E por falar em raca, os franceses querem suprimir a palavra da legislacao... - Le Monde

"Ce n'est pas le mot race dans les textes qui alimente le racisme"

Le Monde.fr, 17.05.2013

Propos recueillis par François Béguin

L'Assemblée nationale a adopté, jeudi 16 mai, une proposition de loi du Front de gauche supprimant le mot "race" de la législation, notamment du Code pénal, du Code de procédure pénale et du Code du travail ainsi que de la loi du 29 juillet 1881 sur la liberté de la presse qui punit le discours raciste. Pour ne pas risquer de fairetomber l'incrimination de racisme, les députés socialistes ont fait adopter un amendement affirmant explicitement, dans l'article premier, que "la République combat le racisme, l'antisémitisme et la xénophobie. Elle ne reconnaît l'existence d'aucune prétendue race."

Lire :  L'Assemblée nationale supprime le mot race de la législation

Danièle Lochak, professeur émérite de droit public à l'université de Paris-Ouest-Nanterre-La Défense, ancienne présidente du Gisti (Groupe d'information et de soutien des immigrés), et auteur de La race, une catégorie juridique ( Presses de la FNSP, revue Mots, 1992) porte un jugement nuancé sur cette initiative qui ne devrait pas, selon elle, aboutir ensuite à modifier la Constitution de 1958, et encore moins le préambule de 1946.

Etait-il nécessaire de faire disparaître le mot "race" de la législation ?

Je suis partagée. D'un côté, les mots ne sont pas neutres. Utiliser un terme – a fortiori dans un contexte juridique – peut lui donner une certaine légitimité : on peut donc comprendre le souhait d'éliminer le mot "race" des textes de loi.

D'un autre côté, dans tous les contextes où ce mot apparaît, c'est sur le mode de la dénégation, pour disqualifier les actes et les propos racistes, il est donc difficile d'entirer la conséquence que les "races" existeraient.

Le terme, au demeurant, n'est pas tabou dans beaucoup d'autres pays qui, comme la France, ont mis hors la loi la discrimination raciale. Et surtout, on le trouve dans toutes les conventions internationales relatives aux droits de l'homme qui interdisent les discriminations fondées – notamment - sur l'origine, ou l'appartenance à une ethnie ou une race. Ratifiées par la France, elles font à ce titre partie de son droit positif. C'est le cas également de l'article 10 du traité sur le fonctionnement de l'Union européenne (TFUE), de la Charte européenne des droits fondamentaux et de la directive de 2000 relative à l'égalité de traitement entre les personnes "sans distinction de race ou d'origine ethnique".

L'adoption de ce texte va-t-il entraîner des changements concrets ?

Ce texte a une portée essentiellement symbolique, tout le monde en convient. Car ce n'est pas la présence du mot "race" dans la législation qui alimente le racisme ni même la croyance en l'existence des races. Ce qui est important, c'est de se donnerles moyens de lutter contre le racisme – qui suppose entre autres une politique plus respectueuse des droits des étrangers et des droits des Roms.

Si le texte amendé au cours de la discussion parlementaire aboutit à remplacersystématiquement les mots "en raison de [...] sa race" par l'expression "pour des raisons racistes", de façon à ne pas risquer d'affaiblir la répression du racisme, on notera qu'il laisse subsister dans l'ensemble de la législation les termes d'"ethnie" ou d'"appartenance à une ethnie". Or l'ethnie est en réalité un substitut euphémisé de la "race" mais qui, sentant moins le soufre, peut aboutir à conférer une crédibilité à des distinctions qui sont tout aussi contestables et dangereuses que celles reposant sur la "race".

Que pensez-vous du processus retenu ? Un premier vote portant sur la suppression du mot dans la législation et une suppression ultérieure dans la Constitution, comme s'y est engagé François Hollande...

Sur ce point, je suis assez tenté de reprendre à mon compte la proposition du groupe communiste et républicain en 2003, qui était de ne modifier ni la Constitution de 1958, ni le préambule de 1946 énonçant des droits et des libertés fondamentaux, en raison de leur valeur historique.

Modifier la Constitution de 1958, qui a déjà subi des dizaines de réformes, cela peut à la rigueur se concevoir. Mais on imagine mal de changer le préambule de 1946. Outre que c'est juridiquement impossible, rappelons-nous que, adopté à l'issue de la seconde guerre mondiale, il représente un moment important de la "mémoire discursive d'une histoire tragique", pour reprendre l'expression de la chercheuseSimone Bonnafous.

François Béguin

Goodbye Brazil: um livro sobre a emigracao brasileira - Maxine L Margolis

Vale a pena ler, o que ainda não fiz, mas pretendo fazer:

Goodbye, Brazil: Emigres from the Land of Soccer and Samba (Paperback)

Maxine L Margolis

Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2013. 

Brazil, a country that has always received immigrants, only rarely saw its own citizens move abroad. Beginning in the late 1980s, however, thousands of Brazilians left for the United States, Japan, Portugal, Italy, and other nations, propelled by a series of intense economic crises. By 2009 an estimated three million Brazilians were living abroad?about 40 percent of them in the United States. Goodbye, Brazil is the first book to provide a global perspective on Brazilian emigration. Drawing and synthesizing data from a host of sociological and anthropological studies, preeminent Brazilian immigration scholar Maxine L. Margolis surveys and analyzes this greatly expanded Brazilian diaspora, asking who these immigrants are, why they left home, how they traveled abroad, how the Brazilian government responded to their exodus, and how their host countries received them. Margolis shows how Brazilian immigrants, largely from the middle rungs of Brazilian society, have negotiated their ethnic identity outside Brazil. She argues that Brazilian society outside Brazil is characterized by the absence of well-developed, community-based institutions - with the exception of thriving, largely evangelical Brazilian churches. Margolis looks to the future as well, asking what prospects at home and abroad await the new generation, children of Brazilian immigrants with little or no familiarity with their parents' country of origin. Do Brazilian immigrants develop such deep roots in their host societies that they hesitate to return home despite Brazil's recent economic boom?; or have they become true transnationals, traveling between Brazil and their adopted lands but feeling not quite at home in either one?

A Franca como pais "periferico", na Europa, certamente, no mundo, talvez - Jacob Funk Kirkegaard

Creio que o autor tem razão, e eu até diria que ele está sendo muito condescendente com a França: como um país irreformável, a França não será (ou já é) apenas uma país periférico; ela será, também, um país irrelevante. Até que os chineses a ajudem a sair do buraco, mas eles vão ter de ceder alguns castelos e vários vignobles aos chineses, ah isso vão; e também vão ensinar algumas de suas técnicas aos chineses, que depois vão inundar o mundo com produtos franceses made in China. Não estou falando de Louis Vuitton, que isso eles já fazem: estou falando de foie gras, camembert, e coisas do gênero...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Is France a ‘Peripheral’ Country?

by Jacob Funk Kirkegaard

Peterson Institute of International Economics, May 8th, 2013 | 07:08 pm

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A few weeks ago Reuters reported that the French finance Minister, Pierre Moscovici, fell asleep during the final late night negotiations over the Cypriot bank bailout on March 24. It apparently fell to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director, Christine Lagarde—a former French finance minister herself—to wake him up. No doubt the grueling round-the-clock schedule of the Cyprus negotiations would have taxed the most vigorous participant, but that should not stop speculation about the meaning of what happened.
For any leading euro area finance minister to doze off during key negotiations to settle the economic future of another euro area member is an embarrassing dereliction of duty. Perhaps Mr. Moscovici was assured that his 70-year-old old German counterpart, Wolfgang Schäuble, would defend French taxpayers’ interests. Moscovici’s staff—which failed to wake him up—seemingly agreed. Or perhaps Paris simply viewed the German-led bail-in solution in Cyprus as a fait accompli about which they could do little. Or perhaps the French government’s support for costs imposed on creditors and uninsured depositors was stronger that it wished to acknowledge. Taking a nap during the negotiations could thus have been a subtle way of Moscovici stepping outside the door at the key decision moment.
The other euro area finance ministers could probably be forgiven for letting sleeping ministers lie. But by failing to wake Moscovici up, they effectively rendered France’s potential input as irrelevant. Probably to avoid that implication, Lagarde woke up her successor.
Whatever the underlying motives for Moscovici’s sidelining at the Cyprus negotiations are, the broader reasons for France’s evident loss of influence in the EU since the beginning of the crisis are several.
Paris has been hit by bad timing luck in European affairs. My colleague John Williamson once explained that a period of “extraordinary politics” follows serious crises, compelling leaders to establish new institutions, such as the so-called Permanent Five members (P-5) in the United Nations Security Council or the de facto clout wielded by U.S. and European members of the IMF Board resulting from their dominant global role in the 1940s. In European affairs today it matters for a country to be economically strong in a time of severe crisis.
Ironically, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Germany are reaping the unforeseen national benefits of reforms instituted by her predecessor, Gerhard Schöder, a decade ago in response to Germany’s status then as the “sick man of Europe.” Its weakness mattered little because nothing dramatic was happening at the time to the European institutional design following the collapse of the constitution treaty negotiated under the leadership of former French President Giscard de Estaing. Today Germany is strong when it matters, and able to play a leading role in the birth of important and permanent new European institutions like the updated fiscal surveillance framework (two-pack/six-pack, fiscal treaty), the European Stabilization Mechanism (ESM), and now the banking union. These redesigns have been largely devoid of obvious French fingerprints, even if France can take credit for helping to goad Germany into taking action at critical moments.
If Germany benefited from Schröder’s early reforms, France’s situation results from its profound misreading of the effects of the euro introduction, and the political dynamic of crises. Germany’s original agreement to give up the Deutsche mark for the euro back in the 1990s has historically been seen as a concession in return for France’s acceptance of German reunification. (Chancellor Helmut Kohl also saw the euro as a reunified Germany’s anchor in Europe.) With the euro’s advent, Paris was free from the yoke of having to pursue German monetary policies to defend the “Franc Fort” in the 1980s. The crisis, however, has bestowed disproportional political power to Germany, which as the euro’s anchor has been able to set the crisis response agenda.
For two decades, France has failed to reform its economy, yielding power to Berlin and the European Central Bank to demand domestic reforms in other euro area member countries. Meanwhile, the government of President Francois Hollande has done little to arrest France’s path of gradual decline since adoption of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Neither Presidents Jacques Chirac nor Nicolas Sarkozy succeeded from the center right, and the consensus seeking socialist Hollande does not seem to have the political will to face down entrenched special interests blocking reforms either. The alleged left-right divide in France is obsolete. Both sides favor the status quo and are fearful of street protests blocking any serious attempts at reform.¹
The parallel with fears of “Arab street” protests blocking reforms in the Middle East is evident. But with its founding myth of storming the Bastille, France has embraced its identity as a place where farmers, truck drivers, and average citizens are easier to mobilize. By protesting, French citizens are engaging in an intrinsic element of being French. Like the National Rifle Association in the United States, French labor unions, public sector representatives and protected industries appeal to patriotic fervor to promote their political and economic interests. As a result, international competitiveness suffers, the size of the public sector continues to grow, unemployment rises and debt and deficits begin to approach damaging levels.
Unable to muster the political capacity to reform itself in the absence of a deep crisis, France fits the political definition of a peripheral country in the euro area, except that things have not gotten as bad as they have in Greece, Portugal, Ireland, and arguably Spain and Italy in recent years.
To be sure, France is far from an economic basket case. It has avoided the build-up of huge post-euro imbalances. It does not have Italy’s history of free-spending governments, and it enjoys some of Europe’s most favorable long-term demographics and a first-rate public infrastructure. Were it to experience a crisis, it is inconceivable that Germany (and the ECB) would not come to the rescue. As a result, despite the growing differentials in French and German economic competitiveness, unemployment and debt, France is likely to keep getting a pass from financial markets and tracking German interest rate levels closely.
Lacking financial market pressure, however, France’s status quo parties will likely continue to derive the functional equivalent of America’s “exorbitant privilege” and enjoy interest rates lower than its own economic fundamentals would dictate. France’s problem is not a sudden speculative attack, but rather continued malaise, stagnation, and decline.
Though he never used the word “malaise,” President Jimmy Carter described the American mood in 1979 in ways that seem suitable to the predicament in France: “The threat is nearly invisible in ordinary ways. It is a crisis of confidence. It is a crisis that strikes at the very heart and soul and spirit of our national will. We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation.”Hollande’s government continues to shun globalization by blocking foreign investments in France. The latest sad example is the blocking of Yahoo!’s proposed takeover of successful French internet start-up, Dailymotion. He has, on the other hand, overseen some new labor market rules accepted by the social partners, and has committed to reforms of the social insurance system later this year in return for a two-year delay in achieving a deficit target. But these consensus-driven steps are unlikely to shake France out of its paralysis or earn much respect elsewhere in the euro area, and especially not in Berlin.
The euro area’s required institutional reforms can be divided into two groups: one that is urgently required and one that takes the form of highly desirable institutional innovations. The most urgent steps that are needed to convince markets and voters that a euro collapse is not imminent include establishment of the ESM as a de facto European monetary fund to serve as a backstop if a euro area member loses market access; the ECB’s outright monetary transaction (OMT) program, serving as a conditional lender-of-last-resort; and the banking union, which will integrate banking supervision with resolution in cases of insolvent banks, and establish a system of deposit insurance. All these new institutions have been implemented under financial market pressure and in response to the political desires of Germany. France’s input has mattered little.
But neither financial markets, nor Brussels technocrats, nor central bank pressure can be factors in the other group of institutional reforms, such as deeper political and fiscal integration in the euro area and revisions of the EU Treaty. Only the democratically elected leaders of Europe can bring about these changes. These steps will be close to impossible to achieve without support and agreement from France and Germany, the two countries historically at the heart of the European integration project.
Regrettably, France’s lack of domestic economic reforms will ensure that Germany will likely refuse to discuss deeper fiscal and political union in Europe for the foreseeable future. The road to any potential form of euro area fiscal integration, whether in the form of debt mutualization or an increased euro area fiscal capacity, will have to pass through a French reform-driven domestic economic revival first. Germany will not agree to permanent-burden sharing with a France that does not reform itself first.
This does not mean the collapse of the euro or the European project, only an end to most longer-term progress on the project. Just as the United States political system can stagger through political crises with one of the two large parties on the political fringes, the euro area can stagger on under de facto German leadership for as long as France’s inaction exiles itself from real influence. As with the US fiscal negotiations, this state of affairs ensures that progress will be minimal, based on the least common denominator, rather than arrived at by a grand bargain between France and Germany.
France’s inability to reform itself puts Europe at risk, in short, and condemns France to subpar influence in Europe and thwarted aspirations. For its own sake and Europe’s, France must do better.

Note

1. I have benefited from many discussions with my colleague Nicolas Véron about the “status quo party” in France.

En Garde, Lagarde: a conversation with IMF's head (WSJ)

En Garde!

By DAVID WESSEL

The Wall Street Journal, May 18, 2013

Photography by Platon

Christine Lagarde

IT IS NO EASY JOB, being the grand negotiator at almost every financial crisis in the world in these troubled times. But as head of the International Monetary Fund, or IMF,Christine Lagarde has played a role in dealing with everything from the Cyprus bank scare to Chinese exchange rates.

A lawyer by training, she came to the post after a six-year stint in the French cabinet. She is described as warm, informal—and highly disciplined. She was, after all, a member of the French national synchronized swim team in her youth, and still hits the gym almost every day.

WSJ.Money Summer 2013

WSJ.Money: A magazine about the world of wealth and the pleasures and pitfalls of managing your money. Coming out this Saturday inside The Wall Street Journal.

Rumors persist that Lagarde may someday return to France and run for president. But these days, her focus is on repairing battered markets and an ailing global economy, a task that requires diplomacy and stamina. She recently sat down in her Washington, D.C., office with David Wessel, the Journal's economics editor, to talk about the state of the world. Her edited remarks follow:

Q: We've come through a devastating financial crisis. Are we out of this?

A: We avoided a collapse in 2012. We have to guard against a relapse, and we certainly do not have the luxury of relaxing. I think 2013 is going to be a critical year.

Q: In what sense?

A: A lot of the advanced economies' leaders, thinkers, decision-makers are tired with crisis management. They want out of it. In a way, that's good; but there is still work to be done. About 80 percent of the decisions have been made, for instance, in the strengthening of the European Union—a lot of the financial sector is better governed, better capitalized, better supervised. But if you don't do 100 percent of it, you're at risk again.

Q: There seems to be an unfortunate but understandable tension, particularly in Europe. When things start to get a little better complacency sets in. It's almost as if we need another crisis in order to get things moving again.

A: I don't think it's Europe specific. I think it's also true in other economies, including in the U.S. The fiscal cliff is dealt with, and yet there is more to be done. The moment yesterday's crisis is dealt with, you want to forget about tomorrow's issues. The central banks have been very helpful in that respect. They've accommodated a degree of slow-paced reforms and gradual fiscal consolidation.

Q: Have we done enough to renovate the financial system so we don't have another crisis, or is there still more work to do? Are we safe from the banks yet?

A: No, not yet. It's my 80/20 rule: I think 80 percent of the job has been done—liquidity ratios, identifying the systemically important international financial institutions—but if you turn to the over-the-counter derivative markets, for instance, it hasn't been done. It's still very obscure and not transparent at all. Plenty of work has been done, but international cooperation is going to be critically important, because otherwise you'll have people having done what they think is their job in their respective corner but it will not be consistent with what others will have done. Bankers, traders, financiers are very smart and astute people; they will find out what is the right channel to optimize the system—which is fine, as long as risks are taken care of and as long as, at the end of the day, it's not the taxpayer who picks up the bill.

There's another issue, which is much on my mind: the rapid growth and development of emerging-market economies. For the moment, they have been quite sheltered because they are not financially sophisticated. It sounds a little patronizing to say that, but when you look at the development of their financial sector, the size of their financial sector relative to total [GDP], it is not that mature. It will develop, it will increase, it will be more interconnected and, as a result, there will be crises arising. The last crisis was in the advanced economies, but there will be one in emerging markets as well.

Q: Do you think democracy is up to the challenges we face?

A: In the short run, it's a hurdle. You need to comply with the parliamentary rules, you need to communicate and you need to be transparent, which are the attributes of democracy. But in the long run, it's a win-win because if there is ownership, there is appreciation of what each and every one in the system has to do.

“The last financial crisis was in the advanced economies, but there will be one in the emerging markets as well.”

Q: Asia is about 60 percent of the world's population, and it will be about two-thirds by 2025. It's obviously a growing share of the world economy. What challenges do you see in that?

A: One of the key challenges will be aging. Whichever corner you look at, with a few exceptions, you have rapidly aging populations, and that will have consequences in terms of consumption patterns, saving patterns, productivity and general development—which these populations, governments and international institutions, including the IMF, will have to be cautious about. That will be the case for Japan and China. India is going to be a different story. But you take Japan and China, and you have the second- and third-largest economies of the world.

Q: And it comes at the same time as we have similar trends in the U.S. and Europe. So what's the problem? What are the tensions?

A: I think we need to be very open-minded about this, because typically the norm would be for aging people to actually save less. This is not what we are seeing in Japan. What we'll see in China will be interesting—a country where pension schemes, health benefits and welfare systems are certainly not as developed as they are in the advanced economies. How will people behave? How will they save? How will they consume? Will they rely on the next generation?

Q: Look at the other side of the coin: the youth bulge in the Middle East and Africa. What about that?

A: Big challenges. This youth bulge is located in countries that have a pretty high growth level, much higher than in many other places in the world. Starting from such a low base, the per-capita growth of those countries will very likely progress, and that will cause frustration, backlash, possibly social unrest, certainly population migrations. And again, from an economy point of view, things have to be thought through in advance. These big trends will not materialize in the next two or three years. You're talking not just 10 to 20 years, you're talking 10 to 50 years. But they should be anticipated now.

Q: What kind of things do you think we should be doing to get ready for that? Is it a question of research, taxes, fiscal policy or immigration policy?

A: All of it.

Q: When you talk to leaders of governments, do they talk about these long-term demographic things?

A: They're more focused on the short term because that's where they have to make decisions, that's where their own personal future lies. And you tend to stand where you sit.

Q: How big an economic risk do you think climate change is?

A: It's a massive risk and it's a huge opportunity, and for the moment we are ignoring both risk and opportunities associated with it. At the IMF, we look at it from a narrow lens—energy-subsidy reform, the price of carbon, a market for carbon. You know about half a trillion dollars is actually spent directly on subsidies for fuel, gas and electricity. To engage governments to change that and to make sure they can encourage better spending—not encourage massive consumption of fossil energy—it's very difficult. Yet it's a risk and an opportunity. The risk is excessive consumption. The opportunities are huge, with the spending that is saved reoriented toward infrastructure, education, health, you name it.

Q: What are the risks of not addressing climate change?

A: Our kids will be grilled, fried, toasted and roasted.

Q: You have said economists and policy makers have unwisely downplayed inequality. Why does that concern you?

A: Point No. 1: What we see from just looking at the numbers is a massive unequal distribution of wealth around the world—and not just in advanced economies, pretty much everywhere. Point No. 2: We now have research that demonstrates more equal distribution of wealth is conducive to more sustainable growth. So if we all take the view that solid balance and sustainable growth is adequate, necessary for a more balanced world with less unemployment and less risk of social unrest, the conclusion is fairly straightforward. We must pay, and governments must pay, more attention to a more equal distribution of wealth. I'm not a communist, but the reality is there.

Q: I'm curious, what's at the top of your worry list when you go home at night?

A: Climate change is one for sure. So is the education of women. I know it's a little bit farfetched relative to the core business of the IMF and its mandate. But I'm personally convinced that it is the answer to many, many, many issues. Whatever we can do to encourage and facilitate the education of young girls, access to financing for women, I think will go a long way in the development and better stability of economies around the world. Those are sort of long-term goals. I go to bed at night thinking about more short-term issues: countries facing difficulties; the U-turn by the Japanese authorities and whether it's going to work; the U.S. challenge of coming up with a credible plan to reduce the deficit and to change the trend of debt.

Q: Do we have global governance that's adequate for the globalization of markets and corporations and for issues like climate change?

A: No, I don't think so. But I think that it is going to be difficult to achieve what would be desirable. Look at financial-market supervision, or the definition of norms and standards in all sectors and areas, or the organization of a carbon-emission market. It would be a good occasion to design a new system—or global economic and financial surveillance around the world—in order to anticipate a potential crisis. All these functions will be even more necessary in the future. But global governance is resented by governments, who have their own sovereignty.

Q: I sense a great deal of excitement about Africa at the moment. Is it justified and, more importantly, what has to happen for this momentum to continue?

A: I sense the same thing, particularly in the corporate world. I think it's partly caused by the richness of all sorts of commodities that lie out there underground. It's also prompted by the population size and the fact that there will be so many people between the ages of 16 and 40 who will be an available workforce. What will keep the momentum? I would say two things: peace and education of women, because if the education of women is not tackled promptly, then I think we will be heading for very difficult demographic challenges in Africa.

Enlarge Image

Q: Besides Europe and North America, you've been to Algeria, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Latvia, Malawi, Mauritius, Mexico, Malaysia, Niger, Nigeria, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, Tunisia and Turkey. If you were to go back and visit some places as a tourist—leaving out France and the United States—where would you most like to go?

A: I think I'd like to go back to Peru and to Tunisia.

Q: Why?

A: Peru because there's such a mixture of coastline, extraordinary colors, historical remains or sights that I haven't seen, and extremely gentle people that I've met. As for Tunisia, it's the warmth, and I want to see how changes are taking place. And you also have a mixture of beautiful sea. I think in a previous life I must have been a dolphin, so anything that has this attracts me.

Q: How do you manage the jetlag of all these trips?

A: First of all, I can sleep on a plane. I don't drink. I don't smoke. I don't eat meat. I think I have a healthy schedule that helps me cope with different time zones. I think it helps. I used to fight against my own body and tell myself don't doze, don't give up, you're on daylight. I don't fight with my body anymore. When I sense that it needs a 10-minute doze, I let myself doze. I might sit in the back of a car and tell the person next to me just give me a break, don't talk to me, I'm going to sleep.

As ideias andantes dos que ja nao andam mais: natural que seja assim...

Não sei se outros partilham da minha opinião, mas nunca vi, em nenhum lugar do mundo, em qualquer época, um líder político, receber doutorados honoris causa por atacado, às bateladas, de arrastão, se poderia dizer.
Só na América Latina...
E ainda se orgulham... eles e as universidades.
Eu teria uma outra atitude.
Quanto às ideias, bem, seria o caso de conhecê-las, se é que andam por aí, de fato...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Lula: Ideas de Chávez y Kirchner siguen circulando en Latinoamérica

RPP notícias, Jueves, 16 de Mayo 2013  |  9:00 pm

Fuente: EFE

Exmandatario de Brasil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, recordó que junto a Kirchner y Chávez dieron nuevo impulso al proceso de integración regional.

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El expresidente brasileño Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva afirmó que las ideas de los fallecidos mandatarios Néstor Kirchner, de Argentina, y Hugo Chávez, de Venezuela, circulan "creando inteligencia y conciencia" en Latinoamérica.

Al asistir este jueves en Buenos Aires, junto a la presidenta argentina, Cristina Fernández, a la inauguración de la Universidad Metropolitana para la Educación y el Trabajo (UMET), creada por el sindicato de encargados de edificios de apartamentos, Lula recordó que fue él, junto a Kirchner y Chávez, quienes dieron nuevo impulso al proceso de integración regional.

"Su carne está enterrada pero sus ideas están por ahí, circulando por toda América Latina, creando inteligencia y conciencia en la mente de cada latinoamericano", afirmó el exmandatario brasileño.

Lula recordó cómo junto a Néstor Kirchner compartió "ideas y proyectos para acercar a ambas naciones, para consolidar la integración regional de Latinoamérica, que hoy vive uno de los momentos más extraordinarios de su historia".

Fernández: Argentina ha crecido junto con sus hermanos suramericanos

Da Silva resaltó por otra parte que la inauguración de esta universidad tiene un "enorme simbolismo" ya que es impulsada por trabajadores.

"Nosotros no hicimos milagros porque no existe milagros en la política. Solamente hicimos aquello a lo que fuimos llamados, contribuimos en nuestros gobiernos a democratizar la sociedad brasileña. La educación desempeña una función clave en esta misión", afirmó el exgobernante brasileño.

Por su parte, Fernández afirmó que "Argentina ha crecido junto con el resto de sus hermanos suramericanos", "con gobiernos que creen en la igualdad de oportunidades".

Fernández sostuvo que Kirchner junto a Lula derribaron "ese mito de la rivalidad brasileño-argentina, que impedía que ambos países crecieran juntos y servía a intereses que eran totalmente contrarios al desarrollo de los dos países".

"Ustedes quebraron esa valla, ese mito, esa leyenda, esa pretendida desunión entre Argentina y Brasil", dijo la mandataria argentina.

Según informaron fuentes oficiales, esta noche Cristina Fernández recibirá a Lula da Silva en audiencia en la Casa Rosada, sede del Ejecutivo argentino.

Este viernes, Fernández y Da Silva asistirán al Senado argentino, donde el expresidente brasileño recibirá varios títulos honoríficos concedidos por diferentes universidades argentinas.

EFE

Sera' que os venezuelanos frequentam a retrete demasiadamente? Falta papel higienico...

Parece brincadeira, mas não é. O problema é sério minha gente. A oposição, apenas para incomodar o governo, pediu que a população "obrasse" mais frequentemente, o que está difícil, tendo em vista o desabastecimento de harina-pan para fazer arepas, uma comida típica venezuelana.
Mas, a melhor definição do socialismo, aliás perfeita, foi dada pelo ministro da planificação (o nome já diz tudo):
“El socialismo se construye a partir de la escasez.”
ministro de Planificación, Jorge Giordani
Ele está totalmente com a razão: o socialismo é isso mesmo.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

El desabastecimiento acorrala a Maduro

ALFREDO MEZA Caracas 16 MAY 2013 - 13:52 CET

"La revolución importará 50 millones de rollos de papel higiénico", anuncia el ministro de Comercio

El Ejecutivo sostiene que la oposición alienta una sobredemanda para provocar desabastecimiento

En Venezuela para llenar el carrito del supermercado hay que hacer una procesión, como si se tratara de las visitas a los siete templos en Semana Santa. Pero desde hace varias semanas el papel higiénico destaca entre las ausencias. La escasez de este producto no es, sin embargo, tan cíclica como la de harina, pollo, desodorante, aceite de maíz, azúcar y queso. El papel higiénico está incluido en una lista de bienes vendidos a precios regulados por el Ejecutivo, de acuerdo con lo dispuesto en febrero de 2012 por la Superintendencia Nacional de Costos y Precios. Desde entonces las empresas decidieron reducir el tamaño de los rollos y seguir supliendo la demanda. Pero el pasado mes de abril las estanterías se vaciaron.

Para aplacar el déficit el Gobierno anunció que importaría el equivalente a 50 millones de rollos de papel higiénico. “Le decimos a nuestro pueblo que se tranquilice y comprenda que no debe dejarse manipular por la campaña mediática de que hay escasez”, dijo el ministro de Comercio, Alejandro Fleming, a la Agencia Venezolana de Noticias.

El funcionario justificó la ausencia de papel higiénico con una cuenta que ha provocado toda clase de bromas en las redes sociales. Dijo que “no hay deficiencia en la producción”, porque el consumo mensual es de 125 millones de rollos “y hay una sobredemanda” de 40 millones. “¿Cómo hizo para hacer ese cálculo?”, se preguntó César Miguel Rondón, el periodista más escuchado de la radio en Venezuela. A continuación leyó un mensaje llegado a su cuenta Twitter: “Si esa cuenta es cierta habrá que administrarse porque a los venezolanos les toca 1,5 rollos por persona”.

El Gobierno considera que la escasez es consecuencia de las compras nerviosas y de una campaña de la oposición para desestabilizar a Maduro, cuya legitimidad ha sido cuestionada debido al estrecho margen que obtuvo sobre su contrincante, Henrique Capriles, en las elecciones del pasado 14 de abril, y las denuncias de irregularidades en el acto de votación. En contrapartida, el empresariado afirma que el desabastecimiento obedece al control de cambios vigente en el país desde hace una década y a la inestabilidad política que ahuyenta la inversión. Es una confrontación constante. La respuesta más clara a esta situación la dio hace cuatro años, en una entrevista con el diario venezolano El Universal, el ministro de Planificación, Jorge Giordani: “El socialismo se construye a partir de la escasez”.

En medio de esta crisis de desabastecimiento se produjo la esperada reunión entre el jefe del Estado, Nicolás Maduro, y el presidente de Empresas Polar, Lorenzo Mendoza, principal productor de alimentos básicos en Venezuela, que terminó con una cordialidad que no se auguraba el fin de semana, cuando el mandatario sugirió que el conglomerado privado estaba acaparando los productos y era el responsable del generalizado desabastecimiento en el país.

El fin de semana el Gobierno declaró además que sospechaba que Mendoza, dueño de la segunda fortuna del país y ocupante del lugar 329º en la lista Forbes de los millonarios del mundo, había recortado la producción para el mercado local de harina precocida, con la cual se elabora la arepa, uno de los platos típicos de la mesa venezolana. Contra todo pronóstico, contradiciendo el bajo perfil que suele cultivar, Mendoza convocó una rueda de prensa para desmontar los argumentos del Ejecutivo venezolano: dijo entonces que operaba a su máxima capacidad, que su producto de harina precocida, Harina Pan —el líder del sector—, representaba el 48% de la producción de Venezuela y que la escasez obedecía a deficiencias de producción de los demás competidores. Y sugirió al Gobierno que le alquilara o vendiera alguna de las plantas que no funcionaban para ponerlas a trabajar. Maduro tomó esa respuesta como una provocación. El martes, mientras conversaba con un grupo de damnificados por las lluvias de 2010, dijo que la postura de Mendoza le había parecido altanera y que en la reunión “le cantaría sus cuatro verdades”. “Dio declaraciones como un candidato, aunque él dice que no es político”, agregó Maduro. Fue el mismo tono retador que había utilizado el domingo cuando escribió en su cuenta de Twitter: “Espero que de esta reunión se establezca un compromiso de cumplirle al país. Lorenzo Mendoza, te espero”.

Todo eso pareció haber quedado superado ayer. Tanto el empresario como el vicepresidente Jorge Arreaza coincidieron a la salida de la cita en que habían hablado en términos diáfanos sobre el problema de la cadena de distribución y que ambas partes estaban comprometidas a trabajar al máximo de sus potencialidades. “La reunión fue tremendamente cordial y se demostró claramente que estamos trabajando a toda capacidad”, dijo Mendoza posteriormente en un comunicado.

Para estimular la producción y hacer frente al desabastecimiento, el Gobierno incrementó el martes un 20% los precios máximos de venta de productos como el pollo, la carne de vacuno y todos los lácteos, una medida solicitada por los productores de alimentos. Los precios de los principales artículos de primera necesidad son regulados por el Estado.

Con el objetivo de fortalecer la reserva alimentaria, el ministro de la Alimentación, Félix Osorio, quien propuso a Maduro la subida de los precios, anunció que en el transcurso de esta semana llegará al país un cargamento con 760.000 toneladas de alimentos. Los productos, dijo, son aceite, leche completa en polvo, carne de res, atún y sardina en lata y azúcar cruda, entre otros, valorados en 466 millones de euros.

Deutsche Bank analisa as perspectivas economicas globais (2013)

Um excelente relatório analítico de conjuntura, e também de exame das crises financeiras em perspectiva global, comparada e histórica, por parte de economistas do Deutsche Bank.
Agradeço ao meu amigo André Eiras ter me chamado a atenção para este relatório.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida


Deutsche Bank Markets Research
Global Economics
Date: 15 May 2013
Global Economic Perspectives: Financial Crises: Past and Present 
Responsáveis:

Peter Hooper, Chief Economist
Michael Spencer, Chief Economist
Torsten Slok, Chief Economist
Thomas Mayer, Advisor


Sumário:

Financial crises seem to be as old as fractional reserve banking. They are different from pure asset price bubbles in that credit plays a major role. The costs of a financial crisis appear in two forms: (1) directly, in the form of costs for the government to fund the recapitalization or resolution of banks; and (2) indirectly, in the form of output losses.
„ The history of financial crises is long and not all events may have been properly recorded. However, reviews in the economic literature point to the credit cycle as the underlying cause of financial crises since the Middle Ages. Recent estimates of the costs of financial crises point to large output losses associated with these crises, reinforcing the view that policies should be directed towards avoiding credit booms and busts. The empirical evidence suggests that while output losses are larger in advanced economies, the direct fiscal costs of banking crises are lower than in
emerging economies.
„ Apart from Basle 3, the official response to the latest financial crises is reflected in the various plans advanced by Paul Volcker in the US, John Vickers in the UK, and Erki Liikanen in the euro area. All these plans have in common that they seek to separate the "risky" parts of the banking business from its "safe" parts. Proprietary trading (in fact, all trading) and investment banking activities are seen as "risky", while credit extension and deposit taking--the so-called traditional banking activities--are presumed to be relatively safe. However, as it should be clear from our historical review of financial crises, this is a grave error. The (admittedly porous) dividing line between more or less risky banking activities does not run vertically through financial institutions, separating capital markets related (presumably risky) from traditional (presumably safe) banking activities, but horizontally through banking activities according to the leverage employed in these activities.

Ler a íntegra neste link:

http://pull.db-gmresearch.com/cgi-bin/pull/DocPull/8139-51B1/33014349/DB_GEP_2013-05-15_0900b8c086cb784b.pdfhttp://pull.db-gmresearch.com/cgi-bin/pull/DocPull/8139-51B1/33014349/DB_GEP_2013-05-15_0900b8c086cb784b.pdf