sexta-feira, janeiro 30, 2009

An experiment that hints we are wrong on climate change

O governo português andou a gastar milhões para nos livrar do aquecimento global.
Construiram ventoinhas (da Siemens) que dão prejuizo por todo o lado.Pois bem, afinal parece que a terra está a arrefecer.Este artigo do Sunday Times é elucidativo:

Nigel Calder, former editor of New Scientist, says the orthodoxy must be challenged

When politicians and journalists declare that the science of global warming is settled, they show a regrettable ignorance about how science works. We were treated to another dose of it recently when the experts of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued the Summary for Policymakers that puts the political spin on an unfinished scientific dossier on climate change due for publication in a few months’ time. They declared that most of the rise in temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to man-made greenhouse gases.
The small print explains “very likely” as meaning that the experts who made the judgment felt 90% sure about it. Older readers may recall a press conference at Harwell in 1958 when Sir John Cockcroft, Britain’s top nuclear physicist, said he was 90% certain that his lads had achieved controlled nuclear fusion. It turned out that he was wrong. More positively, a 10% uncertainty in any theory is a wide open breach for any latterday Galileo or Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really works.
Twenty years ago, climate research became politicised in favour of one particular hypothesis, which redefined the subject as the study of the effect of greenhouse gases. As a result, the rebellious spirits essential for innovative and trustworthy science are greeted with impediments to their research careers. And while the media usually find mavericks at least entertaining, in this case they often imagine that anyone who doubts the hypothesis of man-made global warming must be in the pay of the oil companies. As a result, some key discoveries in climate research go almost unreported.
Enthusiasm for the global-warming scare also ensures that heatwaves make headlines, while contrary symptoms, such as this winter’s billion-dollar loss of Californian crops to unusual frost, are relegated to the business pages. The early arrival of migrant birds in spring provides colourful evidence for a recent warming of the northern lands. But did anyone tell you that in east Antarctica the Adélie penguins and Cape petrels are turning up at their spring nesting sites around nine days later than they did 50 years ago? While sea-ice has diminished in the Arctic since 1978, it has grown by 8% in the Southern Ocean.
Background
‘Blame cosmic rays for warming up the planet’
No excuse for soft climate change laws
Jeremy Clarkson: Cornered by the green lynch mob
So one awkward question you can ask, when you’re forking out those extra taxes for climate change, is “Why is east Antarctica getting colder?” It makes no sense at all if carbon dioxide is driving global warming. While you’re at it, you might inquire whether Gordon Brown will give you a refund if it’s confirmed that global warming has stopped. The best measurements of global air temperatures come from American weather satellites, and they show wobbles but no overall change since 1999.
That levelling off is just what is expected by the chief rival hypothesis, which says that the sun drives climate changes more emphatically than greenhouse gases do. After becoming much more active during the 20th century, the sun now stands at a high but roughly level state of activity. Solar physicists warn of possible global cooling, should the sun revert to the lazier mood it was in during the Little Ice Age 300 years ago.
Climate history and related archeology give solid support to the solar hypothesis. The 20th-century episode, or Modern Warming, was just the latest in a long string of similar events produced by a hyperactive sun, of which the last was the Medieval Warming.
The Chinese population doubled then, while in Europe the Vikings and cathedral-builders prospered. Fascinating relics of earlier episodes come from the Swiss Alps, with the rediscovery in 2003 of a long-forgotten pass used intermittently whenever the world was warm.
What does the Intergovernmental Panel do with such emphatic evidence for an alternation of warm and cold periods, linked to solar activity and going on long before human industry was a possible factor? Less than nothing. The 2007 Summary for Policymakers boasts of cutting in half a very small contribution by the sun to climate change conceded in a 2001 report.
Disdain for the sun goes with a failure by the self-appointed greenhouse experts to keep up with inconvenient discoveries about how the solar variations control the climate. The sun’s brightness may change too little to account for the big swings in the climate. But more than 10 years have passed since Henrik Svensmark in Copenhagen first pointed out a much more powerful mechanism.
He saw from compilations of weather satellite data that cloudiness varies according to how many atomic particles are coming in from exploded stars. More cosmic rays, more clouds. The sun’s magnetic field bats away many of the cosmic rays, and its intensification during the 20th century meant fewer cosmic rays, fewer clouds, and a warmer world. On the other hand the Little Ice Age was chilly because the lazy sun let in more cosmic rays, leaving the world cloudier and gloomier.
The only trouble with Svensmark’s idea — apart from its being politically incorrect — was that meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation. After long delays in scraping together the funds for an experiment, Svensmark and his small team at the Danish National Space Center hit the jackpot in the summer of 2005.
In a box of air in the basement, they were able to show that electrons set free by cosmic rays coming through the ceiling stitched together droplets of sulphuric acid and water. These are the building blocks for cloud condensation. But journal after journal declined to publish their report; the discovery finally appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society late last year.
Thanks to having written The Manic Sun, a book about Svensmark’s initial discovery published in 1997, I have been privileged to be on the inside track for reporting his struggles and successes since then. The outcome is a second book, The Chilling Stars, co-authored by the two of us and published next week by Icon books. We are not exaggerating, we believe, when we subtitle it “A new theory of climate change”.
Where does all that leave the impact of greenhouse gases? Their effects are likely to be a good deal less than advertised, but nobody can really say until the implications of the new theory of climate change are more fully worked out.
The reappraisal starts with Antarctica, where those contradictory temperature trends are directly predicted by Svensmark’s scenario, because the snow there is whiter than the cloud-tops. Meanwhile humility in face of Nature’s marvels seems more appropriate than arrogant assertions that we can forecast and even control a climate ruled by the sun and the stars.
From The Sunday Times
February 11, 2007

Gente normal

Portugal do que precisa é de gente normal no governo.
Não precisamos de um governo que tem medo do clima, que queira pôr chips nos caixotes do lixo, nos Bilhetes de Indentidade e nas matrículas.
Não precisamos de um governo que obrigue os professores, os donos dos restaurantes e das fabricas de alimentação a passarem horas a preencher papeis, a arquivá-los e as pô-los no lixo passados uns meses.
Chega de desperdicio de tempo e dinheiro
Chega de coisas estupidas e de gente estupida e desonesta.
Estamos fartos de alertas amarelos, vermelhos e verdes.
Estamos cansados de agencias e institututos.
Milhões de contos gastos em estudos, maquetes e ideias parvas.
TGVês e aeroportos.
Corrupção e ladroagem.
De fechos de tascas e restaurantes, de homossexuais e eutanásias, de abortos e divórcios.
Queremos gente normal no governo, com defeitos e virtudes .
Não precisam de ser vendedores de banha da cobra basta que trabalhem e não chateiem
Chega de querer mudar tudo. Deixem por uns tempos de fazer leis, vão de férias com o dinheiro que já ganharam.
Deixem-nos em paz e sossego , deixem-nos trabalhar.

quinta-feira, janeiro 29, 2009

Apelo ao Presidente

Estou enojado, revoltado e zangado.

Só há neste momento um homem que nos pode salvar : o Presidente da Republica.
Só o Presidente tem o prestigio para tomar conta do governo e da presidência
Esperemos que faça alguma coisa rápido
Se não fizer temos que ser nós a fazer

Vai estoirar

Dados os ultimos acontecimentos é politicamente impossível levar à pratica o que defendi nos ultimos posts. O sistema financeiro português vai estoirar e com ele vamos nós.

segunda-feira, janeiro 26, 2009

A culpa é do fascismo, claro...

Todos sabemos que o fascismo foi um atraso de vida. Vale a pena verificar com números o valor de tal atraso aqui

Encontre as diferenças

1ª Hipotese : Dinheiro Limpo:
O Sr X faz um negócio ilegal e deposita o caroço num OfShore . A off shore compra obrigações do estado português :
Resultado: o Estado fica com uma divida ao aldrabão e ainda lhe paga juros.

2ª Hipotese : Dinheiro sujo
O sr X faz um negócio ilegal e deposita o caroço numa offshore.A off shore deposita o dinheiro num banco português o banco paga -lhe o juro e o estado dá-lhe mais 3% .
Resultado: o banco fica com a divida e o estado paga o juro ao aldrabão

É sempre sujo

Pergunta um leitor «E seria moralmente admissível salvar bancos recorrendo ao branqueamento de capitais?»

Eu não tenho grandes ilusões quanto ao dinheiro . Tem duas carateristicas:
É sempre sujo e não tem cheiro.Dinheiro branqueado nunca vi.

A minha resposta é : Sim penso que é moralmente justo usar dinheiro sujo para salvar o país, até porque não há outro. O outro o Estado já arrebentou com ele

Ideias

O tema de primeira página do Finantial Times do fim de semana era se o Estado Inglês vai ou não vai falir.O sistema financeiro mundial está a entrar em colapso total.O nosso seguirá as pisadas se não for feito nada.O governo devia concentrar-se primeiro em salvar os bancos.

Ideias para tentar salvar o nosso sistema financeiro com poucos custos:

1-Promulgar o sigilo bancario absoluto
2- Bonificar os depositos a prazo com um subsidio de 3%Isto tinhas duas vantagens:Trazia para os bancos todo o dinheiro que anda debaixo dos colchões e parte do que anda em off-Shores e fazia com que o estado não tivesse que se endividar mais para salvar a banca.

sexta-feira, janeiro 23, 2009

O fim do socialismo

Dizia Medina Carreira aqui há uns tempos que seis milhões de portugueses dependem do Estado.
Quer isto dizer que quatro milhões trabalhavam para seis milhões.
Com a depressão a aproximar-se rapidamente e o desemprego a subir vão ser cada vez menos a trabalhar para sustentar cada vez mais.
Solução?
Não há.
Vai-se pregar tudo à porrada
A unica vantagem é que isto é o fim do socialismo mas vai ser um fim doloroso para todos nós.
Foi para isto que nos conduziram nos ultimos anos

Quanto é que o Estado enfiou nesta empresa?A Quimonda

Não sei mas este comentário a uma noticia do Publico de 2007 é interessante:PUBLICO.PT
«A verdade tem de ser reposta. Este investimento de 100 milhões de euros é independente da actual Qimonda de fábrico de memorias, esta atravessa uma grave crise, e o director geral de Munique Sr. Kin Low admitiu depedir 10% de recursos humanos, 10% é o equivalente a uma fábrica e a escolha vai recair sobre a Qimonda Porto, porque face a desvalorização do dólar a unidade a encerrar tem de ser Europeia. Ou Dresden ou Porto, como Dresden acertou esta semana uma parceria de troca de engenheiros com Hiroxima (japão-Elpidia) o Porto sai a perder. 2010 é a data porque acaba, os financiamentos comunitários, Sócrates enterra dinheiro num négocio já com anuncio fechado. A comunicação social deve falar é com os trabalhadores que estão a sofrer pressão para abafar a informação»

Faliu o maior exportador português

quinta-feira, janeiro 22, 2009

Vá o diabo e escolha

Se a causa da crise foi a especulação a causa da especulação foi a politica monetária do FED e do Banco Central Europeu.
A especulação dá-se devido a taxas de juro muito baixas. Tem que ser combatida no principio evitando a criação da bolha elevando as taxas de juro. Quando a bolha está criada a subida das taxas de juro faz com que a bolha rebente criando uma crise em todo o sistema.

Posto isto só há duas hipoteses para explicar a politica:~
Ou incompetencia ou maldade

Onde é que está o dinheiro?




Se olharmos para esta imagem (click)
percebemos para onde é que foi o dinheiro:


Vamos supor que o produto especulativo era um kg de arroz


1-Um banco com 50 euros de capital empresta 50 euros ao especulador, ficando como garantia do cumprimento da divida com a hipoteca do kg de arroz (1)


2-O especulador compra a outro especulador o kg de arroz por 50 euros(1)


3-O segundo especulador deposita o dinheiro no banco(1)


4- A arroz desvaloriza para um euro o kg.(2)


5- O primeiro especulador fica em dificuldades e o banco fica-lhe com o arroz perdendo 49 euros.(2)


6- O dinheiro está no banco mas deixou de pertencer ao banco e passou a pertencer ao segundo especulador. O banco perdeu quase todo o capital


7-O segundo especulador percebe que o banco está em dificuldades retira o dinheiro do banco e compra obrigações do estado(3)


8-O estado começa a fazer disparates e rebenta com o dinheiro


quarta-feira, janeiro 21, 2009

A propósito

AMY GOODMAN: As the credit crisis continues to grow and the US dollar hits a new low, we turn today to the former Chair of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan. Alan Greenspan headed the central bank in the United States for almost two decades. He was first appointed to this position in 1987 by President Ronald Reagan. Greenspan retired in January 2006, after deciding the fate of national interest rates under four different presidents. Dubbed “the Maestro,” he was widely regarded as one of the world’s most influential economic policymakers. He has just written a new 500-page memoir; it’s called The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World.
Alan Greenspan joins us now on the phone. And in our studio we’re joined again by journalist Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine. We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Welcome, Alan Greenspan.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Thank you very much. I’m delighted.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. You worked with six presidents, with President Reagan, with both President Bushes. You worked with President Ford, and you worked with Bill Clinton, who you have called a Republican president; why?
ALAN GREENSPAN: That was supposed to be a quasi-joke.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about it.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, Clinton?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, I stated that I’m a libertarian Republican, which means I believe in a series of issues, such as smaller government, constraint on budget deficits, free markets, globalization, and a whole series of other things, including welfare reform. And as you may remember, Bill Clinton was pretty much in the same—was doing much that same agenda. And so, I got to consider him as someone—as he described it, we were both an odd couple, because he is a centrist Democrat. And that’s not all that far from libertarian Republicanism.
AMY GOODMAN: About how much would you say you agreed with him?
ALAN GREENSPAN: On economic issues, I would say probably 80%.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about President Bush?
ALAN GREENSPAN: President Bush had the wonderful characteristic of knowing that it was not to his advantage or to ours to interfere with the actions of the Federal Reserve. And I must say, through all of his years, he never once second-guessed what the Fed was doing. And that was very important to us, and we’ve been very much appreciative of that.
But, as I say in the book, he did not clamp down, as I thought was necessary, on what was a wayward Republican-controlled Congress, which I thought lost its way and started to spend and create all sorts of fiscal imbalances. And, essentially, what I hold—where I thought the administration could have done far better is if the veto were employed. And as you may remember, he did not use the veto at all. And that, what I thought, would have created a much more balanced procedure in the Congress. So it’s a mixed case in this regard.
AMY GOODMAN: Alan Greenspan, let’s talk about the war in Iraq. You said what for many in your circles is the unspeakable, that the war in Iraq was for oil. Can you explain?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Yes. The point I was making was that if there were no oil under the sands of Iraq, Saddam Hussein would have never been able to accumulate the resources which enabled him to threaten his neighbors, Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia. And having watched him for thirty years, I was very fearful that he, if he ever achieved—and I thought he might very well be able to buy one—an atomic device, he would have essentially endeavored and perhaps succeeded in controlling the flow of oil through the Straits of Hormuz, which is the channel through which eighteen or nineteen million barrels a day of the world eighty-five million barrel crude oil production flows. Had he decided to shut down, say, seven million barrels a day, which he could have done if he controlled, he could have essentially also shut down a significant part of economic activity throughout the world.
The size of the threat that he posed, as I saw it emerging, I thought was scary. And so, getting him out of office or getting him out of the control position he was in, I thought, was essential. And whether that be done by one means or another was not as important, but it’s clear to me that were there not the oil resources in Iraq, the whole picture of how that part of the Middle East developed would have been different.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined in studio by Naomi Klein, author of the book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. Your response to that, Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I’m just wondering if it troubles Mr. Greenspan at all that wars over resources in other countries are actually illegal. Mr. Greenspan has praised the rule of law, the importance of the rule of law, in his book. But in his statements about the reasons why this has not been publicly discussed, he has said that it’s not politically expedient at this moment. But it’s not just that it’s not politically expedient, Mr. Greenspan. Are you aware that, according to the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, it is illegal for one country to invade another over its natural resources?
ALAN GREENSPAN: No. What I was saying is that the issue which, as you know, most people who were pressing for the war were concerned with were weapons of mass destruction. I personally believed that Saddam was behaving in a way that he probably very well had, almost certainly had, weapons of mass destruction. I was surprised, as most, that he didn’t. But what I was saying is that my reason for being pleased to see Saddam out of office had nothing to do with the weapons of mass destruction. It had to do with the potential threat that he could create to the rest of the world.
NAOMI KLEIN: Yes, I realize that, but he was not simply deposed. The US invaded Iraq, occupied it and took control over its resources. And under international law, that it is illegal to wage wars to gain access to other countries’, sovereign countries’, natural resources.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Yes. No, I’m fully aware of the fact that that is a highly, terribly important issue. And as I said in other commentaries, I have always thought the issue of what essentially amounts to what is often called pre-emptive, preventive action on the part of some countries to secure resources or something else like that, it’s an issue that goes back to the Cold War, when we had the very difficult moral dilemma of what do you do when you think a missile is coming in our direction and you’re not sure whether it’s an accident or not an accident. And that is a problem which I think is a deep moral problem in civilized society. And the issue is one which I don’t think we’re going to resolve very easily. And as you point out, yes, I am a believer in the rule of law, and I think it is a critical issue, not only for domestic economies, but for the world economy as a whole.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: You have also advocated economic shock therapy and supported IMF programs that have transformed economies very, very quickly. And then, you say that you are in support of the rule of law. But I’m just wondering how, in a country like Russia, there could be rule of law when it’s being transformed in fast-forward in that way.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, remember that you don’t get a market economy merely by eliminating central planning. And remember, when the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union disintegrated, you didn’t have a market economy. What you basically had was a black market economy. And they tried to develop the institutions of the democratic society, and it’s not something which they have had back for generations. And as you can see now, there’s an increasing authoritarianism. It’s a very—it’s a society which has very different trends at different levels of that society. And I don’t know exactly where they’re coming up, but I don’t like the direction it’s been going in in recent years.
AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to go back to Iraq and ask you about, well, a piece by Jim Steele and Don Barlett that came out in Vanity Fair, where they’re talking about the billions lost in Iraq. And they begin their piece by saying, “Between April 2003 and June 2004, [$12 billion] in US currency—much of it belonging to the Iraqi people—was shipped from the Federal Reserve to Baghdad, where it was dispensed by the Coalition Provisional Authority. Some of the cash went to pay for projects and keep ministries afloat, but, incredibly, at least $9 billion has gone missing, unaccounted for, in a frenzy of mismanagement and greed.”
Alan Greenspan, when you were head of the Federal Reserve, how much knowledge do you have of this? And did you investigate this? Were you aware of this at the time?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, let me say that what we were involved in was essentially endeavoring to create a viable currency for the central bank of Iraq. And what we did do was—I think very successfully—create what is a viable financial system, even under the circumstances that currently exist. There was, as far as I can judge, a huge drain of the resources into areas which nobody to this day can understand or follow. It had nothing to do with the central bank. In our relationships with them, we were merely acting as an intermediary to assist them in creating a system, which they now have, which is working reasonably well, despite all of the problems that are going on. The issue which you are referring to had nothing to do with the Federal Reserve in any of our relationships with the central bank.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, they are talking about, in one day, for example, the East Rutherford operation center of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 100 Orchard Street in East Rutherford, a tractor-trailer truck pulling up, and though accustomed to receiving and shipping large quantities of cash, the vault had never before processed a single order of this magnitude: $2.4 billion in $100 bills. But ultimately, again, $9 billion of $12 billion gone missing in Iraq.
ALAN GREENSPAN: I am not familiar with any such evidence. And it was certainly not brought to my attention. I, frankly, find it very unlikely that those orders of magnitude were involved in any of the numbers that we were dealing with. You have to make certain that—there’s been a lot of confusion about losses, and people have used the dinar, the basic currency unit of Iraq, and assumed they were American dollars. And, of course, that gives you a highly distorted view. There’s been, I’ve seen, several reports fairly recently in which that sort of mistake was being made. But what I can tell you is that no such numbers of any order of magnitude of the type you are discussing came to the attention of the Federal Reserve.
AMY GOODMAN: This is based on that award-winning article in Vanity Fair, or the team who have won—
ALAN GREENSPAN: Let me put it this way, award-winning doesn’t necessarily—
AMY GOODMAN: Well, no, no. I mean Don Barlett and Jim Steele, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists. I’m sure you know their work. But Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, I would just add that it’s quite surprising, actually, that Mr. Greenspan is unaware of this scandal around Iraq’s missing billions, because Paul Bremer had to testify before Congress and was asked directly about those missing billions. It’s been the subject of very high-level investigations. There is a huge paper trail around it. So this is hardly a secret, and it’s hardly just a matter that’s confined to Vanity Fair. This is—
ALAN GREENSPAN: Oh, I’m not saying that the losses are not real. I think they are, because, obviously, we can’t account for all the oil revenues. I’m just merely saying it’s not something which was directly related to any of the actions which the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, to which we were referring, was involved, as far as I know.
AMY GOODMAN: Alan Greenspan, we have to break for sixty seconds, but we’ll be back with you. Alan Greenspan, the former Chair of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006. His memoir is out now; it’s called The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. We’ll be back with him in one minute. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are Naomi Klein, author of The Shock Doctrine, and Alan Greenspan, the former head, Chair, of the Federal Reserve, his book, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. In fact, you were a classical and jazz musician, weren’t you, Alan Greenspan, before you went into economics?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, I studied at Julliard, which means you’ve become a classical musician. And, indeed, that is still my fundamental interest in music. But I went on as a teenager to play in a dance band and spent a year and a half traveling around the country as a jazz musician.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I wanted to move forward to your work as head of the Fed, as head of the Federal Reserve Bank, and ask you about that piece by Paul Krugman called “Sad Alan’s Lament,” that goes to that issue of supporting President Bush’s tax cuts. In his piece, Paul Krugman says, "Mr. Greenspan has just published a book in which he castigates the Bush administration for its fiscal irresponsibility.
“Well, I’m sorry,” says Paul Krugman, “but that criticism comes six years late and a trillion dollars short.”
He says that "Mr. Greenspan now says that he didn’t mean to give the Bush tax cuts a green light, [and] that he was surprised at the political reaction to his remarks. "
He goes on to say the first big chance you had to clarify yourself came a few weeks after your initial testimony in 2001, when you appeared before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs.
He says that, again and again you were offered the opportunity to say something that would help rein in runaway tax-cutting; each time evading the question, often replying by reading from your own previous testimony.
He said, “If anyone had doubts about Mr. Greenspan’s determination not to inconvenience the Bush administration, those doubts were resolved two years later, when the administration proposed another round of tax cuts, even though the budget was now deep in deficit. And guess what? The former high priest of fiscal responsibility did not object.”
And he goes on from there. He says in 2004, you “expressed support for making the Bush tax cuts permanent—remember, these are the tax cuts he now says he didn’t endorse—and argued that the budget should be balanced with cuts in entitlement spending, including Social Security benefits, instead. Of course, back in 2001 he specifically assured Congress that cutting taxes would not threaten Social Security.”
Your response, Alan Greenspan?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, I find it very unfortunate. Paul is a good economist. I have known him for years. He is wrong as fundamentally in many of the facts—in fact probably all of the ones you’ve just cited.
First of all, I was in favor of tax cuts of any type when it looked as though, according to all the technical experts, we were confronted with very large potential increases in surpluses. If we allowed those surpluses to run when the debt of the United States essentially went to zero, we would find that the federal government was beginning to accumulate huge amounts of assets of corporate business. There was to be no alternative to that. And if you look at the possibilities of what Lyndon Johnson or Richard Nixon would have done under those circumstances, it becomes extremely scary. It was only when it appeared that the forecasts were false, that, indeed, we were not running in—or not likely to run into these large surpluses, and, indeed, they disappeared.
At that point, I reverted to my older position: namely, I was in favor of tax cuts, but only if they are matched by cuts in spending. And I, therefore, reverted to that position in congressional testimony in 2002 and 2003, in fact, to the point where I recall a number of congressmen asked me, “Do I understand you correctly? You’re saying that you are in favor of the tax cuts, but only if spending is cut. If spending is not cut, were we to read from you that you are not supporting the tax cuts?” And I said, ‘That is correct." So Paul Krugman’s view that somehow I didn’t change my mind until after I got out of office is factually false. And, indeed, I did change my mind. I changed my mind in 2002 and 2003, largely because the whole notion of which fundamentally got me in favor of significant tax cuts without offsetting expenditures was a very special event which probably had not occurred in the United States for 150 years—namely, division of our total federal debt effectively going to zero.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: Just another piece of the puzzle here that I think is important to remember is that, Alan Greenspan, in your book, you make it clear that you are ideologically very much a supporter of the principle of privatizing Social Security and, in fact, were very disappointed that the Bush administration did not pick this up after the elections in 2000. Even though they hadn’t campaigned on privatization of Social Security, you felt that they should have pushed this forward. So doesn’t creating a shortfall because of tax cuts bolster the case for privatization of Social Security that you have written you are an ideological supporter of?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, first of all, ideology is not what I hold. I try to learn what are the facts, and I let my opinions, judged on the facts, not by some preconception, which I regret is what ideology as a notion means.
First of all, let me just suggest something to you. Social Security, as it now exists and is now currently funded, will be a very small part of overall retirement income in the years ahead. There is no—in fact, no alternative, as things now stand, that a very substantial part of the so-called replacement of income that one talks about when one retires is going to have to come from the private sector. And so, no matter what is done with federal Social Security, the average person is going to have to rely ever more increasingly on private sources of income, whether it’s private savings or working or whatever. But if you look at the future of Social Security and the demographics we’re now dealing with, the extent to which it replaces lost income when you retire is decreasing.
AMY GOODMAN: Alan Greenspan, the issue of whether we have enough money in this country, do you think that that also calls into question the war in Iraq, how the US can afford to continue this war?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, the issue is, basically, the question of the commitments of Social Security, relative—and Medicare, I might add—relative to the costs of the war. There is no question that a significant amount of money is being wasted in war. That is what happens in war. And that’s—clearly we’re talking hundreds of billions. The issue here is that—
AMY GOODMAN: I believe the figure is in the trillions.
ALAN GREENSPAN:—even if the war spending were not there, we would have these problems. So it’s true that there’s a good deal of waste going on. But the problems to which I’m referring to existed before the war and will continue after the war.
AMY GOODMAN: The sub-prime crisis that we are seeing today, many saying that you seriously contributed to this, laid the foundation with keeping the interest rates low.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, the sub-prime crisis did occur as a result of lower interest rates. The lower interest rates, however, are, if one takes a look at the whole context of rising home prices throughout the world, is clearly a global issue. It is the result of fundamental changes that occurred as a consequence of the end of the Cold War, and that housing bubbles appear in more than two dozen countries around the world, which screams for an explanation that is global, not individual. So we in the United States—
AMY GOODMAN: I know that you’re going to have to leave soon.
ALAN GREENSPAN: May I just finish?
AMY GOODMAN: Yes. Go ahead.
ALAN GREENSPAN: We in the United States basically try to get mortgage interest rates up and slow the bubble. And remember, it’s the bubble which created a goodly part of the problem which we have had in the sub-prime market. And we failed. And that tells us, basically, that it’s the global forces that are at play here.
But just going—taking a step back, I think it would be a terrible mistake if we look at the sub-prime market and decide it should be eliminated, because I think it’s been a very successful market to allow many people in this country to have homes, which wouldn’t otherwise be able to have them. The sub-prime market has a lot of technical problems wrong with it, and there are many issues that are involved with financial securitization alike, which created difficulties. I hope in the process we don’t eliminate the sub-prime market.
AMY GOODMAN: Alan Greenspan, you write in the end of your book, “A Federal Reserve System that will be confronted with the challenge of inflation pressure and populist politics that have been relatively quiescent in recent years” is something that is very significant. You say the year—the United States in 2030 is likely to be characterized by populist politics that have been relatively quiescent in recent years. How important is populist politics, and what do you envision those to look like?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, remember what populist politics is. It’s a very special brand of short-term focus, which invariably creates very difficult long-term problems. A goodly part of the book, as you know, is written about how populism has gripped, say, many Latin American countries to their detriment. And the term “populist politics” is essentially another way of saying short term versus longer term. And people who emphasize short-term benefits for long-term costs end up with very little in the way of economic growth and prosperity.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: Mr. Greenspan, I’m wondering whether you feel that you share any responsibility in the rise of this economic populism, because, of course, you took over the Federal Reserve during the Reagan administration, and when Reagan took office, CEOs earned forty-three times more than their workers, and when you left the Federal Reserve, they made more than 400 times more than their workers. So the policies that you pursued—deregulation, privatization, free trade—have contributed to this extraordinary division of income that is really the fuel for this economic populism that you’re now denouncing. So aren’t you the one that has caused this crisis of faith in capitalism? Or, at least, don’t you share some of that responsibility?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, look, the whole issue of what has happened in this country with respect to the increasing inequality of income is an issue I address and abhor in the book, and I point out that what is causing it to a very significant extent is the fact that skilled labor is under extraordinary demand as the technologies increase, and we’ve had a dysfunctional education system in this country, both in primary and secondary schools, which is showing up in all of the studies, which indicate that while our children in the fourth grade are doing fairly well relative to international comparisons, by the end of high school, they are in terrible shape. And as a consequence of that, we are not putting the proper number of people into the education cycle to get them up to skill levels, which creates much less, or would create a good deal less, in the way of income inequality.
And I also argue in the book that we ought to be opening up our borders to skilled labor from all sorts of—from all parts of the world, because if we were to do that, we would increase the supply of skilled workers, which our schools have been unable to create, and as a consequence of that, we would lower the average wage of skills and reduce the degree of income inequality in this country. It’s a very important issue, and it’s a very important issue which I raise in my book. And we have to confront this both at the education level and on the immigration level.
And it’s not anything to do with what I am proposing. And just remember that the type of globalized economy that I support has taken hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. It’s created a standard of living throughout the world which is unprecedented in history. And to assume that that is something we should be apologizing for, I find, is wholly inappropriate.
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, you mentioned Latin America, and, of course, there is a rise in leftwing political parties and movements in Latin America. But this is after decades of adherence to IMF structural adjustment policies, and it’s precisely because those policies failed to lift people out of poverty in countries like Bolivia that you have this rise of what you’re calling economic populism. It’s because trickle-down economics was seen to have failed. But you also mentioned economic populism in Latin America in your book, and you blame it for inflation episodes and the collapse of regimes and the toppling of governments, and one of your examples was Chile in the 1970s. Was Chile—was Salvador Allende’s regime toppled because of inflation, or didn’t the CIA have something to do with that?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, look, let’s—I’m using Latin America as an example. The key question is not Latin America. Let’s get back to the United States. Let’s get back to the world at large and face the issue of populism here. Remember, the populist issue in Latin America goes back to the roots of Spanish and Portuguese colonization.
NAOMI KLEIN: I’m aware of that, Mr. Greenspan, but there are many developmentalist policies that were trying to address those colonial disparities. They were called it import substitutions. And those leaders were systematically eliminated in a series of coups.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, let me ask you a question, which—you are just taking the capitalist system, to state it very bluntly, and say it’s deficient here, it’s deficient there, it’s deficient every other place. The capitalist system has created more economic wealth in the last seven or eight years around the world. And as I said before, it’s had huge effects in the developing world. Hundreds of millions of people have come out of poverty. And as a consequence of this, not on the basis of populist policies, but on the basis of policies which relate to markets, it strikes me that—you know, you can say all of the problems that exist in market economies—and in my book, you will find, I am very much aware of all of them in great detail.
The question you have to answer, however, is: what system works better? And I think the evidence going back to the Enlightenment of the early part of the eighteenth century and all of the events that occurred with respect to what’s happened to the world since then has demonstrated that this system is the only one that seems to work well. I mean, all forms of socialist structure, which you seem to be implicitly in favor of, have failed. So the question is—
AMY GOODMAN: Naomi Klein?
NAOMI KLEIN: Actually, I am referring to mixed economies here. I’m not—
ALAN GREENSPAN:—what is [inaudible] issue here?
NAOMI KLEIN: Actually, I’m referring to mixed economies here. I’m not referring to state socialism.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, the question is, when you begin to talk in terms of changing what you’re implicitly saying—and I’ve heard this story before—you have to say, what are you changing in favor of? And we’ve had regrettable problems throughout the world every time we’ve moved in the direction you’re implying. The poverty level has gone up, not down.
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, Mr. Greenspan, I think it’s worth remembering that the word “populist” simply means popular. So, obviously, a lot of people disagree with your assessment of the benefits of—
ALAN GREENSPAN: A lot of people disagree with my assessment, a lot of people disagree with yours.
NAOMI KLEIN: And are interested in another economic model.
ALAN GREENSPAN: That’s what makes democracy work.
NAOMI KLEIN: There is something that I was quite interested in in your book, which was your definition of corruption and crony capitalism. You said, “When a government’s leaders or businesses routinely seek out private sector individuals or businesses and, in exchange for political support, bestow favors on them, the society is said to be in the grip of crony capitalism.” You say, “The favors generally take the form of monopoly access to certain markets, preferred access to sales of government assets, and special access to those in power.” I kept thinking about Halliburton, Blackwater, Lockheed and Boeing. You were referring to Indonesia at the time, but I’m wondering, according to your definition—and we’re seeing these extraordinary—we’re seeing contracting emerging, as in the words of the New York Times, a fourth arm of government. Front page of the New York Times talks about $6 billion being investigated for criminal activity in contract allocation in Iraq. I’m wondering whether you think the United States is a crony capitalist economy, according to your definition?
ALAN GREENSPAN: Every economy exists, no matter what the level of democracy, has elements of crony capitalism. It’s—given human nature and given the democratic structures, which we all, I assume, adhere to, that is an inevitable consequence. The major issue is, is it the dominant force within an economy? It was the dominant force under Suharto. It is not the dominant force in this country.
NAOMI KLEIN: Well, how about this: in 2003, when you were head of the Federal Reserve, the US government handed out 3,500 contracts to companies to perform security functions. In 2006, the year that you left the Federal Reserve, they handed out 115,000 such contracts. It seems to me that it is becoming a dominant force.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Are you talking about the contracts that the Federal Reserve put out?
NAOMI KLEIN: I’m talking about the crony capitalist system of a Republican government handing out an extraordinary level of contracts to private companies, who then support these politicians with the political favors that you’re describing in your book, in your definition of crony capitalism.
ALAN GREENSPAN: [inaudible] Federal Reserve is doing this or the government?
NAOMI KLEIN: You’ve overseen an explosion of the contract economy.
AMY GOODMAN: Final word, Alan Greenspan.
ALAN GREENSPAN: I’m sorry. I misunderstand what you’re saying. Are you saying the Federal Reserve is doing that or the government is doing it?
NAOMI KLEIN: I’m saying that the US government is doing it.
ALAN GREENSPAN: Well, the US government has to purchase equipment from the private sector. It doesn’t produce it itself. And you may characterize it in many different ways. And, obviously, I’m not going to deny that there’s all sorts of corruption, which goes on in every country. The problem, essentially, for a democratic society is to maintain the civil liberties of the society and suppress that. Corruption, embezzlement, fraud, these are all characteristics which exist everywhere. It is regrettably the way human nature functions, whether we like it or not. What successful economies do is keep it to a minimum. No one has ever eliminated any of that stuff.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, on that note, we’ll have to wrap up this discussion, because I know you, Alan Greenspan, have to go. But I hope this is just part one of this discussion. Alan Greenspan’s new book is called The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World. Naomi Klein, award-winning investigative journalist, is author of The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. I want to thank you both for being with us today.
ALAN GREENSPAN: You’re welcome.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you.

Oráculo

Com o previsível total colapso de todo o sistema financeiro mundial todas as empresas alavancadas no credito vão ter grandes dificuldades para sobreviver.
Depois de passar pelo Oráculo de Delfos posso dizer que das primeiras a desaparecer serão as grandes empresas de distribuição alimentar

3ª Divisão

A Standard &Poor's baixou o rating de Espanha e o de Portugal mas há uma diferença fundamental entre os dois ratings :
A Espanha baixou de AAA para AA+ Portugal baixou de AA- para A+:
A Espanha baixou para a 2ª Divisão nós descemos para a 3ª.
Fosse Portugal um clube de futebol e o governo era demitido hoje:
«LONDON (Standard & Poor's) Jan. 21, 2009—Standard & Poor's Ratings Services today said it had lowered its long-term sovereign credit ratings on the Republic of Portugal to 'A+' from 'AA-', as it believes the government's structural reform measures relating to the economy and public finances have proven insufficient to bring about convergence with the 'AA' peer group»

A caminho do abismo

Standard & Poor's baixa rating da Républica , da Caixa Geral dos Depósitos, do Santander Totta e da Refer

Um homem de sucesso

Quando o Dr Teixeira dos Santos chegou ao governo em 1998 Portugal crescia 4.2%, tinha um defice de 2.3% e a divida publica era de 58% do PIB.
Dez anos depois , com o intervalo de Barroso/Santana, o PIB recua 1% , o Orçamento vai ter um defice de 4% e a divida publica chega aos 70 % do PIB
Foi um sucesso a sua passagem pelo governo

Em que é que ficamos?

O Sr Ministro Teixeira dos Santos disse no dia 5 de Janeiro :"A actual crise veio reforçar a importância do euro"

O ultimo Prémio Nobel da Economia Paul Krugman escreveu no dia 19 de Janeiro:

« Contrary to what everyone seemed to be saying even a few weeks ago, being a member of the eurozone doesn’t immunize countries against crisis. In Spain’s case (and Italy’s, and Ireland’s, and Greece’s) the euro may well be making things worse.»The pain in Spain … - Paul Krugman Blog - NYTimes.com
É claro que o Sr Ministro também disse :
“Isso quer dizer que não vamos estar em recessão” no dia 28 de Outubro de 2008
( Mundo Lusíada Online Crise Financeira: Portugal afasta cenário ... )

segunda-feira, janeiro 19, 2009

Enganou-se

A ASAE fechou mais uns tantos restaurantes em Oeiras.
Parece que o Primeiro Ministro se enganou quando disse que iria «salvar tantas empresas quanto pudesse»
O que ele queria mesmo dizer é que ia estoirar com tantas empresas quanto pudesse

domingo, janeiro 18, 2009

A origem

A origem da crise do sub-prime chama-se Estado, que criou dois monstros a Fannie Mae (nyse: FNM ) e a Freddie Mac (nyse: FRE) que despejaram dezenas de biliões de dolares no mercado da habitação inflacionando-o.
Se o Estado inflacionava os preços qual é o problema? Vamos comprar para vender à malta que nos paga com o dinheiro dos contribuintes

Igualdade

Nos Estados Unidos Madoff foi preso, considerado um criminoso porque remunerava os seus beneficiários com o dinheiro dos novos contribuintes do seu fundo.

Era o sistema da piramide

Por cá a Segurança Social utiliza o mesmo esquema e ainda ninguém prendeu o Ministro da Segurança Social

sábado, janeiro 17, 2009

Alvarás

Neste país em que para tudo é preciso uma licença.
Neste país em que uma licença demora anos .
Ficámos hoje a saber que há licenças mais rápidas do que outras.
O Simplex teve hoje um novo desenvolvimento:
Se não houver descriminição de raças ficámos todos , hoje , com licença para apedrejar esquadras .

Conversa com um engraxador

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que não rapa fome.

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que um Ministro do Governo de Guterres recebeu um milhão e meio de contos para aprovar um centro comercial

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que com um euro compra um bocado de toucinho e faz uma sopa.

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que um Ministro do Governo de Guterres recebeu um milhão e meio de contos para aprovar um centro comercial

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que quando não faz uma graxa vende chapéus de chuva e uma duzia de meias por cinco euros.

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que um Ministro do Governo de Guterres recebeu um milhão e meio de contos para aprovar um centro comercial

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que quando não tem dinheiro para pagar um maço de tabaco tem quem lhe fie.

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que um Ministro do Governo de Guterres recebeu um milhão e meio de contos para aprovar um centro comercial

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que a ASAE lhe apreende os chapeus de chuva quando o apanha a vendê-los.

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que um Ministro do Governo de Guterres recebeu um milhão e meio de contos para aprovar um centro comercial

Hoje um engraxador disse-me, com as lágrimas nos olhos, que amava Portugal acima de tudo

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que um Ministro do Governo de Guterres recebeu um milhão e meio de contos para aprovar um centro comercial

Hoje um engraxador disse-me que isto só lá vai ao tiro.

Isto é de loucos

Numa altura em que fecham empresas a torto e a direito, numa altura em que o desemprego sobe descontroladamente o que é que faz o nosso Governo?
Manda a ASAE fechar 6 bares, seis empresas , no Bairro Alto enviando para o desemprego dezenas de pessoas.
Razão tem o Alberto João:
-Isto é um país de loucos

sexta-feira, janeiro 16, 2009

Calmante

Anda tudo muito excitado com o Obama, e o Obama parece que leu um livro sobre os cem dias de Roosevelt que o excitou.
Como calmante talvez fosse bom dizer o seguinte:
1-A primeira medida do Roosevelt foi baixar os salários dos funcionários publicos em 25%
2- Começou depois a «dar à bomba» como ele dizia e a despejar moeda na economia.
3- Em 1932, no pico da depressão a América tinha 11 000 000 de desempregados.
4- Em 1938 e depois de ter aumentado a divida do estado em muitos biliões de dolares a «bombar» , a América tinha 11 000 000 de desempregados, um estado opressivo, corrupto e gigantesco e a América estava novamente em depressão.
5 - Só a guerra salvou a economia .
6- A salvação custou dezenas de milhões de mortos e um mundo destruido.

Não é estupido é distraido

O engenheiro Sócrates faz-me lembrar uma anedota sobre loiras. Não é estupido é distraido
Diz ele que em Setembro de 2008 ninguem sabia da crise.
Eu que não sou nada escrevi isto neste blog em Agosto de 2007 .
Toda a gente minimamente informada sobre estes assuntos sabia da crise.
O engenheiro Sócrates é muito distraído

Sexta-feira, Agosto 17, 2007

Eu não me fiava...
Os mercados parecem estar a recuperar, no entanto eu não me fiava.A crise começou com os bancos a recusarem-se a emprestar dinheiro uns aos outros. Isto, obviamente, não é bom sinal, é sinal que desconfiam uns dos outros, é sinal que suspeitam que os seus colegas não estão sólidos, não são de confiança.Hoje os mercados recuperam porque o FED baixou as taxas de juro nos empréstimos de emergência aos bancos e permitiu que estes diminuíssem as suas reservas. Isto fez com que mais dinheiro entrasse no mercado aumentando a liquidez, mas não alterou em nada a primeira causa.: os bancos não estão sólidos, antes pelo contrário diminuindo as reservas os bancos tornam-se mais perigosos.(quanto menos dinheiro alguém tiver mais hipóteses tem de falir)Um alto quadro de uma grande instituição dizia na crise de 82 (uma crise de crédito como esta) que se um dos grandes bancos falisse falia todo o sistema financeiro internacionalSe este pressuposto não se alterou e continua a ser verdadeiro o perigo é real.Quem está contente com isto é preciso que não esqueça que os maiores credores dos bancos somos todos nós com os nossos depósitos.

O Abismo

Olhando para o valor da nossa dívida, para os defices do orçamento e da balança de transações correntes e para a qualidade e imaginação dos engenheiros que temos no governo, a única política que se prevê para os proximos meses é a tentativa de aumentar a despesa aumentando a dívida.
Só que tal politica neste momento é praticamente impossivel.
Com a quantidade de obrigações dos diversos tesouros que vão existir no mercado a concorrencia será feroz para tentar apanhar os restos que sobraram do colapso do mundo financeiro.
Com gente pouco credível no governo, mais estreito, como diz o Presidente, será o caminho. Se não for feito nada, e nada vai ser feito , será tão estreito como o buraco de uma agulha( os camelos somos nós)
Dentro de muito pouco tempo será vendido o ouro salazarento para pagar aos funcionários públicos e aos militares.
Quando o ouro acabar virá o FMI ou será criado um novo FMI pelo Banco Central Europeu.Se não vier, no dia em que a tropa não receber o pré, (a unica razão pela qual a tropa se revolta) temos um golpe de estado