sexta-feira, 30 de dezembro de 2011

O que está por trás da "crise do euro"?

What’s Behind the Euro Crisis and How Will It End?

While the pronouncement of the “euro crisis” has become a main topic in the newsrooms and while a plethora of pundits hasn’t got tired of predicting the end of the common European currency, the facts tell a different story. By the end of 2011 the euro was quoted higher than its long-term average since its inception and the official inflation rate of the euro zone has been kept under two percent. The average debt burden of the countries that make up the euro-zone is less than that of the United States or Japan. What is, then, the problem with the euro? Why doesn’t a day go by without a headline that says that the euro is doomed and that it would be only a matter of time until the European Monetary Union and the European Union, too, would blow apart?
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Doutorado em dúvida

THE ECONOMIST lamenta:
"... Whining PhD students are nothing new, but there seem to be genuine problems with the system that produces research doctorates (the practical “professional doctorates” in fields such as law, business and medicine have a more obvious value). There is an oversupply of PhDs. Although a doctorate is designed as training for a job in academia, the number of PhD positions is unrelated to the number of job openings. Meanwhile, business leaders complain about shortages of high-level skills, suggesting PhDs are not teaching the right things. The fiercest critics compare research doctorates to Ponzi or pyramid schemes...."
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Os dez princípios de uma sociedade livre

THE TEN PRINCIPLES OF A FREE SOCIETY, by Ron Paul‏

1. Rights belong to individuals, not groups; they derive from our nature and can neither be granted nor taken away by government.
2. All peaceful, voluntary economic and social associations are permitted; consent is the basis of the social and economic order.
3. Justly acquired property is privately owned by individuals and voluntary groups, and this ownership cannot be arbitrarily voided by governments.
4. Government may not redistribute private wealth or grant special privileges to any individual or group.
5. Individuals are responsible for their own actions; government cannot and should not protect us from ourselves.
6. Government may not claim the monopoly over a people's money and governments must never engage in official counterfeiting, even in the name of macroeconomic stability.
7. Aggressive wars, even when called preventative, and even when they pertain only to trade relations, are forbidden.
8. Jury nullification, that is, the right of jurors to judge the law as well as the facts, is a right of the people and the courtroom norm.
9. All forms of involuntary servitude are prohibited, not only slavery but also conscription, forced association, and forced welfare distribution.
10. Government must obey the law that it expects other people to obey and thereby must never use force to mold behavior, manipulate social outcomes, manage the economy, or tell other countries how to behave.

quinta-feira, 29 de dezembro de 2011

A burrice como ciência

"Há tantos burros mandando em homens e mulheres de inteligência que, às vezes, fico pensando se burrice não é uma ciência" ~ Rui Barbosa
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Quem é mais perplexo no fim?

Neste trecho do debate entre o químico britânico e professor de Oxford Peter Atkins (ateísmo) e o Phd em filosofia e Doutor em teologia William Lane (teísmo), Atkins argumenta que a ciência pode fornecer explicação para todas as coisas. Lane contra-argumenta que não, citando alguns exemplos bem interessantes. Confira.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPzaMJYoImk&feature=share
Deseja ver o debate completo? Clique no link abaixo.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaE_Q8L9mQc

Muhammad Ali (Cassius Clay) e a guerra de Vietnã

“I ain't got no quarrel with them Vietcong. No Vietcong ever called me Nigger.”

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?"

Muhammad Ali 1966

Expansão universitária errada

College has been oversold

by on November 2, 2011 at 7:40 am in Books, Data Source, Economics, Education | Permalink
Here, drawn from my new e-book, Launching the Innovation Renaissance (published by TED) is part of a section on college education. (See also the op-ed in IBD)
Educated people have higher wages and lower unemployment rates than the less educated so why are college students at Occupy Wall Street protests around the country demanding forgiveness for crushing student debt? The sluggish economy is tough on everyone but the students are also learning a hard lesson, going to college is not enough. You also have to study the right subjects. And American students are not studying the fields with the greatest economic potential.
Over the past 25 years the total number of students in college has increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (the so-called STEM fields) has remained more or less constant. Moreover, many of today’s STEM graduates are foreign born and are taking their knowledge and skills back to their native countries.
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Uma experiência estranha

Muito além de Madame Bovary

Conto de Gustave Flaubert sobre experiência antropológica no Brasil vira filme

  • Em visita ao Brasil, o antropólogo francês Paul de Monville decide fazer com que uma escrava copule com um orangotango. Dezesseis anos depois, ele se muda para a Europa com o fruto da experiência, o híbrido Djalioh. O resultado é desastroso. Djalioh estupra e mata a esposa de Monville, mata também o filho do casal e se suicida. Para fechar a sequência de eventos bizarros, Monville empalha o menino e o exibe como curiosidade zoológica. Este é um resumo do pouco conhecido “Quidquid Volueris – estudos psicológicos", conto do francês Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880). A história chegou este ano à telona com “Djalioh”, dirigido por Ricardo Miranda. O filme esteve em cartaz este ano no Festival Internacional de Cinema de Itu, mas deve reaparecer em outros festivais em 2012.
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A guerra que fracassou

The Drug War: What is It Good For?
by Art Carden
Americans celebrated a shameful anniversary last week: forty years since Richard Nixon declared “war” on drugs. To borrow from a former student, we should quit fighting wars on abstract nouns (drugs, terror, obesity). One can’t fight a war against an idea or an inanimate object, but even if one can, one usually ends up having to shoot flesh-and-blood human beings.
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Dois tipos de liberalismo

Tyler Cowen

Which Liberalism?

Friedrich A. Hayek, in his famous essay “Individualism: True and False” (Hayek, 1948), draws a distinction between two differing strands in Western thought: skeptical individualism and rationalist constructivism. As Hayek points out, at one time in history or another, each strand has claimed to be spokesman for liberal principles. Hayek argues that the two strands are irreconcilable, as rationalist constructivism will almost invariably lead to centralized planning and state domination. If the prevalent philosophy of an era grants man the ability to consciously redesign institutions in accordance with a priori principles, it is only a matter of time before such “rationalist” dictates are enforced through the state. Since the state is the “planner” par excellence, a belief in planning usually leads to a belief in extensive state power. Constructivist doctrines are primarily attributed to the French rationalists and are traced back to early seven- teenth-century Cartesianism...
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Transformação social - a chegada dos "millennials"

A geração do novo milênio, os "millennials" têm outras ideias sobre o consumo que a geração anterior.
Veja as mudanças sociais desde os anos 50 neste vídeo (subtítulos em Português) - uma curta história social das últimas cinco décadas:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lNbMSGeby2c
Veja também o
Projeto Sonho Brasilo

quarta-feira, 28 de dezembro de 2011

"Do jornal, eu só confio na data, e mesmo assim confiro em outro." -- Dorio Ferman

É melhor de pensar antes de sentir

''Antes de sentir, o homem deve pensar!'' (Kant)

Grêmio Estudantil Ludwig von Mises

O Brasil do futuro está formando-se aqui:
http://gremiovonmises.blogspot.com/p/equipe.html
http://gremiovonmises.blogspot.com/

Racismo e estado

O estado e o racismo
a política de cotas raciais em universidades, o império do politicamente correto que vem avassaladoramente dominando o mundo, a ameaça de controle estatal da internet com a desculpa de se estar policiando "crimes de racismo" e, principalmente, a recente vitória de Barack Obama, atiçaram mais do que nunca todo um (errôneo) debate a respeito de "raças" e racismo. Ron Paul, com sua clareza peculiar, explica a falácia de tudo isso, deixa claro qual é a mais racista das entidades e mostra por que o racismo é uma forma vulgar de coletivismo.
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Cultura de trabalho

Tori in DCJanuary 10, 2011 at 4:54 am
Having worked in a number of countries my conclusion is that everyone works about as hard as everyone else — the difference is the time they spend at the office. American spend forever at the office and have lots of meetings and down time talking about nothing — lots of consensus building. Germans and Dutch keep it short and go home when business is done — very direct and confrontational in the style. The French are similar and their meetings are very structured and authoritarian (they are like stereotyped Germans. Brits are somewhere in between — its seems like nothing is happening but everything is — all signs and understandings. Japanese stay in the office the longest and most of the time nothing seems to be happening — waiting for someone else to make a decision. In the end everyone does the same amount of work. Just how they do it and how long it takes (in uncompensated time) it takes to do it. The French don't work harder than anyone else but the disciple of French business organizations is impressive. Mais

Oportunismo político que mata

“The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.”
– Ernest Hemingway

Confirmação empírica do processo da destruição criativa de Schumpeter

Empirical confirmation of creative destruction from world trade data

Abstract: We show that world trade network datasets contain empirical evidence that the dynamics of innovation in the world economy follows indeed the concept of creative destruction, as proposed by J.A. Schumpeter more than half a century ago. National economies can be viewed as complex, evolving systems, driven by a stream of appearance and disappearance of goods and services. Products appear in bursts of creative cascades. We find that products systematically tend to co-appear, and that product appearances lead to massive disappearance events of existing products in the following years. The opposite - disappearances followed by periods of appearances - is not observed. This is an empirical validation of the dominance of cascading competitive replacement events on the scale of national economies, i.e. creative destruction. We find a tendency that more complex products drive out less complex ones, i.e. progress has a direction. Finally we show that the growth trajectory of a country's product output diversity can be understood by a recently proposed evolutionary model of Schumpeterian economic dynamics.
Comments:16 pages (main text), 6 figures
Subjects:Physics and Society (physics.soc-ph); General Finance (q-fin.GN)
Cite as:arXiv:1112.2984v1 [physics.soc-ph] http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.2984v1

O que está por trás da crise do euro e como vai terminar?


CASH and CURRENCIES
THE CONTINENTAL ECONOMICS INSTITUTE CURRENCY REVIEW

Antony P. Mueller
What’s behind euro crisis and how will it end?
While the pronouncement of the “euro crises” has become a main topic in the newsrooms and a plethora of pundits doesn’t get tired of predicting the end of the common European currency, the facts tell a different story. By the end of December 2011 the euro was quoted higher than its long-term average since its inception and the official inflation rate of the euro zone has been kept under two percent. The average debt burden of the countries that make up the euro-zone is less than that of the United States or Japan. What is, then, the problem with the euro? Why doesn’t a day go by without a headline that says that the euro is doomed and that it would be only a matter of time until the European Monetary Union and the European Union, too, would blow apart?
The origin of the mess
When the financial crisis broke out in the United States in 2008 no serious analyst would have come up with the idea to blame the US dollar as the cause of the housing and financial market crisis and to state that the use of a common currency for a large and highly diverse economy such as that of the United States was the root of the problem. Besides blaming the regulatory framework as being either too strict or too lose, it was mainly the monetary policy that was identified as the origin of the current financial crisis. A monetary policy of extremely low interest rates and ample liquidity put in place by the US central bank since the late 1980s had produced an inflated financial sector.  The appetite of investors and lenders for high yield risky investments had gotten bigger over the decades in as much as the US central bank had acted in a way that coagulated the conviction among financial market operators that there would be a reliable bailout guarantee for the financial system as pledged by the American central bank.  
In Europe, moral hazard was on the rise when planning for a common European currency was put in place in the second half of the 1990s. With the introduction of a common European currency came the belief that because a country such as Greece would use the same currency as Germany or the Netherlands its sovereign debt would be of the same standing. Consequently, it did not take long until bond investors would drive down interest rates of countries such as Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy to the levels for Germany and the Netherlands. As it was the case in the US where financial market operators acted under the delusion of absence of risk during the housing bubble, in Europe it was sovereign debt of the euro zone members that was held to be risk-free.
In retrospect one may say that that the period which some economist identified as the “Great Moderation” was in fact closer to a “Great Delusion”. Not much different than the politicians in the US who acted as cheerleaders for the mortgage binge in the housing market, governments in Europe were enticed to borrow up to the hilt firstly because interest rates were much lower after than before they joined the euro-zone and secondly because borrowing was so easy given the willingness of the lenders to lend as much as they could in the belief that the investment would be lucrative and safe.

Mismanagement
              
The simple fact that a country such as Greece did over-borrow and as a consequence had to face default, something which is not new at all in financial history, was profoundly misinterpreted by the major groups that were involved in the unfolding of the Greek tragedy. When it became evident that Greece encountered difficulties rolling over its debt, the prospect that Greece would default on its debt was vehemently negated as an option by the parties involved. Greece wanted to evade default and in this aim it was joined by its lenders who obviously also did not want Greece to default but obviously preferred a bailout as well. These two self-interested groups got prompt support by members of the highest echelons of the European Union.
The appropriate way to resolve the Greek debt problem would have been to let Greece and its bankers make their deal and have them work out a rescheduling agreement without a direct European involvement. Yet things took their turn to disaster when politicians of the euro-zone announced that Greece must get a bailout because no euro member state should ever default. This was an absurd allegation and it did not take long until financial market operators sensed that the day had come to speculate against this false and pretentious claim.
When the sell-off of Greek bonds began and interest rates for the country began its steep rise, it became manifest that Greece would be unable to refinance its debt load that was about to fall due in 2011 and thereafter. Contagion spread to Portugal and Spain and towards the end of the year, Italian interest rates began to skyrocket as well. Severe shock waves were sent across Europe and beyond when in late 2011 even Germany and France had to struggle to refinance their public debt. The main credit rating agencies announced that the standing of the core European economies would be under review for a downgrade as it was already done for the countries at the periphery of the euro-zone.
A major factor for the crisis to spin out of control was the disorder that ruled when the crisis began. Serious doubts rose about who would be effectively in charge if a member of the euro-zone should encounter severe payment problems with the prospect of default. The straightforward rule, which was laid down in the Maastricht treaty for the European Monetary Union, namely that each country was responsible for its own debt and that there would be no bailout guarantee by the Union, was discarded without necessity and carelessly replaced by the call for a solidarity movement of the members of the euro-zone.
Members of the executive branch of the European Union, the European Commission, pushed ahead with the demand of assisting Greece with funds from the European Union which in essence meant that it was up to the solvent countries of the euro-zone to come up with the money. Germany, which would be the main paymaster for Greece and the other countries in need for financial aid, was not amused. The divergence among the major European decision makers provoked a loss of confidence among financial market operators n motion concerning not only the payment ability of individual countries but also regarding the euro itself and finally the European Union as institution.


Crisis without a cause

The simple fact that a relatively small country such as Greece had payment difficulties and would be in need of rescheduling its debt transmogrified into the so-called “euro crisis”. It would not take long and the financial press and its favorite pundits would pronounce that not only the common European currency would be close to its end but the European Union as well. 
If the European authorities had declared -- in complete concordance with the Maastricht Treaty -- that Greek debt is a Greek problem, no “euro crisis” would have occurred. There would have been a Greek debt crisis and bankers would have had to pay their so-called “hair cut” and the interest rates for Greece would have been considerable higher than before. Greek debt payments would have been extended to the future in a rescheduling agreement, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would have provided an emergency loan, and some other countries, such as Germany and France would have provided extra funding. Like in so many instances before, when economies had debt problems, the IMF would have taken over the supervision of the restructuring and the implementation of an adaptation program. In other words: all of which that we have now with the bailout would also have happened without the bailout albeit with the major difference that on-one would speak today of the euro crises and only about a Greek debt crisis.
The interventionist hyperactivity of politicians, particularly at the top of the executive branch of the European Union who, so it appears, were graving for profile, along with the fickle attitude of the leaders of major EU countries must be identified as malefactors for turning a relatively minor problem into one that threatens the stability of the global financial system and has been prone to cause mind-boggling havoc for the people of Europe if indeed the euro zone were to fall apart.
There is no reasonable alternative to a common currency in Europe. A return to national currencies would not resolve the basic problem that modern economies face. The root of the trouble is not the currency per se but a financial system based on fractional reserve banking, which, in combination with the modern warfare-welfare state drives towards an unremitting expansion of state activity and debt burdens.


Transformation of the euro-zone

All the while when politicians and governments were arguing and disagreeing in grave dispute an avalanche of self-declared experts on European matters showed up to offer one dark scenario after the other. A dedicated consumer of financial news soon would have gained the conviction that the Maya prediction of the end of the world in 2012 was nothing compared to the end of the euro and the European Union. Yet while sinister ink was spilled, the exchange rate of the euro held up well and economic growth did not falter in the main economies of the euro-zone. Germany, which represents the largest European economy, experienced the year 2011 as one with steady growth, low interest rates, and a declining unemployment rate. While the pundits were struggling to outcompete each other putting forth one worst case after the next, reality took a different path.
Different from the scenario in which Greece would have settled its debt problem without a deep involvement of the European Union, the actual path now that was taken has transformed the Eurozone into a genuine fiscal union. Did the authorities get what they wanted? Can one truly exclude the hypothesis that maybe it was the intention of some decision-makers at the top echelon of the European Union to take the Greek debt troubles as an opportunity to push the Eurozone forward towards a fiscal union? Anyway, as a consequence of the Greek debt debacle, chief additional European financial institutions were established which for the time to come will band the members of the Eurozone closer together at the cost of leaving some other members of the European Union such as particularly the United Kingdom in isolation.
On May 9, 2010, the 27 members of the European Union set up the “European Financial Stability Facility” (EFSF) as a vehicle to provide financial assistance to member states. The EFSF is allowed to borrow up to 440 billion while the “European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism” (EFSM) as an emergency program may raise up to 60 billion euros which are guaranteed by the budget of the European Union. A veritable fiscal union was practically created on December 9, 2011, when the member states of the European Union, with the exception of the United Kingdom, agreed upon strict limits for government spending and borrowing in including mechanisms of sanction in the case on non-compliance. On December 20, 2011, the European Central Bank (ECB) took its dubious prognosis an imminent liquidity crisis as the pretext to assume the role as a genuine Lender-of-the-Last-Resort for the euro-zone when it offered 489.2 billion euros for the banking sector of the euro-zone as the first of a two part operation to augment liquidity and to animate banks to buy bonds of the troubled euro-zone countries.
With the new institutions and the action of the ECB a profound transformation of the European Union has taken place. With the EFSF and the EFSM financial stability has moved from being a national concern into the authority of the European Union. With the fiscal pact, member countries of the European Union (other than the UK) have given up their sovereignty over their national budgets. Finally, making the round complete, the ECB has taken over comprehensive authority to act as the eurozone’s Lender-of-the-Last-Resort.


Conclusion

The crisis has not weakened the position of the common European currency but fortified its institutional framework. Yet the true nature of the current crisis is not that of a currency, be it the euro or the dollar, but the currency crisis is the symptom of fundamental problems of the structure of modern democracy and its monetary system. The fiscal pact is an attempt to stand against the tide of debt expansion. It is hard to see that the goal will be reached. As long as we continue to maintain a monetary system of fractional reserve banking in combination with state money and a welfare-warfare state, the pattern of perilous booms and busts will not vanish. 

Antony Mueller
Cash and Currencies - The Continental Economics Institute Currency Review
December 27, 2011

A natureza dos governos

Bill Bonner explica: "... Many people think that government provides some service. That is true, but it is incidental. Governments often deliver the mail. But they don’t have to. They would still be governments even if they didn’t control the Post Office. And what if they didn’t have a department of inland fisheries, or a program to teach retarded democrats to count to 20? They would still be in the government business…and still have their helicopters, chauffeurs and expense accounts. But if they lost control of the police or the army it would be an entirely different matter. Force is the essence of government, not a decorative detail. Without armies and police, they would no longer be governments. It is “from the barrel of a gun,” as Mao put it, that political power projects itself.
At the end of the 19th century, people were asked what they thought the new century would bring. Almost universally they predicted that government would grow smaller. Why? Because people were becoming much richer and better educated. The thinkers of the time thought there would be less need for government. People who were rich and well-educated had no use for government, they believed.
It didn’t turn out that way. Because the thinkers misunderstood what government really is. They had the wrong theory. Government is not an organization that provides benefits and services, and therefore shrinks as the need subsides. Governments grew tremendously in the 20th century. Because they are essentially parasitic luxuries. As a society grows richer it can afford more illusions, more waste, more re-distribution of wealth, more regulation, higher taxes, and more unproductive government employees.
The outsiders take more, because there is more to take...."
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terça-feira, 27 de dezembro de 2011

Socrates

A teoria Austríaca dos Cíclos Econômicos nas palavras de Jesús

‎"Quem de vós, com efeito, querendo construir uma torre, primeiro não se senta para calcular as despesas e ponderar se tem com que terminar? Não aconteça que, tendo colocado o alicerce e não sendo capaz de acabar, todos os que virem comecem a caçoar dele, dizendo: 'Esse homem começou a construir e não pôde acabar!' " ~ Jesus Cristo, mostrando-se um precursor da Teoria Austríaca dos Ciclos Econômicos XD

Política: um processo que favorece a "racionalidade irracional"

"Many political failure arguments implicitly assume that voters are irrational. This article argues that this assumption is both theoretically and empirically plausible: in politics, rationality, like information, is a collective good that individuals have little incentive to supply. In consequence, voters are frequently not only rationally ignorant but also `rationally irrational'. Rational irrationality leads to both demand-side and supply-side political failures: competition not only pressures politicians to act on voters' biased estimates, but selects for politicians who genuinely share those biases."

Uma ideia que esta mudando o mundo

  1. Lew's Big Idea 

by Doug French

"... In 2011, Mises.org has enjoyed 1.2 million unique visitors each month...
Going on 30 years ago Lew Rockwell had an idea. The idea was to form an institute to celebrate the works of a forgotten scholar — Ludwig von Mises — and promote the study of Austrian economics, a school of economic thought that recognized freedom as paramount if society is to be prosperous, a school of thought that had been long forgotten, a school of thought that recognized the damage that government intervention causes.
Leia mais sobre a revolução de nosso tempo

sábado, 24 de dezembro de 2011

Feliz natal

Nosso Natal Tem Brasil - DVD 4 Cantos - Bate o Sino

Música gravada com músicos dos 4 cantos do país, integrante do DVD exclusivo da Luigi Bertolli, 4 Cantos.

Direção: Betão Aguiar
Produção Musical: Betão Aguiar e Chico Salem
Direção de Fotografia e Câmera: Arthur Roessle e Carina Zaratin Direção de Produção: Mara Zeyn
Roteiro e Montagem: Haná Vaisman
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGDO99gmb1Q

Consequências da equalidade na educação e além

America's Schools are Modeled to 'No Child Left Behind' Becoming a Whole Class Left Behind

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama's socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama's plan". All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an "A".... (substituting grades for dollars - something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
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Tyler Cowan sobre o problema com narrativos

Uma "história" não anda muito longe:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoEEDKwzNBw&sns=fb

sexta-feira, 23 de dezembro de 2011

Consumo de álcool - e você pensou se toma muito no Brasil? - Veja Europa

Global alcohol consumption THE ECONOMIST

Drinking habits

A map of world alcohol consumption
THE world drank the equivalent of 6.1 litres of pure alcohol per person in 2005, according to a report from the World Health Organisation published on February 11th. The biggest boozers are mostly found in Europe and in the former Soviet states. Moldovans are the most bibulous, getting through 18.2 litres each, nearly 2 litres more than the Czechs in second place. Over 10 litres of a Moldovan's annual intake is reckoned to be 'unrecorded' home-brewed liquor, making it particularly harmful to health. Such moonshine accounts for almost 30% of the world's drinking. The WHO estimates that alcohol results in 2.5m deaths a year, more than AIDS or tuberculosis. In Russia and its former satellite states one in five male deaths is caused by drink.
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quinta-feira, 22 de dezembro de 2011

O ser humano: impressionável, emocional, irracional

Sex and advertising Retail therapy How Ernest Dichter, an acolyte of Sigmund Freud, revolutionised marketing

THESE are thrilling days for behavioural research. Every week seems to yield a new discovery about how bad people are at making decisions. Humans, it turns out, are impressionable, emotional and irrational.
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Complexidades históricas

Complexidades históricas

Non-interventionism wouldn’t have led to a ‘Nazi century'

The Daily Caller’s Jamie Weinstein speaks for a lot of Republican voters when he says Ron Paul’s foreign policy is a non-starter. But Weinstein’s claim that non-interventionism would have led to “the Nazi Century” is simply a misreading of history.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/22/non-interventionism-wouldnt-have-led-to-a-nazi-century/#ixzz1hJoyEmxe

Publicações 2011

Mueller e Nascimento"O papel da política monetária-cambial no processo de integração e desenvolvimento da America Latina"Buenos Aires 2011
Antony P. Mueller
O que está por trás da guerra cambial? 

02/2011
2012: Perspectivas para a economia mundial 

12/2011
A política de metas de inflação no beco sem saída 11/2011
O caminho da prosperidade10/2011
A internet e o futuro da liberdade9/2011
Será o fim da hegemonia do dólar?08/2011
Além da boa governança08/2011
Euro - que moeda é essa?07/2011
Deflação pode ser uma coisa boa?06/2011
Inflação: causas e consequências05/2011
O papel do empreendedor no desenvolvimento econômico04/2011
Investimentos: bons e ruins03/2011
Praxeologia versus Positivismo02/2011
A teoria do valor e ideologia política01/2011

"What's Behind the Currency War? Feb 2011
"The Origin of the Crisis", Back on the Road to Serfdom. The Resurgence of Statism,
ed. by Thomas E. Woods,
ISI, Washington, DC, 2011

Áudio Podcasts, Apostilas e Data Shows:
Crescimento Econômico
Crises e Depressões
Política macroeconômica
Expectativas
Economia Aberta
Demanda/Oferta agregada
Palestras e Entrevistas
A Teoria do Capital e o Papel do Empreendedor
I CEAPE Caruaru PE - 22 de Outubro de 2011
Data ShowÁudio Podcast
Mercosul - Coordenação das políticas
monetárias no Mercosul
Entrevista Projeto Bloco Econômcos
Áudio Podcast
Turismo - Que produto é esse?
1a. Aula Café Departamento de Turismo Estácio
FASE Aracaju
16 de Setembro 2011
Data ShowÁudio Podcast
Causas da crise americana e o futuro da zona
do euro
IV Agosto do Economista 24-26 de Agosto UFS
Data ShowÁudio Podcast
O Cenário Internacional - Inflação ou Deflação?
II. Encontro da Escola Austríaca do Brasil.
Vídeo - 10 de Abril de 2011
VídeoData Show
Facing the Challenge of Global Turmoil. The Position of Brazil in the International Monetary System (Áudio Podcast) - 20 de Abril de 2011 A Crise da Dívida Soberana Europeia -
12 de Julho de 2011
Entrevista com Journal da UFS
Áudio Podcast

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2012

2012

2012: Perspectivas para a economia mundial

O ano de 2011 vai ser lembrado como o ano da crise soberana europeia. Esta crise ainda não está superada. Ao contrário. O risco para 2012 é que a crise europeia se espalhe por contágio e afete também os países emergentes. A estagnação na Europa e nos Estados Unidos vai continuar. Junto com o Japão, as grandes economias mundiais estarão na crise. Passo a passo esta crise está afetando também os países em desenvolvimento.
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O erro fundamental do liberalismo clássico

Hoppe in Sydney 2011: "The State - The Errors of Classical Liberalism" 
vídeo lecture

A nova universidade está na Internet

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Massen-Uni 2.0

Von Markus Verbeet
Uni-Revolution: Der Traum vom Überall-Studium
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Getty Images
Ein Deutscher unterrichtet an der Elite-Universität Stanford - und per Internet Zehntausende Studenten in der ganzen Welt. Ist das die Zukunft der Hochschulen oder ihr Tod?

--- "Die Universität ist ein toller Ort, aber die Kosten sind einfach zu hoch", sagt Thrun. Die Studenten in Kalifornien zahlen mehrere zehntausend Dollar pro Jahr. Thrun sagt, dass er seinen Online-Kurs kostendeckend für 20 bis 30 Dollar pro Person anbieten könne. Im Moment zahlen die Online-Studenten sogar gar nichts, der Professor finanziert das Angebot aus seinem Privatvermögen. "Mein Traum ist ein kostenloses Studium von 20 aufeinander aufbauenden Kursen", sagt Thrun.
Er schwärmt von dem einmaligen Angebot, das er Studenten in Entwicklungsländern machen könne, von den E-Mails begeisterter Teilnehmer, die er erhalte. "Da sind Menschen dabei, die uns sagen, dass wir ihr Leben verändern", sagt er und entwirft die Vision einer "Demokratisierung der Hochschulbildung". Die praktischen Probleme - Pfuschereien zu unterbinden, Lernerfolge zu kontrollieren - hält er für lösbar, notfalls mittels Testzentren in vielen Ländern.
Doch wie sehen die Hochschulen aus, wenn die Welt zum globalen Campus wird? Die Konkurrenz würde wachsen, weil Studenten unabhängig von Zeit und Raum ihre Wahl treffen könnten. Die amerikanischen Elite-Unis müssten beweisen, dass sie in Forschung und Lehre tatsächlich exzellent sind und nicht nur davon profitieren, aus einer großen Anzahl guter Bewerber die besten auswählen zu können.
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quarta-feira, 21 de dezembro de 2011

A natureza do estado moderno

The Diabolical Genius that is Modern Government

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12/14/11 Baltimore, Maryland – More on our new theory of government.
You’ll recall that this series began by pointing out how worthless most “theories of government” really are. They’re not theories at all. They don’t explain anything. Instead, they are just wishful thinking…flattery…and apologia for the elite who use government for their own ends.
The “social contract,” for example, is a fraud. You can’t have a contract unless you have two willing and able parties. They must come together in a meeting of the minds — a real agreement about what they are going to do together.


Read more: The Diabolical Genius that is Modern Government http://dailyreckoning.com/the-diabolical-genius-that-is-modern-government/#ixzz1hDqgb2t4

Memórias do Gulag

"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?... The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If...if...We didn't love freedom enough. And even more - we had no awareness of the real situation.... We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward."-- 
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Um ano de sucesso

2011 - um ano de sucesso para a fundação Atlas - Atlas Economic Research Foundation


Nome: Reasons for Hope
Autor: Atlas Economic Research Foundation
Data: 21/12/2011
Categoria: Rede Internacional da Liberdade/Freedom International Network
Idioma: Inglês
Descrição:
Atlas's new video, "Reasons for Hope," takes you around the world in 90 seconds. It will show you what an exhilarating year 2011 has been for Atlas and its partners.
This global movement for liberty -- made up of principled people and energetic think tanks, connected to the Atlas network, in more than 80 countries -- is one of the great stories of our era. It truly is a "reason for hope." Too few people know about it. Too many people are willing to leave it to government agencies to foster the values and institutions that sustain free societies.
Atlas believes each of us must take responsibility for fostering freedom. One of our favorite quotes around the office comes from a Brazilian abolitionist of the 19th century named Joaquim Nabuco. He wrote: "Educate your children, educate yourselves in the love for the freedom of others, for only in this way will your own freedom not be a gratutitous gift from fate. You will be aware of its worth and have the courage to defend it." 

Os piores estados do Brasil em educação fundamental

Percentual de desempenho ‘abaixo do básico’ e ‘básico’ – 5º ano – Português

Alagoas89,8%
Maranhão87,1%
Sergipe85,4%
Rio Grande do Norte85,2%
Pernambuco85,0%

Percentual de desempenho ‘abaixo do básico’ e ‘básico’ – 5º ano – Matemática

Alagoas91,5%
Maranhão89,9%
Rio Grande do Norte87,8%
Amapá87,7%
Sergipe87,5%

Percentual de desempenho ‘abaixo do básico’ e ‘básico’ – 9º ano – Português

Alagoas90,5%
Maranhão87,9%
Bahia87,8%
Pernambuco87,6%
Paraíba87,0%

Percentual de desempenho ‘abaixo do básico’ e ‘básico’ – 9º ano – Matemática

Amapá96,7%
Alagoas96,5%
Maranhão96,1%
Bahia95,7%
Pernambuco95,5%

Redação: Bruno Brandão – DRT/MG: 11.382
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Mercados financeiros em risco

"... The Bank of England has set up a financial policy committee, which is just starting the arduous task of sorting out which principles it should follow and which policy buttons it can push. In a paper out today, it sets out its options. It starts by discussing the potential flaws in financial markets such as
incentive distortions which can, for example, arise from contracts that reward short-term performance excessively
informational distortions such as those linked to buyers doubting the quality of assets (adverse selection) or less than fully rational processing of information
co-ordination problems, where collective action, for example to step away from lending in a boom, may be in the interests of individual banks but there is no way to co-ordinate on this outcome ..."
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Anúncio do BoE
Instruments of Macroprudential Policy

O "facebook" nos tempos de Lutero

Social media in the 16th Century

How Luther went viral

Five centuries before Facebook and the Arab spring, social media helped bring about the Reformation

IT IS a familiar-sounding tale: after decades of simmering discontent a new form of media gives opponents of an authoritarian regime a way to express their views, register their solidarity and co-ordinate their actions. The protesters’ message spreads virally through social networks, making it impossible to suppress and highlighting the extent of public support for revolution. The combination of improved publishing technology and social networks is a catalyst for social change where previous efforts had failed.
That’s what happened in the Arab spring. It’s also what happened during the Reformation, nearly 500 years ago, when Martin Luther and his allies took the new media of their day—pamphlets, ballads and woodcuts—and circulated them through social networks to promote their message of religious reform.
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Veja também:
Antony Mueller: "A Internet e o futuro da liberdade"

Literatura em América Latina

Publishing in Latin America... A literary deficit... Brazil apart, publishers are struggling to persuade the growing middle class to read more books... The small size of the market means that books have traditionally been sold like luxury goods in Latin America. Spain has one bookshop for every 10,000 people. By contrast, Argentina has one for every 20,000, Brazil one for every 50,000, and Mexico one for every 70,000 Mais

Facebook

Facebook Must Change European Service

Facebook Inc. must overhaul its network in Europe over the next six months as a result of an investigation into how the social network handles personal data.
Facebook has to make “a wide range of best practice improvements” to its service that will get a formal review in July, the Irish data-protection agency said today, after concluding a three-month audit. Facebook’s Ireland operation is responsible for all the Palo Alto, California-based company’s users outside the U.S. and Canada, the agency said.
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Justo ou injusto? Moral ou imoral?

Dezembro 21, 2011

Injusto e imoral

Filed under: Economia,Política,Portugal — Carlos Guimarães Pinto @ 06:24
Os dois grandes educadores em Portugal, a escola pública e os media, foram passando a mensagem ao longo dos anos de que os jovens devem seguir a carreira que mais gostam e para a qual se sintam dotados. Na medida em que o direito ao emprego está garantido pela constituição, o corolário óbvio é de que é função do estado (ou seja, dos contribuintes) garantir que essas pessoas terão um emprego. Cresceu assim uma geração de auto-proclamados artistas, professores, académicos e intelectuais de toda a espécie. Enquanto houve dinheiro criaram-se bolsas, subsídios e posições na função pública que foram compensando o facto de mais ninguém estar disposto a pagar-lhes pelo seu trabalho. Enquanto isso, empresas tiveram que deslocar-se por falta de profissionais qualificados e talentosos.
Entretanto, como sempre acontece com experiências socialistas, acabou-se o dinheiro dos outros. Nos próximos anos alguns irão perder as, cada vez mais escassas, benesses que o estado lhes foi dando. A pessoas como a Myriam Zaluar permitam-me que dê um conselho: façam-se úteis à sociedade, adaptem-se e façam algo que os outros estejam dispostos a pagar sem ser por intermédio da coerção estatal. Se mesmo assim insistirem em fazer aquilo que gostam, emigrem, procurem um local em que haja pessoas dispostas a pagar pelo vosso talento. Se não há crianças suficientes para lhes garantir um emprego, os professores que o queiram continuar a ser, devem deslocar-se para países lusófonos onde existem milhares de crianças sem professor. Não é obrigação dos restantes portugueses subsidiar os vossos sonhos, nem financiar más decisões de carreira. É injusto pedir aos contribuintes, que na sua maioria não têm as suas profissões de sonho, que continuem a abdicar dos seus subsídios de Natal para que vocês possam ter uma profissão que não satisfaz nenhuma outra necessidade para além da vossa própria realização pessoal. Não é só injusto, é imoral.
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