O que é este blog?

Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida.

quinta-feira, 2 de agosto de 2012

Economia pela politica ou pelas regras? - Guy Sorman



No More Quick Fixes
Guy Sorman
The City Journal, August 1, 2012

The economy needs rules, not discretionary policies.
 
Economists, politicians, and pundits looking for answers to the economic crisis fall into two broad categories. Keynesians and statists argue for more aggressive interventions from governments and central banks. Distrusting the free market’s self-regulating processes, they promote public spending to create jobs and low interest rates to rekindle private investment and consumer spending. Thinkers of the classical-liberal persuasion, by contrast, argue that no quick fix can bring the economy out of its doldrums; only when the rules of capitalism appear stable and predictable again will markets revive. Put another way: Keynesians and statists believe in flexible, “discretionary” economic policies; classical liberals believe in set rules.
Economic history proves the superiority of the second approach, but democracy often makes the first more attractive to politicians. After all, in a crisis, people expect their leaders to do something; refraining from action and sticking to abstract principles play poorly to public opinion. As previous recessions demonstrate, however, public pressure for action usually leads to bad decisions that prolong or intensify a crisis. The situation is analogous to what happens on the soccer field when a goalie faces a penalty kick. Statistics show that the goalie should stay in the center of the net to increase his chances of blocking the shot. Yet in most cases, he jumps to the left or right just before his opponent kicks. Why? Because the crowd urges him to act, even though doing so reduces his likelihood of success.
Since the beginning of the crisis in 2008, governments have similarly lurched from side to side, to little good effect. True, some basic market-supporting rules—those that back free trade and oppose inflation, monopoly, and the nationalization of industry—have been maintained since 2008. This stability compares favorably with government responses to the Great Depression in the 1930s, which made things worse by permitting nationalization and monopolies while interrupting the free flow of goods, capital, and people. In 1974, too, wrongheaded policies magnified a crisis. After oil-producing nations formed a cartel, OPEC, and boosted oil prices dramatically, Western production costs shot up, smothering consumer spending and bringing the economy to a standstill. To reignite growth, Keynesian economists persuaded central banks to print more money than ever before. All Western governments followed this prescription, leading to an explosion of inflation. Because neither consumers nor entrepreneurs would increase their spending or investment in that climate (they rightly assumed that these were short-term, unsustainable policies), the result was disastrous stagflation—economic stagnation and inflation combined.
Governments and economists, who learn by trial and error, fortunately haven’t repeated the worst mistakes of the 1930s and 1970s. That may explain why the current crisis hasn’t become even more serious. Yet public pressure to act remains, and politicians and the media, who have only a shaky understanding of how markets work, continue to promote active government policies, such as the American stimulus bill of 2009. Most countries that went down this road (with some exceptions, including Germany and the Baltic states) have incurred huge deficits, which hamper private investment and job creation. The renewed failure of stimulus efforts confirms that Keynesian policies, in the long run, don’t work.
How can governments resist the pressure to adopt short-term policies and instead promote long-term, steady approaches to maintain economic growth? Here are some suggestions. Instead of holding an endless debate on taxes and deficits, classical liberals in the United States could promote a constitutional amendment that imposes a ceiling on total federal spending. Throughout the history of capitalism, the level of public spending has had more impact on GDP growth rates than has the deficit or the marginal tax rate. In America, a public-spending cap would calm the anxieties of entrepreneurs and consumers, make the future more predictable, and provide a strong incentive for businesses to invest the huge quantities of liquid assets now frozen or invested in unproductive bonds. The amendment would restart the innovation cycle that has always been the main driver of American economic expansion.
Long-term rules in the United States could also put an end to the excessive concentration of political and financial power in the hands of a limited number of banks—a problem that helped disrupt the world economy in 2008 and threatens to do so again. As University of Chicago economist and City Journal contributing editor Luigi Zingales shows in his new book A Capitalism for the People, the United States increasingly risks becoming, in economic terms, a “banana republic”—a place where a few big banks destroy public confidence in the free market and deplete the economy’s resources through short-term speculation instead of investing. New rules could put a stop to that by limiting the size of banks, which would reestablish competition.
Classical liberals could also push to make the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy more predictable. As Milton Friedman demonstrated half a century ago, the American economy grows steadily when the Fed injects money and credit into the economy in steady, predictable quantities. When the Fed tries to do more, it usually produces speculative bubbles, inflation, and stagnation. Stanford economist John Taylor, who writes on the importance of rules elsewhere in this issue, has proposed an algorithm for the Fed that would adjust monetary creation to the needs of the economy. The “Taylor Rule” should become a legal constraint on the Fed, preventing it from adopting discretionary and counterproductive policies.
Europe also needs firm rules, not ever-changing policies—but there, it’s less urgent to invent new rules than to create the federal institutions that will guarantee the proper implementation of existing ones. If eurozone members had respected the conventions that they had signed limiting public spending and deficits, there would be no European crisis today.
What is to be done to grow out of the economic crisis may be clearer than how to do so in a democracy. Political leaders must build constituencies that will support rules instead of discretionary policies. The best way to do that is to explain how rules reinforce the power of the people. In the United States, a public-spending cap would protect taxpayers from the politicians who bestow subsidies and from the lobbyists who seek them. Rules to jump-start competition in the financial sector would help re-democratize American capitalism, which has become too oligarchic. In Europe, too, transparency in public accounting and new federal institutions to implement euro rules would reinforce popular democratic control over the prodigal ways of the political class.
Since the crisis began, discretionary policies have thrived, and set rules have suffered. To end the crisis, we must reverse that situation, restoring rules to their rightful place in our free-market economies.

O "acusador-mor" da quadrilha da corrupção no poder - (Valor)

O vôo mais alto do tuiuiú
Por Raymundo Costa, Maíra Magro e Juliano Basile | De Brasília
Valor Econômico – pág. A18
02.8.12


Fellipe Sampaio/SCO/STF - 24/05/2012 / Fellipe Sampaio/SCO/STF - 24/05/2012
Roberto Gurgel tem mais poder do que parece: seu gabinete guarda processos contra 200 parlamentares com foro privilegiado

Um cearense de 57 anos, discreto e de poucas palavras, quase "crepuscular" na definição dos colegas de trabalho, deve dominar a cena do primeiro dia de julgamento do mensalão no Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF). Trata-se de Roberto Gurgel Monteiro Santos, procurador-geral da República, responsável por sustentar a denúncia contra os 38 acusados de integrar o suposto esquema de compra de votos no Congresso, no primeiro mandato do governo Lula. O sucesso ou fracasso de Roberto Gurgel terá implicações no que se refere ao Ministério Público, cujas atribuições são frequentemente questionadas, e na própria consolidação do processo de redemocratização do país.
A atenção dos ministros, dos réus e da opinião pública estará voltada para Gurgel. Até chegar a esse ponto, o procurador-geral percorreu uma longa trajetória, na qual sofreu pressões de toda ordem. Desde as noites em claro estudando para o concurso que lhe abriu as portas do Ministério Público, há 30 anos, até uma tentativa de envolvê-lo com o escândalo da moda - as relações perigosas que o empresário Carlos Cachoeira mantinha com o mundo político de Brasília e que já resultaram na cassação do mandato de um senador da República, Demóstenes Torres.
Para Gurgel, foi sem dúvida um dos momentos mais tensos, nas semanas que antecederam o julgamento que se inicia hoje. O PT, mais especificamente, tentou enredá-lo no esquema de Cachoeira. Para se ter uma ideia da pressão, Gurgel chegou a mudar o comportamento reservado para contra-atacar: "Eu já disse e repito: uma das possibilidades é que isso parta de pessoas que estão muito preocupadas com o julgamento do mensalão".
O contra-ataque teve efeito fulminante. Até então, o PT se limitava a insinuar a existência de um relacionamento incestuoso do procurador com Carlos Cachoeira. Mas não mencionava a palavra mensalão. Era evidente a tentativa de constranger o procurador durante o julgamento. Na CPI em curso no Congresso, a mão que assinou um pedido de convocação do procurador foi a do ex-presidente Fernando Collor de Mello, hoje senador pelo PTB. Mas a trama para abater Gurgel fora comandada pelo PT.
O PT, até então o partido da ética e da moralidade pública, fora a sigla mais atingida pelo mensalão. Quando apareceram as gravações feitas pela Polícia Federal na Operação Monte Carlo, o partido vislumbrou uma janela de oportunidades: havia um senador (Demóstenes) e um governador do PSDB (Marconi Perillo, de Goiás) profundamente envolvidos em atividades relacionadas a Cachoeira. Além disso, havia a possibilidade de relacionar o procurador do mensalão com o esquema desmontado pela PF.
Ocorre que a Monte Carlo sucedeu uma outra operação da PF, a Vegas, realizada em 2009, quando o nome de Demóstenes Torres já aparecia em interceptações telefônicas da Polícia Federal. Por que Gurgel já naquela data não denunciara Demóstenes? Com aval de Lula e o comando do PT criou-se no Congresso a CPI do Cachoeira. Nunca antes um pedido de comissão de inquérito recebeu tanto apoio.
Mandato foi ofuscado pela relutância em denunciar Demóstenes e pelo arquivamento do caso Palocci
O ambiente político em Brasília fervilhava. Quem visitasse José Dirceu na casa que ele alugou no Lago Sul, bairro nobre da capital, para contatos políticos e acompanhar mais de perto as preliminares do julgamento, saía convencido de que Gurgel não chegaria ao dia de hoje como o responsável pela acusação contra os mensaleiros.
"Ele vai cair por si próprio porque está envolvido (no esquema Cachoeira)", dizia Dirceu a seus visitantes. "Ele sentou em cima. Já devia ter pedido demissão. O cara sentou em cima e não tem explicação". Na tribuna da CPI, Collor anunciou que entraria com seis representações contra Gurgel e sua mulher, a subprocuradora Cláudia Sampaio.
O discreto Gurgel nunca disse com todas as letras por que segurou o inquérito contra Demóstenes, deixando para pedir uma investigação contra ele somente este ano. Não fosse por sua postura, os integrantes do grupo de Cachoeira, inclusive o ex-senador, não teriam passado meses se comunicando livremente por seus aparelhos Nextel - a PF na extensão.
Ao falar a palavra "mensalão", que era de fato o sujeito oculto do que se passava no Congresso, Gurgel habilmente colocou os críticos na defensiva. Apesar do jeitão discreto, nesses 30 anos Roberto Gurgel se mostrou político e fez uma carreira consistente o bastante para levá-lo ao topo do Ministério Público Federal. A eleição de um governo de esquerda, em 2002, contribuiu para a ascensão.
Gurgel é uma das crias do "Grupo dos Tuiuiús", criado há duas décadas e marcado pela oposição à gestão do ex-procurador-geral da República Geraldo Brindeiro, nomeado pelo ex-presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso em 1995 e que acabou ocupando o cargo por três mandatos consecutivos de dois anos. À época, Brindeiro tornou-se conhecido como o "engavetador-geral da República", por sua irresistível compulsão para guardar na gaveta eventuais processos contra os poderosos.
Na origem mais remota dos "tuiuiús" estão três procuradores, dos quais um chegou a ministro do Supremo e outros dois ao posto atualmente ocupado por Gurgel: José Paulo Sepúlveda Pertence, Aristides Junqueira (autor da denúncia, recusada pelo STF, contra o ex-presidente Collor, e duramente criticado por ela ter sido considerada "inepta") e Cláudio Fontelles, o primeiro procurador do governo recém-chegado de Lula. A turma se reunia no restaurante Rosental, na Vila Planalto, em Brasília, mantido pelo cozinheiro do ex-presidente Juscelino Kubitschek.
O "Grupo dos Tuiuiús" é assim chamado em referência às tentativas de Cláudio Fontelles de chefiar o MPF - sua candidatura era vista como "pesada e de voo baixo", a exemplo da ave símbolo do Pantanal Matogrossense. Esse, pelo menos, era o sentimento do próprio Fontelles. E FHC não abria mão do "engavetador".
Descontentes com a gestão de Brindeiro, os "tuiuiús" se organizaram para ocupar postos estratégicos do MPF, visando o cargo de procurador-geral. Quando Lula assumiu - e o PT era quem mais difundia críticas a Brindeiro -, convidou Cláudio Fontelles para o cargo.

http://www.valor.com.br/sites/default/files/crop/imagecache/media_library_small_horizontal/0/0/755/494/sites/default/files/gn/12/08/foto02esp-102-gurgel-a18.jpg
Gurgel e Ayres Britto: procurador, considerado pelos colegas "cordialíssimo, extremamente leal, mas impenetrável", terá cinco horas hoje para apresentar provas contra cada um dos acusados

Lula queria reconduzir Fontelles a um segundo mandato, mas o procurador recusou a oferta para se manter fiel ao pacto tácito que servia de argamassa para a união dos tuiuiús: nenhum procurador deveria ficar mais de um mandato na chefia do MPF. Consultado, Fontelles sugeriu dois nomes: Antonio Fernando de Souza e o próprio Gurgel. Ao contrário de Fontelles, seu sucessor permaneceu por dois mandatos. Gurgel já está no segundo. Os tuiuiús voaram baixo em várias direções e acabaram se dividindo.
Os colegas procuradores não engoliram o fato de, às vésperas de Lula decidir se o reconduziria, Gurgel ter arquivado um pedido de investigação contra o ex-ministro da Casa Civil Antonio Palocci, cujo patrimônio aumentou 20 vezes durante quatro anos. Mas aplaudiram quando ele apresentou as alegações finais do mensalão, pedindo a condenação de 36 dos 38 réus. Gurgel não deixou outra alternativa a Lula a não ser mantê-lo no cargo. Aliás, ao ter sua recondução confirmada pelo Senado, Demóstenes Torres liderou o discurso contrário, usando o caso Palocci como argumento.
Na PGR, a liderança mais aberta de Cláudio Fontelles contrasta com o estilo mais discreto de Souza e Gurgel. O atual procurador geral é considerado "cordialíssimo, extremamente leal, mas impenetrável" pelos colegas. Uma das principais críticas é a falta de conversa com a categoria, e não ter levado adiante com liderança forte questões como negociação de demandas salariais.
Hoje, Gurgel será o foco das atenções. Terá cinco horas para apresentar provas contra cada um dos acusados - tempo de que só os ministros costumam dispor nas sessões.
A não ser que questões de ordem da defesa tomem o dia inteiro, Gurgel falará logo depois que o ministro Joaquim Barbosa ler seu relatório. Gurgel passou o mês de julho debruçado sobre o processo, treinando em casa o discurso da acusação.
Em junho, o procurador-geral chegou a confidenciar a ministros do STF que não usaria todo o tempo: "Ninguém aguenta falar por cinco horas." Durante as férias, enquanto advogados enchiam os gabinetes do Supremo de memoriais, Gurgel decidiu dar nova força à acusação - agora a expectativa é que poderá falar bastante.
Em jogo estará não só o destino dos réus envolvidos no maior escândalo do governo Lula, com todas as implicâncias políticas derivadas dele: o resultado do mensalão será a maior marca da gestão de Gurgel e terá efeitos na imagem do Ministério Público como instituição.
Eventuais condenações serão interpretadas como chancela, pela Corte Suprema, da qualidade do trabalho do procurador-geral. Por mais que uma sentença judicial beire as margens do imponderável, especialmente em um processo com tantas variáveis como o mensalão, uma absolvição generalizada resultaria em desgaste para o Ministério Público, como ocorreu com Aristides Junqueira no caso Collor. Além disso, volta e meia o MP é alvo de críticas no Congresso e seu poder de investigação criminal está em xeque no STF.
Quando assumiu a Procuradoria-Geral da República em julho de 2009, Gurgel defendeu o poder de investigação do Ministério Público como uma de suas principais bandeiras, que classificou como "condição essencial, imprescindível para o cumprimento pleno dos deveres constitucionais da instituição".
Uma ação judicial questionando esse papel começou a ser julgada este ano pelo Supremo, com a tendência de que as atuais atribuições do Ministério Público sejam mantidas, mas com a definição de alguns critérios. Embora este seja o caso mais importante para a categoria liderada por Gurgel, é o mensalão que entrará para a história como resultado de sua gestão.
Gurgel representa mil procuradores da República no Brasil inteiro e é o chefe maior do Ministério Público, que reúne 4 mil integrantes em todas as suas instâncias, nas esferas estadual e federal. Seu gabinete guarda processos contra 200 parlamentares com foro privilegiado e mais páginas e páginas de investigações que podem ou não virar novas ações judiciais. O procurador-geral tem, de fato, muito mais poder que sua postura "crepuscular" deixa transparecer.

O sentido "historico" do julgamento do Mensalao - Demetrio Magnoli

O julgamento da História

Demétrio Magnoli 
O Estado de S.Paulo, 2/-8/2012
"O mais atrevido e escandaloso esquema de corrupção e de desvio de dinheiro público flagrado no Brasil", segundo a definição do procurador-geral da República, Roberto Gurgel, no seu memorial conclusivo, começa a ser julgado hoje pelo STF. A palavra "história" está um tanto desgastada. Quase tudo, de casamentos de celebridades a jogos de futebol, é rotineiramente declarado "histórico". O adjetivo, contudo, deve ser acoplado ao julgamento do mensalão - e num duplo sentido. A Corte Suprema está julgando os perpetradores de uma tentativa de supressão da independência do Congresso Nacional e, ao mesmo tempo, dará um veredicto sobre um tipo especial de corrupção, que almeja a legitimidade pela invocação da História (com H maiúsculo).
Silvio Pereira, o "Silvinho Land Rover", então secretário-geral do PT, tornou-se uma figura icônica do mensalão, pois, ao receber o veículo, conferiu ao episódio uma simplória inteligibilidade: corruptos geralmente obtêm acesso a "bens de prazer" e a "bens de prestígio" em troca de sua contribuição para os esquemas criminosos. No caso, porém, o ícone mais confunde do que esclarece. "Vivo há 28 anos na mesma casa em São Paulo, me hospedo no mesmo hotel simples há mais de 20 anos em Brasília, cidade onde trabalho de segunda a sexta", disse em sua defesa José Genoino, então presidente do PT e avalista dos supostos empréstimos multimilionários tomados pelo partido.
Genoino quer, tanto por motivos judiciais quanto políticos, separar sua imagem da de Silvinho - e não mente quando aborda o tema da honestidade pessoal. Os arquitetos principais do núcleo partidário do mensalão não operavam um esquema tradicional de corrupção, destinado a converter recursos públicos em patrimônios privados. Eles pretendiam enraizar um sistema de poder, produzindo um consenso político de longo alcance. O episódio deveria ser descrito como um acidente necessário de percurso na trajetória de consolidação da nova elite política petista.
José Dirceu, o "chefe da quadrilha", opera atualmente como lobista de grandes interesses empresariais, não compartilha o estilo de vida monástico de Genoino, mas também não parece ter auferido vantagens pecuniárias diretas no episódio em julgamento. O então poderoso chefe da Casa Civil comandou o esquema de aquisição em massa de parlamentares com o propósito de assegurar a navegação de Lula nas águas incertas de um Congresso sem maioria governista estável. Dirceu conduziu a perigosa aventura em nome dos interesses gerais do lulismo - e, imbuído de um característico sentido de missão histórica, aceitou o papel de bode expiatório inscrito na narrativa oficial da inocência do próprio presidente. Há um traço de tragédia em tudo isso: o mensalão surgiu como "necessidade" apenas porque o neófito Lula rejeitou a receita política original formulada por Dirceu, que insistira em construir extensa base governista sustentada sobre uma aliança preferencial entre PT e PMDB.
A corrupção tradicional envenena lentamente a democracia, impregnando as instituições públicas com as marcas dos interesses privados. O caráter histórico do episódio em julgamento deriva de sua natureza distinta: o mensalão perseguia a virtual eliminação do sistema de contrapesos da democracia, pelo completo emasculamento do Congresso. A apropriação privada fragmentária de recursos públicos, por mais desoladora que seja, não se compara à fabricação pecuniária de uma maioria parlamentar por meio do assalto sistemático ao dinheiro do povo. Os juízes do STF não estão julgando um caso comum, mas um estratagema golpista devotado a esvaziar de conteúdo substantivo a democracia brasileira.
No PT, "Silvinho Land Rover" será, para sempre, um "anjo caído", mas o tesoureiro Delúbio Soares foi festivamente recebido de volta, enquanto Genoino frequenta reuniões da direção e Dirceu é aclamado quase como mártir. O contraste funciona como súmula da interpretação do partido sobre o mensalão. Ao contrário do dirigente flagrado em prática de corrupção tradicional, os demais serviam a um desígnio político maior - um fim utópico ao qual todos os meios se devem subordinar. São, portanto, "heróis do povo brasileiro", expressão regularmente usada nas ovações da militância petista a Dirceu.
O PT renunciou faz tempo à utopia socialista. Na visão do "chefe da quadrilha", predominante no seu partido, o PT é a ferramenta de uma utopia substituta: o desenvolvimento de um capitalismo nacional autônomo. Segundo tal concepção, o lulismo figuraria como retomada de um projeto deflagrado por Getúlio Vargas e interrompido por FHC. Nas condições postas pela globalização, tal projeto dependeria da mobilização massiva de recursos estatais para o financiamento de empresas brasileiras capazes de competir nos mercados internacionais. A constituição de uma nova elite política, estruturada em torno do PT, seria componente necessário na edificação do capitalismo de Estado brasileiro. Sobre o pano de fundo do projeto de resgate nacional, o mensalão não passaria de um expediente de percurso: o atalho circunstancial tomado pelas forças do progresso fustigadas numa encruzilhada crucial.
A democracia é um regime essencialmente antiutópico, pois seu alicerce filosófico se encontra no princípio do pluralismo político: a ideia de que nenhum partido tem a propriedade da verdade histórica. Na democracia as leis valem para todos - mesmo para aqueles que, imbuídos de visões, reclamam uma aliança preferencial com o futuro. O "herói do povo brasileiro" não passa, aos olhos da lei, do "chefe da quadrilha" consagrada à anulação da independência do Congresso. Ao julgar o mensalão, o STF está decidindo, no fim das contas, sobre a pretensão de uma corrente política de subordinar a lei à História - ou seja, a um projeto ideológico. Há, de fato, algo de histórico no drama que começa hoje.

*   SOCIÓLOGO, DOUTOR EM GEOGRAFIA HUMANA PELA USP. E-MAIL: DEMETRIO.MAGNOLI@UOL.COM.BR

Condolezza Rice sobre a missao unica dos EUA no mundo

Trata-se, possivelmente, de uma das poucas personalidades republicanas claramente intervencionistas que existem no velho partido conservador.
E trata-se, também, de um deabte antigo na história constitucional americana e na própria trajetória desse império não oficializado voluntariamente.
Em todo caso, estima-se importante ler e conhecer seus argumentos.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Financial Times, July 26, 2012 8:37 pm

US must recall it is not just any country

Ingram Pinn illustration
In this young century, the 9/11 attacks, the global financial crisis and the unrest in the Arab world have struck at the heart of vital US interests. If Americans want the tectonic plates of the international system to settle in a way that makes the world safer, freer and more prosperous, the US must overcome its reluctance to lead. We will have to stand up for and promote the power and promise of free markets and free peoples, and affirm that American pre-eminence safeguards rather than impedes global progress.
The list of US foreign policy challenges is long and there will be a temptation to respond tactically to each one. But today’s headlines and posterity’s judgment often differ. The task at hand is to strengthen the pillars of our influence and act with the long arc of history in mind.


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In the Middle East we must patiently use our aid, expertise and influence to support the creation of inclusive democratic institutions. The fundamental problem in the region is the absence of institutions that can bridge the Sunni-Shia divide, and protect the rights of women and minorities. Even as we make necessary immediate choices – including arming the Syrian rebels – we must insist upon inclusive politics. The US cannot afford to stand aside; regional powers will bring their own agendas that could exacerbate confessional divisions.
As we work with reformers across the region, we should not forget that Iraq has the kind of institutions that are meant to overcome these divisions. Given its geostrategic importance, the chaos engulfing its neighbours and Iran’s destructive influence, our re-engagement with Baghdad is sorely needed.
The US needs to turn again to the development of responsible and democratic sovereigns beyond the Middle East. The George W. Bush administration doubled aid spending worldwide and quadrupled it to Africa. It channelled assistance to countries that were investing in their people’s health and education, governing wisely and democratically, building open economies and fighting corruption. Ultimately, these states will make the transition from aid to private investment, becoming net contributors to the international economy and global security. US tax dollars will have been well spent.
We must also not lose sight of how democracy is solidifying in the western hemisphere. US assistance and trade policy can help democracies in Latin America to provide an answer to populist dictators. At the same time, we must speak out for dissidents – from Cuba to Venezuela to Nicaragua. Mexico needs attention across a broad agenda that includes the devastating security challenge that threatens both it and the US.
The US “pivot” to Asia (a region that had hardly been abandoned) has focused heavily on security issues. America should remain the pre-eminent military power in the Pacific. But consider this: China has signed free-trade agreements with 15 nations over the past eight years and has explored FTAs with some 20 others; since 2009 the US has ratified three FTAs negotiated during the Bush administration and it has continued – but not concluded – talks on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which began in 2008. One of the US’s best assets in managing China’s rise is its regional economic engagement.
A robust free trade policy will strengthen our economy and influence abroad, as will developing our domestic resources, such as the North American energy platform. High oil prices empower Venezuela, Russia and Iran. We are developing alternative sources of energy but they will not replace hydrocarbons for a long time. It is a gift that much of our demand – possibly all of it – can be met domestically and in co-operation with US allies, Mexico and Canada.
Most important, we need to reassure our friends across the globe. The rush to court adversaries has overshadowed relations with trusted allies. Our engagement with Europe has been sporadic and sometimes dismissive. Strategic ties with India, Brazil and Turkey have neither strengthened nor deepened in recent years. Hugo Chávez and the Iranians have bitten off the extended hand of friendship. There is no Palestinian state because it will only come through negotiation with a secure Israel that is confident in its relationship with the US. The decision to abandon missile defence sites in Poland and the Czech Republic, to “reset” relations with Russia was pocketed by Vladimir Putin who quickly returned to his anti-American ways. Friends must be able to trust in the consistency of our commitment to them.
Finally we cannot forget that strength begins at home. Global leadership rests upon a strong economy built on fiscal discipline and robust private sector growth. Ultimately, our success depends on mobilising human potential, something the US has done better than any country in history. Ours has been a story of possibility, not grievance and entitlement. Ambitious people have come from all over the world to seek out the opportunities America provides. The absence of a humane and sustainable national immigration policy threatens this great asset.
Our talent has historically come from every part of American society, without regard to class and economic circumstance. But when a child’s zip code determines whether she will get a good education, we are losing generations to poverty and despair. The crisis in US education is the greatest single threat to our national strength and cohesion.
The American people have to be inspired to lead again. They need to be reminded that the US is not just any other country: we are exceptional in the clarity of our conviction that free markets and free peoples hold the key to the future, and in our willingness to act on those beliefs. Failure to do so would leave a vacuum, likely filled by those who will not champion a balance of power that favours freedom. That would be a tragedy for American interests and values and those who share them.

The writer is a former US secretary of state
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Arapongas 1 vs itamaratecas 0 ? - Paraguai de novo na agenda

Dilma no escuro 

Editorial O Estado de S.Paulo, 2 de agosto de 2012

Que a presidente Dilma Rousseff foi pega de surpresa com a destituição de Fernando Lugo da presidência paraguaia, em 22 de junho, todos já sabiam. Afinal, só isso explica, por exemplo, a açodada decisão de enviar uma comitiva diplomática ao Paraguai para, noves fora a retórica legalista, intimidar os parlamentares daquele país e questionar suas decisões soberanas. Mas agora, como mostra reportagem do Estado (30/7), o País começa a inteirar-se dos motivos do vexame: o serviço de inteligência e diplomatas brasileiros até produziram relatórios sobre o recrudescimento da crise e da crescente possibilidade de impeachment de Lugo, mas, segundo assessores de Dilma, esses documentos não foram encaminhados à presidente.
O roteiro desse desastre de comunicação pode ser traçado a partir de 15 de junho, quando um confronto por desocupação de terras na cidade paraguaia de Curuguaty resultou na morte de 11 sem-terra e 6 policiais. A Agência Brasileira de Inteligência (Abin) produziu nesse mesmo dia um relatório sobre o caso, mostrando que a crise poderia resultar até no impeachment de Lugo - o presidente do Paraguai, um país em que a questão agrária é especialmente delicada, foi acusado pela oposição de ter sido responsável pelo conflito. Esse documento não foi adicionado às sínteses que são entregues diariamente a Dilma. Ela viajou ao México dois dias depois, para a reunião do G-20, e nenhum de seus auxiliares a procurou para falar sobre a crise paraguaia.
No dia 20 de junho, antevéspera do impeachment, a Abin produziu outro relatório, mostrando que o processo para o afastamento de Lugo seria mesmo aberto e que ele havia perdido todo o apoio que tinha no Congresso. Também esse documento não foi encaminhado a Dilma. O texto, assim como os demais, pousara na mesa do ministro-chefe do Gabinete de Segurança Institucional, general José Elito, responsável por repassá-lo à presidente. Elito costuma resumir ou mesmo nem sequer passar adiante os relatórios que considera irrelevantes, e parece que foi isso o que ele fez com os documentos que teriam alertado Dilma para a escalada violenta e irresistível da crise no Paraguai.
O Itamaraty e o assessor especial da Presidência, Marco Aurélio Garcia, também não fizeram muito melhor. O embaixador do Brasil em Assunção, Eduardo dos Santos, relatou por telefone a Garcia, em várias oportunidades, o que estava presenciando. O assessor recebeu ainda diversos relatórios do Itamaraty apontando para o agravamento do quadro, mas Garcia, aparentemente, não conversou com Dilma sobre o assunto, embora estivesse com ela no México.
Os assessores do Planalto acreditam que tanto Elito quanto Garcia subestimaram as informações sobre o Paraguai porque o pedido de impeachment contra Lugo seria o 24.º de uma longa lista de tentativas da oposição de destituir o presidente; logo, segundo esse raciocínio, não daria em nada. Mas a situação de Lugo havia mudado drasticamente, sem que os auxiliares de Dilma responsáveis por informá-la a respeito tivessem se dado conta. O apoio político ao presidente paraguaio, que já era mínimo, foi pulverizado da noite para o dia quando ele trocou o comando do Ministério do Interior, como reação ao conflito de Curuguaty, e desagradou a única legenda que ainda o sustentava, o Partido Liberal Radical Autêntico. Tudo isso foi documentado pelo Itamaraty e pela Abin, mas Dilma não soube.
Esse exemplo de inépcia escancara ao menos dois problemas. O primeiro é que o estilo centralizador de Dilma parece constranger alguns de seus auxiliares a não "incomodá-la" com assuntos que ela possa vir a considerar irrelevantes, causando uma de suas já famosas reações intempestivas.
O segundo problema, muito mais grave, é que a presidente pode estar no escuro não só em relação ao Paraguai, mas a muitos outros temas cruciais, graças a erros internos de comunicação. Assim, ela estaria exposta à possibilidade de ter de tomar decisões importantes sem ter todas as informações necessárias para isso - quer porque elas estão mal-ajambradas, quer porque elas simplesmente foram engavetadas por algum funcionário receoso do temperamento da presidente.

 

Simon Kuznets: os judeus e a economia (book review)


----- EH.NET BOOK REVIEW ------
Published by EH.Net (August 2012)

Simon Kuznets, Jewish Economies: Development and Migration in America and Beyond – Volume I: The Economic Life of American Jewry (edited by Stephanie Lo and E. Glen Weyl). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2012. liv + 239 pp. $50 (hardcover), ISBN: 978-1-4128-4211-2.
Reviewed for EH.Net by Daniel A. Schiffman, Department of Economics and Business Administration, Ariel University Center.

Simon Kuznets (1901-1985), the 1971 Nobel Laureate in Economics, is renowned for his contributions to development economics and national income accounting. This book documents a less well known aspect of Kuznets' career – his pioneering contributions to Jewish economic history.
This is the first volume of a two-volume set. The set consists of six papers, four of which were previously unpublished, published in Hebrew, or published in abridged form. The contents of Volume I are as follows:
1. "Preface" (Lo), a brief description of all six papers;
2. "Introduction: Simon Kuznets, Cautious Empiricist of the Eastern European Jewish Diaspora," (Weyl), a forty-page essay which places the six papers within the context of Kuznets' life and work;
3. "Economic Structure and Life of the Jews," a draft that was published in abridged form in 1961, by the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York;
4. "Economic Structure of U.S. Jewry: Recent Trends," a lecture delivered at the home of Israel's President, originally published in Hebrew;
5. "Economic Growth of U.S. Jewry," an unfinished, previously unpublished manuscript.
In these papers, Kuznets describes the economic transformation of world Jewry in the twentieth century, with an emphasis on immigration, human capital accumulation, occupational structure and income distribution. Readers who are familiar with Kuznets will recognize his unique methodology, which is characterized by careful definition of concepts, meticulous empirical analysis and fact-based theoretical insights. Kuznets' findings include the following:
a. Jews have paid a heavy economic price to preserve their cohesion and identity.
b. Discrimination against Jews is highly irrational.  
c. Waves of immigration generate significant inequality, accompanied by cultural gaps, between veteran immigrants and newer arrivals.
d. In a pre-World War II sample of 12 nations, Jews were overrepresented in trade and finance and (to a lesser extent) industry and handicrafts. Jews were underrepresented in agriculture, transportation, communications and personal services.
e. In the early 1950's, Israel integrated its immigrants by allowing them to consume more than they produced. This policy, combined with a high rate of investment in physical capital, necessitated large capital inflows from abroad. 
f. In 1957, American Jews were highly urbanized and educated, relative to the general U.S. population. Between 1910 and 1957, Jewish males shifted from industrial occupations to professional and technical occupations. In the 1950's and 1960's, Jewish females married later and had a lower birth rate, relative to the general population. Jewish females had a high labor force participation rate before marriage, but tended to leave the labor force after marriage. The distribution of income among Jews had a higher mean, greater rightward skewness and greater inequality than the general distribution of income. 
Why did Simon Kuznets devote time and energy to the study of Jewish economic history? Kuznets emigrated from Russia to the U.S. in 1922. As a secular Jew and staunch Zionist, he affirmed his Jewish loyalties by studying Jewish economic history and by promoting economic research at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. However, he was ambivalent about his Jewish-oriented writings. In a 1973 letter, he declined Martin Feldstein's proposal to disseminate "Economic Growth of U.S. Jewry" as a Harvard economics department working paper. Kuznets explained that his Jewish-oriented writings were less than fully objective, because the topics reflected his "interests and associations as a Jew."
What motivated Weyl and Lo to edit Jewish Economies? In 2007, Weyl, who is now an economic theorist at the University of Chicago, wrote a term paper on Kuznets for an undergraduate history course at Princeton. Weyl consulted Kuznets' personal papers and interviewed his children, Paul Kuznets and Judith Stein. After completing his Ph.D. in economics at Princeton in 2008, Weyl joined the Harvard Society of Fellows, where he collaborated with research assistant Stephanie Lo (currently an analyst at DC Energy). Weyl explains that he is drawn to Kuznets by virtue of their common background and challenges. Like Kuznets, Weyl was born into a secular Jewish family; like Kuznets, Weyl strives to create the proper balance between universalism and Jewish identity.
Weyl's introduction is very enlightening. Using archival material and interviews, Weyl uncovers new facts about Kuznets' personal and professional lives. Weyl also ventures into the realm of intellectual biography: He explores the connection between Kuznets' background and his economic thought, and demonstrates the existence of important parallels between Kuznets' general and Jewish-oriented works. For example:
• Kuznets emphasized the role of culture and institutions in Jewish economic life. This parallels his emphasis on culture and institutions in development (which was highly unconventional in the 1950's).
• Kuznets hypothesized that over time, income inequality among Jewish immigrants would rise and then fall. This parallels the famous Kuznets curve, which posits an inverted-U relationship between development and income inequality.
• In the Middle Ages, European Jews were excluded from all professions except moneylending. This historical fact may have inspired Kuznets to assert (in Income from Independent Professional Practice, coauthored with Milton Friedman) that occupational licensure reduces competition.
• Kuznets saw immigration as a leading factor in Israel's economic development. He also recognized the disastrous effect of U.S. immigration restrictions in the pre-Holocaust years. Not surprisingly, Kuznets' general work is strongly pro-immigration.
Weyl suggests that some of Kuznets' most famous (general) economic insights were inspired by his Jewish-oriented works. Unfortunately, conclusive evidence is lacking; Kuznets deliberately concealed his motivations, and maintained a strict separation between his general and Jewish-oriented works.
I have two minor quibbles with Jewish Economies. First, there is a small but growing post-Kuznets literature on Jewish economic history; contributors include Barry Chiswick, Carmel Chiswick, Maristella Botticini, Zvi Eckstein and Cormac Ó Gráda. Weyl and Lo do not bring this literature to the attention of the reader. Second, the introduction is marred by occasional typographical errors and incorrect cross-references.
In conclusion, Jewish Economies is an important scholarly contribution. It should be required reading for specialists in the fields of economic development, human capital and history of economic thought. Weyl and Lo have contributed to the economics literature in three ways: They have collected Kuznets' virtually forgotten writings on Jewish economic history, revealed previously unknown aspects of Kuznets' identity and worldview, and demonstrated important parallels between Kuznets' general and Jewish-oriented works. Hopefully, the publication of Jewish Economies will stimulate further research on Jewish economists of the twentieth century.
Daniel A. Schiffman is a lecturer in economics at Ariel University Center in Israel. He specializes in economic history and history of economic thought. He has published articles on Jewish monetary thought and is a contributor to the Oxford Handbook of Judaism and Economics (2010).  E-mail: daniels@ariel.ac.il
Copyright (c) 2012 by EH.Net. All rights reserved. This work may be copied for non-profit educational uses if proper credit is given to the author and the list. For other permission, please contact the EH.Net Administrator (administrator@eh.net). Published by EH.Net (August 2012). All EH.Net reviews are archived at http://www.eh.net/BookReview.
Geographic Location: Europe, Middle East, North America
Subject: Development of the Economic History Discipline: Historiography; Sources and Methods, Education and Human Resource Development, Historical Demography, including Migration, Labor and Employment History
Time: 19th Century, 20th Century: Pre WWII, 20th Century: WWII and post-WWII
===============
Comment by E. Roy Weintraub (Economic History List)
As I noted in another place (in HOPE  2011, no. 1), 27 of the first 62 Nobel Laureates in economics (to 2009) were Jewish.  One would suppose that historians of economics would be interested to interrogate/problematize this fact.  Feminist historians of economics have written about the underrepresentation of women economists in the history of economics canon.  Afro-American historians of economics have written freely and effectively about the underrepresentation of Afro-American economists in canonical histories of especially American economics.  One would have expected, by any symmetry thesis, that historians would be equally interested in overrepresentation of a particular ethnic or diaspora community as they would in the underrepresentation of such a community in the community of economists.  This however has not occurred.  

The difficulty is quite real and reflects a strange sensibility.  The first economist who wrote about these matters was Thorstein Veblen who, in 1919, wrote a paper called “The Intellectual Pre-Eminence Jews in Modern Europe” in the Political Science Quarterly.  In that paper Veblen sought to explain what he regarded as the overrepresentation of “the chosen people” in the sciences and in fields of scholarship and intellectual inquiry.  His own explanation was that habits of scholarship and learning within the community set the stage for young Jews, breaking free of the ties of their established communities, and living among gentiles, to bring a skeptical and inquiring mindset to the intellectual problems in which they worked, and that mindset was particularly suited to the kinds of scientific explanations that the modern age seemed to need.  

Leaving Veblen’s rumination, which is hardly evidence based or convincing, to one side, any discussion of the place of Jews in the learned professions has proceeded without the contributions of historians of economics.  Intellectual historians, like the preeminent David Hollinger, have examined questions about the role of Jews, and anti-Semitism, in the academic community in the United States.  Hollinger’s discussions about the anti-Semitism in the pre-World War II period and the secularization of the universities from the war onward, which permitted the rapid influx of Jewish scholars after World War II, are well known.  Intellectual historians, and historians of the university, have seen fit to raise these questions and to seek both data and insight.  Social scientists have found publication outlets about the role of Jews in the American universities in primarily Jewish publications.  The work by Seymour Lipset and Lewis Feuer is typical.  These kinds of studies are both well known, and apparently unknown to historians of economics.  Historians of physics like Daniel Kevles have written about these matters in their own histories for many, many years.  Historians of mathematics (per the centenary of the American Mathematical Society) have written with care and detail about such matters. 

Not so historians of economics.  If one examines the work of economists and historians of economics, I am aware of exactly one article in English, written by a historian of economics, that addresses this subject, and that article appeared not in an economics journal or a history of economics journal but in the journal Judiasm. Its author was Mark Perlman.    

Why was it left to an economic theorist, a non-historian of economics, the remarkable Glen Weyl, to broach these issues? 
-- 
E. Roy Weintraub
Professor of Economics
Fellow, Center for the History of Political Economy
Duke University

Milton Friedman: o homem que salvou o capitalismo?

Exagero do articulista: o capitalismo nunca esteve para morrer e não precisa de ninguém que lhe salve. Ele se salva a si próprio, e de toda forma ele é flexível o bastante para ir se adaptando às novas externalidades e condições ambientais da economia mundial e mesmo às políticas econômicas nacionais claramente contrárias a seu espírito inovador e sua flexibilidade produtiva.
Na verdade, o capitalismo não é um modo de produção, como queria Marx, nem um sistema produtivo, como pretendem vários outros economistas.
O capitalismo é um processo, contínuo, regular e constante de organização dos fatores de produção com o objetivo de produzir bens e serviços que sejam úteis ao maior número possível de consumidores, e cujos efeitos indiretos são a criação e a distribuição de renda e riqueza para o maior número possível de habitantes, dada sua vocação de disseminação da produção.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

The Man Who Saved Capitalism

Stephen Moore
The Wall Street Journal, August 1st, 2012

It's a tragedy that Milton Friedman—born 100 years ago on July 31—did not live long enough to combat the big-government ideas that have formed the core of Obamanomics. It's perhaps more tragic that our current president, who attended the University of Chicago where Friedman taught for decades, never fell under the influence of the world's greatest champion of the free market. Imagine how much better things would have turned out, for Mr. Obama and the country.

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Assistant editorial page editor James Freeman on Milton Friedman's legacy. Photos: Getty Images
Friedman was a constant presence on these pages until his death in 2006 at age 94. If he could, he would surely be skewering today's $5 trillion expansion of spending and debt to create growth—and exposing the confederacy of economic dunces urging more of it.
In the 1960s, Friedman famously explained that "there's no such thing as a free lunch." If the government spends a dollar, that dollar has to come from producers and workers in the private economy. There is no magical "multiplier effect" by taking from productive Peter and giving to unproductive Paul. As obvious as that insight seems, it keeps being put to the test. Obamanomics may be the most expensive failed experiment in free-lunch economics in American history.
Equally illogical is the superstition that government can create prosperity by having Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke print more dollars. In the very short term, Friedman proved, excess money fools people with an illusion of prosperity. But the market quickly catches on, and there is no boost in output, just higher prices.
Next to Ronald Reagan, in the second half of the 20th century there was no more influential voice for economic freedom world-wide than Milton Friedman. Small in stature but a giant intellect, he was the economist who saved capitalism by dismembering the ideas of central planning when most of academia was mesmerized by the creed of government as savior.
Friedman was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics for 1976—at a time when almost all the previous prizes had gone to socialists. This marked the first sign of the intellectual comeback of free-market economics since the 1930s, when John Maynard Keynes hijacked the profession. Friedman's 1963 book "A Monetary History of the United States," written with Anna Schwartz (who died on June 21), was a masterpiece and changed the way we think about the role of money.
More influential than Friedman's scholarly writings was his singular talent for communicating the virtues of the free market to a mass audience. His two best-selling books, "Capitalism and Freedom" (1962) and "Free to Choose" (1980), are still wildly popular. His videos on YouTube on issues like the morality of capitalism are brilliant and timeless.
In the early 1990s, Friedman visited poverty-stricken Mexico City for a Cato Institute forum. I remember the swirling controversy ginned up by the media and Mexico's intelligentsia: How dare this apostle of free-market economics be given a public forum to speak to Mexican citizens about his "outdated" ideas? Yet when Milton arrived in Mexico he received a hero's welcome as thousands of business owners, students and citizen activists hungry for his message encircled him everywhere he went, much like crowds for a modern rock star.
Once in the early 1960s, Friedman wrote the then-U.S. ambassador to New Delhi, John Kenneth Galbraith, that he would be lecturing in India. By all means come, the witty but often wrong Galbraith replied: "I can think of nowhere your free-market ideas can do less harm than in India." As fate would have it, India did begin to embrace Friedmanism in the 1990s, and the economy began to soar. China finally caught on too.
Friedman stood unfailingly and heroically with the little guy against the state. He used to marvel that the intellectual left, which claims to espouse "power to the people," so often cheers as states suppress individual rights.
While he questioned almost every statist orthodoxy, he fearlessly gored sacred cows of both political parties. He was the first scholar to sound the alarm on the rotten deal of Social Security for young workers—forced to pay into a system that will never give back as much as they could have accumulated on their own. He questioned the need for occupational licenses—which he lambasted as barriers to entry—for everything from driving a cab to passing the bar to be an attorney, or getting an M.D. to practice medicine.
He loved turning the intellectual tables on liberals by making the case that regulation often does more harm than good. His favorite example was the Food and Drug Administration, whose regulations routinely delay the introduction of lifesaving drugs. "When the FDA boasts a new drug will save 10,000 lives a year," he would ask, "how many lives were lost because it didn't let the drug on the market last year?"
He supported drug legalization (much to the dismay of supporters on the right) and was particularly proud to be an influential voice in ending the military draft in the 1970s. When his critics argued that he favored a military of mercenaries, he would retort: "If you insist on calling our volunteer soldiers 'mercenaries,' I will call those who you want drafted into service involuntarily 'slaves.'"
By the way, he rarely got angry and even when he was intellectually slicing and dicing his sparring partners he almost always did it with a smile. It used to be said that over the decades at the University of Chicago and across the globe, the only one who ever defeated him in a debate was his beloved wife and co-author Rose Friedman.
Corbis
Milton and Rose Friedman
The issue he devoted most of his later years to was school choice for all parents, and his Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice is dedicated to that cause. He used to lament that "we allow the market, consumer choice and competition to work in nearly every industry except for the one that may matter most: education."
As for congressional Republicans who are at risk of getting suckered into a tax-hike budget deal, they may want to remember another Milton Friedman adage: "Higher taxes never reduce the deficit. Governments spend whatever they take in and then whatever they can get away with."
No doubt because of his continued popularity, the left has tried to tie Friedman and his principles of free trade, low tax rates and deregulation to the global financial meltdown in 2008. Economist Joseph Stiglitz charged that Friedman's "Chicago School bears the blame for providing a seeming intellectual foundation" for the "idea that markets are self-adjusting and the best role for government is to do nothing." Occupy Wall Street protesters were often seen wearing T-shirts which read: "Milton Friedman: Proud Father of Global Misery."
The opposite is true: Friedman opposed the government spending spree in the 2000s. He hated the government-sponsored enterprises like housing lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
In a recent tribute to Friedman in the Journal of Economic Literature, Harvard's Andrei Shleifer describes 1980-2005 as "The Age of Milton Friedman," an era that "witnessed remarkable progress of mankind. As the world embraced free-market policies, living standards rose sharply while life expectancy, educational attainment, and democracy improved and absolute poverty declined."
Well over 200 million were liberated from poverty thanks to the rediscovery of the free market. And now as the world teeters close to another recession, leaders need to urgently rediscover Friedman's ideas.
I remember asking Milton, a year or so before his death, during one of our semiannual dinners in downtown San Francisco: What can we do to make America more prosperous? "Three things," he replied instantly. "Promote free trade, school choice for all children, and cut government spending."
How much should we cut? "As much as possible."
Mr. Moore is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
A version of this article appeared July 31, 2012, on page A13 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Man Who Saved Capitalism.