Universidades, caras e fora da realidade - entrevista com Richard Vedder (Wall Street Journal)

Richard Vedder: The Real Reason College Costs So Much

The expert on the economics of higher education explains how subsidies fuel rising prices and why there's a 'bubble' in student loans and college

By 
• ALLYSIA FINLEY
 
• CONNECT

The Wall Street Journal, August, 23, 2013

Another school year beckons, which means it's time for President Obama to go on another college retreat. "He loves college tours," says Ohio University's Richard Vedder, who directs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity. "Colleges are an escape from reality. Believe me, I've lived in one for half a century. It's like living in Disneyland. They're these little isolated enclaves of nonreality."

Mr. Vedder, age 72, has taught college economics since 1965 and published papers on the likes of Scandinavian migration, racial disparities in unemployment and tax reform. Over the last decade he's made himself America's foremost expert on the economics of higher education, which he distilled in his 2004 book "Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much." His analysis isn't the same as President Obama's.

This week on his back-to-school tour of New York and Pennsylvania colleges, Mr. Obama presented a new plan to make college more affordable. "If the federal government keeps on putting more and more money in the system," he noted at the State University of New York at Buffalo on Thursday, and "if the cost is going up by 250%" and "tax revenues aren't going up 250%," at "some point, the government will run out of money."

Note that for the record: Mr. Obama has admitted some theoretical limit to how much the federal government can spend.

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His solution consists of tieing financial aid to college performance, using government funds as a "catalyst to innovation," and making it easier for borrowers to discharge their debts. "In fairness to the president, some of his ideas make some decent, even good sense," Mr. Vedder says, such as providing students with more information about college costs and graduation rates. But his plan addresses just "the tip of the iceberg. He's not dealing with the fundamental problems."

College costs have continued to explode despite 50 years of ostensibly benevolent government interventions, according to Mr. Vedder, and the president's new plan could exacerbate the trend. By Mr. Vedder's lights, the cost conundrum started with the Higher Education Act of 1965, a Great Society program that created federal scholarships and low-interest loans aimed at making college more accessible.

In 1964, federal student aid was a mere $231 million. By 1981, the feds were spending $7 billion on loans alone, an amount that doubled during the 1980s and nearly tripled in each of the following two decades, and is about $105 billion today. Taxpayers now stand behind nearly $1 trillion in student loans.

Meanwhile, grants have increased to $49 billion from $6.4 billion in 1981. By expanding eligibility and boosting the maximum Pell Grant by $500 to $5,350, the 2009 stimulus bill accelerated higher ed's evolution into a middle-class entitlement. Fewer than 2% of Pell Grant recipients came from families making between $60,000 and $80,000 a year in 2007. Now roughly 18% do.

This growth in subsidies, Mr. Vedder argues, has fueled rising prices: "It gives every incentive and every opportunity for colleges to raise their fees."

Many colleges, he notes, are using federal largess to finance Hilton-like dorms and Club Med amenities. Stanford offers more classes in yoga than Shakespeare. A warning to parents whose kids sign up for "Core Training": The course isn't a rigorous study of the classics, but rather involves rigorous exercise to strengthen the gluts and abs.

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Fred Harper

Or consider Princeton, which recently built a resplendent $136 million student residence with leaded glass windows and a cavernous oak dining hall (paid for in part with a $30 million tax-deductible donation by Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman). The dorm's cost approached $300,000 per bed.

Universities, Mr. Vedder says, "are in the housing business, the entertainment business; they're in the lodging business; they're in the food business. Hell, my university runs a travel agency which ordinary people off the street can use."

Meanwhile, university endowments don't pay taxes on their income. Harvard's $31 billion endowment, which has been financed by tax-deductible donations, may be America's largest tax shelter.

Some college officials are also compensated more handsomely than CEOs. Since 2000, New York University has provided $90 million in loans, many of them zero-interest and forgivable, to administrators and faculty to buy houses and summer homes on Fire Island and the Hamptons.

Former Ohio State President Gordon Gee (who resigned in June after making defamatory remarks about Catholics) earned nearly $2 million in compensation last year while living in a 9,630 square-foot Tudor mansion on a 1.3-acre estate. The Columbus Camelot includes $673,000 in art decor and a $532 shower curtain in a guest bathroom. Ohio State also paid roughly $23,000 per month for Mr. Gee's soirees and half a million for him to travel the country on a private jet. Such taxpayer-funded extravagance has not made its way into Mr. Obama's speeches.

Colleges have also used the gusher of taxpayer dollars to hire more administrators to manage their bloated bureaucracies and proliferating multicultural programs. The University of California system employs 2,358 administrative staff in just its president's office.

"Every college today practically has a secretary of state, a vice provost for international studies, a zillion public relations specialists," Mr. Vedder says. "My university has a sustainability coordinator whose main message, as far as I can tell, is to go out and tell people to buy food grown locally. . . . Why? What's bad about tomatoes from Pennsylvania as opposed to Ohio?"

Mr. Vedder notes that, by contrast, "you don't have to worry about this at the University of Phoenix. One thing about the for-profits is that they are laser-like devoted to instruction." Although for-profits like the University of Phoenix and DeVry spend more money on marketing, they don't contain as much administrative overhead.

'The Obama administration has been beating up on [for-profits] pretty hard for the past two to three years," Mr. Vedder says. "It's true that drop-out rates are disproportionately higher at the for-profits, but it's also true that the for-profits are reaching the exact audience that Obama wants to reach"—low-income minorities, many of whom are the first in their family to attend college.

Today, only about 7% of recent college grads come from the bottom-income quartile compared with 12% in 1970 when federal aid was scarce. All the government subsidies intended to make college more accessible haven't done much for this population, says Mr. Vedder. They also haven't much improved student outcomes or graduation rates, which are around 55% at most universities (over six years).

Mr. Vedder is skeptical about the president's proposal to tie federal aid to graduation rates, among other performance metrics. "I can tell you right now, having taught at universities forever, that universities will do everything they can to get students to graduate," he chuckles. "If you think we have grade inflation now, you ought to think what will happen. If you breathe into a mirror and it fogs up, you'll get an A."

A better idea, Mr. Vedder suggests, would be to implement a national exam like the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) to measure how much students learn in college. This is not on Mr. Obama's list.

Nor is the president addressing what Mr. Vedder believes is a fundamental problem: too many kids going to college. "Thirty-percent of the adult population has college degrees," he notes. "The Department of Labor tells us that only 20% or so of jobs require college degrees. We have 115,520 janitors in the United States with bachelor's degrees or more. Why are we encouraging more kids to go to college?"

Mr. Vedder sees similarities between the government's higher education and housing policies, which created a bubble and precipitated the last financial crisis. "In housing, we had artificially low interest rates. The government encouraged people with low qualifications to buy a house. Today, we have low interest rates on student loans. The government is encouraging kids to go to school who are unqualified just as it encouraged people to buy a home who are unqualified."

The higher-ed bubble, he says, is "already in the process of bursting," which is reflected by all of the "unemployed or underemployed college graduates with big debts." The average student loan debt is $26,000, but many graduates, especially those with professional degrees, have six-figure balances.

Mr. Obama wants to help more students discharge their debts by capping their monthly payments at 10% of their discretionary income and forgiving their outstanding balances after 20 years. Grads who take jobs in government or at nonprofits already can discharge their debt after a decade.

"Somehow working for the private sector is bad and working for the public sector is good? I don't see on what basis one would make that conclusion," Mr. Veder says. "If I had to make some judgment, I would do just the opposite."

He adds that the president's approach "creates a moral hazard problem. What it signals to current and future loan borrowers is that I don't have to take these repayment of loans very seriously. . . . I don't have to worry too much about getting a high-paying job." It encourages "sociology and anthropology majors compared with math and engineering majors."

Can online education, which is being pioneered in some science disciplines, substantially reduce costs? Mr. Vedder says it can, but government won't do the innovating. "First of all, the Department of Education, to use K-12 as an example, has been littered with demonstration projects, innovation projects, proposals for new ways to do things for decades. And what has come out? Are American students learning any more today than a generation ago? Are they doing so at lower cost than a generation ago? No."

Innovation, he says, is being driven by entrepreneurs like Stanford computer science Prof. Sebastian Thrun, who founded the for-profit company Udacity that offers "massive open online courses" (MOOCs). Mr. Thrun began teaching artificial intelligence, first at Stanford and then at Udacity. Mr. Vedder notes that he quickly got "200,000 people to sign up for it. And it's a great course and people are learning like crazy."

Where the government can help, Mr. Vedder says, is to get out of the way of progress and encourage slow-moving accreditors to allow innovations to move forward more rapidly. But ultimately, the way to improve college affordability is for the government to disinvest in higher ed and wean students from subsidies.

Mr. Obama is dead set against that. "He wants to maintain that world" of nonreality in which demand is impervious to cost, Mr. Vedder sighs. "That world has to change."

Ms. Finley is an editorial writer for the Journal.

A version of this article appeared August 23, 2013, on page A9 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Real Reason College Costs So Much.

A frase da semana: universidades como fuga da realidade

Colleges are an escape from reality. Believe me, I've lived in one for half a century. It's like living in Disneyland. They're these little isolated enclaves of nonreality.

(As universidades representam uma fuga da realidade. Acreditem em mim, eu tenho vivido em uma, pelo último meio século. É como viver na Disneylândia. Elas são esses pequenos enclaves, isolados da realidade.)

Richard Vedder, economista, professor, entrevistado pelo Wall Street Journal (Saturday, 24/08/2013; post seguinte).

Existem Asilos e asilos; Escravidao e escravidao: depende de onde onde vc olha...

Os companheiros, por exemplo, têm o olhar firme e assentado: escravidão, isso é coisa do capitalismo, exploração do homem pelo homem; já no socialismo é o contrário, como vocês sabem...
Quanto ao direito de asilo, só para os que fogem de torpes ditaduras burguesas...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

A filha de Dom Pedro II aboliu o que acaba de ser restaurado por um filhote de Lula

Augusto Nunes, 23/08/2013

Se algum dos médicos cubanos tentar escapar de vez da ditadura castrista e asilar-se no Brasil, será atendido pelo governo ou deportado para a ilha-presídio? Formulada no comentário de 1 minuto para o site de VEJA, a pergunta acaba de ser respondida pelo advogado-geral da União, Luís Inácio Adams. “Nesse caso me parece que não teriam direito a essa pretensão”, declarou à Folha o doutor federal. “Provavelmente, seriam devolvidos”.

Depois de ressalvar que “a possibilidade de deserção é remota”, Adams tentou justificar a abjeção: “Todos os tratados, quando se trata de asilo, consideram situações que configurem ameaça por razões de ordem política, de crença religiosa ou outra razão. É nesses condições que você analisa as situações de refúgio. E, nesse caso, não me parece que configuraria essa situação”.

Para o bacharel do Planalto, portanto, nenhum cubano tem motivos para trocar a ilha natal pelo Brasil, a ditadura pela democracia, a opressão pela liberdade. “Esses médicos vêm como profissionais, eles vêm em cima de um compromisso, de um acordo, de um programa, de uma relação de trabalho”, derramou-se o chefe da AGU.

Adams não vê nada de mais numa “relação de trabalho” deformada por violências repulsivas. Os 4 mil importados pelo ministro Alexandre Padilha terão de viver longe da família e permanentemente vigiados por monitores incumbidos de impedi-los de relacionar-se com brasileiros. O dinheiro dos salários (R$10 mil por cabeça) será repassado diretamente ao governo cubano, que engolirá mais de 90% da bolada.

O triunfo do absurdo se completou com a confissão de Adams. Os médicos caribenhos pertencem aos irmãos Castro. Muitos são escravos voluntários, e se engajaram com entusiasmo na missão para expandir o paraíso comunista. A maioria cumpre ordens. Os que tentarem fugir serão capturados e devolvidos aos donos. Se conseguirem enganar policiais brasileiros reduzidos a capitães-do-mato, os parentes retidos na ilha sofrerão os castigos de praxe.

Alexandre Padilha, quem diria, acabou transformado numa Princesa Isabel às avessas. Abolida em maio de 1888 pela filha de Dom Pedro II, a escravidão foi restaurada em agosto de 2013 por um filhote de Lula.

Emigrantes brasileiros: o debate continua - Rui Martins

Foro ou II Fórum dos Emigrantes em Londres ?

Correio do Brasil, 23/8/2013 18:57
Por Rui Martins, de Genebra -

Começou hoje e vai até domigo um encontro sobre a emigração, em Londres, sob o nome de Foro de Londres. Eu não meteria aqui minha colher, não fosse a presença do petista Paulo Illes e do deputado federal tucano Otavio Leite, pessoas que respeito e que desejo sejam bem informadas.

Quero esclarecer que o nome original desse encontro era II Fórum Internacional dos Emigrantes, sequência do Fórum realizado em Berna, na Suíça. Por divergência com o organizador local quanto a decisões tomadas em minha ausência, me licenciei da direção do movimento, lhe deixando campo livre para realizar o II Fórum.

Qual não foi minha surpresa ao ser informado, por via indireta, de uma sutíl mudança de nome do encontro, de Fórum para Foro, maneira simplista de me tirar da direção, assumir meu lugar e esquecer as decisões tomadas em Berna.

Nada tenho contra pessoas que se autodeclaram líderes, de saírem na luta em favor dos emigrantes. Só posso aplaudir e apoiar, porque o trabalho, o tempo e o esfôrço exigidos por esse combate voluntário, é enorme. Entretanto, deploro que se pegue o bonde andando e se ignore, apague e se tente passar por cima do trabalho já feito, como se os emigrantes não tivessem memória.

Ainda mais quando se utilizam palavras de ordem de nossa luta, minha e de tantos emigrantes, desde 2007, logo depois da vitória em favor da nacionalidade nata dos filhos dos emigrantes, pelo movimento Brasileirinhos Apátridas.

É dessa época o lançamento do movimento em favor de um órgão institucional emigrante, de representantes dos emigrantes no Parlamento, do voto por correspondência para os emigrantes. O lançamento oficial (e mais de uma centena de emigrantes podem se lembrar), foi na abertura e no encerramento da I Conferência Brasileiros no Mundo, no Rio de Janeiro, ao que se seguiu minha eleição para o Conselho Provisório dos Emigrantes, anterior ao CRBE, junto com a operária emigrante no Japão, a professa Carmen Lúcia Tsuhako, ativa militante dos Brasileirinhos.

É também importante lembrar que nessa mesma Conferência, lutando de maneira pioneira por uma Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes, estavam duas representantes do movimento de cidadania Estado do Emigrante – a emigrante Joana Oberg, residente na Suécia, e a advogada Denise da Veiga Alves, que foi ponta-de-lança dos Brasileiros Apátridas em Brasília. E já nessa época falávamos na alternativa de um Ministério das Migrações, englobando migração, imigração e emigração, como variante à proposta da Secretaria dos Emigrantes.

É bom ainda lembrar que, nessa mesma Conferência, uma delegação do PT nos apoiava, mesmo porque havia um projeto anterior em favor dos emigrantes, por proposta da CPI da Imigração, em favor de uma Secretaria geral de apoio aos emigrantes, apresentada pelo senador Valdir Raupp.

Infelizmente, essa proposta foi atenuada e atrelada ao Ministério das Relações Exteriores, que criou uma Subsecretaria-geral das Comunidades Brasileiras no Exterior. Esse desvirtuamento de um desejo comum, petista e tucano, de dar aos emigrantes um órgão institucional nos levou à atual política da emigração de tutela dos emigrantes pelos diplomatas do Itamaraty.

É sempre oportuno lembrar que nosso movimento de cidadania, Estado do Emigrante, manteve desde essa época contatos com o departamento internacional do Partido dos Trabalhadores, principalmente com os Núcleos de Boston (Cláudia Tamski), Miami (Milton Cardoso) e Madri (Edinéia da Silva), sem se esquecer do petista Marino Ferreira dos Santos, de Buenos Aires. E que, em Havana, no recente Eptex (encontro internacional do PT) se discutiu a necessidade de uma Secretaria de Estado da Emigração.

Do contato com o Núcleo de Boston surgiu um projeto, que circulou pela Internet e emails, tendo sido mesmo enviado a autoridades do governo. Esse projeto, que incluo em anexo, logo embaixo, foi assinado por mim e pela representante petista Cláudia Tamski, de Boston (onde mantivemos encontro com emigrantes com o apoio financeiro do jornal emigrante Brazilian Times, de Edirson Paiva).

Portanto, quero lembrar a todos os organizadores e participantes do Foro de Londres (na verdade II Fórum dos Emigrantes, como ainda se pode ler no Brazilian Post de Londres, ainda com o link de um youtube de 15 de maio, antes da transformação do Fórum em Foro, http://brazilianpost.co.uk/20/08/2013/foro-debate-representacao-parlamentar-de-brasileiros-que-vivem-fora/) que não podem ser apagados e ignorados os quase sete anos de luta em favor de uma Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes e representantes emigrantes no Parlamento, eleitos por emigrantes. Caso contrário, entra em questão a própria credibilidade do Foro de Londres, que poderá ser suspeito de plagiato político.

Alguns dos participantes que acompanham desde o início minha luta, mesmo dela divergindo, como Carlos Mellinger e Laércio da Silva, poderão confirmar.
Todo movimento político idôneo tem de mostrar um comportamento ético, respeitar as etapas alcançadas e render homenagem mesmo aos adversários políticos, se for o caso.

O melhor exemplo é o da luta pelos Brasileirinhos Apátridas, um movimento consensual, no qual petistas e tucanos colaboraram. A PEC 272/00 foi obra dos tucanos José Serra, contatado em Genebra, e do senador cearense Lúcio Alcântara, autor do projeto. A aprovação na Câmara dos Deputados se deveu ao petista Carlito Merss e à tucana Rita Camata.

Portanto, se quiser ser reconhecido, o Foro de Londres não pode se lançar, em Londres, como o autor isolado do movimento pela emancipação política dos emigrantes (nosso slogan). Tem de se reportar aos que primeiro lançaram essa idéia, ao que já foi feito, ao primeiro projeto elaborado, ao que foi decidido e debatido no I Fórum Internacional dos Emigrantes, em Berna. Em síntese, tem de ser honesto e correto.

Rui Martins, criador dos movimentos de cidadania Brasileirinhos Apátridas e Estado do Emigrante.
PS. Segue o projeto de uma Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes, acima citado, assinado por mim e pela dirigente do Núcleo petista de Boston, Cláudia Tamski.

http://www.diretodaredacao.com/noticia/secretaria-de-estado-dos-emigrantes

Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes

A principal falha do CRBE é a de ter sido criado como um simples conselho consultivo ou de assessoria, sem condições para propor iniciativas e tomar decisões. Em outras palavras, está sob a tutela do Itamaraty. A experiência desse ano e meio de CRBE mostrou igualmente haver necessidade de uma sintonia do órgão emigrante com a linha política do governo.

A solução é o governo criar uma Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes capaz de levar avante medidas em favor da emigração e, ao mesmo tempo, ter como titular um líder qualificado sintonizado com a linha política do governo.

O projeto, cujo texto integral é submetido, pela primeira vez, a todos os emigrantes para debate e ao conhecimento e debate de políticos, deverá ser alvo de discussões e complementos num planejado I Encontro do Estado do Emigrante, em gestação, com apoio de líderes emigrantes vivendo nas diversas regiões do mundo.

Tão logo sejam reunidos os fundos necessários para as despesas, será concretizado na Europa ou nos EUA o Encontro, do qual participarão lideranças emigrantes, políticos próximos da emigração sob o olhar de representantes da grandes imprensa brasileira e da imprensa comunitária.

Segue o projeto base, ao qual qualquer emigrante ou cidadão brasileiro poderá acrescentar com observações sua contribuição.

PROJETO INSTITUCIONAL
CRIAÇÃO DA SECRETARIA DE ESTADO EMIGRANTE
OBJETIVO:
Criação de uma Secretariade Estado dos Emigrantes ou da Emigração junto ao governo brasileiro.

INTRODUÇÃO:
De acordo com o IBGE nós emigrantes somos pouco mais de 400 mil, mas o Ministério das Relações Exteriores, com dados fornecidos pelos Consulados, calcula em mais de 3 milhões os brasileiros vivendo fora do Brasil. Antes da crise do subprime nos EUA, da baixa do dólar e da crise provocada pela especulação na Europa, o número era perto de 4 milhões.

Quem somos :
Numa primeira análise, é preciso separar uns dos outros. No Japão,onde agora deve haver 300 mil (muita gente retornou ao Brasil com a crise),todos os emigrantes são legais, reconhecidos ou documentados. Só saem do Brasil se tiverem emprego certo no Japão e existe um órgão encarregado, no Brasil, de preencher as oportunidades de trabalho existentes no Japão com a mão de obra brasileira. Os emigrantes no Japão são na quase totalidade netos de antigos imigrantes japoneses no Brasil e um número reduzido de cônjuges sem origem japonesa.

Como o Japão não dá a nacionalidade para filhos, netos ou bisnetos de seus imigrantes, a condição de imigrantes no Japão inclui os emigrantes brasileiros e seus descendentes.

Essa mesma situação ocorre nos países europeus de jus sanguinis, como Alemanha e Suíça, onde mesmo os filhos dos nossos emigrantes ali nascidos continuam sendo considerados estrangeiros brasileiros. Essa situação de não poder adquirir a nacionalidade no país de emigração dificulta uma plena integração e a situação de estrangeiro imigrante se passa de pai para filho.

De acordo com nossa interpretação são considerados emigrantes tanto os pais que saíram do Brasil como seus filhos, nascidos nos países que não dão nacionalidade local. Mas consideramos emigrantes apenas os pais vindos do Brasil, nos países que concedem a nacionalidade local aos filhos dos imigrantes. É o caso, principalmente, dos Estados Unidos, onde basta nascer para ser americano. Ou em países como a França, onde o filho do estrangeiro que ali vive se torna facilmente francês. Outra exceção são os filhos de casais mistos, que têm também a nacionalidade do pai ou da mãe nos países de jus sanguinis.

Os Problemas :
A Ata Consolidada distribuída na III Conferência Brasileiros no Mundo tem 43 páginas, enumera em diversos capítulos as principais questões relacionadas com os emigrantes, levantadas pelos próprios emigrantes nas duas primeiras conferências Brasileiros no Mundo. São mais de 150 itens,distribuídos entre Serviço e Assistência Consular, Políticas para as Comunidades Brasileiras no Exterior, Questões Relacionadas com a Educação, Previdência Social, Trabalho, Saúde, Assistência Social e Direitos Humanos. Ainda Cultura e Comunicação e Questões Relacionadas com Economia e Investimentos.

JUSTIFICATIVA :
Quando um simples caderno inicial de encargos envolve mais de 150 tópicos principais de questões, aplicáveis a mais de 3 milhões de pessoas, fica evidente não ser possível serem tratados pelos consulados ou por uma subsecretaria, dentro de um Ministério voltado apenas para questões políticas de representação do governo em Relações Exteriores e dotado de tabelionatos ou consulados.

Em 2006/7, uma CPMI do Senado tratou das questões ligadas à imigração no Brasil e aproveitou para incluir um capítulo voltado aos emigrantes. Ao final dos trabalhos, decidiu-se pela necessidade de se pedir ao governo a criação de uma Secretaria Especial voltada à Emigração.

Durante a 1ª Conferência Barsileiros no Mundo (Palácio do Itamaraty, Rio de Janeiro/2008), nosso então recente movimento Estado do Emigrante,decidiu distribuir um abaixo-assinado. Representados por quatro pessoas, Rui Martins, vivendo na Suíça; Carmen Lúcia Tsuhako, do Japão; Joana Oberg, da Suécia; e Denise da Veiga Alves, advogada, emigrante em Genebra, vivendo em Brasília a serviço de uma Ong suíça e que teve ação fundamental junto a parlamentares, imprensa e governo, na luta pela aprovação da PEC 272/00 em favor dos Brasileirinhos Apátridas.

Nosso abaixo-assinado reuniu 135 assinaturas, era mais que a maioria absoluta dos emigrantes presentes, e pedia em lugar de uma simples Ata de reivindicações, a criação de uma Comissão de Transição para um órgão institucional emigrante, que poderia ser uma Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes.
No entanto, o embaixador Oto Maia decidiu ignorar o abaixo-assinado que nos levaria ao órgão institucional emigrante, propondo um simples Conselho Provisório que se transformou no atual CRBE (Conselho de Representantes Brasileiros no Exterior).

PROCESSO TRANSICIONAL :
Imagine-se a Subsecretaria das Comunidades Brasileiras no Exterior (SGBE), retirando-se dela os diplomatas, coloque-se no lugar emigrantes das quatro regiões e seja nomeado(a) pelo governo federal um(a) emigrante titular. É essa a Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes com sede, é claro, em Brasília.

O Tripé :
Esse tripé constituído de uma Secretaria de Estado, Parlamentares Emigrantes e Conselho de Emigrantes permitiria aos emigrantes agirem diretamente junto ao Executivo, junto ao Legislativo e disporem de uma ampla tribuna consultiva. Portanto, participação plena, legítima e democrática dos emigrantes.

A Secretaria:
Um órgão não subordinado ou inserido dentro de outro ministério, com titular próprio e independência para gerir e administrar seus recursos. Agindo como interlocutor junto ao governo e demais ministérios, em busca de parcerias que visem atender as demandas dos brasileiros da diáspora. Entendemos que a criação pelo governo de uma Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes deverá ser dirigida por um titular emigrante e uma equipe de emigrantes, nomeados pela Presidência da República (como ocorre com todos os ministérios, secretarias de Estado e cargos de confiança), pois a lógica e experiência nos leva a crer que o emigrante conhece profundamente a realidade em que vivemos.

Parlamentares Emigrantes:
É coerente e justo que os emigrantes votem em candidatos ao parlamento igualmente emigrantes que vivam, conheçam os problemas e representem a mesma região dos eleitores. Essa questão da eleição de deputados federais emigrantes e senadores pelos emigrantes parece consensual, pelo apoio obtido pelo senador Cristovam Buarque na I Conferência Brasileiros no Mundo.

A importância de ter parlamentares emigrantes em Brasília é evidente – eles iriam apresentar propostas de leis na Câmara Federal e no Senado em favor dos emigrantes, atendendo as reivindicações apresentadas pelo Conselho de Emigrantes e igualmente a pedido da Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes, cujos projetos de regulamentos, regimento, normas, portarias passariam pela aprovação da Presidência da República, enquanto os projetos de lei teriam de ser aprovados pelos parlamentares.

Conselho de Emigrantes:
Deverá ser um conselho de interlocução e de contato dos emigrantes com a Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes e seus parlamentares emigrantes, porque suas reivindicações seriam entregues a representantes com poderes de levá-las a termo. No sistema atual as reivindicações não passam do filtro do Itamaraty e, na verdade, é a SGBE quem aplica a política de emigração.

Por que o Conselho de Emigrantes deve ser amplo e ter uma centena de representantes eleitos ?

Porque deve representar todos os grupos e segmentos da população emigrante, nisso se incluindo associações filantrópicas denominacionais, grupos religiosos de evangélicos a católicos, espíritas e outros que existam, associações de despachantes, escritórios de advocacia, empresas de remessas, associações esportivas e culturais. E deve representar as comunidades brasileiras em todos os países onde existam emigrantes brasileiros. Esses conselheiros se manifestarão sobre a ação desenvolvida pela Secretaria de Estado dos Emigrantes, dos parlamentares emigrantes e lhes farão sugestões e reivindicações.
…………….
A conquista pelos emigrantes de sua independência institucional deve ser o resultado de ações junto aos emigrantes, suas associações e conselhos de cidadania e junto ao governo, parlamento, políticos, imprensa e mecanismos de pressão.

É a isso que se propõe o movimento Estado do Emigrante, pois os brasileiros no Exterior já constituem, na verdade, um Estado virtual.

Este texto de projeto é uma proposta aberta de discussão para todos quantos comungam da necessidade de um órgão institucional emigrante sem a tutela do
Itamaraty. Nossa intenção com a participação de núcleos, setores, grupos, associações e cidadãos emigrantes que nos apoiam é a de promover o I Encontro do Estado do Emigrante (na Europa ou nos EUA),onde se debaterão os princípios constituintes do movimento.
Contamos com seu apoio e participação,
Rui Martins, membro titular no Conselho de Representantes CRBE, Brasileirinhos Apátridas e Estado do Emigrante,
ClaudiaTamsky, socióloga, emigrante residente em Boston.

Rui Martins, jornalista, escritor, correspondente em Genebra, ex-membro titular do CRBE

Deu no New York Times: Joaquim Barbosa como o juiz surpresa...

The New York Times, August 23, 2013

A Blunt Chief Justice Unafraid to Upset Brazil’s Status Quo

By SIMON ROMERO

BRASÍLIA — Brazil’s highest court has long viewed itself as a bastion of manners and formality. Justices call one another “Your Excellency,” dress in billowing robes and wrap each utterance in grandiloquence, as if little had changed from the era when marquises and dukes held sway from their vast plantations.

But when the chief justice, Joaquim Barbosa, strides into the court, the other 10 excellencies brace themselves for whatever may come next.

In one televised feud, Mr. Barbosa questioned another justice about whether he would even be on the court had he not been appointed by his cousin, a former president impeached in 1992. With another justice, Mr. Barbosa rebuked him over what the chief justice considered his condescending tone, telling him he was not his “capanga,” a term describing a hired thug.

In one of his most scathing comments, Mr. Barbosa, the high court’s first and only black justice, took on the entire legal system of Brazil — where it is still remarkably rare for politicians to ever spend time in prison, even after being convicted of crimes — contending that the mentality of judges was “conservative, pro-status-quo and pro-impunity.”

“I have a temperament that doesn’t adapt well to politics,” Mr. Barbosa, 58, said in a recent interview in his quarters here in the Supreme Federal Tribunal, a modernist landmark designed by the architect Oscar Niemeyer. “It’s because I speak my mind so much.”

His acknowledged lack of tact notwithstanding, he is the driving force behind a series of socially liberal and establishment-shaking rulings, turning Brazil’s highest court — and him in particular — into a newfound political power and the subject of popular fascination.

The court’s recent rulings include a unanimous decision upholding the University of Brasília’s admissions policies aimed at increasing the number of black and indigenous students, opening the way for one of the Western Hemisphere’s most sweeping affirmative action laws for higher education.

In another move, Mr. Barbosa used his sway as chief justice and president of the panel overseeing Brazil’s judiciary to effectively legalize same-sex marriage across the country. And in an anticorruption crusade, he is overseeing the precedent-setting trial of senior political figures in the governing Workers Party for their roles in a vast vote-buying scheme.

ASCENDING to Brazil’s high court, much less pushing the institution to assert its independence, long seemed out of reach for Mr. Barbosa, the eldest of eight children raised in Paracatu, an impoverished city in Minas Gerais State, where his father worked as a bricklayer.

But his prominence — not just on the court, but in the streets as well — is so well established that masks with his face were sold for Carnival, amateur musicians have composed songs about his handling of the corruption trial and posted them on YouTube, and demonstrators during the huge street protests that shook the nation this year told pollsters that Mr. Barbosa was one of their top choices for president in next year’s elections.

While the protests have subsided since their height in June, the political tumult they set off persists. The race for president, once considered a shoo-in for the incumbent, Dilma Rousseff, is now up in the air, with Mr. Barbosa — who is now so much in the public eye that gossip columnists are following his romance with a woman in her 20s — repeatedly saying he will not run.

“I’m not a candidate for anything,” he says.

But the same public glare that has turned him into a celebrity has singed him as well. While he has won widespread admiration for his guidance of the high court, Mr. Barbosa, like almost every other prominent political figure in Brazil, has recently come under scrutiny. And for someone accustomed to criticizing the so-called super-salaries awarded to some members of Brazil’s legal system, the revelations have put Mr. Barbosa on the defensive.

One report in the Brazilian news media described how he received about $180,000 in payments for untaken leaves of absence during his 19 years as a public prosecutor. (Such payments are common in some areas of Brazil’s large public bureaucracy.) Another noted that he bought an apartment in Miami through a limited liability company, suggesting an effort to pay less taxes on the property.

In statements, Mr. Barbosa contends that he has done nothing wrong.

In a country where a majority of people now define themselves as black or of mixed race — but where blacks remain remarkably rare in the highest echelons of political institutions and corporations — Mr. Barbosa’s trajectory and abrupt manner have elicited both widespread admiration and a fair amount of resistance.

As a teenager, Mr. Barbosa moved to the capital, Brasília, finding work as a janitor in a courtroom. Against the odds, he got into the University of Brasília, the only black student in its law program at the time. Wanting to see the world, he later won admission into Brazil’s diplomatic service, which promptly sent him to Helsinki, the Finnish capital on the shore of the Baltic Sea.

Sensing that he would not advance much in the diplomatic service, which he has called “one of the most discriminatory institutions of Brazil,” Mr. Barbosa opted for a career as a prosecutor. He alternated between legal investigations in Brazil and studies abroad, gaining fluency in English, French and German, and earning a doctorate in law at Pantheon-Assas University in Paris.

Fascinated by the legal systems of other countries, Mr. Barbosa wrote a book on affirmative action in the United States. He still voices his admiration for figures like Thurgood Marshall, the first black Supreme Court justice in the United States, and William J. Brennan Jr., who for years embodied the court’s liberal vision, clearly drawing inspiration from them as he pushed Brazil’s high court toward socially liberal rulings.

Still, no decision has thrust Mr. Barbosa into Brazil’s public imagination as much as his handling of the trial of political operatives, legislators and bankers found guilty in a labyrinthine corruption scandal called the mensalão, or big monthly allowance, after the regular payments made to lawmakers in exchange for their votes.

LAST November, at Mr. Barbosa’s urging, the high court sentenced some of the most powerful figures in the governing Workers Party to years in prison for their crimes in the scheme, including bribery and unlawful conspiracy, jolting a political system in which impunity for politicians has been the norm.

Now the mensalão trial is entering what could be its final phases, and Mr. Barbosa has at times been visibly exasperated that defendants who have already been found guilty and sentenced have managed to avoid hard jail time. He has clashed with other justices over their consideration of a rare legal procedure in which appeals over close votes at the high court are examined.

Losing his patience with one prominent justice, Ricardo Lewandowski, who tried to absolve some defendants of certain crimes, Mr. Barbosa publicly accused him this month of “chicanery” by using legalese to prop up certain positions. An outcry ensued among some who could not stomach Mr. Barbosa’s talking to a fellow justice like that.

“Who does Justice Joaquim Barbosa think he is?” asked Ricardo Noblat, a columnist for the newspaper O Globo, questioning whether Mr. Barbosa was qualified to preside over the court. “What powers does he think he has just because he’s sitting in the chair of the chief justice of the Supreme Federal Tribunal?”

Mr. Barbosa did not apologize. In the interview, he said some tension was necessary for the court to function properly.

“It was always like this,” he said, contending that arguments are now just easier to see because the court’s proceedings are televised.

Linking the court’s work to the recent wave of protests, he explained that he strongly disagreed with the violence of some demonstrators, but he also said he believed that the street movements were “a sign of democracy’s exuberance.”

“People don’t want to passively stand by and observe these arrangements of the elite, which were always the Brazilian tradition,” he said.

Luis Claudio Villafane G. Santos: O Dia Que Adiaram o Carnaval - Peter Beattie (book review, HAHR)

Recebo, do meu amigo e colega Luís Cláudio Villafañe Gomes Santos, a resenha que Peter Beattie, um historiador brasilianista, fez sobre o seu livro "O Dia em que Adiaram o Carnaval" para a Hispanic American Historical Review. Está no número atual, de agosto: http://hahr.dukejournals.org/content/current 

O Dia em que adiaram o carnaval: Política externa e a construção do Brasil. By Luís Cláudio Villafañe G. Santos. São Paulo: Editora UNESP, 2010. Notes. Bibliography. 278 pp. Paper, R$ 40.00.

              This book’s title refers to the Brazilian government’s effort to suspend the celebration of Rio de Janeiro’s Carnaval in 1912 from February until April to mourn the death of the nation’s premier diplomat, the Barão do Rio Branco (José Maria da Silva Paranhos Jr.), who died the Saturday before Ash Wednesday. The common citizens of Rio de Janeiro, however, honored Rio Branco in their own fashion by celebrating Carnaval twice that year. Villafañe uses this extraordinary event to introduce his examination of Brazilian national identity through the little-considered lens of its international diplomacy and Itamarati’s most celebrated historical figure: Rio Branco. For the author, “Num mundo de Estados-nações, a política externa é fator primordial na definição do caráter da nação” (p. 43). This hypothesis is the point of departure for a broad survey of Brazilian foreign relations in tandem with evolving conceptions of Brazilian national identity from late colonial to contemporary times.

              Villafañe argues that because Brazilian identity came into existence after Brazilians won independence from the Portuguese, Rio Branco’s diplomatic work to define the limits of Brazil’s national territory made him a founding father after the fact. To support this assertion, he examines a stained glass representation in Washington DC’s National Cathedral celebrating the first Pan-American Congress in 1826 that uses three principal images of Latin American patriots: Simón Bolívar, José Francisco de San Martín, and Rio Branco. In this representation, an artist clearly depicts Rio Branco as a symbol of Brazil and associates him anachronistically with the founding fathers of Spanish American nations. Villafañe, however, does not reveal the stained glass artist’s identity. The Baltimore native Rowan LeCompte designed most of the windows in Washington’s National Cathedral, but I was unable to confirm that he had designed that particular window. In any case, it is doubtful that this stained glass representation reveals how Brazilians understood the place of Rio Branco in their pantheon of national heroes rather than how an American artist interpreted this pantheon. This representation of Rio Branco graces the cover of the book, but its centrality to the author’s argument seems a bit of a stretch. This, however, is a minor criticism, because the author provides many other examples and interpretations of Rio Branco’s prestige within Brazil.

              The strength of this manuscript is the author’s agile analysis of the evolution of the Brazilian government’s foreign policy, which Rio Branco’s diplomacy shaped for most of the twentieth century. He argues that Rio Branco came to prominence in the early twentieth century because he fit the historical patriotic moment better than other figures. The transition from a constitutional monarchy to a republic in 1889 promoted the image of Tiradentes, leader of a failed republican conspiracy in the eighteenth century, as a symbol of national unity. Meanwhile, the military tried to promote the heroes of the Paraguayan War, principally the Duke of Caxias, in the early republic as symbols of national unity, but the duke’s association with loyalty to the monarchy made him a less than ideal symbol for the new republic. The barão’s image as a republican man of peace who settled most of Brazil’s border disputes through international law fit the way most influential Brazilian intellectuals and politicians sought to project the image of their nation in the early twentieth century. Brazilians lived peacefully with neighbors and other nations across the world. For Villafañe, Brazilian leaders in the early twentieth century debated how Brazil should present itself and interact with the international community, and for all practical purposes, Rio Branco best captured their conclusions (p. 186). Rio Branco was not associated with the fractious politics of Brazil’s past, and his success in international negotiations reinforced the image of a peaceful Brazil. The author points out the contradiction that this image was often at odds with the disorder and violence of Brazil’s early republic, which was convulsed by events such as the 1893–1894 Armada Revolt, the 1896–1897 Canudos Rebellion, the 1910 Chibata Revolt, and the 1912–1916 Contestado Revolt, among others.

              Villafañe successfully shows how foreign policy involves and invokes narratives and images that helped to define and reshape conceptions of Brazilian national identity and character, but he recognizes that this mostly top-down, state-led project had its limits. To demonstrate this, he returns to the state’s ham-handed efforts to reschedule Carnaval in 1912. He transcribes the lyrics of a samba march sung during the second celebration of Carnaval that lampooned the government: “Com o morte do Barão / Tivemos dois carnavá / Ai que bom, ai que gostoso / Se morresse o marechá” (p. 265). The government’s failed attempt to enshrine Rio Branco in the public memory by delaying the mirth of Carnaval had the unintended consequence of encouraging a Carnaval wag to imagine how good it would be if Brazil’s president, Marshal Hermes da Fonseca, would also die so that they could celebrate Carnaval yet again. A confluence of popular and elitist projects and representations shaped national identity and memory, a process that often escaped the control of political authorities.

Peter M. Beattie, Michigan State University

Escravidao moderna: o Estado brasileiro como principal violador daConstituicao, e da moralidade

Estranha esta matéria, pois não?

Over 12,000 people were held in New York City jails last year, according to the Independent Budget Office, with the city spending more per inmate than any other state or city.

Mas, a renda é gasta por causa do prisioneiro, não fica com ele, e sim se perde na burocracia.

City’s Annual Cost Per Inmate Is $168,000, Study Finds

By MARC SANTORA

The New York Times: August 23, 2013

New York City is an expensive place to live for just about everyone, including prisoners.

The city paid $167,731 to feed, house and guard each inmate last year,according to a study the Independent Budget Office released this week.

“It is troubling in both human terms and financial terms,” Doug Turetsky, the chief of staff for the budget office, said on Friday. With 12,287 inmates shuffling through city jails last year, he said, “it is a significant cost to the city.”

Mr. Turetsky added that he was not aware of any previous studies that broke down the cost per inmate in the jails, but there have been national studies.

And by nearly any measure, New York City spends more than every other state or city.

The Vera Institute of Justice released a study in 2012 that found the aggregate cost of prisons in 2010 in the 40 states that participated was $39 billion.

The annual average taxpayer cost in these states was $31,286 per inmate.

New York State was the most expensive, with an average cost of $60,000 per prison inmate.

The cost of incarcerating people in New York City’s jails is nearly three times as much.

Michael P. Jacobson, the director of the City University of New York Institute for State and Local Governance and a former city correction and probation commissioner, said part of the reason the city’s cost was so high was because it had a richly staffed system. “The inmate-to-staff ratio probably hovers around two prisoners for every guard,” he said.

The budget office said 83 percent of the expense per prisoner came from wages, benefits for staff and pension costs.

Mr. Jacobson noted the success in bringing down the city’s jail population — from a peak of about 23,000 in 1993 to about 12,000 people today — but said the fixed costs were not likely to go down soon.

Still, he said, there were things that could be done to save money, like reducing the amount of time people sat in jail awaiting trial. Some 76 percent of the inmates in the city were waiting for their cases to be disposed, according to the budget office.

The wait times have grown even as the number of felonies committed in the city has declined.

Since 2002, the time spent waiting for cases to be disposed of has gone to 95 days, from 76 days, Mr. Jacobson said.

The delays were worst in the Bronx, but Mr. Jacobson said the trend could be seen across the city.

“On paper you would think that with a lot less work, these things should be blowing through the system and they are not,” he said. “If you have more time to do something, you will take more time.”

Only 7 percent of inmates are women, according to the budget office report.

They are also more likely to be minorities: 57 percent are black, 33 percent Hispanic, 7 percent white and 1 percent Asian.