Temas de relações internacionais, de política externa e de diplomacia brasileira, com ênfase em políticas econômicas, em viagens, livros e cultura em geral. Um quilombo de resistência intelectual em defesa da racionalidade, da inteligência e das liberdades democráticas.
O que é este blog?
Este blog trata basicamente de ideias, se possível inteligentes, para pessoas inteligentes. Ele também se ocupa de ideias aplicadas à política, em especial à política econômica. Ele constitui uma tentativa de manter um pensamento crítico e independente sobre livros, sobre questões culturais em geral, focando numa discussão bem informada sobre temas de relações internacionais e de política externa do Brasil. Para meus livros e ensaios ver o website: www.pralmeida.org. Para a maior parte de meus textos, ver minha página na plataforma Academia.edu, link: https://itamaraty.academia.edu/PauloRobertodeAlmeida;
Confesso não saber se a branquinha, a cocaina -- em pó, pasta base ou qualquer outra forma -- tem uma classificação aduaneira, ou seja, os 9 ou 10 dígitos do Sistema Harmonizado da Aladi que serve para classificar os milhares de itens que entram na pauta aduaneira de comércio exterior de um país, no caso, os nossos países, o Brasil e seus simpáticos vizinhos, que devem estar ganhando uma grana preta com a droga branca.
Em todo caso, apreciaria que alguém me dissesse qual a Nomenclatura Aduaneira do Mercosul que classifica a droga, uma vez que ela pode, teoricamente, ser exportada legalmente, para fins de pesquisa ou para uso médico, por exemplo. E qual seria a tarifa aplicada, por favor, se está em lista de exceção, se está prevista convergência em algum momento (no livre comércio total que um dia deve existir, caramba, inclusive com a legalização dessa importante commodity do comércio mundial).
Enquanto isso, ela continua a provocar destruição, morte, corrupção, tangos e tragédias neste nosso canto de planeta que alguns pretendem integrado. Também acho, mas não sempre pelas vias corretas.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Brazilian federal police patrol the Mamore
River, which separates Brazil from Bolivia. The river is used by
traffickers to ferry cocaine from Bolivia into Brazil, where cocaine
consumption is rising rapidly.
Juan Forero/Getty Images
As cocaine consumption falls in the United States, South American
drug traffickers have begun to pioneer a new soft target for their
product: big and increasingly affluent Brazil.
And the source of the cocaine is increasingly Bolivia, a landlocked country that shares a 2,100-mile border with Brazil.
As
Brazilian police officers and border agents can attest, the drug often
finds its way to Brazil by crossing the Mamore River, which separates
the state of Rondonia from Bolivia in the heart of South America.
It
is not an easy border to patrol. Much of it is porous jungle or river.
It is also a big border, bigger than the U.S.-Mexico line that has
caused so much trouble for both the Obama administration and Mexico's
government.
Worse still is that Bolivia, along with Peru and
Colombia, are the three biggest cocaine-producing countries — and Brazil
shares 5,000 miles of frontier with them.
An agent of Brazil's Forca Nacional, an
agency made up of military policemen, stands guard in a largely
abandoned border hamlet that is used by drug traffickers to ferry
cocaine from neighboring Bolivia.
Juan Forero/NPR
A perfect route for the transport of cocaine is the Mamore River,
which meanders northward from Bolivia into the heart of Brazil's Amazon.
So say the Brazilian cops who use a speedboat to patrol the wide,
slow-moving Mamore near the Brazilian border town of Guajara-Mirim.
"Here
we patrol at dawn and at night, looking to ambush the boats that cross
with drugs," says Alexandre Nascimento, a federal police agent who
piloted the boat. "But it's difficult and dangerous, and you have to
have patience."
The agents also say they have to have a degree
of luck, to decipher which of the countless small boats that cross the
river from Bolivia are carrying drugs.
Most don't stop at the
major border crossings, but rather find their way along narrow channels
and drop off their goods at isolated ports.
"There are many
ports," says Alexandre Barbosa, another federal agent. "Every 100 meters
or sometimes less, you see a port. So you can move from one port to the
other very fast."
Brazilian and U.N. counternarcotics
officials say those little boats making quick trips, along with small
planes that make 20-minute flights, are flooding Brazil with Bolivian
cocaine. AsBrazilGrows Richer, Cocaine Use Rises
The
reasons are simple: Brazil, long the world's No. 2 consumer of cocaine
after the United States, is seeing consumption rise fast. And Bolivia is
responding to the demand, increasing its production of cocaine in
recent years, according to U.N. and U.S. data.
"You've seen a
shift where the drug traffickers are looking for a new market, new and
emerging markets," says Bo Mathiasen, a senior U.N. drug official who
tracks the cocaine trade across the continent. "And so the traffickers
have been focusing on trying to ship more cocaine over towards Brazil,
to Argentina and down to Chile."
It is Brazil, though, that is
the big prize out of the many countries that have seen a spike in
cocaine use in recent years. Brazil has lifted 30 million people into
the middle class in recent years. For traffickers, that's particularly
alluring, Mathiasen says.
"Brazil is in a way victim of its own
success," he says. "Clearly, the economic success and the rising
purchasing power and the growth of the economy turned it more attractive
also for drug trafficking."
The turn toward Brazil has come as
cocaine use in the United States has fallen by an estimated two-thirds
over the past 30 years, according to the United Nations 2012 World Drug
Report, which says the trend has been particularly notable since 2006.
Meanwhile, Colombia, which has historically supplied cocaine to
the U.S., has seen the amount of land dedicated to drug crops reduced by
half since 2001. Cocaine production has also fallen steeply. Increased Production InPeruAndBolivia
"We see this as a problem of security and, at times, a problem of
national defense," says Regina Miki, national secretary of public
security at Brazil's Ministry of Justice.
Brazilian President
Dilma Rousseff's government has since 2011 moved to shore up border
security by deploying thousands of troops and assigning more and better
equipped federal police agents to the border.
There are also
plans for a fleet of unmanned aerial drones to patrol the most remote
sectors. In a recent hearing in the capital, Brasilia, Justice Minister
Jose Eduardo Cardozo said Brazil moved fast and aggressively.
"It's
impossible to have a border that's invulnerable, because no country in
the world has that," he said. "But our frontiers are much better
controlled than in the past."
But out on Brazil's frontier with
Bolivia, the Mamore River, it's clear how difficult the challenge is
for a group of 35 federal agents assigned to patrol just one sector.
On
a recent day, heavy rains fell and the Mamore and other rivers became
swollen. Meanwhile, the small dugout canoes from Bolivia kept coming,
loaded with provisions and suitcases, boxes and equipment.
In
their speedboat, the federal officers dashed from one side of the Mamore
to the other, trying to decide which boats to stop and search. With the
river running high, they also had another problem to worry about: small
creeks that had been made navigable by the constant rainfall.
"Look,
even here, in front of us, you can see a canal," says Allan Oliveira,
one of the agents. "You can go in with the small boats traffickers use
to hide from the police."
Esta postagem, enorme, ou comprida (como quiserem), é para ser lida em conexão com esta outra, anterior, uma simples resenha de livro, que postei em função da imensa curiosidade que eu sempre mantive com respeito às contribuições importantíssimas que esse pequeno povo ofereceu a toda a humanidade:
As razões não são uniformes, nem qualitativamente comparáveis ou mensuráveis entre si, e são essencialmente arbitrárias, mas todas relevantes, historicamente, socialmente, intelectualmente.
Um pouco de inteligência sempre ajuda na construção de uma humanidade melhor...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida
Ashkenazi Jews are smart. Shockingly brilliant, in general. Impressive in brain power. How did they get that way?
Ashkenazi Jews, aka Ashkenazim, are the descendants of Jews from
medieval Alsace and the Rhine Valley, and later, from throughout Eastern
Europe. Originally, of course, they were from Israel. Genetic research
from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine suggests that the
Ashkenazi bloodline branched away from other Jewish groups there 2,500
years ago, and that 40% of them are descended from only four Jewish
mothers. Approximately 80% of the Jews in the world today are
Ashkenazim, with the remainder primarily Sephardic.
Researchers who study the Ashkenazim agree that the children of
Abraham are on top of the IQ chart. Steven Pinker – who lectured on
“Jews, Genes, and Intelligence” in 2007 - says “their average IQ has
been measured at 108-115.” Richard Lynn, author of “The Intelligence of
American Jews” in 2004, says it is “only” a half-standard higher:
107.5. Henry Harpending, Jason Hardy, and Gregory Cochran, University
of Utah authors of the 2005 research report, “Natural History of
Ashkenazi Intelligence,” state that their subjects, “score .75 to 1.0
standard deviations above the general European average, corresponding to
an IQ of 112-115.” Charles Murray, in his 2007 essay “Jewish Genius,”
says “their mean is somewhere in the range of 107-115, with 110 being a
plausible compromise.”
A Jewish average IQ of 115 is 8 points higher than the generally
accepted IQ of their closest rivals—Northeast Asians—and approximately
40% higher than the global average IQ of 79.1 calculated by Richard Lynn
and Tatu Vanhanen in IQ and Global Inequity.
Plus, contemplate this astounding tidbit: Ashkenazi “visual-spatial”
IQ scores are only mediocre; in one study their median in this category
was a below-average 98. They surmount this liability by logging
astronomic figures in “verbal IQ”, which includes verbal reasoning,
comprehension, working memory and mathematical skill; a 1958 survey of
yeshiva students discovered a median verbal IQ of 125.6.
What does it mean that Ashkenazim have a high IQ, in terms of
producing “geniuses”? With their population so small - a mere 0.25 of
the world total - does it make any serious difference? The answer is
YES. A “bell curve” is used to illustrate IQ percentile in a specific
group – in a “general population” where IQ average is 100 the curve
assumes these proportions:
less than 70 IQ - 2.5%
70-85 IQ- 12.5%
86-100 IQ - 35%
101-115 IQ – 35%
116-130 IQ – 12.5%
greater than 130 IQ – 2.5%
Applying the same bell curve for Ashkenazim, but with a 17-point upward lift in median IQ (using the From Chance To Choice digit) produces the IQ upgrade below:
less than 87 IQ – 2.5%
88-102 IQ – 12.5%
103-117 IQ – 35%
118-132 IQ – 35%
133-148 IQ – 12.5%
greater than 148 IQ – 2.5%
This shifting upward of the bell curve by more than a standard
deviation (15 points) means that more than five times as many Ashkenazim
are eligible for Mensa (minimum 130 IQ) and more than five times as
many have the average IQ of an Ivy League graduate.
In reality, Ashkenazim are enrolled in the Ivies by a proportion ten times greater than their numbers; for example they represent 30% of Yale students, 27% of Harvard, 23% of Brown, 32% of Columbia, and 31% of Pennsylvania.
This suggests that either the “bell’s curve” is lifted for the
Ashkenazi a bit longer at the high end or there are additional factors
that enhance their ability to succeed. Regarding the first possibility,
Charles Murray notes that “the proportion of Jews with IQs of 140 or
higher is somewhere around six times the proportion of everyone
else.” Harpending, Hardy and Cochran sport roughly the same equation; “4
out of every 1,000 Northern European is 140+ IQ, but 23 out of every
1,000 Jew is 140+.” Murray also relays a report from sky-high up in the
genius range, when he notes that a 1954 survey of New York public school
children with 170+ IQs revealed that 24 of the 28 were… Jewish.
Now that I’ve established that Ashkenazi have superlative IQ scores,
let’s observe what they’ve accomplished with their highly functional
brains.
In the 19th century, Mark Twain noted that:
[The Jews] are peculiarly and conspicuously the
world’s intellectual aristocracy… [Jewish] contributions to the world’s
list of great names in literature, science, art, music, finance,
medicine, and abstruse learning are way out of proportion to the
weakness of his numbers. He has made a marvelous fight in this world…
and has done it with his hands tied behind him.
Twain’s observation is not dated. Ashkenazi Jews have continued to
mentally out-compete other demographics since his statement, often
suffering horrendous consequences for their toil. Here is a brief list
of Ashkenazi accomplishments in the last 90 years. Nobel Prizes: Since 1950, 29% of the awards have gone to Ashkenazim, even though they represent only a small fraction of humanity.Ashkenazi
achievement in this arena is 117 times greater than their population.
This pace isn’t slowing down; it is accelerating. In the 21st century, they’ve received 32% of the total, and in 2011, five of the thirteen Nobel Prize winners were Jewish – 38.5%. Hungary in the 1930s: Ashkenazim were 6% of the population,
but they comprised 55.7% of physicians, 49.2% of attorneys, 30.4% of
engineers, and 59.4% of bank officers; plus, they owned 49.4% of the
metallurgy industry, 41.6% of machine manufacturing, 72.8% of clothing
manufacturing, and, as housing owners, they received 45.1% of Budapest
rental income. Jews were similarly successful in nearby nations, like
Poland and Germany. “Significant Figures”: In “Jewish Genius” by Charles Murray,
the author tallies up important contributing individuals in a variety of
vocations, noting how immensely over-represented Jews are compared to
what could be expected due to their small population. His conclusion in
various categories is: Biology – “significant” Jews appear 5 times
greater their population, Chemistry 6X, Physics 9X, Literature 4X, Music
5X, Visual Arts 5X, Math 12X, Philosophy 14X.2 USA (today): Ashkenazi Jews comprise 2.2% of the USA
population, but they represent 30% of faculty at elite colleges, 21% of
Ivy League students, and 25% of the Turing Award winners. Plus, “Jews
have made up 50% of the top two hundred intellectuals… 40% of partners
in the leading law firms in New York and Washington… 59% of the
directors, writers, and producers of the fifty top-grossing motion
pictures…” Israel: In 1922 this swamp-and-desert land had an impoverished
population of 752,000 inhabitants. Today there are 7,746,000 residents,
with a large Ashkenazi population (3 million, and 60% of the workforce)
that has elevated it into a high-tech entrepreneurial nation with the
highest per capita income in the region. Israel rates 1stin the world in graduate degrees, 1st in museums, 1st in home computers, and 1st in publishing scientific papers.
Personally, I find the Nobel Prize statistic the most amazing.
Consider this: if everybody on the planet was an Ashkenazi Jew, would
the result be 117 times more Nobel Prize-winning caliber individuals,
with 117 times as many spectacular achievements, per annum? INSTANT
SINGULARITY! Without any help from AI…
(Sephardic Jewish achievement is represented in many of the
categories above, especially in Nobel Prize statistics. When this
article was originally published - in a shorter version, on August 7,
2011 by the Institute for Ethics in Emerging Technology (ieet.org) –
Sephardic Jews expressed some perturbation that they were omitted from
the essay. I’d like to acknowledge the immense contribution of
Sephardic Jews with this all-too-brief list of notables from their
lineage:
Elias Canetti (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1981), Tobias Michael Carel
Asser (Nobel Peace Prize, 1911), Rene Cassin (Nobel Peace Prize, 1968),
Franco Modigliani (Nobel Prize in Economics, 1985), Francois Jacob
(Nobel Prize in Medicine/Physiology, 1965), Salvador Luria (Nobel Prize
in Medicine/Physiology, 1969), Baruj Benacerraf (Nobel Prize in
Medicine/Physiology, 1980), Rita Levi-Montalcini (Nobel Prize in
Medicine/Physiology, 1986), Emilio Segre (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1959),
Claude Cohen-Tannoudj (Nobel Prize in Physics, 1997), plus philosopher
Jacques Derrida, economist/philanthropist Bernard Baruch, painter Amedeo
Modigliani, and Benjamin Disraeli, the British Prime Minister.
In the medieval era, Sephardic achievements were also quite significant. In George Sarton’s Introduction to the History of Science,
the author notes that 95 out of 626 scientists in the world from
1150-1300 were Sephardic Jews -15% - far exceeding their population
proportion.
However, when Sephardic IQ is presently recorded, the sums are no
higher than the northern European average, and definitively not as
elevated as Ashkenazi.)
Let’s proceed. With the facts I’ve laid out, only the most obtuse
reader can resist my pronouncement that Ashkenazi Jews are, on average, extraordinarily intelligent.
I’m not asserting Ashkenazi cognitive specialness because I’m
Philo-Semitic, or Zionist, or pro-Israeli. I’m pointing it out because
it is irrefutably true.
That said, the question that my essay seeks to unravel is… Why? Why
is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so high? Is the reason due to their
genetics, environment, culture, education, or a unique combination of
multiple factors?
In my initial publication of this essay, I provided eight reasons for
high Ashkenazi IQ. But then, I received a flurry of email suggestions
(many from professors) providing me with additional information. Twenty
theories are now listed in this expanded essay, and I’ve attempted to
give my sources the credit they deserve, even though – in several
instances - I don’t have their actual names, just their Internet
chat-monikers. Here’s my new list – many related to each other -
presented in roughly chronological order: Babylonian Eugenics – In 586 B.C.E., Jerusalem was totally
destroyed by the Babylonians, led by their monarch Nebuchadnezzar, who
“carried into exile… all the [Jewish] officers and fighting men, and all
the craftsmen and artisans… only the poorest people of the land were
left.” (2Kings 24:10-14) The Indestructible Jews, by Max Dimont, defines the deported people as “the flower of Judah’s aristocracy and intellectuals.”
The exiled Jews of this first Diaspora became highly successful in
Babylon. Dimont claims, “In the libraries of Babylon, intellectual Jews
found a new world of new ideas. Within five decades, exiled Jews bobbed
to the surface of the top echelons on Babylonian society, in business
enterprises, in the scholastic world, in court circles. They became
leaders in commerce, men of learning, advisors to kings.”
In 538 B.C.E., the Persian king Cyrus the Great granted Jews
permission to return to their homeland. Wealthy Jews - who had
established successful trade routes and businesses in Babylon - financed
zealous returnees who wanted to re-settle Judah. Initial attempts
failed, but eventually, 1,760 settlers led by the prophet Ezra and the
governor Nehemiah rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem and resurrected the
nation. These “Babylonian” Jews returning to Israel discovered that
their poorer brethren that were left behind a half-century earlier had
slipped away via assimilation, vanishing into neighboring pagan creeds.
Cyril Darlington, in his The Evolution of Man and Society,
suggests that the temporary separation of the Jewish elite, and
permanent removal of the uneducated and unskilled, provided a genetic
intellectual boost to the creed.
The returning Jews also instituted two customs that enhanced the
mental solidity of their culture’s future. A ban on intermarriage with
Gentiles was enforced, and the first five books of Moses were canonized,
as the Torah. People of the Difficult Book: The Torah (the first five books
of the Jewish Bible) and the Talmud (recordings of rabbinic discussions)
are intellectually complex and sophisticated. Practitioners of Judaism
are required to learn and study the extensive, mentally rigorous laws.
Thematic content of the scriptural passages is not simplistic or
literal, it is, conversely, designed for comprehension on multiple,
abstract, metaphorical levels. Blind faith and slavish devotion,
encouraged by other faiths, is not conducive to Judaism. Instead,
worship in the ancient monotheism demands significant literacy skills
due to the cognitive demands of the texts, with tradition maintaining
that understanding the Talmud requires “study of seven hours a day for
seven years.”Charles Murray notes that, “no other religion
made so many demands upon the whole body of its believers,” with the
subsequent analysis that, “Judaism evolved in such a way that to be a
good Jew meant that a man had to be smart.” Healthy Hygiene & Diet: Professor Sam Lehman-Wilzig of
Bar-Ilan University in Israel provided me with this theory. His
suggestion is based on the fact that - due to their customary practices -
the Jews probably enjoyed better hygiene than Gentiles. He points to
the Jewish washing of hands before every meal, the men bathing at least
once a week in the “mikveh” (a purification bathhouse) and the women
bathing at least once a month, after their menstruation was over. He
also notes the restriction on pork prevented Jews from contracting
trichinosis. (Famous casualties of this parasitic disease include
Gautama Buddha and Wolfgang Mozart). With lower disease rates, Jewish
bodies would not have suffered as much as Gentiles and this would have
improved their mental capacities.
This notion has been repeated elsewhere. In 1953, research by Johns
Hopkins University pharmacologist David I. Macht surmised that all the
dozens of meat items banned by Jewish dietary laws in Deuteronomy and Leviticus were, in fact, more toxic than the kosher flesh that was permitted. Additionally, in the recent book Survival of the Sickest,
author Sharon Moalem suggests that Jews removing leaven from their
homes during Passover helped keep out the rats that spread bubonic
plague in the 13th century. Last but not least, wealthy
Ashkenazi Jews dwelling in larger houses in eastern Europe would have
survived epidemics easier because they didn’t suffer the same high
multiple infection rate that occurred in smaller homes with greater
crowding.
Extensive correlation between high IQ, healthy diet, infectious
diseases, sanitation, and home crowding, is examined via research
studies in later chapters of this book, particularly in “Early Years.” Education Emphasized, Way Back in B.C. – Jeremiah Unterman of
Jerusalem informed me that the Torah instructs every Jewish father to
teach the Torah to his children, and Marisa Landau notes on a futurepundit.com
6/4/05 discussion that it’s forbidden by the Jewish religion to keep
child illiterate. Additionally, Landau reports that Jewish women
learned to read and write, a phenomenon that was unique in the ancient
world. Landau also mentions that it has long been a custom among Jews to
provide a full pension - for up to 10 years – to an intelligent
son-in-law who wishes to entirely devote himself to study. The Jews, it
seems, invented the notion of “scholarships.” In
the medieval era, the French monk, Peter Abelard (1079-1142) penned
this about Jewish education: “A Jew, however poor, even if he had ten
sons, would get them all to letters, not for gain as the Christians do,
but for understanding of God’s law. And not only for his sons, but his
daughters.” Mandatory Schools For Males - In 64 A.D., the high priest
Joshua ben Gamla issued and implemented an ordinance mandating schools
for all boys, beginning at age 6. Within 100 years, Jews had established
universal male literacy and numeracy, the first ethnicity in history to
achieve this.
The progressive, demanding edict created a huge demographic shift.
The high, oft-times prohibitive cost of educating children in the
subsistence farming economy of the 2nd to 6th
centuries prompted numerous Jews to voluntarily convert to Christianity,
leading to a decline in Jewish population from 4.5 million to 1.2
million.
Natural “eugenics” favored two groups in this situation: 1) the sons
of wealthier, ostensibly more intelligent Jews, who could provide
greater funding for the schools that maintained their offspring’s
membership as Jews, and, 2) the smartest boys who could quickly learn
reading, writing and arithmetic at a pace at which they could afford to
“stay Jewish.”
Who was left out? Removed from the gene pool? Answer: the poorer, uneducated Jews, and/or those with the lowest IQ. Urban Upgrade – 80-90% of Jews were farmers in 1 AD. But only
10-20% remained in agriculture by 1000 A.D. The education required by
Joshua ben Gamla’s edict delivered verbal and math skills to Jewish
boys, enabling them to move out of subsistence rural life into
highly-skilled urban professions, involving sales, trade, and financial
transactions.
Moving from a pastoral environment into cities implements an IQ
boost, due to urbanism’s increased complexity, literacy, and technology.
A Hanoi National University study in 2006 showed a whopping 19.4 IQ
difference between city and country students. A 1970 survey in Greece
recorded a difference of 10-13 points. Other studies note smaller
discrepancies of only 2-6 points, but unanimously, urban residents
always score higher, and Jews are one of the world’s longest-urbanized
ethnicities. Dialectic and Rational Thought – Dr. Sam Lehman-Wilzig
informed me that one of the noteworthy approaches to Jewish learning is
“dialectic.” The Talmud itself is not a “law code” but instead, a huge
compendium of ARGUMENTS. Jews are encouraged to see different
perspectives of an issue, and they’re taught to question everything,
including the Law, the Rabbi’s logic, and one’s own belief system.
Rabbis developed argumentative principles, an entire system of
questioning that the Jews have utilized for 2,000 years in both
religious and secular debates.
Dialectic was not a ‘Jewish’ invention: it was a learning technique
that Jews borrowed and adapted from Greek philosophy; the synthesis is a
‘Socratic-Jewish methodology.’ Traces of the Greek influence are
evident in the Passover Seder where the Jewish father reclines on a
pillow (similar to the Greeks) while the youngest Jewish child asks Four
Questions. This method of learning was unique during the Middle Ages,
compared to Catholic Europe’s ‘authoritative’ traditions.
Dr. Sanford Aranoff, Professor of Science and Mathematics at Rider
University, conveyed to me a similar message. In his opinion, Judaism is
based on principles of rational thought. (Rational thinking begins with
clearly stated principles, continues with logical deductions, and then
examines empirical evidence to possibly modify the principles.)
The analytic, strategic skills developed in both Jewish dialectic and
critical thinking are an important component of IQ tests, and they’re
essential in legal, academic, science, and engineering careers. Clever Clerics Propagate: A major difference between Catholicism and Judaism is that priests have been celibate since the 4th
century Council of Carthage decreed that they abstain from conjugal
relations, whereas Jewish rabbis have always been encouraged to marry
and multiply. In the Middle Age this resulted in massive IQ depression
for Catholics, because their brightest, academically gifted boys were
usually locked up in seminaries that wasted their gene pool. Meanwhile…
sage, scholastic Jewish rabbis were marrying smart women and creating
large, clever families. Three tomes that examine this phenomenon are
Robert Novick’s Anarchy, State and Utopia, Ernst Vandenberg’s The Jewish Mystique, and Paul Johnson’s A History of the Jews. Breeding for Brains:
“Our Rabbis teach, Let a man sell all that he has and
marry the daughter of a learned man. If he cannot find the daughter of a
learned man, let him marry the daughter of one of the great men of his
day. If he does not find such a one, let him marry the daughter of one
of the heads of the congregation, or, failing this, the daughter of a
charity collector, or even the daughter of a schoolmaster; but let him
not marry the daughter of an illiterate man, for the unlearned are an
abomination, as also their wives and their daughters.” P’sachim, fol.
49, col. 2.
Judaic texts like the one above emphasize repeatedly that knowledge
and intelligence are supreme virtues, with ignorance the grossest
liability. Following this dictum, the Jews enhanced their gene pool for
smartnesss. In A History of the Jews, author Paul Johnson notes
that, “among the Jews the most intelligent people have always been very
valued and sought after as husbands, so they procreate and spread their
good genes.”Charles Murray observed another matchmaking
tendency, when he notes that “by marrying the children of scholars to
the children of successful merchants, Jews were in effect joining those
selected for abstract reasoning ability with those selected for
practical intelligence.” Meanwhile,
Catholics were marrying for “class” reasons, angling for blue-blood
aristocrat gains that had no link to intelligence. Physical strength
and valor was also desired, via brave knights on the battlefield - this
exaltation of brawn over brains likewise did nothing to advance that
religion’s collective IQ. Trading Tongues: Ashkenazi merchants plied their wares over a
vast area, originally to Islamic regions, but later internationally -
from rubber in Brazil to silk in China.To prosper in the
exchange, they memorized multiple languages. The stateless tribe needed
diverse fluency anyway, to communicate in adopted lands with their
neighbors that spoke German, Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Hungarian,
Russian, Ukrainian, French, Dutch, etc.
The Ashkenazi developed a “fusion” tongue: Yiddish (German, Hebrew,
Aramaic, plus other Slavic languages and a touch of Romance). At its
height - before World War II - Yiddish was spoken by 13 million. The
polyglot language produced exemplary culture in literature, theater, and
film.
Neurologists today recognize that multiple language learning enhances
memory, mental flexibility, problem solving, abstract thinking, and
creative hypothesis formulation. Explanations of the benefits abound; I
recommend listening to the video, “Bilingualism Will Supercharge Your
Baby’s Brain.” Squeezed Into Brilliance: Jews in Europe were officially
excluded from “common” occupations such as agriculture from 800-1700
A.D. Indeed, they were usually not allowed to own land. The restrictions
forced Ashkenazim for 900 years into urban vocations that were
cognitively more demanding, such as trade, bookkeeping, commerce, sales,
and investment. The frequent Christian prohibition against charging of
interest in money lending - prohibited as “usury” – assisted in opening
up financial banking occupations for Jews. Historical records reveal
that 80% of the Jews in Roussilon, southern France, in 1270 were
money-lenders.
Later, after they were evicted from Western Europe, Ashkenazim were
welcomed in Poland as urban investors and initiators of trade who could
help modernize the nation. They were also in great demand in middle
management positions because they had mathematic and business
administration skills.
Ashkenazim who weren’t mathematically and verbally adept enough to
succeed in these “white collar” jobs drifted away from Judaism—low IQs
were pushed out. Conversely, the most successful merchants and number
crunchers raised larger families, passing on an increasing percentage of
algebraic brains. Winnowed By Persecution: The most intelligent and/or wealthy
Ashkenazim were better equipped to escape Inquisitions, pogroms,
persecutions, holocausts, and other genocidal threats because they: 1)
could afford to emigrate; 2) could predict the need to do so; and 3) had
social and economic opportunities in the nations they fled to. Poorer,
less connected, and less astute Ashkenazi ranks thus were inexorably
depleted.
The repeated annihilation, expulsion, and flight of the Jewish people
is universally known. The first Diaspora to Babylonia has already been
mentioned. A second Diaspora is popularly regarded as a series of
dispersals from Israel after the failure of Jewish revolts against the
Roman Empire from 70 C.E. – 135 C.E. In 629 C.E., King Dagobert of the
Franks ordered the Jews to convert, leave his land, or face
execution. The First Crusade, 1096-1099 C.E., cruelly
slaughtered thousands of Ashkenazi, an estimated 25%. Jews were expelled
from England in 1290, France in 1394 and parts of Germany in the 15th century. Pogroms in the Russian Empire in the 19th and early 20th
century murdered substantial numbers of Jews, and the Holocaust,
instigated by Adolf Hitler, led to the genocide of approximately six
million, primarily Ashkenazi.
Whenever and wherever persecution began, Jews were more likely to
escape if they could pay their way out, or were wealthy enough to have
horses, carriages, employees as guards, rich relatives to flee to, and
friends in “high places.” High IQ has frequently been correlated with
economic success. Sick Genius: Ashkenazim are prey to about nineteen
debilitating genetic diseases, and it’s been surmised that several of
them might have cognitive “side effects” that can enhance intelligence.
Many of the disorders can kill or severely weaken those who have two
copies of the gene, but if you inherit just one, you get a “heterozygote
advantage” that can include neuron growth promotion and accelerated
interconnection of brain cells. For example, having just one of the
allele in Tay-Sachs and Niemann-Pick – GM2ganglioside - could moderately
increase dentrite growth.
Another Ashkenazi ailment is Gaucher’s disease, which seems to
promote axonal growth and branching. A survey discovered that out of
255 employed patients of Gaucher’s disease at Shaare Zedek Medical
Centre in Jerusalem, were in occupations that require IQs over 120, and
15% were scientists. Another survey of Ashkenazim with Torsion Dystomia
revealed an average IQ of 121.
I interviewed Gregory Cochran via email; he’s the University of Utah co-author of the 2005 research report, “Natural History of Ashkenazi Intelligence.” In
his words, “any IQ boost due to Gaucher’s [would be] a good deal less
than 10-15 points [but] It may be that big for Torsion Dystonia:
everyone who has treated them marvels at how sharp they are… [However]
only a fraction [of Ashkenazi IQ elevation] is due to particular
mutations like Gaucher, in our opinion.” In another interview, Cochran
pinpointed the fractions as, “One in two thousand Askenazi, at most,
carry a Tay-Sachs mutation and a Gaucher mutation, the two most common.”
Ashkenazim are not an isolated ethnicity, after residing with Eastern
European neighbors for over a millennium. While many observers suggest
that they’re 30% European, an Emory University study concluded that
researchers “were able to estimate that between 35 and 55 percent of the
modern Ashkenazi genome comes from European descent.” Positive Thinking – Aubrey Max Sandman, PhD, an electrical
engineer in London, sent me an email asserting that positive attitude is
what counts, not genetics. His opinion is that non-Jews do not work as
hard as Jews, to attain their full potential. In actuality, “positive thinking” actually does elevate IQ.
2011 research at Michigan State University revealed that a subject’s
“mind set” makes a difference in intelligence because their attitude
determines if they react productively, or self-destructively, to their
mistakes. The report will soon be published, hopefully with specific
data charting IQ gains, in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science. Check Mate: Chess historically has been a highly favored
activity among Ashkenazim; a 1905 magazine described it as the “Jewish
National Game.” Almost 50% of Grandmasters are Ashkenazi. The visual,
organizational, and strategic skills required for chess build up the precuneus in the superior parietal lobe, and the caudate nucleus, a part of the basal ganglia in the subcortical region.
Admittedly, these benefits are not hereditary, but youngsters who
practice the game can elevate their memory storage, strategic planning,
and IQ.
Additional information about the benefits of chess can be found in my later chapter, “School Years.” Melodic Minds: Music has been revered in Jewish religious
traditions for 3,000 years. Klezmer “reached a very high level of
sophistication and ornamentation,” according to the Jewish Music
Institute, and Ashkenazi composers and instrumentalists contribute
hugely to Western classical music (one history site declares, “The Jews
‘Own’ the Violin”). Have centuries of practice paid off? Researchers
today believe music training optimizes neuron development and improves
brain function in math, analysis, memory, creativity, stress management,
concentration, motivation, and science.
Additional information about the benefits of musical training can be
found in the following chapters: “Early Years” and “School Years.” Comfortable Supportive Families, With High Expectations: Success promotes success, on the neurological level. Victory provides a rush of dopamine,
a neurotransmitter that activates motivation for further
accomplishments. Ashkenazi children generally understand they are
capable of high achievement, and they’re urged to develop their skills
for contribution to humanity.
Is stern discipline necessary to produce these results? Ashkenazim
have long discouraged spanking of their children; strong familial ties,
incessant encouragement, and hard focused work at excellent
institutions, seems to be sufficient.
Available income that allows offspring to study and develop
intellectually is also important; wealth also permits access to elite
schools. Surveys indicate that American Jews earn about twice the income
of non-Jews, plus they have 2.5 times more capital assets. The result?
The average American Jew receives 2.5 more years of education. Even
during the Middle Age many Jews were upper and middle class in economic
status, a condition that secured good education for their children. Untermensch Go Elsewhere?A 40+-year old Jewish
commenter from New York City with the nomenclature “ASAMATTEROFFACT”
informed me that - in his opinion - Ashkenazi who lack high intelligence
and creativity end up feeling inferior. He believes this eventually
leads to the “untermensch” marrying outside of the tribe. Only the ubermensch
remain to reproduce. His point of view was echoed by another poster -
Efox” - who stated that less intelligent Jews incapable of being their
own “Priest” inevitably left Judaism to join another religion. Empathetic Rabbis – A commenter who identified himself as
“zeev from jew york city” informed me that many rabbis were “Einsteins
of Empathy” – amazingly kind, patient, loving and understanding of other
humans. The high-level “empaths” impacted their congregations, making
their lives better and promoting their ambitions and enterprizes.
In later chapters (“Early Years” and “School Years”) I discuss the
IQ-boosting benefits of “Emotional Support” and “Teacher Effectiveness” –
two gifts that were undoubtedly provided by compassionate rabbis. Fear of Anti-Semitism? – Commenter “Morris Wise” stated a paranoiac position after reading my original article on the instapundit.com
website. In his opinion, Jews are driven to attain high academic
success, career achievement, and wealth, because they want to feel safe,
protected and insulated from anti-Jewish feelings in the outside
community. This point-of-view can, of course, be justified by the long
history of resentment and persecution that Jews have experienced.
———————————————————————————————————————————
Twenty explanations for high Ashkenazi IQ! My opinion? Regarding the
fourscore? They’re possibly all correct, and valuable to contemplate.
However, what I find most intriguing are the “environmental” factors that are accessible to all humanity.
I wonder: if the people of the world really want high-level
intellectual achievement, why don’t we play chess with our children at
night, instead of tossing them a violent video game? Why can’t we listen
to their classical compositions on the weekend, instead of urging them
to get concussions on the football field? Isn’t a “dietary code”
actually an excellent idea, in American culture with its 33.5% adult
obesity? Why can’t we provide them with excellent schools, entice them
to learn foreign grammar, and convince them to believe in and expand
their abilities, instead of forcing them to endure years of educational
mediocrity and expecting nothing back but the same?
If all humanity adopted the best available characteristics of
successful cultures like the Ashkenazi, would we, as a whole, immensely
benefit? Would we learn more quickly, more deeply, and produce greater
wonders? Would we become over- instead of under-achievers?
If we promoted high IQ behavior to humans everywhere, globally, would we all become… enhanced? Better humans?
——————- To read the sixty-four footnotes and references, plus twelve additional essays on intelligence, you can purchase the book Why is the IQ of Ashkenazi Jews so High? Scientific Factors that Influence Intelligence Essays on IQ, Brain Health, etc. Why is the IQ of Ashekenazi Jews so High? 20 Possible Explanations
The French military's current campaign to dislodge jihadist militants from northern Mali and the recent high-profile attack against a natural gas facility in Algeria are
both directly linked to the foreign intervention in Libya that
overthrew the Gadhafi regime. There is also a strong connection between
these events and foreign powers' decision not to intervene in Mali when
the military conducted a coup in March 2012.
The coup occurred as thousands of heavily armed Tuareg tribesmen were
returning home to northern Mali after serving in Moammar Gadhafi's
military, and the confluence of these events resulted in an implosion of
the Malian military and a power vacuum in the north. Al Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb and other jihadists were able to take advantage of this
situation to seize power in the northern part of the African nation.
As all these events transpire in northern Africa, another type of
foreign intervention is occurring in Syria. Instead of direct foreign
military intervention, like that taken against the Gadhafi regime in
Libya in 2011, or the lack of intervention seen in Mali in March 2012,
the West -- and its Middle Eastern partners -- have pursued a middle-ground approach in Syria. That is, these powers are providing logistical aid to the various Syrian rebel factions but are not intervening directly.
Just as there were repercussions for the decisions to conduct a
direct intervention in Libya and not to intervene in Mali, there will be
repercussions for the partial intervention approach in Syria. Those
consequences are becoming more apparent as the crisis drags on.
Intervention in Syria
For more than a year now, countries such as the United States,
Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and European states have been providing aid
to the Syrian rebels. Much of this aid has been in the form of
humanitarian assistance, providing things such as shelter, food and
medical care for refugees. Other aid has helped provide the rebels with
non-lethal military supplies such as radios and ballistic vests. But a
review of the weapons spotted on the battlefield reveals that the rebels
are also receiving an increasing number of lethal supplies.
For example, there have been numerous videos released showing Syrian
rebels using weapons such as the M79 Osa rocket launcher, the RPG-22,
the M-60 recoilless rifle and the RBG-6 multiple grenade launcher. The
Syrian government has also released videos of these weapons after
seizing them in arms caches. What is so interesting about these weapons
is that they were not in the Syrian military's inventory prior to the
crisis, and they all likely were purchased from Croatia. We have also
seen many reports and photos of Syrian rebels carrying Austrian Steyr
Aug rifles, and the Swiss government has complained that Swiss-made hand
grenades sold to the United Arab Emirates are making their way to the
Syrian rebels.
With the Syrian rebel groups using predominantly second-hand weapons
from the region, weapons captured from the regime, or an assortment of
odd ordnance they have manufactured themselves, the appearance and
spread of these exogenous weapons in rebel arsenals over the past
several months is at first glance evidence of external arms supply. The
appearance of a single Steyr Aug or RBG-6 on the battlefield could be an
interesting anomaly, but the variety and concentration of these weapons
seen in Syria are well beyond the point where they could be considered
coincidental.
This means that the current level of external intervention in Syria
is similar to the level exercised against the Soviet Union and its
communist proxies following the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. The
external supporters are providing not only training, intelligence and
assistance, but also weapons -- exogenous weapons that make the external
provision of weapons obvious to the world. It is also interesting that
in Syria, like Afghanistan, two of the major external supporters are
Washington and Riyadh -- though in Syria they are joined by regional
powers such as Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates,
rather than Pakistan.
In Afghanistan, the Saudis and the Americans allowed their partners
in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency to determine which of
the myriad militant groups in Afghanistan received the bulk of the funds
and weapons they were providing. This resulted in two things. First,
the Pakistanis funded and armed groups that they thought they could best
use as surrogates in Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal. Second,
they pragmatically tended to funnel cash and weapons to the groups that
were the most successful on the battlefield -- groups such as those led
by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani,
whose effectiveness on the battlefield was tied directly to their
zealous theology that made waging jihad against the infidels a religious
duty and death during such a struggle the ultimate accomplishment.
A similar process has been taking place for nearly two years in
Syria. The opposition groups that have been the most effective on the
battlefield have tended to be the jihadist-oriented groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra.
Not surprisingly, one reason for their effectiveness was the skills and
tactics they learned fighting the coalition forces in Iraq. Yet despite
this, the Saudis -- along with the Qataris and the Emiratis -- have
been arming and funding the jihadist groups in large part because of
their success on the battlefield. As my colleague Kamran Bokhari noted
in February 2012, the situation in Syria was providing an opportunity for jihadists, even without external support.
In the fractured landscape of the Syrian opposition, the unity of
purpose and battlefield effectiveness of the jihadists was in itself
enough to ensure that these groups attracted a large number of new
recruits.
But that is not the only factor conducive to the radicalization of
Syrian rebels. First, war -- and particularly a brutal, drawn-out war --
tends to make extremists out of the fighters involved in it. Think
Stalingrad, the Cold War struggles in Central America or the ethnic
cleansing in the Balkans following the dissolution of Yugoslavia; this
degree of struggle and suffering tends to make even non-ideological
people ideological. In Syria, we have seen many secular Muslims become
stringent jihadists. Second, the lack of hope for an intervention by the
West removed any impetus for maintaining a secular narrative. Many
fighters who had pinned their hopes on NATO were greatly disappointed
and angered that their suffering was ignored. It is not unusual for
Syrian fighters to say something akin to, "What has the West done for
us? We now have only God."
When these ideological factors were combined with the infusion of
money and arms that has been channeled to jihadist groups in Syria over
the past year, the growth of Syrian jihadist groups accelerated
dramatically. Not only are they a factor on the battlefield today, but
they also will be a force to be reckoned with in the future.
The Saudi Gambit
Despite the jihadist blowback the Saudis experienced after
the end of the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan -- and the
current object lesson of the jihadists Syria sent to fight U.S. forces
in Iraq now leading groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra -- the Saudi
government has apparently calculated that its use of jihadist proxies in
Syria is worth the inherent risk.
There are some immediate benefits for Riyadh. First, the Saudis hope to be able to break the arc of Shiite influence that reaches from
Iran through Iraq and Syria to Lebanon. Having lost the Sunni
counterweight to Iranian power in the region with the fall of Saddam
Hussein in Iraq and the installation of a Shiite-led government friendly
to Iran, the Saudis view the possibility of installing a friendly Sunni
regime in Syria as a dramatic improvement to their national security.
Supporting the jihad in Syria as a weapon against Iranian influence
also gives the Saudis a chance to burnish their Islamic credentials
internally in an effort to help stave off criticism that they are too
secular and Westernized. It allows the Saudi regime the opportunity to
show that it is helping Muslims under assault by the vicious Syrian
regime.
Supporting jihadists in Syria also gives the Saudis an opportunity to
ship their own radicals to Syria, where they can fight and possibly
die. With a large number of unemployed, underemployed and radicalized
young men, the jihad in Syria provides a pressure valve similar to the
past struggles in Iraq, Chechnya, Bosnia and Afghanistan. The Saudis are
not only trying to winnow down their own troubled youth; we have
received reports from a credible source that the Saudis are also
facilitating the travel of Yemeni men to training camps in Turkey, where
they are trained and equipped before being sent to Syria to fight. The
reports also indicate that the young men are traveling for free and
receiving a stipend for their service. These young radicals from Saudi
Arabia and Yemen will even further strengthen the jihadist groups in
Syria by providing them with fresh troops.
The Saudis are gaining temporary domestic benefits from supporting
jihad in Syria, but the conflict will not last forever, nor will it
result in the deaths of all the young men who go there to fight. This
means that someday the men who survive will come back home, and through
the process we refer to as "tactical Darwinism" the inept fighters will have been weeded out, leaving a core of competent militants that the Saudis will have to deal with.
But the problems posed by jihadist proxies in Syria will have effects beyond the House of Saud.
The Syrian jihadists will pose a threat to the stability of Syria in
much the same way the Afghan groups did in the civil war they launched
for control of Afghanistan after the fall of the Najibullah regime.
Indeed, the violence in Afghanistan got worse after Najibullah's fall in
1992, and the suffering endured by Afghan civilians in particular was
egregious.
Now we are seeing that the jihadist militants in Libya pose a threat
not only to the Libyan regime -- there are serious problems in eastern
Libya -- but also to foreign interests in the country, as seen in the
attack on the British ambassador and the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi.
Moreover, the events in Mali and Algeria in recent months show that
Libya-based militants and the weapons they possess also pose a regional
threat. Similar long-lasting and wide-ranging repercussions can be
expected to flow from the intervention in Syria.
The United States is sitting on
massive natural gas and oil reserves that have the potential to shift
the geopolitical balance in its favor. Worries are increasing in Russia
and the Arab states of waning influence and falling market prices.
Williston, North Dakota, is a bleak little city in the vast American
prairie. It's dusty in the summer and frigid in the winter. Moose
hunting is one of the few sources of entertainment. But despite its
drawbacks, Williston has seen its population more than double within a
short period of time.
ANZEIGE
The city is so overcrowded that new arrivals often have no place to
stay but in their motor homes, which, at monthly parking fees of $1,200
(€880), isn't exactly inexpensive. And more people continue to arrive in
this nondescript little town.
The reason for the influx is simple: Geologists have discovered a
layer of shale saturated with natural gas and oil deep beneath the city.
The Bakken formation, spanning thousands of square kilometers, has
become synonymous with an American economic miracle that the country
hasn't experienced since the oil rush almost 100 years ago.
North Dakota now has virtual full employment, and the state budget
showed an estimated surplus of $1.6 billion in 2012. Truck drivers in
the state make $100,000 a year, while the strippers being brought in
from Las Vegas rake in more than $1,000 a night. President Barack Obama
calls the discovery of Bakken and similar shale gas formations in Texas,
Colorado, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Utah a "stroke of luck," saying:
"We have a hundred years' worth of energy right beneath our feet." A Vital Nerve
The future of the American energy supply was looking grim until
recently. With its own resources waning, the United States was dependent
on Arab oil sheiks and erratic dictators. Rising energy costs were
hitting a vital nerve in the country's industrial sector.
But the situation has fundamentally changed since American drilling
experts began using a method called "fracking," with which oil and gas
molecules can be extracted from dense shale rock formations. The
International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the United States will
replace Russia as the world's largest producer of natural gas in only
two years. The Americans could also become the world's top petroleum
producers by 2017.
Low natural gas prices -- the price of natural gas in the United States
is only a quarter of what it was in 2008 -- could fuel a comeback of
American industry. "Low-cost natural gas is the elixir, the sweetness,
the juice, the Viagra," an American industry representative told the
business magazine Fortune. "What it's doing is changing the US back into the industrial power of the day."
The government estimates that the boom could generate 600,000 new
jobs, and some experts even believe that up to 3 million new jobs could
be created in the coming years. "My administration will take every
possible action to safely develop this energy," Obama said during his
most recent State of the Union address. Shifting Calculations
The gas revolution is changing the political balance of power all
over the world. Americans and Russians have waged wars, and they have
propped up or toppled regimes, over oil and gas. When the flows of
energy change, the strategic and military calculations of the major
powers do as well.
It is still unclear who the winners and losers will be. The Chinese
and the Argentines also have enormous shale gas reserves. Experts
believe that Poland, France and Germany have significant resources,
although no one knows exactly how significant. Outside the United
States, extraction is still in its infancy.
The outlines of a changed world order are already emerging in the
simulations of geo-strategists. They show that the United States will
benefit the most from the development of shale gas and oil resources. A
study by Germany's foreign intelligence agency, the BND, concludes that
Washington's discretionary power in foreign and security policy will
increase substantially as a result of the country's new energy riches.
According to the BND study, the political threat potential of oil
producers like Iran will decline. Optimists assume that, in about 15
years, the United States will no longer have to send any aircraft
carriers to the Persian Gulf to guarantee that oil tankers can pass
unhindered through the Strait of Hormuz, still the most important energy
bottleneck in the world.
The Russians could be on the losing end of the stick. The power of
President Vladimir Putin is based primarily on oil and gas revenues. If
energy prices decline in the long term, bringing down Russian revenues
from the energy sector, Putin's grip on power could begin to falter. The
Americans' sudden oil and gas riches are also not very good news for
authoritarian regimes in the Middle East.
European industry is also likely to benefit from falling world market
prices for oil and gas. But according to prognoses, without domestic
extraction the Europeans' site-specific advantages deteriorate.
German chemical giant BASF has already invested a lot of money in the
United States in the last two years. In Louisiana, for example, it has
built new plants for the production of methyl amines and formic acid.
"The local natural gas price is a criterion that affects the question of
where we invest in new production facilities," says BASF Executive
Board member Harald Schwager. At the moment, the United States has a
clear advantage over Europe in this regard." German Reservations
So far, the political debate
in Germany has been dominated by concerns over adverse environmental
effects. Fracking has become a dirty word for citizens' initiatives and
environmental groups.
The concept of pumping water laced with chemicals into the earth at
high pressures to crack open layers of rock several thousand meters
beneath the surface makes many citizens uneasy, even though the
technology has, in principle, already been used for decades in
conventional gas extraction in the northern German state of Lower
Saxony.
At the same time, Germany's energy and climate policy would in fact
be a reason to use the new gas reserves. Flexible gas power plants would
be the best approach to offsetting unpredictable fluctuations in wind
and solar electricity, thereby maintaining a reliable power supply.
Besides, burning natural gas generates up to 60 percent less
climate-damaging CO2 than burning coal.
With the help of natural gas, the Americans have been able to reduce
their CO2 emissions associated with energy production to the lowest
level in years. This is one of the reasons the country plans to replace
one in six coal-fired power plants with gas power plants by 2020.
At the Munich Security Conference this weekend, fracking will be at
the top of the agenda for the first time. In fact, one of the agenda
items is called "The American Oil and Gas Bonanza." In past years,
nuclear weapons and threats from international terror were discussed at
the conference, but this year one of the hot topics is the "Changing
Geopolitics of Energy." This shows how important the issue has become.
"It is perhaps a permissible exaggeration to claim a natural gas
revolution," John Deutch, a former undersecretary at the Energy
Department and CIA director, and now a professor at the elite
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recently wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine. Deutch has been monitoring the development for years. America's Energy Miracle
In the late 1990s, American oil and gas companies used new
technologies to advance into previously unexplored layers of the earth.
They drill up to 4,000 meters (13,123 feet) into the shale, then make a
sharp turn and continue to drill horizontally. Then they inject a
mixture of water, chemicals and sand into the drilled well at high
pressure. This creates small fractures in the surrounding rock, allowing
gas and oil to be released and rise to the surface through pipes.
New technologies are drastically reducing drilling costs. In 2012,
shale gas already made up 34 percent of total production, and the
technology is constantly improving. The sector is booming, and there are
dozens of new companies searching for additional, previously
undiscovered deposits.
In the future, the United States could even go from being a net
energy importer to a net exporter. But that would require a true policy
shift. Since the oil shock of the 1970s, the export of domestic
petroleum resources has been banned in the United States. Many companies
also have an interest in keeping as much of the cheap natural gas in
the country as possible, as it provides them with a competitive
advantage over foreign competitors.
According to a study, lower natural gas prices last year created a
benefit worth more than $100 billion for US industry. "The country has
stumbled into a windfall on the backs of these entrepreneurs," says
study co-author Professor Edward Hirs of the University of Houston.
And perhaps things will indeed improve substantially. The US
government has identified a new deposit in Utah, although additional
major advances in technology are needed to make extraction economically
viable. The Utah deposit contains an estimated 1.5 trillion barrels of
extractable oil, or as much as the world's entire proven oil reserves to
date. Russia on the Losing End
A building in the southwestern section of Moscow juts into the sky
like a rocket. The architectural message of the headquarters of energy
giant Gazprom, which towers over everything else around it, is clear:
The only way is up. Until recently, there was still an overwhelming
consensus that nuclear weapons and energy commodities like oil and gas
are the two currencies that gave a country its superpower status.
Russia, the world's largest exporter of natural resources, has both in
abundance.
President Putin built his dominance at home and his foreign policy on
Russia's wealth of natural resources. Oil and gas revenues make up about
50 percent of the national budget. The president needs Gazprom's
billions in revenues to keep his supporters, mostly government
employees, retirees, blue-collar workers and farmers, happy with
expensive social benefits. Gas also plays a central role in the plan to
expand Russia's sphere of influence into the former Soviet republics.
But now the American natural resources boom threatens Putin's dreams
of an imperial resurrection of his country. It is already struggling
with falling gas prices. Gazprom's operating profit shrank by more than
25 percent in the first nine months of 2012.
The Russians are now forced to give their customers, like Germany's
E.on and Italian energy company Eni, discounts in the billions. Still,
the Europeans are reorienting themselves. In the first three quarters of
2912, Gazprom sales fell by 43 percent in the Netherlands, 30 percent
in Slovakia and 20 percent in France.
2nd Graduate Workshop on European Union Research
Center for International Relations at FGV The Social Sciences and History School/CPDOC
Fundação Getulio Vargas Rio de Janeiro 10 May 2013 – 9h to 12h
As part of the activities organized to celebrate the Europe Day (May 9th), the Center for International Relations at FGV will host the 2nd Graduate Workshop on European Union Research.
This event will be held on May 10th, at FGV, Rio de Janeiro. During the workshop selected Master’s and PhD students, working on subjects related to the European Union, will have the opportunity to present and discuss their ongoing work with internationally renowned scholars in the field. The workshop will follow the EU Commission funded “PhD School” model, in which students are required to submit a chapter or article in advance and briefly present it during the workshop proceedings. Experts then present their comments, feedback and advice for the future academic development of the participants. The workshop will offer participants the unique opportunity to exchange views and discuss doubts regarding their work with specialists from major universities of the EU and US.
Scholars Jolyon Howorth (PhD, University of Reading) is Jean Monnet Professor of European Politics ad personam and Emeritus Professor of European Studies at the University of Bath (UK). He has been a Visiting Professor of Political Science at Yale since 2002. During his career he worked at the University of Sorbonne, Harvard, Science-Po, Columbia and NYU. Howorth has held a Senior Research Fellowship at the European Union´s Institute for Security Studies. He has published extensively in the field of European politics and history, especially security and defense policy and transatlantic relations. He is the author of: “Security and Defence Policy in the European Union”, Palgrave, 2007 “Defending Europe: the EU, NATO and the Quest for European Autonomy”, Palgrave, 2003 “European Integration and Defence: the Ultimate Challenge?”, WEU-ISS, 2000
Kalypso Nicolaïdis (TBC) (PhD, Harvard University) is Professor of International Relations and director of the European Studies Center at the University of Oxford. She was previously associate professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the Ecole Nationale d'Administration in Paris. She is also chair of Southeastern European Studies at Oxford and Council member of the European Council of Foreign Relations. From 2008 to 2010 she was member of the European Council reflection group on the future of Europe 2030. Her main areas of interest are dynamics of European integration, issues of identity, justice and cooperation in the international system, the sources of legitimacy in European and global governance, the relations between the EU and the Mediterranean /Turkey as well as preventive diplomacy and dispute resolution. She is the author of: “European Stories: Intellectual Debates on Europe in National Context”, Oxford University Press, 2011 “Whose Europe? National Models and the Constitution of the European Union”, Oxford University Press, 2003 “The Federal Vision: Legitimacy and Levels of Governance in the US and the EU”, Oxford University Press, 2001
Vivien A. Schmidt (PhD, University of Chicago) is Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration, Professor of International Relations and Political Science, and Director of the Center for the Study of Europe at Boston University. Schmidt has held appointments as visiting professor at a number of European institutions, including Sciences Po in Paris, the European University Institute in Florence, the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, and the Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, where she is currently a faculty affiliate and chair of the EU studies group. Her areas of interest are European political economy, institutions and democracy, as well as political and institutional theory. Her current work centers on the impact of the European Union on the quality of member-state democracy and the impact of the economic crisis on European capitalisms and welfare states, explanations of institutional change, in particular with regard to the role of ideas and discursive interactions. She is author of: “Democracy and Legitimacy in the European Union Revised: Input, Output and Throughput”, Political Studies, forthcoming “Democracy in Europe: The EU and National Polities”, Oxford University Press, 2006 “In the Light and Shadow of the Single Currency: European Identity and Citizenship”, in: The Other Side of the Coin: The Euro and Citizenship (ed. Giovanni Moro), Continuum, 2012
Loukas Tsoukalis (PhD, University of Oxford) is president of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), professor of the Jean Monnet Chair in European Organizations at Athens University and visiting professor at the College of Europe. He has worked in several institutions, such as: John Hopkins University, University of Oxford, London School of Economics and the European University Institute, were he was responsible for the Pierre Werner Chair of Robert Schuman Centre. He has worked at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), presided the think-tank Synthesis – European Studies, Research and Strategy, from Athens, and participated of the Economic and Social Research Council, in the UK. He has organized several conjuncture analysis for the European Commission and was special envoy of the Ministry of National Economy of Greece at Washington D.C. during this country’s presidency in the European Council. He is the author of: “What Kind of Europe?”, Oxford University Press, 2003 “The Delphic Oracle on Europe: Is there a Future for the European Union?”, Oxford University Press, 2011 “European Disintegration? Markets, Institutions and Legitimacy”, Journal of Democracy, 2012
Application The workshop on European Union Research is open to students enrolled in Master’s or PhD programs in Politics, International Relations, Law, Social Sciences, History or Economics and based in Brazil.
Interested students should send an abstract (500 words) of their research and a CV by March 15th. Applications should be sent to ri@fgv.br. Approved students will have to submit their piece – in English - until April 15th. We have limited slots for this workshop.
The Center for International Relations will provide some financial support to cover part of the travel costs for students that come from outside Rio de Janeiro. The amount will depend on the number of participants.
Center for International Relations at FGV The Social Sciences and History School/CPDOC Fundação Getulio Vargas 190, Praia de Botafogo – 14th floor Rio de Janeiro | 22250-900 Brazil Phone: +55 (21) 3799-5605 Fax: + 55(21) 3799-5679 ri@fgv.br www.ri.fgv.br/ www.twitter.com/cpdocfgv
Na RBPI 2/2012 - O Barão do Rio Branco no Itamaraty (1902 - 1912)
Clodoaldo Bueno
Este ano, em que se rememora o falecimento do barão do Rio Branco, é
oportuno revisitar o legado do patrono da diplomacia brasileira, até porque seu
país movimenta-se no contexto regional de forma diversa de sua tradição, embora
a América do Sul de hoje possua alguns traços conjunturais formalmente
semelhantes àqueles da primeira década do século XX.
Rio Branco pensou e agiu como um geopolítico, mas guiado pelo senso de
observação, instinto e faro político. Leu o contexto internacional apegado à
concretitude dos fatos e despreocupado em traduzir para seus atos de política
externa idéias então em circulação no Ocidente, como o Destino Manifesto, a
superioridade de raça ou a importância da guerra como elemento de coesão
nacional. Realista, tinha consciência dos limites da influência do Brasil na
América do Sul. Apesar de gozar de prestígio e respeito dentro e fora do país,
lastreados num histórico de sucessos e bom senso diplomático, nunca alardeou
desejo de ver seu país exercendo liderança nessa área nem levou a efeito uma
política externa agressiva e arrogante escudada em ideais de projeção nacional.
Ao assumir a pasta, acumulara uma experiência de mais de duas décadas
fora do país. Vivera sobretudo em Paris, Londres e Liverpool, de onde conhecera
de perto o núcleo do capitalismo industrial na sua etapa imperialista e
acompanhara as atividades das grandes empresas, que não raro atuavam com
cobertura diplomática dos governos de seus países de origem. Na questão do
Acre, a primeira que enfrentou imediatamente após a assunção da chancelaria,
agiu como alguém que conhecia a linguagem e maneira de atuar dos financistas e
especuladores internacionais.
Os anos de 1902 a 1918 correspondem ao
auge da Primeira República brasileira, até porque nele se destaca o brilho da
larga gestão de Rio Branco no Ministério das Relações Exteriores. Em termos
econômicos, o Brasil expandiu sua economia agroexportadora, cuja especialização
no café foi levada aos seus limites extremos. O alinhamento Washington-Rio de
Janeiro, uma das marcas da gestão Rio Branco, em boa parte foi adequação aos
vínculos comerciais já solidamente estabelecidos entre os dois países. Os Estados
Unidos, com a livre entrada concedida ao café proveniente do Brasil, somada às
dimensões de seu mercado consumidor, dispunham de um eficaz meio de pressão
para forçar a obtenção de vantagens aduaneiras. Para o Brasil, a livre entrada
concedida ao café tinha um custo, nomeadamente o desestímulo à industrialização
em razão da entrada maciça de produtos manufaturados favorecida pelo
rebaixamento de direitos de alfândega concedido às mercadorias norte-americanas.
Embora o Chanceler não tenha
inaugurado a inflexão da política externa brasileira em direção aos Estados
Unidos, deu a ela um sentido utilitário, além de ter consolidado e aprofundado
tendências. Rio Branco não temia o expansionismo dos Estados Unidos e era
compreensivo com a ação deles na América Central, uma vez que subscrevia os
termos do corolário Roosevelt, o que facilitava aos dois países a aproximação, que,
segundo ele, funcionaria como elemento neutralizador de eventuais ingerências nas
questões internacionais do Brasil. A amizade norte-americana, apesar do
aparente paradoxo, provocava alargamento virtual nas margens dos movimentos brasileiros.
Dir-se-ia que Rio Branco perseguia uma política de hands off nessa área. A aproximação, como ele a concebia, não
implicava ver seu país na posição de caudatário, até porque não estava
vinculada a compromissos. Por outro lado, não se traduziu em apoio
norte-americano ao Brasil em suas pendências internacionais, aliás nunca
solicitado por Rio Branco. Independente de estratégia, a aproximação levada a
efeito por Rio Branco (entusiasticamente coadjuvado por Joaquim Nabuco,
embaixador do Brasil em Washington), foi unilateral, isto é, sem a equivalência
do governo de Washington. O próprio Chanceler, perto do final de sua gestão,
desencantou-se com a diplomacia norte-americana. De qualquer forma, a
aproximação entre os dois países não pode ser vista como um objetivo em si
mesmo, nem primordial; o mais importante acabou sendo sua visibilidade, embora
não planejada. Rio Branco movimentou-a como uma peça, cujo alcance só pode ser
aquilatado ao se considerar o jogo inteiro, cuja meta primeira foi a solução
das questões de fronteira ainda pendentes. A grande obra de Rio Branco como
ministro foi concluir a tarefa na qual se envolvera antes de assumir a
chancelaria, dando sequência à obra iniciada no período colonial e continuada pelos
diplomatas do Império, de fixação dos limites do território nacional mediante o
fechamento definitivo de suas fronteiras por meio de arbitramentos com a
Argentina (questão das Missões, 1895) e França (questão do Amapá, 1900), na
condição de advogado do Brasil, e de tratados, quando chanceler, com a Bolívia
(questão do Acre, 1903), Equador (1904), Holanda (Guiana, 1906), Colômbia
(1907), Peru (1909) e Uruguai (1909). O sucesso nos movimentos impostos pela
defesa da soberania e naqueles motivados ou conectados à política de prestígio,
deu nova presença ao Brasil no cenário internacional, no qual podia se
apresentar como uma nação territorialmente satisfeita, rearmada no oceano com o
que tinha de mais moderno no mundo, com os compromissos financeiros em dia,
sediando a 3ª Conferência Internacional Americana, marcando presença na 2ª
Conferência de Paz em Haia, sem problemas de fronteira e desobrigado de
compromissos internacionais. Segundo o próprio Rio Branco seu país elevava-se a
outro patamar no concerto internacional, desinteressando-se das estéreis
questões entre as nações sul-americanas para atuar em um círculo mais elevado,
o das grandes amizades internacionais.
Clodoaldo Bueno é Professor Titutlar da Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP).
O Boletim é uma publicação bimensal em formato digital, dedicada a promover a reflexão, a pesquisa e o debate acadêmico sobre os temas da agenda internacional contemporânea e publica contribuições inéditas na forma de artigos científicos breves e resenhas de livros, cuja temática se situe na grande área de Relações Internacionais, e mais particularmente sobre Política Internacional, História das Relações Internacionais e da Política Exterior, Análise de Política Externa, Economia Internacional, Instituições e Regimes Internacionais e sobre questões envolvendo áreas geográficas e países. Todos os artigos serão submetidos a arbitragem científica e a publicação de contribuições será sempre amparada pelas recomendações do Conselho Editorial e pela análise dos pareceres produzidos.
Normas de Colaboração O Boletim publica artigos científicos e resenhas de livros; Os artigos devem conter entre 20 mil e 25 mil caracteres (incluindo espaços) e as resenhas de livros devem conter cerca de 6 mil caracteres (espaços inclusive); As notas de rodapé restringem-se a esclarecimentos adicionais ao texto; A bibliografia deve ser citada de acordo com o sistema Chicago (Autor, data), referenciando a literatura citada ao final do texto; As contribuições devem ser inéditas e podem ser submetidas em português, inglês ou espanhol; As contribuições devem conter o nome completo do autor, sua titulação e filiação institucional; No caso de resenhas de livros, devem ser informados os dados completos e o ISBN da obra analisada; As contribuições devem vir acompanhadas de: 3 palavras-chave em português e 3 key words em inglês; Título em inglês; Resumo em português e abstract em inglês, ambos com até 50 palavras. O processo de análise editorial se estende por cerca de 20 (vinte) dias úteis. As submissões se fazem em fluxo contínuo e aqui.
Da coluna diária do jornalista gaúcho Políbio Braga (1/02/2013):
Dilma adota o modelo kirschnerista de combate à inflação. É tudo puro voluntarismo econômico Nesta sexta-feira, o ex-deputado, ex-prefeito do Rio e ex-secretário da Fazenda de Brizola, Cesar Maia, que é também economista, desenhou algumas linhas sobre o caótico modelo de combate à inflação movido pelo governo Dilma Roussef, que parece ter abandonado os fundamentos do Plano Real e enveredou pelo aventureirismo já em prática na Argentina. Trata-se do modelo kirschnerista de combate à inflação. Acompanhe as medidas voluntaristas das ações mais recentes de Dilma. 1. Telefona para prefeitos e governadores e pede para segurarem o reajuste anual das tarifas de ônibus, metrô e trens. 2. Liga para o Banco Central e manda comprar uns bilhões para derrubar o dólar e, com isso, baratear as importações. 3. Vai à TV e manda baixar a conta de luz. 4. Passa um e-mail para a presidente da Petrobras e manda aguentar o prejuízo mais um pouquinho e segurar o preço dos combustíveis. 5. Pede ao presidente do Banco Central para não elevar o juro básico mesmo com a inflação passando de 6,5%. 6. As medidas anti-inflacionárias de Dilma seguem rigorosamente a receita da equipe de Cristina Kirchner. Uma exceção: ainda não houve a intervenção no IBGE como foi feita no INDEC argentino.
