O Insurgente

A minha análise, hoje,  na RTP Informação.

“In the most important Supreme Court case of his term in office, President Barack Obama will be defending a policy that he opposed as a candidate. During the 2008 Democratic primaries, one of the few differences he had with rival Hillary Clinton was that her health-care plan featured an individual mandate to purchase health insurance, while Obama rejected a mandate on principle. But the health-care law he eventually signed included a mandate, and the court has now agreed to rule on whether that is constitutional. Obama’s position during the primaries accorded with the elementary principle that there should be a strong presumption against ordering people to do something. Even people who, like Obama, now believe that a mandate is necessary can agree with this principle. A presumption, even a strong one, can, of course, be overcome for good reasons. In the case of the individual mandate, those reasons don’t exist. Obama was right the first time.”, na Bloomberg (“Mandatory Insurance Is Wrong Fix In Health Care”).

Um excelente artigo acerca de um assunto tão sensível quanto a Saúde…

“Os trabalhadores da eléctrica estatal grega conseguiram ontem a marcha atrás do governo de Atenas no controverso imposto sobre a propriedade, cobrado através da electricidade. Quem não pagasse o imposto sujeitava-se a um apagão. Com os funcionários públicos a invadirem ontem vários edifícios da companhia nacional de electricidade, fontes oficiais da empresa anunciaram que os planos para punir os incumpridores foram suspensos de momento na sequência de um pedido do Ministério das Finanças (…) na semana passada, membros do sindicato Genop-Deh cortaram a electricidade ao Ministério das Finanças durante várias horas e ontem bloquearam a entrada do escritório onde são emitidos os cortes de energia aos consumidores com facturas em atraso. ‘Podem prender-nos, mas não vamos cortar a electricidade aos pobres’, gritavam os manifestantes do sindicato Genop-Deh, que se tornou num poderoso aliado do movimento de desobediência civil ‘Não pago’ (…) Papademos disse que o governo tem pela frente uma ‘tarefa hercúlea’, mas irá fornecer garantias ‘por escrito’ de cumprimento dos compromissos junto das instituições europeias, sem se comprometer com datas. Mas o líder da Nova Democracia, Antonis Samaras, continua relutante em assinar o documento da austeridade.”, hoje no Diário Económico (página 24)

Via Cafe Hayek, What the eurozone crisis teaches us about the subprime crisis:

Consider the following:

Banks pour huge amounts of money into one particular asset class. They are encouraged to do this by public policymakers .. These assets have a long tradition of doing well .. The asset market in question suddenly takes a big dive as default risk increases sharply. This drags down many large banks, forcing policymakers to provide assistance.

What have I just described? The sub-prime fiasco or the PIGS sovereign debt fiasco? I’d say both. I’d say these two crises are essentially identical ..

.. let’s consider the dominant (progressive) narrative of the sub-prime crisis. If you read the mainstream media you will see it described as a sort of morality play; the evils of deregulation, which allowed the greedy big banks to take highly leveraged gambles with other people’s money, and then off-load the risk on to both taxpayers and unsuspecting buyers of MBSs ..

Obviously it would be impossible to tell a similar story for the sovereign debt crisis. No regulator in his right mind would ever contemplate telling big banks not to buy European sovereign debt because it’s too risky. Indeed the previous attempt at regulation (Basel II) encouraged banks to put funds into those “safe investments.” Blaming the euro crisis on deregulation doesn’t even pass the laugh test. The criminals were the regulators themselves. Is the term ‘criminal’ hyperbole on my part? Not at all. Suppose Enron executives had used the same accounting techniques as the Greek government. They’d all be in jail. And as for Berlusconi, what can one say about a leader who continually passes laws exempting the Prime Minister from the very crimes he was accused of having committed? ..

.. the eurozone crisis was obviously not caused by deregulation and greedy bankers. Then if the sub-prime crisis was basically identical, at least in its essence, how can deregulation be the root cause of the former crisis?

“(…) The current Government has submitted to the Parliament (Assembleia da República) a new law proposal (which revises a prior law) to promote the recapitalization of the banking system with €12bn of public funds. The law proposal has been unanimously approved by the Economics and Public Works Committee. It is to be discussed and voted this week (November 22) by the plenary, a mere 15 days after it was first submitted to the Parliament. Sadly, the recapitalization option is far more costly than what international best practice would recommend (special resolution regime), and it is poorly implemented (…) In fact, the casual ease with which our policy leaders and legislators dispense with large sums of public funds does not cease to surprise me. It is really a case of cutting costs on the pennies in order splurge on bit item expenditures. In return for this large outlay of capital, the government gets very little back (…) In sum, the law proposal should be rejected (though I have little hope of seeing this happening). There are far better and less costly alternatives, namely one based on a special resolution regime. A special resolution regime would ensure a functioning and healthy banking system, at a fraction of the costs. This bank recapitalization law will do neither.”, Ricardo Cabral, no “The Portuguese Economy”.

“(…) it is impossible for a country to balance its government and business deficits while running a trade deficit. This is an accounting identity and is true for all countries at all times. Greece and others are in a monster predicament. No amount of austerity will work until their labor costs drop (for both private and government workers) and their trade deficits are brought into alignment.”, John Mauldin, (“Print or Perish”).

“Welcome to Europe, 2021. Ten years have elapsed since the great crisis of 2010-11, which claimed the scalps of no fewer than 10 governments, including Spain and France. Some things have stayed the same, but a lot has changed. The euro is still circulating, though banknotes are now seldom seen. (Indeed, the ease of electronic payments now makes some people wonder why creating a single European currency ever seemed worth the effort.) But Brussels has been abandoned as Europe’s political headquarters. Vienna has been a great success (…) Life is still far from easy in the peripheral states of the United States of Europe (as the euro zone is now known). Unemployment in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain has soared to 20%. But the creation of a new system of fiscal federalism in 2012 has ensured a steady stream of funds from the north European core.”, Niall Ferguson no Wall Street Journal (“The New Europe”).

Com 95% dos votos contados, o PP tem 186 deputados e o PSOE 110. Os populares chegam aos dez milhões de votos e a diferença entre os dois maiores partidos supera as previsões lançadas no inicio da noite. Já está, parece que não há mais história. Acabou a festa. A festa socialista. Agora é preciso limpar a imundície deixada pelos foliões e arranjar os estragos. E pagar a conta, claro. Há que deixar tudo em condições, porque daqui a uma, duas ou três legislaturas os pândegos podem voltar, e, quando isso acontecer, querem ter a casa limpinha e arrumada para recomeçar a farra. E aqui estaremos, à vossa disposição, meus senhores. Ass: os contribuintes.

O PSOE perde em todas as regiões de Espanha. Por província, sobrevive apenas em Sevilha e Barcelona.

A esquerda radical pode ter ganho dez deputados, de um total de 350, aos quais se pode juntar a meia dúzia de uma coligação regional e terrorista. 16 em 350. Suspeito que vamos ouvir muitas vezes a tese de que os indignaditos e a verdadeira esquerda tiveram uma grande vitória nas eleições espanholas. Se perdessem menos tempo com “acampadas” e assembleias, e se se dedicassem a estudar, talvez aprendessem a fazer contas.

As primeiras sondagens dão a maioria absoluta ao PP, como se esperava, e confirmam a derrocada do PSOE. IU e UPyD sobem. Amaiur entra no parlamento.

What is Normal?:

The EPA has a new slideshow purporting to aggregate these “abnormalities.” While I could spend all year going through each slide, I want to focus on just one.

.. Here is a longer history of that same glacier (thanks to the Real Science blog for the pointer, this is a much better map than the one I have used in the past).

Those who want to attribute the recent retreat to CO2 have to explain what drove the glacier to retreat all that way from 1760 to 1960, and why that factor stopped in 1960 at exactly the time Co2 supposedly took over.

By the way, this same exact story can be seen in glaciers around the world. Glaciers began retreating at the end of the little ice age, and if anything that pace of retreat has slowed somewhat over the last few decades.

Keynes’s “Screwball Idea” por Don Boudreaux:

Bob Higgs’s latest post – on the bizarre Chapter 24 of Keynes’s General Theory (a chapter that, in my view, disqualifies Keynes from being regarded as a capable economist) – deserves its own link here.

The Euthanasia of the Saver:

In chapter 24 of The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, John Maynard Keynes laid out his screwball idea that capital might soon become, or be made to become, no longer scarce; hence no payment would have to be made to induce people to save, and that condition would be splendid inasmuch as it would entail the “euthanasia of the rentier.” This stuff really must be seen to be believed ..

Um lied (com Fischer-Dieskau, pois claro, mas também podia ser com Thomas Hampson). Ou o espantoso, na sua modernidade, Quarteto para Cordas n.15. Ou os Impromptus. Ou a Incompleta. Hoje é dia de ouvir Franz Schubert. Trinta e um anos de vida que deixaram uma marca eterna.