture, sophisticated deep-sea oil-drilling capabilities, and aircraft industry).

By contrast, Asian developing countries have relied extensively on international trade to accelerate their labor transfer by inserting themselves into the labor-intensive segments of global value chains. This has been facilitated by advances in information and communication technologies, and by decreasing transport costs and lower international trade barriers.

The path from low to middle income per capita, and then to high-income status, corresponds to the increase in the share of the population that has moved from subsistence activities to simple modern tasks, and then to sophisticated ones. International trade has opened that path, but institutional change, high-quality education, and local creation of intangible assets are also essential for sustaining progress over the long run. South Korea is a prime example of a country that exploited these opportunities to move all the way up the income ladder.

As for maintaining high growth in developing countries, the remaining pool of rural-subsistence and urban-underemployed labor in low- and middle-income countries constitutes a still-untapped source for increases in total factor productivity via occupational change. For this to succeed at the global level, middle-income countries that have already started the process must overcome the obstacles on the road to higher income, thereby creating demand and opening supply opportunities for the primary labor transfer in developing countries farther down the income ladder.

Natural-resource-rich middle-income countries face a road of their own, one made wider by the apparent long-term increase in commodities prices that has accompanied the shifts in composition of global GDP. Unlike manufacturing, natural-resource use is to a large extent idiosyncratic, which creates scope for local creation of capabilities in sophisticated upstream activities, with the corresponding challenge to do so in a sustainable fashion.

While most country that evolve from low- to middle-income status have followed a fairly common route, their next stages point to a more diverse set of experiences in terms of institutional change and accumulation of intangible assets. Given advanced economies’ poor growth prospects, the world economy’s dynamics nowadays will depend on how successful country-specific steps up the income ladder turn out to be.

Otaviano Canuto, the World Bank’s Vice-President for Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, is co-author of The Day After Tomorrow: A Handbook on the Future of Economic Policy in the Developing World, available at www.worldbank.org/prem.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011.
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