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sexta-feira, 30 de novembro de 2012

Carga total de impostos diminui: adivinhe onde?

Não no Brasil, claro, mas naquele país do capitalismo dito selvagem, onde a concentração de renda parece ser terrível, e onde os ricos ganham cada vez mais.
Os "estadunidenses" -- como certos miolos moles chamam os americanos -- devem estar tristes, não é mesmo?
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Complaints Aside, Most Face Lower Tax Burden Than in 1980

What Is Fair?: Taxes are still a hot topic after the presidential election. But as a country that spends more than it collects in taxes, are we asking the right taxpayers to pay the right amounts?
BELLEVILLE, Ill. — Alan Hicks divides long days between the insurance business he started in the late 1970s and the barbecue restaurant he opened with his sons three years ago. He earned more than $250,000 last year and said taxes took more than 40 percent. What’s worse, in his view, is that others — the wealthy, hiding in loopholes; the poor, living on government benefits — are not paying their fair share.
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Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
"I don't have the answer of where to pull back. I want the state parks to stay open. I want, I want, I want. I want Big Bird, I think it's beautiful. What don't I want? I don't know," said Anita Thole, a safety supervisor for a utility contractor.

Readers’ Comments

Should the wealthy pay more to reduce the deficit, or should those who earn lower incomes pay an increased share of the tax burden? Reporters Robert Gebeloff and Binyamin Appelbaum will respond to selected comments and questions.
“It feels like the harder we work, the more they take from us,” said Mr. Hicks, 55, as he waited for a meat truck one recent afternoon. “And it seems like there’s an awful lot of people in the United States who don’t pay any taxes.”
These are common sentiments in the eastern suburbs of St. Louis, a region of fading factory towns fringed by new subdivisions. Here, as across the country, people like Mr. Hicks are pained by the conviction that they are paying ever more to finance the expansion of government.
But in fact, most Americans in 2010 paid far less in total taxes — federal, state and local — than they would have paid 30 years ago. According to an analysis by The New York Times, the combination of all income taxes, sales taxes and property taxes took a smaller share of their income than it took from households with the same inflation-adjusted income in 1980.
Households earning more than $200,000 benefited from the largest percentage declines in total taxation as a share of income. Middle-income households benefited, too. More than 85 percent of households with earnings above $25,000 paid less in total taxes than comparable households in 1980.
Lower-income households, however, saved little or nothing. Many pay no federal income taxes, but they do pay a range of other levies, like federal payroll taxes, state sales taxes and local property taxes. Only about half of taxpaying households with incomes below $25,000 paid less in 2010.
The uneven decline is a result of two trends. Congress cut federal taxation at every income level over the last 30 years. State and local taxes, meanwhile, increased for most Americans. Those taxes generally take a larger share of income from those who make less, so the increases offset more and more of the federal savings at lower levels of income.
In a half-dozen states, including Connecticut, Florida and New Jersey, the increases were large enough to offset the federal savings for most households, not just the poorer ones.
Now an era of tax cuts may be reaching its end. The federal government depends increasingly on borrowed money to pay its bills, and many state and local governments are similarly confronting the reality that they are spending more money than they collect. In Washington, debates about tax cuts have yielded to debates about who should pay more.
President Obama campaigned for re-election on a promise to take a larger share of taxable income above roughly $250,000 a year. The White House is now negotiating with Congressional Republicans, who instead want to raise some money by reducing tax deductions. Federal spending cuts also are at issue.
If a deal is not struck by year’s end, a wide range of federal tax cuts passed since 2000 will expire and taxes will rise for roughly 90 percent of Americans, according to the independent Tax Policy Center. For lower-income households, taxation would spike well above 1980 levels. Upper-income households would lose some but not all of the benefits of tax cuts over the last three decades.
Public debate over taxes has typically focused on the federal income tax, but that now accounts for less than a third of the total tax revenues collected by federal, state and local governments. To analyze the total burden, The Times created a model, in consultation with experts, which estimated total tax bills for each taxpayer in each year from 1980, when the election of President Ronald Reagan opened an era of tax cutting, up to 2010, the most recent year for which relevant data is available.
The analysis shows that the overall burden of taxation declined as a share of income in the 1980s, rose to a new peak in the 1990s and fell again in the 2000s. Tax rates at most income levels were lower in 2010 than at any point during the 1980s.
Governments still collected the same share of total income in 2010 as in 1980 — 31 cents from every dollar — because people with higher incomes pay taxes at higher rates, and household incomes rose over the last three decades, particularly at the top.
There are now many more millionaires, in other words, paying more than they did in 1980, but they are paying less than they would have if tax laws had remained unchanged. And while they still pay a larger share of income in taxes than the rest of the population, the difference has narrowed significantly.
The trend can be seen by comparing three examples:
¶A household making $350,000 in 2010, roughly the cutoff for the top 1 percent, on average paid 42.1 percent of its income in taxes, compared with 49 percent for a household with the same inflation-adjusted income in 1980 — a savings of about $24,100.
¶A household making $52,000 in 2010, roughly the median income, on average paid 27.7 percent of its income in taxes, compared with 30.5 percent in 1980, saving $1,500.
¶A household making $22,000 in 2010 — roughly the federal poverty line for a family of four — on average paid 19.4 percent in taxes, compared with 20.2 percent, saving $200.
Jared Bernstein, who served as chief economist to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., said the Times analysis highlighted the need to raise taxes on the affluent and cut taxes for the poor. He cautioned that the middle class most likely would need to pay more, too.
“When you look at these numbers, you understand why we’re not collecting the revenue we need to support the spending we want,” said Mr. Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group. “We’ve really gutted the system.”
But Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a prominent conservative economist, said the changes in taxation over the last three decades reflected a conscious and successful strategy to encourage economic growth that should be reinforced, not reversed.
Mr. Holtz-Eakin, a former director of the Congressional Budget Office who is the president of the American Action Forum, said government should reduce deficits primarily through spending cuts, particularly to Medicare and Medicaid, the health programs that are the largest source of projected increases in the federal debt.
“We can’t grow our way out of it, and we can’t tax our way out of it,” he said of the government’s fiscal predicament. “We have a spending problem, period.”
Mr. Hicks, like many residents of Belleville, views this debate with unhappiness. He would like the government to cut spending but not reduce services. He is certain that the government should not raise taxes on the middle class, a group in which he includes himself, but he is ambivalent about asking anyone to pay more. Higher taxes would hurt his businesses, he said, so raising taxes on those who make more money seems likely to hurt their businesses, too.
“At this point, I guess it’s inevitable in order to get us out of this hole,” Mr. Hicks said of higher taxes. “Illinois is in bad shape, along with a lot of the nation. But I don’t feel like we should tax the middle class any more than we are right now. There’s going to come a point where they take the incentive out of working hard.”
If the government cut his taxes, Mr. Hicks said, he would use the money to put a roof over the picnic tables outside the restaurant, expanding the year-round seating area. He already employs 14 people; then he could hire more.
And if taxes rose? Would Mr. Hicks, who started working when tax rates were higher, really choose to slow down?
He smiled. “No,” he said. “I like it. What else would I do with my time?”
Cutting From Both Ends
The federal income tax, which will turn 100 next year, is in decline.
Congressional Republicans and Democrats have repeatedly voted to reduce the share of income that people must pay. Over the last decade, annual revenues from federal taxation of individual and corporate income averaged just 9.2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, the lowest level for any 10-year period since World War II.
The recession and new rounds of tax cuts further reduced revenues, to 7.6 percent of economic output in the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years. Stronger economic growth has produced a modest increase in tax collections, but the White House budget office estimates that collections for the fiscal year that ended in September will total 9 percent of economic output, still less than before the financial crisis.
Federal spending, meanwhile, grew faster than the economy over the last decade — particularly during the recession. To pay those bills, the government borrowed more money than it collected in income taxes in each of the last three fiscal years, something it had not done in even a single year since World War II, federal data show.
Congress could have eliminated those deficits by cutting spending. It might also have averted those deficits by leaving the tax code unchanged. The government on average would have collected an additional $800 billion in each year from 2006 to 2010 if the 1980 code had remained in effect and economic activity had continued at the same pace, the Times analysis found. The annual federal deficits during those years averaged $714 billion.
Leaving the tax code as it was in 1980, however, would not have solved the nation’s long-term fiscal problems. Increases in federal spending, driven primarily by the rising cost of health care, are projected to outstrip even the revenue-raising capacity of the 1980 tax code in the coming decades, necessitating some combination of spending cuts and tax increases.
The income tax stands apart from other forms of taxation. It is the reason that upper-income households pay a larger share of their income in taxes than the rest of the population. The combined burden of all other federal, state and local taxes takes roughly the same share from all taxpayers. And many Americans — even in a middle-class, Democratic stronghold like Belleville — have misgivings about imposing higher tax rates on the affluent, an important reason that income taxation has declined.
The share of Americans who said high-income households paid too little in taxes fell from 77 percent in 1992 to 62 percent in 2012, according to Gallup, even as income inequality rose to the highest levels since the Great Depression.
Some people in Belleville subscribe to the argument that higher tax rates impede economic growth by discouraging investment. For others, it is a matter of fairness.
Anita Thole, a middle-income safety supervisor for a utility contractor, is not wealthy. She does not expect that she ever will be. She is a single mother with a daughter in college, and she said she regarded the wealthy with a mixture of envy and admiration. But she does not want them to pay higher taxes.
“They work their butt off to get what they got,” she said. “I wouldn’t want them to pay more so that I can pay less.”
Do they work harder than you?
“What? No. I work my butt off,” Ms. Thole, 46, said. “But you got to believe in the American dream. You got to love them for what they did, for what they made of themselves and for being more aggressive than me.”
Ms. Thole, like many in Belleville, is also convinced that governments could avoid raising taxes by adopting more frugal habits.
“There’s some days we stay home and we eat peanut butter,” she said.
What would she like governments to cut?
“I really like it when they cut the weeds along the highway,” she said. “I like it when there’s good roads to drive on. The schools, I don’t know, I don’t want to pull back from the schools. I don’t have the answer of where to pull back.
“I want the state parks to stay open. I want, I want, I want. I want Big Bird. I think it’s beautiful. What don’t I want? I don’t know.”
To Tax or Not to Tax?
William L. Enyart is a rarity in Belleville: he wants to raise his own taxes.
Mr. Enyart and his wife are lawyers, although for the last five years he led the Illinois National Guard. The couple made $380,587 in 2011 and paid $104,864 in federal taxes. His conviction that they should have paid more may not be shared by many of the area’s higher-income residents. But as the newly elected Democratic congressman for southwestern Illinois, Mr. Enyart, 63, is also the only man in town with a direct vote on federal tax policy.
Mr. Enyart, who won the seat of a retiring Democratic congressman, campaigned in part on his support for Mr. Obama’s tax plan. He defeated a Republican candidate who opposed it, 52 percent to 43 percent. But Mr. Enyart said he heard little enthusiasm for tax increases in his district. What has changed, he said, is that people are increasingly concerned about cuts to government benefits and services.
“Nobody likes to pay taxes. Nobody wants to raise taxes on anybody,” Mr. Enyart said. “But nobody wants to cut veterans services, nobody wants to give up that Interstate highway, nobody wants — pick the service that you like. These are necessary services, and they need to be paid for.”
The tax increase proposed by Mr. Obama, on taxable income — income after deductions and other adjustments — above $250,000 a year, would pay for only a small part of those services. It would reduce the projected deficit over the next decade by a little less than 10 percent, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Nonetheless, Mr. Enyart said that he did not support broader tax increases. The focus, he said, should be on requiring the rich to pay more.
“We have the greatest disproportion of wealth since 1928, and I don’t think that’s a healthy thing,” he said. “How much money is enough? Do hedge fund traders really need to make a billion dollars a year and pay only 15 percent in taxes when we have teachers making $50,000 and paying 20 percent?”
John Siemens, who did not vote for Mr. Enyart, said that kind of “raise taxes” talk was a crowd-pleasing distraction from the need for painful spending cuts.
Mr. Siemens and his wife, Jan, both 59, own a company with a pair of factories in southwestern Illinois where workers assemble dollar-bill scanners for vending machines, dashboard lights for automobiles, magnetic probes for hospitals and other electronic equipment. They earned about $250,000 last year, so Mr. Obama’s plan would not have increased their income taxes. But it would raise the estate taxes they would have to pay to pass the company to their children someday.
Like many opponents of the president’s plan, Mr. Siemens thinks higher taxes will discourage investment and slow economic growth.
“There’s some tax rates that probably do need to be raised,” he said. “There are some that need to be lowered. But the politicians are not having an honest discussion. Is it fair or not fair is not the question. The question is, If you want to raise revenues, does that make sense or not?”
He noted as an example that interest on municipal bonds is tax-exempt, which encourages the wealthy to lend to local governments.
“Those lower tax rates were put into place for a reason,” he said. “It’s not just, let’s give the wealthy a break.”
Mr. Siemens does have a concern about fairness. He believes that lower-income households are not paying enough in taxes.
“By any measure, the wealthy are still paying a disproportionate amount of their income in taxes,” he said. “Is that fair or not fair? I don’t know, but I have an issue with the dramatic reduction of taxes at the low end because I think everybody needs some skin in the game.”
The debate is no longer theoretical here in Illinois. Facing perhaps the deepest budget crisis of any state, the Illinois legislature last year raised the state income tax rate to 5 percent from 3 percent. Unlike the federal income tax, Illinois taxes all income at the same rate.
Mr. Enyart said that the state needed more revenue, but that it should move to a tax system that imposed a heavier burden on high-income households. Mr. Siemens said the state should have cut spending.
The higher taxes have increased his costs and given an advantage to competitors in other states. And there are broader ripples, too: he said he was planning to buy some used machines, rather than new ones, to save money.
“We feel the burden of that, but it hasn’t gotten to the threshold of pain yet where we would move,” Mr. Siemens said. “There’s a lot of expense that would be incurred in moving, including a disruption of the work force, which you are always loath to do.”
View From the Lower End
Taylor McCallister, 20, works the front window at Mr. Hicks’s barbecue restaurant, taking orders from customers. She also works a second job and attends Southwestern Illinois College. She earned about $30,000 last year and, like her boss, she wishes the government would take less of that money.
“When I see my check it’s like, damn, that’s a huge chunk that was taken out,” she said. “I could have been making $450 instead of $378.”
Mitt Romney’s remarks about the “47 percent” focused public attention on the rising share of Americans who do not pay federal income taxes, a trend that has encouraged the public perception that lower-income households are getting a sweetheart deal. The share of Americans who think lower-income households pay too little in taxes increased to 24 percent in 2012 from 8 percent in 1992, according to Gallup.
But low-wage workers like Ms. McCallister still pay federal payroll taxes, which provide financing for Social Security and Medicare. They still pay sales taxes. Even if they are renters, they still bear the cost of property taxes in the form of higher rents.
And those taxes have climbed most quickly in recent decades.
The average American in 2010 paid 30 percent more of income in payroll taxes than in 1980, even while paying 27 percent less in federal income taxes. As a result, revenue from the payroll tax almost equaled income tax revenue before a temporary payroll tax cut took effect in 2011. The cut is scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
The rise of the payroll tax reflects the general movement away from requiring upper-income households to pay a larger share of income in taxes. All workers pay the same Social Security tax on wages below a threshold, which stood at $106,800 in 2010. The Medicare tax imposes a single rate on all wages, without a threshold.
Some experts argue, however, that payroll taxes are a special case because workers are entitled to Social Security benefits based in part on the amounts that they pay in taxes — a system more akin to a pension plan than an income tax.
In Illinois, the average burden of state and local taxes rose to 10.2 percent of income in 2010 from 8.8 percent in 1980, even before the latest round of tax increases last year.
And Illinois, like most states, takes a larger share of income from those who make less. Illinois households earning less than $25,000 a year on average paid 14.3 percent of income in state and local taxes in 2010, while those earning more than $200,000 paid 9.4 percent, according to the Times analysis.
Ms. McCallister said she and her friends worry about the nation’s financial problems. Their answer is simple: Someone has to pay more, and the affluent can best afford to do so. She said it was time to reverse a trend that had been going on so long it predated her birth by a decade.
“I want to know honestly how the more wealthy feel,” she said between tending to customers. “You’d think that they would want to help. We’re working these kinds of jobs and that’s what we have to do to make it through, and there’s other people making all this money. I don’t get it, honestly.
“I feel that maybe people who don’t make as much shouldn’t have to pay as much in. But who makes the rules?
“Not me.”

Violencia nas Americas: Caracas distinguida...

New York City celebrates day without violent crime

Police officers in New York on 2 November 2012 Monday was not an especially busy day for New York City's police officers
For the first time in living memory, New York has spent a day entirely without violent crime.
The city police department's chief spokesman said that Monday was the most bloodshed-free 24-hour period in recent history.
Not a single murder, shooting, stabbing or other incident of violent crime was reported for a whole day.
Despite a July spike in homicides, the city's murder rate is on target to hit its lowest point since 1960.
Just a few months ago, residents were living through what one tabloid newspaper called the "summer of blood".
Aggressive prevention tactics Despite the fall in homicides, statistics point to a 3% overall rise in crime.
A New York detective recounts his days running the anti-pickpocket unit
There has also been a 9% increase in larceny, which police blame on a surge in smartphone thefts.
But killings are now down 23% compared with last year, which represents a 50-year low.
There have been 366 murders so far this year in New York City, compared with 472 at this time last year.
Experts say such a low number of homicides is highly unusual for a US city of eight million people.
Gang-plagued Chicago, Illinois, has chalked up 462 murders this year, despite having a population of about 2.7 million people.
There have been 301 murders in 2012 in the city of Philadelphia, which has 1.5 million people.
Some experts are praising the New York police department's aggressive crime-prevention tactics, notably the so-called Stop And Frisk policy, which has rooted out dozens of illegal guns.
But critics argue that it has led to hundreds of thousands of young blacks and Latinos being stopped without cause.
Chart of global murder rates 

Da arte de improvisar politicas (semi)publicas - Sergio Fausto

O governo finge que está governando. Os brasileiros parece que acreditam.
Sinto muito mas não consigo fingir que estou acreditando.
Tenho absoluta certeza de que eles não sabem o que estão fazendo.
Ou se sabem, pretendem nos enganar o tempo todo.
Eu tenho uma teimosia: não gosto de me deixar enganar.
Não gosto que me chamem de idiota.
Mas acho que o governo brasileiro pensa (talvez ele tenha certeza) de que o povo brasileiro é formado em sua grande maioria por um bando de idiotas...
Talvez...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Remendos e puxadinhos

29 de novembro de 2012
Sergio Fausto
Alguns chamam de remendos, outros, de puxadinhos. As duas palavras servem para descrever as muitas improvisações da política econômica, usadas como disfarces de problemas sérios ou, em alguns casos, como soluções do tipo meia-sola. Já é rotineiro o recurso a truques velhos e bem conhecidos, como o controle dos preços de combustíveis para maquiar o índice de inflação ou o prolongamento de incentivos temporários para compensar a carência de uma estratégia efetiva de crescimento. De remendo em remendo, as autoridades vão disfarçando ou empurrando para a frente problemas sérios como a inflação longe da meta, custos industriais bem mais altos que os de outros países, contas públicas em deterioração e investimentos muito abaixo dos necessários. Doze expedientes desse tipo foram relacionados em reportagem no Estado de domingo. Alguns seriam justificáveis como ações de emergência. Mas nada pode justificar a transformação da emergência em pano de fundo permanente da gestão pública.
O remendo mais ostensivo talvez seja a contenção dos preços da gasolina e de outros derivados de petróleo por vários anos. Isso ajuda a frear a alta do índice de inflação, sem eliminar, no entanto, as pressões mais importantes, em geral associadas ao excesso de gasto público e à rápida expansão do crédito. A distorção já seria perigosa se essa política apenas mascarasse os números da inflação. Mas o truque produziu outras consequências: afetou a receita da Petrobrás, desajustou a relação entre os preços da gasolina e do etanol, desestimulou o investimento na produção de álcool e forçou o aumento da importação de combustíveis.
Menos visíveis para a maior parte das pessoas são os remendos ou puxadinhos destinados a ajeitar as contas públicas. Neste ano, o governo deve mais uma vez compensar a falha no cumprimento da meta fiscal com um expediente previsto em lei, mas nem por isso saudável: tentará cobrir a diferença entre o programado e o realizado com o valor investido no Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento (PAC).
Dificuldades de receita em períodos de crise são normais, mas igualmente normal deve ser o esforço do governo para ajustar seus gastos à escassez de recursos. Em países com melhor administração, o Tesouro realiza uma economia extra em tempos de bonança para gastar nas fases de dificuldades. O Brasil continua longe desse padrão, até porque o orçamento é cada vez mais rígido. Em vez de enfrentar o problema, o Executivo recorre ao desconto da meta fiscal e infla a receita com doses extras de dividendos de estatais.
Mas o governo, além de se conformar com finanças cada vez menos flexíveis, agrava o problema com a reedição de práticas reconhecidamente perigosas e banidas no fim dos anos 80. Em 2009, o Tesouro transferiu recursos ao BNDES para o Programa de Sustentação de Investimentos (PSI). O governo podia justificar a iniciativa como parte da política anticrise. Essa ajuda seria temporária, mas o prazo foi prorrogado várias vezes e o programa continua em vigor.
A transformação de ações provisórias e emergenciais em linhas de política econômica tem sido uma característica da gestão federal. Isso ocorreu por mais de um motivo no caso do desconto do IPI concedido a alguns setores da indústria. A renovação do incentivo foi abertamente justificada com duas considerações. Manter o imposto reduzido prolongaria o estímulo ao consumo e evitaria um reajuste de preços dos automóveis e de outros produtos. Este segundo objetivo nunca foi segredo.
Da mesma forma, o governo atribui claramente duas funções à pretendida redução das contas de eletricidade no próximo ano - reduzir os custos industriais e manter controlado o índice de inflação. Se o truque funcionar, o Banco Central poderá mais facilmente manter reduzida a taxa básica de juros, uma das fixações da presidente Dilma Rousseff. Com tudo isso, as possibilidades de crescimento econômico igual ou superior a 4% por vários anos, a partir de 2o13, permanecem escassas, assim como as perspectivas de um aumento substancial da taxa de investimento. A insistência na improvisação combina mal com os grandes itens da agenda econômica de 2013.
* DIRETOR EXECUTIVO DO iFHC, É MEMBRO DO GACINT-USP
E-MAIL:
SFAUSTO40@HOTMAIL.COM

Maravilhas do financiamento estatal - BNDES para os amigos...

Você é como eu, caro leitor, que fica se perguntando onde vai parar todo esse dinheiro que você paga de impostos, mesmo sem perceber, sem sequer ter consciência de que está pagando, na média (talvez por baixo), cerca de 40% de tudo o que você compra e consome sob a forma de impostos?
Não se pergunta? Que pena, pois deveria.
Enfim, sabendo ou não sabendo, abaixo está uma amostra de onde vai parar o seu dinheiro, ou parte dele, pois a outra parte você vai precisar esperar a próxima operação da Polícia Federal para saber (e ainda assim, só será cerca de 0,00001% de todo o dinheiro público (isto é, seu e meu, o nosso dinheiro) que se esvai nos escaninhos da burocracia governamental. Os companheiros sabem fazer as coisas: na aparência da normalidade, a pátria vem sendo subtraída em tenebrosas transações (enfim, não queria pagar royalties ao jabuti que compôs esta frase, mas ela é apropriada).

Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

De estatal para estatal

Editorial O Estado de S.Paulo, 29 de novembro de 2012  
 
A concessão do maior financiamento da história do Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES) para o Consórcio Norte Energia - responsável pela construção da Usina Hidrelétrica de Belo Monte, no Rio Xingu -, embora prevista contratualmente, confirma a interpretação de que o leilão dessa usina, anunciado como a forma ideal para atrair capitais privados e baratear custos de construção e de geração de energia elétrica, não passou de um embuste político.
Já por ocasião do leilão, em abril de 2010, era evidente para as empresas privadas experientes que as condições exigidas dos interessados - preço máximo da energia, custo das obras, prazos, além de eventuais restrições ambientais - não recomendavam sua participação na disputa. Mesmo assim, o governo Lula, por razões políticas - era um ano eleitoral -, manteve o leilão. Para realizá-lo com a participação de empresas privadas, anunciou empréstimos generosos do BNDES, que agora se concretizam, e deduções do Imposto de Renda. Mesmo assim, teve de forçar empresas estatais a liderar a constituição de dois consórcios, para dar a impressão de disputa.
Em ambos, era notória a presença estatal. Num deles, o Belo Monte Energia, duas estatais da área energética (Furnas e Eletrosul) respondiam por 49% da composição; em outro, o Norte Energia, a Chesf detinha exatamente 49,98% do capital, o que teoricamente não lhe assegurava o controle. Venceu o liderado pela Chesf, que em sua composição tinha também sete empresas privadas, quase todas da área de construção. As vendas de participações ocorridas desde então ampliaram ainda mais a porcentagem de recursos públicos na Norte Energia.
As construtoras privadas saíram do consórcio. Empresas privadas ou não estatais brasileiras como Neoenergia, Vale e a siderúrgica Sinobrás participam dele. Mas a entrada da Eletronorte, responsável pelos estudos de viabilidade da Usina de Belo Monte, da Eletrobrás (controladora da Eletronorte e da Chesf) e de fundos de pensão de estatais, como o Funcef (dos funcionários da Caixa Econômica Federal) - que há dois meses ampliou para 10% sua participação no consórcio, com a compra da participação de uma construtora privada - e o Petros (dos funcionários da Petrobrás), o tornam um empreendimento nitidamente estatal.
O empréstimo recorde do BNDES, no valor de R$ 22,5 bilhões, representa 78% do atual custo previsto da obra, de R$ 28,9 bilhões (recorde-se que, inicialmente, o custo total era estimado em R$ 19,6 bilhões, considerado irreal por empresas especializadas em construção de usinas hidrelétricas). O valor corresponde a mais do dobro dos empréstimos concedidos às duas hidrelétricas em construção no Rio Madeira (Santo Antônio e Jirau), que, juntas, obtiveram financiamento de R$ 15,6 bilhões. Canalizado para um empreendimento estatal, o empréstimo à Norte Energia - embora esteja dentro das limitações legais de operação do banco, como a de a operação não ultrapassar o equivalente a 25% do patrimônio de referência, isto é, R$ 23,06 bilhões - reduz substancialmente a disponibilidade de recursos que a instituição pode oferecer para empresas privadas que necessitam modernizar suas instalações ou ampliar seu parque produtivo, para aumentar sua competitividade.
O financiamento gigantesco concedido pelo BNDES é mais um item polêmico que se soma aos muitos envolvendo Belo Monte. Até a realização do leilão, o projeto era questionado na Justiça sob o argumento de que comunidades indígenas não tinham sido consultadas.
Igualmente o modelo de geração adotado em Belo Monte - de fio d'água, que não exige grandes reservatórios - tem sido criticado, pois assegurará a geração média equivalente a 40% de sua capacidade total, inferior à média de 55% de outras usinas hidrelétricas construídas de acordo com o modelo tradicional.
Há pouco, reações violentas dos trabalhadores envolvidos em sua construção forçaram a paralisação das obras. Mesmo assim, o consórcio garante que a primeira unidade geradora entrará em operação em fevereiro de 2015.

A (des)educacao dos jovens diplomatas, IRBr - Matias Spektor

Em geral, diplomatas não gostam de críticas, sobretudo externas (mas internas também). Em particular, eles tendem a concordar com os críticos, mas apenas em particular...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Educação de diplomatas

Matias Spektor

Folha de S.Paulo,  28/11/2012

O Instituto Rio Branco, a academia onde são treinados os diplomatas brasileiros, é um dos principais celeiros de talento jovem no país.
Em dois anos de curso, os recém-ingressados assistem a aulas e palestras, estudam idiomas e criam redes de relacionamento. Aprendem a se vestir, falar e pensar de acordo com o cânone diplomático nacional.
No passado, a escola facilitou a coesão e a disciplina que caracterizam nossa política externa.
Mas agora o modelo educacional do Instituto Rio Branco está obsoleto e corre risco de ficar irrelevante. O problema, que não é deste governo, arrasta-se há anos, apesar do bom trabalho da atual direção.
Com exceção dos excelentes cursos de idiomas, a proposta didática é talhada para um mundo que não existe mais.
Os alunos assistem a um maçante ciclo de palestras avulsas que raramente leva a uma reflexão sobre a condução da política externa.
Nos cursos regulares, não há coordenação de conteúdos. Muitas vezes repetem-se temas vistos à exaustão para o concurso de ingresso.
Em encontros com diplomatas antigos, os jovens ouvem casos inspiradores do passado e são iniciados no mundo da diplomacia. Mas o tom é de celebração dos supostos sucessos de outrora, sem reflexão crítica a respeito dos erros e percalços mais comuns.
O modelo é problemático porque os diplomatas brasileiros de hoje requerem habilidades que seus colegas mais antigos podiam ignorar.
Enquanto as gerações mais antigas defenderam um país fraco com uma diplomacia de pequenos passos, os mais jovens trabalham para um país relativamente influente que paga custos altos quando se omite.
Enquanto os mais antigos foram porta-vozes de uma sociedade autoritária e injusta, a nova geração representa uma democracia de massas que se reorienta em direção à classe média.
As novas coordenadas do Brasil contemporâneo têm impacto sobre o perfil da educação de diplomatas.
Se o Instituto Rio Branco aspira a ser uma escola de formação profissional, precisará se adaptar.
Treinará seus quadros para lidar com a imprensa, as novas mídias e o público em geral. Deverá qualificá-los em métodos de análise de conjuntura e cenários prospectivos, técnicas de oratória e negociação, novos processos de gestão financeira do setor público e cerimonial.
Para além de novas técnicas, o instituto precisará combater o provincianismo.
Não há nada de errado em aprender a recitar as tradicionais teses de defesa do comportamento brasileiro no mundo.
Mas é cada vez mais urgente dar insumos para que os jovens diplomatas possam lidar com argumentos contrários, com fatos que subvertem as convicções mais arraigadas e com as ambiguidades inerentes à política internacional.
Como se trata de profissionais inteligentes e talentosos, é possível para eles ter ideias contraditórias na cabeça e, mesmo assim, tomar posição.
Em Brasília, quase todos sabem que é necessário mudar. Resta saber quem terá coragem de fazê-lo.
Matias Spektor Matias Spektor é professor de relações internacionais da Fundação Getulio Vargas. Trabalhou nas Nações Unidas antes de completar seu doutorado na Universidade de Oxford.

Emigrantes, imigrantes, desintegrantes - Rui Martins

Haverá um remake do Conselho de Emigrantes, CRBE ?

29/11/2012 15:35,  Por Rui Martins, de Genebra 
Reprodução
O Conselho de Emigrantes foi o grande fiasco da politica brasileira de emigração.
Acabou o Conselho de Emigrantes, CRBE, mas o Itamaraty poderá cair no mesmo erro, fazendo outro com outras pessoas, mas no mesmo formato. É hora de reagir. Agredido verbalmente por alguns colegas do Conselho de Emigrantes por ter noticiado a Moratória do CRBE, ela não só se confirmou como foi mais drástica, pois culminou com a desativação ou fechamento do Conselho. Nem novas eleições, nem IV Conferência Brasileiros no Mundo, mesmo se isso estava previsto no Decreto-lei de criação do CRBE.
Na verdade, o CRBE durou pouco, apenas alguns meses, porém o suficiente para mostrar a ineficácia do seu formato. É verdade que houve inoperância do presidente Carlos Shinoda, brigas internas, trocas de desaforos, tentativa autoritária de expulsão de um suplente e uma ausência da maioria dos membros na troca de emails, não se conseguindo reunir mais de 9 dos 32 membros nas reuniões virtuais por Skype.
Seria, porém, injusto se culpar só os membros do CRBE pelo fiasco desse conselho de emigrantes. A responsabilidade maior é do Itamaraty por ter criado um órgão para emigrantes, destinado apenas a dar a impressão de ter sido criada uma política de emigração, quando na verdade não tem autonomia, nem verba e nem estrutura para funcionar. Uma quimera, uma ilusão, uma farsa, enganação, fachada para inglês ver, tudo isso, menos um verdadeiro órgão dos emigrantes.
O Itamaraty partiu do princípio de que fazer um encontro anual de líderes ou pretensos líderes emigrantes e deixá-los viver a impressão de serem importantes seria suficiente para satisfazer os emigrantes. Enganou-se, os emigrantes não são crianças que se satisfazem com pirulitos. Alguns membros do CRBE podem ter se lambuzado com o açúcar dos doces oferecidos, mas a grande maioria dos emigrantes não se sentiu representada e nem aceitou essa pantomima.
Uma coisa é se satisfazer os mercadores da emigração, outra bem diferente é responder aos anseios dos emigrantes. Não se cria um órgão para se saber o que os emigrantes querem ou precisam, é muito mais fácil e mais rápido se incumbir disso uma empresa de pesquisas e sondagens. E nem tem cabimento, encarregar os diplomatas de, reunidos todos os reclamos dos emigrantes, procurar as soluções.
Enfim, os emigrantes não passaram procuração para os diplomatas resolverem seus problemas, mesmo porque boa parte dos problemas surgem nos guichês dos Consulados. Hoje no Exterior, funciona ao lado dos Consulados toda uma panóplia de despachantes e advogados. A maior parte das questões surgidas seriam resolvidas com a transformação dos Consulados em Tabelionatos do Exterior, porém ninguem está interessado em matar essa galinha dos ovos de ouro.
Se os Brasileirinhos Apátridas, o movimento que levantou a lebre das crianças brasileiras apátridas, não tivesse conseguido o apoio de deputados com Carlito Merss e Rita Camata e de senadores como Lúcio Alcântara, hoje haveria mais de 250 mil crianças brasileiras recorrendo aos serviços de advogados para serem brasileiras. Mas nós matamos essa galinha dos ovos de ouro que sangraria os pais emigrantes, pois cada ação, sujeita a homologação pelo STF, seria da ordem de dois mil dólares por criança.
A política brasileira da emigração não deve ser aplicada nem por diplomatas (que podem viajar mas não são emigrantes e nem sabem o que é ser emigrante) e muito menos por despachantes e comerciantes no mercado emigrante.
Numa carta distribuída aos ex-membros do extinto CRBE, o Itamaraty informa que fará encontros públicos com os emigrantes, em todas as regiões e cidades com grande número de emigrantes brasileiros, para se discutir as falhas ou sugestões relacionadas com o CRBE. E que depois disso haverá novas eleições para novos membros no CRBE e, enfim, a IV Conferência Brasileiros no Mundo.
Aparentemente uma boa iniciativa, porém fadada ao fracasso se tiver por objetivo refazer o CRBE ou seu remake .
Na I Conferência Brasileiros no Mundo, o movimento de cidadania Estado do Emigrante recolheu, entre os presentes, um abaixo-assinado maioritário pedindo a criação de uma Comissão de Transição para se debater e encontrar o melhor modelo de política brasileira de emigração.
O Itamaraty rejeitou e ignorou o abaixo-assinado porque queria se assenhorar da tutela dos emigrantes com a verba para isso recebida. O fracasso do CRBE é uma evidência para o governo rediscutir a questão e criar essa Comissão de Transição, com representantes dos ministérios ligados aos emigrantes, do CNI, Ongs especializadas e líderes emigrantes, para se elaborar uma verdadeira política de emigração.
Os emigrantes não querem a tutela do Itamaraty, querem autonomia para decidir, querem um órgão institucional com verba para funcionar e com competência para agir.
O movimento Estado do Emigrante está no Facebook, inscreva-se também nele como amigo-membro. Precisamos nos unir para evitar a panacéia de se fazer um outro CRBE.  
Publicado originalmente no site Direto da Redação
Rui Martins, jornalista, escritor, líder emigrante, de Genebra.

quinta-feira, 29 de novembro de 2012

O ogro famelico avanca sobre o seu bolso, caro leitor...

Bem, não foi por falta de aviso: há muito tempo, aliás há decadas, que a carga fiscal no Brasil aumenta cerca de meio ponto percentual do PIB a cada ano.
Tem gente que acha bom que o Estado arrecade bastante, pois assim ele pode, pensam eles, corrigir os níveis incrivelmente altos de concentração de renda no Brasil, já que o mercado, dizem eles, jamais fariam isso de modo natural.
Então eles devem estar contentes com o crescimento medíocre a cada ano, e estão ainda mais contentes de trabalhar quase cinco meses por ano para esse mesmo Estado.
Eu recomendaria, então, que eles se acostumassem a trabalhar cada vez mais para o Estado, e esperar um modesto crescimento da renda: em média, a renda dos brasileiros só dobra a cada 60 anos, ou seja, mais de duas gerações; não esperem, portanto, ficar ricos nos próximos 30 ou 40 anos, talvez seus filhos, ou netos.
Tem gente que adora o Estado: deve ser masoquismo.
Nada a ver com Masoch, talvez com o marquês de Sade, pois o que eles querem é... (vocês completam).
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Carga tributária bate recorde: 35,31% do PIB
A carga tributária bruta do Brasil subiu para 35,31% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) em 2011, atingindo 1,46 trilhão de reais, informou a Receita Federal nesta quinta-feira. É o maior patamar da série histórica desde 2002. Em 2010, a carga havia fechado em 33,53%.

Ainda no ano passado, o peso dos tributos estaduais foi de 8,63% do PIB, ao passo que o dos municípios foi equivalente a 1,95% do PIB. O restante da carga, ou 24,73% do PIB, foi devido a impostos e contribuições arrecadados pela União.

De acordo com a receita, a alta da carga é resultado da combinação dos crescimentos, em termos reais, de 2,7% do Produto Interno Bruto e de 8,15% da arrecadação tributária nos três níveis de governo. Em outras palavras, a arrecadação subiu proporcionalmente muito mais do que a economia avançou. Já na comparação de 2010 em relação a 2009, o PIB teve um crescimento de 7,5% enquanto a arrecadação tributária subiu 8,9%. Segundo a Receita, a expansão foi devida, sobretudo, ao crescimento da arrecadação do Imposto de Renda (IR), da contribuição previdenciária e da Contribuição Social sobre o Lucro Líquido (CSLL).

Parcelamentos
Ainda de acordo com o órgão, a carga tributária brasileira foi inflada em 2011 pelo recolhimento de tributos atrasados por contribuintes inscritos em programas de parcelamentos especiais. Entre 2010 e 2011, os recursos arrecadados pela Receita por meio dos parcelamentos saltaram 14,3 bilhões de reais, totalizando 27 bilhões de reais no ano passado.

Descontados os parcelamentos, a carga tributária atingiu 34,7% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) em 2011. No ano imediatamente anterior, a carga descontada dos parcelamentos foi de 33,2% do PIB.

Segundo o coordenador-geral de estudos econômico-tributários e de previsão e análise de arrecadação do Fisco, Othoniel de Sousa, os recursos oriundos dos parcelamentos especiais de débitos em atraso acabam empurrando a arrecadação tributária de um ano com dinheiro que deveria ter entrado em anos anteriores.

Carga líquida
O Ministério da Fazenda aproveitou também para divulgar a carga tributária líquida, que desconta as transferências para a Previdência, assistência social e subsídios. Nestes casos, são 627,4 bilhões de reais, o que faz a carga ficar em 20,17% do PIB.

“A importância de olhar para a carga líquida é porque permite ter uma melhor comparação com outros países. Os países que tendem a ter uma rede de proteção maior tendem a ter uma carga tributária bruta maior”, disse o secretário adjunto de Política Econômica do Ministério da Fazenda, Sérgio Gobetti, em apresentação dos números da carga tributária líquida.

Leia mais:
- Tributação no Brasil é maior que em 17 países da OCDE   
- Redução do IPI impacta na arrecadação do governo em setembro   
- Receita reduz para 2,5% alta na arrecadação em 2012

A nova classe media dos Brics - American Quarterly

Não deveria haver nenhuma surpresa nesse tipo de "descoberta". Todo e qualquer país, em qualquer época histórica, que conhece processos sustentados de crescimento econômico, com transformação produtiva (ou, seja inovação tecnológica), conhece, inevitavelmente, processos de incorporação social que significam, sempre, criação de novos estratos médios. Sempre haverá uma minoria de ricaços, uma elite de endinheirados, e uma proporção variável de pobres e superpobres. Mas quem cresce mais, acompanhando a diversificação da economia, são os setores médios.
Portanto, não há que saudar como criação genial de governos esse "surgimento" de uma "nova" classe média. Os governos não criam nada, são os mercados que o fazem. Governos podem ajudar nessa transição, ou também atrapalhar, com políticas adequadas atuando nas externalidades (educação, saneamento, infraestrutura), mas também podem atrapalhar, criando inflação, investimentos errados, fechando o país, enfim, fazendo muito do que os governantes brasileiros fizeram, e ainda fazem, bloqueando o crescimento (com uma enorme carga fiscal, por exemplo).
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

Latin America's Middle Class in Global Perspective

Different patterns of economic growth in BRIC countries have brought different social changes.

Watch an AQ Q&A on India's middle class and read the related sidebar.
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Latin America and the Caribbean is experiencing a dramatic surge of its middle class. In just a decade, the proportion of people in Latin America and the Caribbean with a daily per capita income (in purchasing power parity) between $10 and $50 a day went from around one-fifth to one-third. For the first time in history, there are as many people in the middle class as there are in moderate poverty (i.e., per capita earnings below $4 per day).
This socioeconomic shift stems largely from the sustained rates of economic growth in the 2000s that in most—though not all— countries trickled down and generated higher incomes.
But growth in the 2000s was not exclusive to Latin America and the Caribbean. While the industrialized world was facing a challenging decade, many emerging economies surfed past the global turbulences and continued to grow, lifting people out of poverty and feeding the ranks of their middle classes.
These changes are here to stay. Thanks to more sophisticated consumption habits, the middle classes in emerging countries will influence global trade patterns. Domestically, the middle classes will have a growing voice by means of higher purchasing power—moving up the consumption chain to high-end, more technical goods—and by demanding better education. And with a growing critical mass, they will push for institutional reforms and improved service delivery in areas that are beneficial to them.
The magnitude of these changes will depend, however, on the continued growth of the middle class and on the nature of its demands on the public sector. They will likely be more dramatic in regions where the middle class will grow the fastest, such as East Asia. While it is difficult—if not impossible—to forecast these changes with precision, it is possible with some margin of error to assess in which countries the middle classes have been growing and will grow the most.

Measuring the emerging world's middle class

It is essential to choose a measure of the middle class that captures the ongoing structural changes and that allows a comparison of trends across both countries and time. The need for comparable indicators of the size and nature of the middle class narrows significantly the set of measures that can be adopted.
Further, an attempt to develop a metric for broad cross-country comparison runs the risk of also missing important differences in the nature of the middle class. To give an example, while the sociological literature adopts a rich definition of the middle class based on occupational categories, it is close to impossible to use such a definition in international comparisons, since occupational categories are not harmonized across household surveys.
Building the middle class: A laborer carries building materials at a construction site in Lucknow, India. Photo: Pawan Kumar/Reuters
For these reasons, most international comparisons tend to measure the middle class in terms of income or consumption, which is quantitatively easier to compare across countries.
Even within the narrow set of income measures, however, another important choice awaits any comparison: should relative or absolute income (or consumption) indicators be used? Both capture important, but very different, aspects of the middle class.
A relative indicator summarizes how many people sit “in the middle” of the income distribution, with a typical indicator for international comparison being the proportion of the population with per capita income between 0.75 and 1.25 of the median per capita income. While such a measure can be very useful in assessing the extent to which a society is unequal or polarized, it fails in capturing anything related to the “absolute” welfare of the middle class.
Consider the cases of Ethiopia and Brazil. Using the relative measurement described above, 43 percent of Ethiopians earned per capita incomes between 0.75 and 1.25 of the median in 2009. That was twice as high as the proportion of Brazilians who could be defined as middle class under this definition (21 percent), despite the fact that Ethiopia’s GDP per capita (in purchasing power parity terms) is 11 times smaller!
To avoid such inconsistencies, any comparison that aims at capturing the absolute well-being of the middle class must put strong weight on absolute income and consumption levels. But even in this class of measures, there exist many possibilities. For the purposes of this article, I define the middle class as those with daily per-capita income (in purchasing power parity terms) between $10 and $50. For a family of four, this corresponds to an annual income between $14,600 and $73,000. These income thresholds—in particular the lower one—have been chosen based on the vulnerability of households to fall back into poverty, and are discussed to great extent in the new World Bank report “Economic Mobility and the Rise of the Latin American Middle Class.”

BRICS compared

A comparison of the growth of the Latin American and Caribbean middle class with its counterparts in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries shows that, even in comparative terms, the early 2000s have been very good for the region. Between 2000 and 2009, 50 million individuals were added to the middle class in Latin America and the Caribbean—bringing the total from around 115 million people to over 165 million. The growth of the middle class goes beyond the stellar performance of Brazil: more than 30 million non-Brazilian citizens of Latin America and the Caribbean entered the middle class during that decade.
The growth of the middle class in Latin America and the Caribbean reflects dramatic trends that can be observed in all the BRICs, with the exception of India. In Brazil, Russia and China, the middle class has achieved impressive salience in a relatively short time. Around 2009, the middle class consisted of 61 million people in Brazil (up from 39 million a decade earlier), 75 million in Russia (up from 31 million), and 83 million individuals in China (a jump from just 10 million).
Still, these numbers mask strong differences across the BRICs when the middle class is measured as a proportion of the population.
In Brazil, the emergence of a middle class is not an entirely new phenomenon. In the early 1980s, the middle class made up more than 15 percent of the population; nowadays it makes up almost one-third. The most spectacular transformation toward “middle-class society” occurred in Russia, where the middle class grew from being one-fifth to more than one-half of the population. In contrast, in China, the 83 million people defined as middle class only represent less than 10 percent of the population.
Today, Russia seems to be a true middle-class society with a (small) majority of the population being middle class, while in Brazil and in many Latin American countries, almost two-thirds of the population has yet to reach middle-class status.
The performance of Russia is, however, eclipsed by the stunning growth of the middle class in China, where sustained economic growth led to an eightfold increase of the middle class in a decade. And although China, as noted above, with less than 10 percent of its population being middle class in 2009, may not yet be as much of a “middle-class society” as Brazil or Russia, it has an enormous potential for growth if current trends continue.
Among the BRICs, India’s comparatively poorer performance may come as a surprise. Both in relative and absolute terms, the Indian middle class grew significantly less than in the other BRIC countries. In 2010, only 9 million Indians had reached middle-class status, which is less than 1 percent of the population. These low estimates reflect that, despite a good growth performance in the 2000s, India’s GDP per capita remains below the levels of the other BRIC countries.
Of all the BRICs, China is forecast to experience the greatest growth of the middle class, overshadowing the good—but not as impressive—performance of Latin America (or of any other country and region). China’s middle class is expected to grow from 54 million in 2005 to more than 1 billion in 2030, or 72 percent of the population, adjusted for population growth. In contrast, while growing in absolute terms, the Latin American and Caribbean middle classes will gradually lose ground internationally. While in 2005 the region’s middle classes represented more than 40 percent of all the middle classes in low- and middle-income countries, the forecasted dramatic rise of the middle class in China will reduce Latin America and the Caribbean’s share to less than 20 percent in 2030.
Even without China’s contribution, the next two decades will be characterized by a massive increase of the middle class all over the emerging world, from around 300 million households in 2005 to almost 1.9 billion—approximately six times the current population of the United States.
According to the forecasts, however, the increase is likely to remain modest in South Asia, where the middle class is predicted to reach 100 million people in 2030—still a relatively small number given that region’s large population.
Of course, as with any projections about an uncertain future, these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. Forecasting is as much an art as a science, and in two decades many factors could affect, in one way or another, the parameters underlying the forecasts. In particular, an average annual growth rate of the Chinese economy of 7 percent between 2005 and 2030 is a key driving assumption behind these results.

Implications for politics, economics and globalization

What will be the geopolitical and socioeconomic implications of the remarkable growth of the middle class across emerging economies? And what are the implications for Latin Americans of a Chinese middle class that will surpass by far the whole population of the region?
Any attempt to answer such difficult questions would entail a great deal of speculation, and falls beyond the scope of this article. But the growth of a strong and vocal middle class throughout the emerging world will bring change. It is difficult to predict, however, the direction of these changes.
To be sure, the middle classes differ in important characteristics from lower and upper classes and, at least in Latin America, they are surprisingly similar in characteristics across countries.
In all of Latin America and the Caribbean, the heads of middle-class households have substantially more years of schooling than those in the poor or vulnerable classes, but fewer than the rich. Middle-class households are also more urbanized than poorer households.
And significantly, formal employment seems to be a distinctive sign of the middle class in Latin America: the middle-class worker is typically a formal employee, rather than being self-employed, unemployed or an employer. In contrast, the poorer classes rely on self- or informal employment (or suffer from unemployment), while the rich are more frequently employers and, in some countries, self-employed.
Middle-class workers are often found in the services sector, including health, education and public services. There is no evidence that the middle class is disproportionally employed by the public sector. In most Latin American countries for which data exist, public-sector employment is actually more frequent among the rich than among the middle class.
Family dynamics and demographics further sharpen the portrait of the region’s middle classes. Between 1992 and 2009, the average size of a middle-class household in Latin America and the Caribbean fell from 3.3 to 2.9 individuals. This compares to regional averages that show household size decreased on average from 4.1 people in 1992 to 3.4 people in 2009.
Middle-class women are also typically joining the labor force in greater numbers. Seventy-three percent of middle-class women ages 25 to 65 across the region are either employed or looking for work, as compared to a regionwide population average of 62 percent. And their children are typically in school: virtually all middle-class children ages 6 to 12 attend school, as do roughly three-quarters of those ages 13 to 18.
But are these class characteristics sufficient to induce change? A recent analysis by Loayza, Rigolini and Llorente1 supports the notion that the size of the middle class can determine the pace of reform: using a cross-country approach, their analysis compares how the middle class relates to socioeconomic outcomes in low-, middle- and high-income countries around the world. They find that, everything else being equal, when the proportion of the middle class in a society increases, social policy on health and education becomes more active and the quality of governance regarding democratic participation and official corruption improves.
Whether the change brought by the middle classes is always good for the poor remains, however, an open question.
It has often been claimed that the middle classes carry specific beliefs and values that lead to political, economic and social reforms, but empirical evidence remains scant at best. Recent analysis, discussed in the World Bank report, suggests that the middle classes do not possess particular values and beliefs that make them more prone to push for reforms based on ideology. Middle classes, however, do not need to carry values based on a broad notion of the public good to push for reforms; they can also act upon self-interest.
Under this more pragmatic scenario, while some reforms pushed by the middle classes may benefit the poor, others may not. It could be imagined, for instance, that growing middle classes may want to slow social spending targeted to the poor to limit the fiscal burden associated with it, and to push for more public expenditures in services from which they benefit. Only time, and careful analytical efforts, will tell.

Intervencionismo economico: um mal frances (e brasileiro)

Laurence Parisot juge "scandaleuse" la menace de nationaliser Florange
Le Monde.fr avec AFP et Reuters |
Vue des hauts-fourneaux d'ArcelorMittal à Florange, le 20 novembre 2012.

La présidente du Medef, Laurence Parisot, s'est insurgée contre la menace du gouvernement français de nationaliser le site sidérurgique d'ArcelorMittal à Florange, concentrant ses attaques sur le ministre du redressement productif, Arnaud Montebourg.

Cette menace, agitée d'abord par M. Montebourg puis soutenue au sein du gouvernement comme par des personnalités de l'opposition, "est tout simplement et purement scandaleuse", a estimé la chef de file du patronat sur RTL.
Arnaud Montebourg a annoncé avoir trouvé un repreneur pour la totalité du site mosellan et a dit que le gouvernement était "prêt" à aller jusqu'à sa nationalisation provisoire si les négociations n'aboutissaient pas d'ici à vendredi, veille de la date-butoir fixée par ArcelorMittal pour la fin des négociations.
"S'il s'agit par de tels propos, tout simplement d'exercer une pression, de faire du chantage, dans le cadre d'une négociation, c'est inadmissible", a ajouté Mme Parisot, alors que le gouvernement a jusqu'à samedi pour trouver une solution de reprise du site et se mettre d'accord avec ArcelorMittal, sans quoi ce dernier compte fermer définitivement les hauts-fourneaux.
Sur le fond, "toute notre société est construite sur un principe essentiel, celui du droit de propriété (...) Ebranler ce principe, comme ça, à la va vite, c'est très grave, et en plus, ne l'oublions pas, c'est très coûteux", a jugé Mme Parisot. Ce n'est pas à l'Etat "de commencer à dire à chaque entreprise de France : 'Voilà votre stratégie'", a-t-elle martelé.
"FAIRE LES AJUSTEMENTS NÉCESSAIRES"
"Seul l'entrepreneur peut savoir ce qui est rentable ou pas", d'autant que dans le cas de Florange, la menace de nationaliser le site est brandie "avant même qu'on ne connaisse les propositions de reclassement de Mittal [et qu'il] n'ait engagé un processus de plan social", a-t-elle regretté. Pour Mme Parisot, "Il faut laisser les entreprises dans le cadre du dialogue social interne à l'entreprise faire les ajustements nécessaires".
Mme Parisot a concentré ses critiques contre le ministre du redressement productif, Arnaud Montebourg, avec lequel elle dit avoir eu "une conversation assez claire" sur le sujet. "Il faut raison garder" et "je ne doute pas que le président de la République soit beaucoup plus raisonnable que le ministre [Arnaud] Montebourg", a-t-elle dit.
Mardi, M. Hollande avait pourtant lui aussi déclaré que la nationalisation faisait "partie du sujet de la discussion", avant une rencontre avec Lakshmi Mittal, le PDG du groupe.
Déjà au début d'octobre, Mme Parisot, avait jugé "consternante" la volonté du gouvernement d'imposer par la loi aux industriels de céder une usine viable vouée à la fermeture, une mesure promise par François Hollande lors de sa campagne électorale.

A racializacao da politica americana (um mal no qual o Brasil esta' entrando)

Infelizmente, a sociedade americana continua dividida em termos raciais, uma característica lamentável que jamais tinha tido status de política de Estado, no Brasil, até a chegada dos companheiros ao poder.
A consequência, sabemos, é o Apartheid e no limite a constituição de duas culturas, se não a fragmentação da sociedade em blocos étnicos, na verdade apenas dois: os afrodescendentes e todos os demais. Lamentável, certamente.
Mas vejamos como isso ocorre nos EUA:

This is the most violated saying in American public life:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
Martin Luther King Jr.'s acclaimed call in 1963 for a colorblind society has been displaced, at least in our politics, by an obsession with racial categories. That is the meaning of racialization.
It may be over four decades since the passage of the Voting Rights Act, but whenever America votes today, the exit polls can't move fast enough to divide voters by the color of their skin. Mere moments after the 2012 exit polls were released, a conventional wisdom congealed across the media that the Republican Party was "too white."
Let us posit that this subject wouldn't have been raised if the bottom hadn't fallen out of the GOP's share of the Hispanic vote. When George W. Bush attracted 40% of the Hispanic vote in 2004, there was no cry that the Republican Party was "too white." The GOP's problem with Hispanics today is a tangle of issues involving the law, labor and assimilation that is hardly reducible to the accusation that the party is too white.
In virtually every instance, the idea that the Republican Party is "too white" is dropped with almost no discussion of what exactly that means. The phrase is being pinned like a scarlet "W" on anyone who didn't vote for the Democrats' nominee. It's a you-know-what-we-mean denunciation. Its only meaning is racial.
The exit polls—asking voters to self-identify as white, black, Hispanic, Asian—inevitably drive any postelection analysis into this racial swamp. High-school seniors applying to colleges have been told for at least 20 years to define themselves inside a racial or ethnic box. Elizabeth Warren spent a lot of energy in Massachusetts attempting a Houdini-like escape from one such ancient box.
Getty Images
During the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton wrestled over race, first in January when Bill Clinton was accused of racial signaling during the South Carolina primary, and in March when Mrs. Clinton repudiated the late Geraldine Ferraro for referencing Mr. Obama's color. A New York Times report then said Mr. Obama was "puzzled" at this preoccupation with race and sex. It quoted Mr. Obama as saying: "I don't want to deny the role of race and gender in our society. They're there, and they're powerful. But I don't think it's productive."
A welcome thought. The truth is that no prominent Democrat since Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan has been willing to sustain opposition to this constant racializing of American politics and culture.
In the famous 2003 Supreme Court decision upholding the University of Michigan's race-based admission policies, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote in support: "The Court takes the Law School at its word that it would like nothing better than to find a race-neutral admissions formula and will terminate its use of racial preferences as soon as practicable. The Court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary."
In 2008's election, many Republicans and independents voted for Mr. Obama to put a final nail in the coffin of Justice O'Connor's racial anxieties. The millions of them who then cast votes against Mr. Obama in 2012 did so almost wholly because of the status of the economy after four years of his presidency. No matter. They lost in 2012 because they're "too white."
This country's historic antidote to racial and ethnic obsessing is assimilation into the middle class, no matter what foreign country or continent sits in front of your hyphen. To this end the Republican candidate offered a solution led by private enterprise, and the Democrat said government should create the path forward. Mr. Obama won and has the four years he asked for to finally make good on his economics. But even this common goal degrades into a cudgel in the president's politics by category: tax cuts for the middle class but not for "the well-off."
The Democrats' insistence on pandering to political categories is a dead end for the country. Rather than spinning their own Rubik's Cube of race, gender and ethnicity, Republicans should start growing their share of the electorate by doing a better job of telling people how to succeed in the American melting pot, a wonderful organizing idea now mocked as a "myth" by progressive Democrats.
No one can beat the Democrats at the politics of social division. Instead, the GOP should tell prospective voters that no matter what their country of origin or happenstance of birth, their success in the U.S. will depend less on celebrating their assigned category than on supporting political policies that expand economic opportunity. A Republican Party that fails to tell that story in a way anyone can grasp is a party that will never escape the box the other side dropped it into on Nov. 7.
Write to henninger@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared November 29, 2012, on page A15 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: The Racializing of American Politics.