"some kind of civilization-level agent"

I dare say that civilization is impossible, in the long term, without religions. Religion is a fantastic tool, and I am a religious guy, to promote cooperation and forgiveness instead of tilt-for-tat and escalation into conflict everywhere

— Carlos P da Cruz 🇺🇦🚜🇳🇱🇬🇪 (@ccz1) June 21, 2021

As leituras da missa de hoje na ICAR são sobre a base das civilizações. Cortar, pelo menos entre os nossos, a espiral do "tit for tat". Sem perdão não há civilização.
Perdoar não significa, não intervenção da justiça.
Julgo ser este um papel de todas as religiões

— Carlos P da Cruz 🇺🇦🚜🇳🇱🇬🇪 (@ccz1) February 20, 2022

Há muito que penso que o papel das religiões é quebrar o tit for tat que faz escalar qualquer confito e impede a civilização. 

Por isso, sorri ao ouvir:

"Is there an overarching aesthetics that are projecting you and the world into the future? 

Which I think is the basic idea of religion, that you understand the interactions that we have with each other as some kind of civilization-level agent that is projecting itself into the future."

Trecho retirado de Joscha Bach: Nature of Reality, Dreams, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #212 

"ground truth versus appearances"

 "... basically put us into the post-modernist mode, and I don't mean in the philosophical sense but in a societal sense. The difference between a post-modern society and the modern society is that the modernist society has to deal with the ground truth and the postmodernist society has to deal with appearances.

Politics becomes a performance and the performance is done for an audience, and the organized audience is the media and the media evaluates itself via other media right so you have an audience of critics that evaluate themselves"

Trecho retirado de Joscha Bach: Nature of Reality, Dreams, and Consciousness | Lex Fridman Podcast #212 

 

Banda sonora para este tempo -

Qual o resultado final?

 Qual o resultado final deste jogo de forças?

Isto a propósito deste artigo no Caderno de Economia do semanário Expresso de ontem, "Têxtil volta a ter empresas em lay-off":

""Na indústria têxtil há cada vez mais clientes a atrasarem ou a suspenderem encomendas e já temos algumas empresas em lay-off ou a jogar com a antecipação de férias", diz ao Expresso Mário Jorge Machado, presidente da ATP Associação Têxtil e Vestuário de Portugal, preocupado com a evolução de um sector que pede o regresso de mais apoios, [Moi ici: Sempre a mesma doença portuguesa] num regime equivalente ao que foi adotado no pico da pandemia de covid. "Temos os consumidores assustados com a guerra, a inflação, a questão energética, a subida das taxas de juro. O retalho começa a retrair-se e a indústria sente também esse impacto", explica o empresário e dirigente associativo para defender "um quadro mais flexível, que facilite a reação rápida das empresas às flutuações da economia".

É verdade que os números da exportação continuam a ser positivos: até maio, as vendas ao exterior tiveram um crescimento homólogo de 19%, para os €2,6 mil milhões (mais 17% face a 2019), mas a evolução relativa ao volume tem vindo a abrandar mês após mês, acumulando agora um saldo positivo de 6%, e "a faturação é sempre reflexo de decisões de encomendas entregues alguns meses antes" sublinha, para garantir que o momento atual "é de arrefecimento".

A tendência é transversal a todos os segmentos da indústria têxtil, mas nesta fase as empress mais afetadas são as de acabamentos, tinturarias, tecelagem, tricotagem e algumas confeções, precisa. Do lado dos clientes, o abrandamento é especialmente sentido na Europa, com destaque para a Alemanha, e nos EUA."

Outras leituras:

• La inflación de las exportaciones textiles cierra junio en un nuevo máximo histórico 
• China Covid-19 Cases Hit Two-Month High
• El 37% de los europeos planea reducir su gasto en moda

"'‘and’ is a trap"

"Leading a project is about causing the death of a million ‘ands’.

...

You can’t build a luxury car that’s also inexpensive, AND drives well off-road, AND is very fast AND super safe. You can’t create an event that’s intimate, open to all comers, proven, resilient for any weather, held outdoors and unique.

We focus on the frustration of losing an ‘and’ when we get nervous about the decisions we’re asked to make, when we are hesitant about commitment. And we obsess over the constraints we’ve already accepted because it slows us down and amplifies our fears.

Instead of focusing on what we’re building, we focus on the paths that are no longer open.

If we’re going to create anything at all, if we’re going to ship the work, the positive path is to look for the constraints and grab them. They’re the point. No constraints, no project. When we see them as stepping stones on the way to the work we hope to do, they’re not a problem, they’re a sign that we’re onto something.

Managing a project is the craft of picking this ‘or’ that. ‘And’ isn’t often welcome because ‘and’ is a trap."

Trechos retirados de "Paths not taken"

"The High Risk of Low Cost"

Há dias em E Zeihan chega a Mongo! citei:

"4. Supply chains will be much shorter. 

...

5. Production will become colocated with consumption.

...

6. The new systems will put premiums on simplicity and security just as the old system put premiums on cost and efficiency."

Agora leio, por um lado os sintomas do impacte da incerteza no retorno dos inventários, "Why Fashion’s Inventory Problem Is Back (And How to Solve It)" e, por outro lado, o aumento do risco da aposta no custo mais baixo, "Navigating Retail’s New Era of Risk":

"On closer inspection it’s clear that today’s global supply chains are the product of centuries of growth but little meaningful evolution when it comes to risk management. 

...

The High Risk of Low Cost

Although separated by almost 200 years of history, the cotton famine of the 1860's and the supply chain crises of today share the same root cause: a myopic and often perilous focus on lowest landed unit cost. Procuring vast quantities of cheap goods has driven and continues to drive most of today's top brands because most see price as the cornerstone of competitiveness. However, as supply chain expert John Thorbeck often says, we operate in an era where business leaders must once and for all appreciate that the singular pursuit of low cost comes with an extraordinary number of risks that make businesses far less competitive, the first being the risk to financial capital.

...

It is also logical to assume that risks to global supply chains will become more frequent and profound as we become increasingly interconnected as a global community. 

...

If reducing unit cost was the competitive advantage of the past, eliminating risk is the competitive advantage of the future."

Interessante, como regresso sempre a Maio de 2020 e a El coronavirus actúa como acelerador de cambios que ya estaban en marcha. Pois, em 2008... Para reflectir

Outras leituras:

• A “globalização” morreu. Viva a “blocalização!

Nós não mandamos na cabeça das pessoas!!!

Há muitos anos, 2006, escrevi aqui no blogue este texto, "Mais um monumento à treta - parte II". O comentário que lhe acrescentei em 2011 descreve algo que fui encontrando ao longo do tempo em contactos com pessoas que trabalham no sector público, mas também em algumas que trabalham no sector privado. Em Abril do ano passado compilei alguns textos sobre o tema em Sem resultados pelos quais responder não há skin-in-the-game.

O tema é sobre a diferença entre trabalhar para resultados e trabalhar para executar actividades. Muita gente, muitas organizações comprometem-se em trabalhar para executar um conjunto de actividades. No entanto, as actividades não são um fim em si mesmo. As actividades são tarefas que executamos porque pretendemos chegar a um conjunto de resultados. O exemplo clássico aqui no blogue é o do texto de 2006 sobre a redução da violência doméstica. Periodicamente, elabora-se um plano nacional contra a violência doméstica, no qual se assume o compromisso de realizar um conjunto de actividades. Como é que se avalia o sucesso do plano? Pela taxa de execução das actividades, nunca pelos resultados alcançados. Quando pergunto qual o racional desta abordagem a resposta muitas vezes desarma-me: 

- Como nos podemos comprometer com resultados, nós não mandamos na cabeça das pessoas?

Imaginem os responsáveis comerciais, ou os vendedores das empresas privadas a responderem deste modo ao pedido por parte da gestão de topo para objectivos de vendas para o ano.

- Nós não mandamos na cabeça dos potenciais clientes, como nos podemos comprometer com resultados?

Porque volto ao tema? Há poucas semanas Roger Martin escreveu um texto sobre as variáveis dependentes e independentes nas organizações, Planeamento versus pensamento estratégico. 

A figura ilustra como as variáveis dependentes podem ser controladas e manipuladas pela gestão: Quantos trabalhadores? Que produtos produzir? Que fornecedores escolher? Em que mercados trabalhar? Quanto investir?

As variáveis independentes são, naturalmente, as variáveis que uma empresa não pode controlar. 

Será que os clientes vão comprar? Será que os clientes vão gostar do design? "Nós não mandamos na cabeça dos potenciais clientes"

Na semana passada ao ouvir um podcast de Lex Friedman com Steve Keen onde a certa altura se fala do sucesso económico chinês. Dei comigo a aplicar as ideias do texto de Roger Martin ao sucesso chinês e até ao sucesso soviético até aos anos 60.

Quando uma empresa adopta uma estratégia que não a do preço a dimensão da variável independente é enorme. A probabilidade, o risco do cliente rejeitar é enorme.

Já quando a estratégia assenta no preço mais baixo, desde que não se seja a formiga no piquenique, desde que seja aplicada por quem pode e não por quem quer, o risco é muito menor. Sabe-se, pode-se estimar que uma fracção do mercado optará pelo preço mais baixo independentemente do destino, da customization ou da inovação. Quando a estratégia assenta no preço mais baixo parece que tudo decorre como se o cliente não tivesse vontade própria, e se comportasse como mais uma variável dependente.

Enquanto a China apostar/apostou no preço mais baixo, a selecção prévia dos vencedores (picking winners) o risco dos investimentos feitos, associado ao efeito de escala criaram uma espécie de efeito em cadeia "lock-in" que tem/teve sucesso. Assim que se sai desse universo e se procura competir por serviço, design ou inovação as coisas complicam-se.

Fausto, a "dívida" e o payback time

Ando a ler o livro "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan. 

O autor cenariza o mundo futuro com base em duas variáveis: O fim da Ordem Americana que permite o comércio international, e o colapso demográfico em muitas partes do mundo.

No final do ano passado podia-se ler:

• O drama sem fim da escassez da mão de obra qualificada [Moi ici: Leio o artigo e fico a pensar numa certa ingenuidade da autora... como se fosse uma questão de condições de trabalho, apenas. Sim, isto aplica-se, mas é muito mais profundo ...]
• Falta de mão de obra põe economias desenvolvidas em “guerra” por migrantes

Entretanto, ontem encontrei isto, "Where have all the workers gone? Don't blame COVID, economists say", e o seu conteúdo alinha-se muito com o livro de Zeihan.

"Boomers are exiting the workforce in droves, leaving more job vacancies than there are people to fill them.

...

Canada is in the throes of a serious labour shortage, but economists say it's not all the pandemic's fault — it's the inevitable culmination of a seismic demographic shift decades in the making.

"It's the slowest-moving train on the planet. It was predictable 60 to 65 years ago, and we have done nothing about it," said Armine Yalnizyan, an economist and Atkinson Fellow on the Future of Workers. "We knew this transition was going to happen."

...

In particular, the construction and manufacturing sectors are having a difficult time recruiting skilled workers, followed closely by accommodation and food services, which includes hotels, restaurants and bars. 

"People are finding other places to work. There just aren't enough people willing to do poorly paid jobs that are marginal at best," Yalnizyan noted. 

"Workers have a lot more choices now," Lee agreed. "If you have more choices and you don't have to work in that industry, you'll go and work in an industry where there's a better career stream and where the wages are higher and the hours are more predictable.""

Alinho isto com este trecho retirado do livro de Zeihan:

“Nobody would expect the worker who plugs in the relatively low-tech wiring to be compensated at the same rate as the worker who fine-tunes the sensors. Imagine if all the pieces were made in Japan, a country with a per capita income of some $41,000. That System on a Chip would be pretty fly—and it should be, the Japanese excel at complex microelectronic work—but it stretches the mind to think there might be some Japanese dude who loves to run an injection mold system to make phone cases for a dollar an hour. It would be like Lady Gaga teaching piano lessons to four-year-olds. Could she do it? Certainly. I bet she’d do great. But no one is going to pay her fifty grand for an hour of her trouble”

Fica tão claro o modelo Flying Geese. E fica clara a aprendizagem dos dinamarqueses acerca da contribuição líquida dos imigrantes para a sua segurança social:

"What Kind of Leaders Do We Need Now?"

 

"The war in Ukraine, however, has radically altered the geopolitical situation—with profound implications for business leaders. Many have had to decide whether to stop doing business in Russia [Moi ici: E não esquecer a China] —a choice that involves moral, economic, and political considerations that some CEOs feel ill-prepared to weigh. The combination of geopolitical strife and the pandemic has caused leaders to reevaluate their geographic footprints and supply chains. Many sense that the era of expansive globalization may be over, and they are exploring opportunities to localize their businesses to make them more resilient to international turmoil.

...

What Kind of Leaders Do We Need Now?

The new zeitgeist will require executives with the instincts to deal with shifting external forces, the ability to sense fresh economic opportunities, and the skills to lead and manage in a different age.

...

Avoiding land mines starts with anticipating how different stakeholders will react to events unfolding inside and outside the company. And that requires leaders to first broaden their thinking about what’s relevant to their business. There was a time when a CEO could say, “But what does this have to do with my company? Isn’t this matter in the personal or political sphere?” Such a perspective is unlikely to serve any executive well in the times ahead. Rather than resist, CEOs will have to embrace the broader responsibility into which they and their organizations will be drawn. They’ll need to empathize with people whose identities and interests may differ from their own. Gathering a wide range of views and listening carefully—even to thoughts and perspectives that may seem outlandish—will enable CEOs to be more in tune with those they lead.

...

The new zeitgeist will also require a greater emphasis on crisis management skills. Leaders can no longer assume that trouble may strike once every three or four years and be managed by outside crisis consultants. Instead, companies must prepare for a steady stream of upheavals—and hone their in-house skills for dealing with them. They can’t afford to merely react; they should anticipate, plan, and organize for potential challenges."

Trechos retirados de "As the World Shifts, So Should Leaders"

Artesãos do futuro

É recorrente a queixa nas televisões e jornais de que há falta de trabalhadores. Alguns empresários e líderes associativos pedem soluções ao governo (BTW, ontem num Continente estranhei tantos repositores com aspecto de indianos/paquistaneses/bangladeshis, nunca tinha reparado)

Em tempos escrevi sobre as escolas profissionais do futuro, um retorno ao século XIX: "é para aí que vamos novamente".

Ontem li, "Se busca artesano: el lujo acusa la falta de trabajadores especializados":

"El lujo es uno de los sectores de la industria de la moda que más depende de fuerza de trabajo especializado y que más está sufriendo las consecuencias del escaso relevo generacional que hay en la artesanía.

...

Este año, LVMH tiene 2.000 vacantes disponibles de artesanos especialistas en divisiones como marroquinería, joyería, relojería y venta. “De cara a 2024, necesitaríamos unos 30.000 puestos de trabajo para asegurar la continuidad de la empresa”, sentenció la directiva.

Según cifras recogidas por WWD, el 65% de los puestos de trabajo en la industria del lujo a escala global se encontraban vacantes en 2021. En los últimos años, el remedio que han encontrado grandes empresas de lujo como Louis Vuitton, Chanel o Hermès, entre otras, ha sido la creación de programas educativos para formar a las nuevas generaciones en la artesanía.

En 2014, LVMH puso en marcha Institut des Métiers d’Excellence, una especie de escuela para formar a las generaciones más jóvenes en la artesanía. 

...

En los últimos años, el remedio que han encontrado grandes empresas de lujo a la falta de artesanos es la creación de programas formativos

...

Gucci, la joya de la corona del conglomerado de lujo Kering, también lanzó en 2018 Gucci École de l’Amour, una escuela que se centra en formar a las nuevas generaciones en procesos de fabricación y artesanía en las categorías de calzado y artículos de piel. La empresa también cuenta con Accademia ArtLab e Fabbriche, un programa interno que se centra en dar formación específica a empleados de Gucci que trabajan en las fábricas."

BTW, tenho na calha para leitura futura, "Return of the Artisan: How America Went from Industrial to Handmade" 

E Zeihan chega a Mongo!

E Peter Zeihan em "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" chega a Mongo!!!

Mongo é uma metáfora que uso há anos aqui no blogue para ilustrar um mundo económico pós-massificação. Eu cheguei lá por volta de 2007, uma sequência lógica da punção humana para a diversidade. Ele chega lá pela demografia e geopolítica. Ainda assim, penso que ele se fica mais pela dimensão das cadeias de fornecimento, pelas dificuldades da oferta. Eu prefiro adoptar o ponto de vista da procura.

"The longer and more complex the supply chain, the more likely it is to face catastrophic, irrecoverable breakdown.

That single statement contains a lot of angst and disruption.

...

The processes we use to manufacture things will change because the environment will change. Global economies of scale will vanish. Many of the technologies we use to manufacture goods under globalization will not prove applicable to the fractured world emerging.

That means that we, today in 2022, have a lot of industrial plant that just won't be relevant much longer.

...

It is all going to become stranded. Deglobalization-whether triggered by the American withdrawal or demographic collapse-will break the supply links that make most China-centric manufacturing possible, even before consuming nations more jealously protect their home markets.

...

The characteristics of this new industrial plant will reflect a fundamentally different macroeconomic, strategic, financial, and technological environment. It will be a bit different based on where that plant is located, but some common characteristics will exist across them all.

1.Mass-production assembly lines are largely out.

...

2.Reducing economies of scale reduces the opportunities for automation. Applying new technology to any manufacturing system adds cost, and automation is no exception. It will still happen, but only in targeted applications such as textiles and advanced semiconductors.  [Moi ici: Recordo o exemplo da Toyota e da Mercedes, mas o ponto não é o custo, o ponto é o estilhaçar da procura numa multidão de gostos]

...

3.The pace of technological improvement in manufacturing will slow. Let me make that broader: the pace of all technological improvement will slow. [Moi ici: Pelo contrário, acredito que a velocidade da inovação vai aumentar]

...

4. Supply chains will be much shorter. In a disconnected world, any point of exposure is a failure point and any manufacturing system that cannot snuff out its own complexity is one that will not survive. The model of dozens of geographically isolated suppliers feeding into a single, sprawling supply chain will vanish. Instead, successful manufacturing will twist into two new, mutually supportive shapes. ... Machine shops in particular should thrive. They can quickly absorb capital and technology and new designs and new workers, and crank out customized or rapidly changing parts for use in those larger, core facilities.

5. Production will become colocated with consumption. With the global map fracturing, serving a consumer market means producing goods within that market. For smaller and more isolated markets, this suggests extreme production costs due to an utter lack of economies of scale, as well as difficulty sourcing the necessary range of input materials. 

...

6. The new systems will put premiums on simplicity and security just as the old system put premiums on cost and efficiency. The death of just-in-time will force manufacturers to do one of two things.

...

7. The workforce will be very different. Between an alternating emphasis on customization and carrying out multiple manufacturing steps in one location, there isn't much room for people who don't know what they are doing."

"THE DISASSEMBLY OF EUROPE"

"the European system will falter for any number of reasons. The first rationale is both the most obvious and the least manageable: Europe’s baby bust started before Asia’s, with the Europeans passing the point of demographic no return even before the new millennium. Belgium, Germany, Italy, and Austria will all age into mass retirement in the first half of the 2020s, while nearly every country in a Central European line from Estonia to Bulgaria is aging even faster and will age out in the second half.

Even worse, demographics alone ensure that Europe as we know it will collapse on a similar time schedule.

...

The demographic problem haunts in a second way. Europe has aged to the point that it cannot absorb its own products. Europe must maintain a high level of exports to maintain its system. The top destination is the United States, a country that is turning ever inward and at the time of this writing is already edging its way into a broad-spectrum trade war with the European Union

...

the part of Europe that maintains the most robust trade relationship with the Chinese is Germany. German product sales to China skew very heavily in the direction of machinery used to make other products . . . products for export. Even if, against all odds, Germany and China can maintain a trade relationship in a world where they lack the strategic reach to interact directly, Chinese exports will not be nearly as needed, undermining the base rationale for any sort of German-Chinese interaction.

...

Germany cannot maintain its position as a wealthy and free nation without the Americans, but Germany also cannot maintain its position as a modern industrialized nation without Russia.

...

Simply put, the Germanocentric system cannot maintain its current position, much less grow, and no one in the world has a strategic interest in bailing it out. The challenge for Central Europe will be to keep the Germans from acting like a “normal” country. The last seven times Germany did, things got . . . historical."

Só demografia e geopolítica macro, eu acrescentaria a indisciplina requerida pelo euro... também relacionada com a demografia.

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

Curiosidade do dia

“The Texas Triangle comprises the cities of Houston, Dallas–Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio. From a manufacturing point of view, the Triangle has it all: cheap food, cheap power, cheap land, no income tax, minimal corporate tax, hilariously light regulations. And that won’t change. Hell, the Texas legislature only meets once every other year, for only thirty-five days, and legislators are constitutionally barred from even considering legislation for the first half of that time window. American manufacturers of all types have flocked to the region. The single biggest subsector is automotive, but that oversimplifies a dizzying variety and dynamism. Austin operationalizes Silicon Valley’s ideas. Dallas–Fort Worth leverages its banking center to turn Austin’s brain work into mass manufacturing. San Antonio mixes lower costs than even the Texas average with the tech of Austin to blow out anything that can be put on an assembly line. But the real star of the Texas game is Houston. It plays with Austin in tech and Dallas–Fort Worth in automation and San Antonio with mass manufacture and it is a financial capital and it is America’s energy hub and it is in the Gulf Coast region and it is America’s biggest port by value and it is really good at moving around big chunks of metal. That machine work the Germans are so good at? Houston comes in a solid second place globally. No wonder Houston is the country’s second-largest concentration for Fortune 500 headquarters.”

Trecho retirado de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

"Great Success!"

 Recordar:

Precisamos da via irlandesa. E qual é o destino? Manter o esquema Ponzi da segurança social a todo o custo. O tal:

“and the governing models of the post–World War II era do not simply go broke, they become societal suicide pacts.”

No DN de ontem:

Já antevejo:

Ao menos podiam conversar entre eles.

Cuidado com a iniciativa privada que promovem

🍅🍅 Hortícolas do Oeste à conquista da Europa

O presidente da Iniciativa Liberal esteve este domingo com horticultores em Torres Vedras.

Um negócio que gera valor e que exporta.

É a iniciativa privada que faz Portugal mexer. #PortugalMaisLiberal pic.twitter.com/nBtW6wuvFr

— Iniciativa Liberal (@LiberalPT) July 17, 2022

Cuidado com a iniciativa privada que promovem. Recordar: Os saxões que aguentem! 

A CAP de 2022 não é a CAP do pós revolução. Há muitos anos que uso aqui no blogue o marcador "joão subsidio machado" do tempo em que João Machado era o líder da CAP. Como bem nota Erik Reinert num podcast, toda a suposta bem sucedida agricultura americana e europeia só o é porque  repousa sobre um louco mar de subsídios.

Cuidado com a iniciativa privada que promovem.

Tudo errado ...

A propósito de "Governo vai “libertar as empresas de alguns constrangimentos fiscais”"...

Sublinho esta frase:

"Não se pode pedir este aumento do salário médio sem dar nada em troca às empresas, que lhes permita ganhar competitividade?"

Tudo errado ...

• Cabe ao governo aumentar a competitividade das empresas? Voltamos ao CEO da Galp ou ao outro da Sumol.
• Misturar salários e competitividade? Voltamos ao Uganda.

E é, nem mais nem menos, que o ministro da Economia de Portugal...

  

O fim da globalização (parte VIII)

Parte VII

Continuo a minha leitura de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

O autor acredita que com o fim da Ordem Americana imposta desde o pós-guerra o mundo aberto em que vivemos vai desaparecer. Uma das hipóteses do autor é a generalização da pirataria que se vê na costa da Somália, e o regresso de corsários ao serviço de estados. Primeiro o autor descreve os circuitos do petróleo e do gás natural, depois ilustra como as energias renováveis nunca conseguirão substituir nas décadas mais próximas as energias fósseis. É impressionante, os políticos mandam bitaites e fazem grandes proclamações. O autor limita-se a fazer contas e a demonstrar que não existe nem lítio nem cobalto capaz de alimentar essas ilusões. Agora estou a assistir a uma descrição das fontes, e de quem processa o aço, o cobre, o alumínio, o lítio, o molibdénio, o cobalto, a platina, o ouro, a prata, terras raras, e ...

O autor bate sempre na tecla que muitos países vão sentir-se tentados a novamente voltarem à tentação imperial para conseguir garantir o fornecimento desses materiais.

Na minha mente surgiu entretanto uma palavra da segunda guerra mundial: ersatz.

Muita investigação vai ter de ser desenvolvida na Europa para arranjar alternativas a todos aqueles materiais que a economia actual precisa, mas não existem na Europa. Imagino moléculas orgânicas a substituírem os materiais originais.

"Define the problems the organization should focus on"

"What I found is that to make the transition successfully, executives must navigate a tricky set of changes in a their leadership focus and skills, which I call the seven seismic shifts. They must learn to move from specialist to generalist, analyst to integrator, tactician to strategist, bricklayer to architect, problem solver to agenda setter, warrior to diplomat, and supporting cast member to lead role.

...

Problem Solver to Agenda Setter

Define the problems the organization should focus on, and spot issues that don't fall neatly into any one function but are still important."

A propósito de "Define the problems the organization should focus on", quantas vezes esta definição é feita de forma reactiva? Quantas vezes é feita sem a transição de tacticista para estratégico?

Trechos retirados de "How Managers Become Leaders"  

Coisas que vão afectar a nossa vida económica

Coisas que vão afectar a nossa vida económica:

• Autoeuropa a caminho do segundo melhor ano de sempre com alívio nos chips
• Vendas europeias de carros em junho em mínimos de 1996
• Why Are People Across China Refusing to Pay Their Mortgages? What to Know So Far
• The War Economy

"But in any case, despite my wishes, the world is probably entering an era of intense geopolitical competition, the likes of which haven’t been seen at least since the 1970s and probably since the 1930s. And that competition has the potential to provide a legitimating mission for the reintroduction of the kind of large-scale economic planning that many people have been looking for since 2008. We may not be able to prevent the new era of conflict, but in some ways we can take advantage of it — and in any case, we must do what needs to be done."

Recordar a série O risco de voltar a trabalhar com a China (parte IV)

Exportações nos primeiros 5 meses do ano

Exportações portuguesas nos primeiros cinco meses do ano. Comparação entre 2022 com 2019 e 2021:

Comparando com o mês anterior:

Desempenho impressionante dos produtos farmacêuticos, mas praticamente todos os sectores que acompanho há anos com números muito bons. 

O fim da globalização e a solução tuga para a segurança social (parte VII)

Parte VI e outras. 

“Yes, the Americans have probably expanded their money supply more than is entirely reasonable, but try to maintain some perspective”

O autor começa um capítulo designado por “Disaster Is Relative” com o aviso acima. Há dias li algures que mais de 40% dos dólares americanos em circulação tinham sido emitidos desde 2020. Isto corporiza a ideia que tenho dos americanos.

O que eu não tinha noção era dos outros valores:

“In under two years, the European banking crisis expansion increased the euro money supply by 80 percent”

Como não seria de esperar outra coisa com um banco central mais político do que outra coisa. Daí:

“The Europeans and Japanese regularly expand their money supply whenever they have a political goal to meet, a decision-making process that encourages most people who are not European and Japanese from holding or transacting in their currencies at all. As such, their money supplies have often surpassed that of the United States, despite the fact that both the European euro and especially the Japanese yen are no longer true global currencies.”

E a China:

“Since 2007—the year everyone started talking about the Chinese taking over the planet—the supply of yuan has increased by more than eight hundred percent.”

Realmente … disaster is relative.

“So, have the Americans played a bit fast and loose with their monetary policy? Perhaps. Will that have consequences down the line? Probably. Will those consequences be comfortable? Probably not. But it is the Europeans and Japanese who have gone off the deep end, while the Chinese have swum out to sea during a hurricane and dived headfirst into the Texas-sized whirlpool that serves as Godzilla's front door. Scale matters.

Particularly when the rules change.”

Depois do autor chamar a atenção para o impacte futuro das brincadeira com as fiat currencies, resolve meter a cereja no topo do bolo: O que vai acontecer aos mercados financeiros quando uma massa brutal de gente que teve os seus melhores anos de rendimento do trabalho entre 1990 e 2020 se começar a reformar e a mudar padrões de comportamento de consumo e a assumir padrões de investimento muito mais conservadores. Sem haver backup de uma nova geração capaz de substituir a anterior.

"When the money stops flowing and financing costs increase, the whole thing comes crashing down.

Second, it is so coming crashing down. There’s no geopolitical forecast here. It is basic math. The majority of the men and women in the world’s mature worker bulge—those all-important Baby Boomers—will hit retirement in the first half of the 2020s. Retirees no longer have new income to invest.”

Depois, certamente por desconhecimento do que o ministro Vieira da Silva fez em Portugal para salvar a segurança social, o autor continua:

"Or at least it's great until those mature workers retire. Instead of paying into the system, retirees draw from the system in the form of pensions and health care costs. Replace a tax-heavy, mature worker-heavy demographic of the 2000s and 2010s with the tax-poor, retiree-heavy demographic of the 2020s and 2030s and the governing models of the post-World War II era do not simply go broke, they become societal suicide pacts."

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

O fim da globalização e a finança (parte VI)

Parte V, IV, III, II e I.

A fazer fé no que o autor de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning", Peter Zeihan, escreve, aprendi umas coisas interessantes no capítulo sobre a finança.

Começa por contar como o Japão, desde o século VII:

"the Japanese had a unique view of debt. In Japan capital exists not to serve economic needs, but instead to serve political needs. To that end, debt was allowed, even encouraged . . . so long as it didn’t become inconvenient to the sovereign. Dating back to the seventh century, if widespread debt got in the way of the emperor or sho-gun’s goals, it was simply dissolved under the debt forgiveness doctrine of tokusei."

Depois, começa a desfiar como os vários países asiáticos usam e abusam das fiat currencies:

"as the most enthusiastic of the fiat currency adopters, the Asians were willing to push the limits of what was possible to the point that Americans and Europeans got a bit skittish about the very nature of Asian finance."

Depois, apresenta o exemplo da China:

"The biggest of the adherents to the Asian financial model is, of course, China. It isn’t so much that the Chinese applied the model in any fundamentally new ways, but instead that they carried the model to its absurd extremes by nearly every measure.

...

By the time the Chinese were ready to get down to the business of business, the gold standard was nearly a decade gone. Modern Communist China has known nothing but the era of fiat currencies and cheap money. It had no good habits to break.

...

The Chinese have embraced the fiat currency era just as warmly as they embraced the Asian financial model. China regularly prints currency at more than double the rate of the United States, sometimes at five times the U.S. rate. And whereas the U.S. dollar is the store of value for the world and the global medium of exchange, the Chinese yuan wasn’t even used in Hong Kong until the 2010s.*

Part and parcel of the Chinese financial model is that there is no top. Because the system throws a bottomless supply of money at issues, it is hongry. Nothing—and I mean nothing—is allowed to stand in the way of development. Price is no issue because the volume of credit is no issue."

Depois, vêm palavras nada meigas sobre o euro:

"The Europeans are far more reserved than the Asians when it comes to finance, but that’s a bit like saying Joan Rivers didn’t like plastic surgery as much as Cher.

The profit motive is alive and well in Europe, with everything from home ownership to industrial expansion constrained by capital availability. Yet Europeans demand higher levels of service, stability, and support from their governments, and most European governments secure that service, stability, and support by tinkering with financial systems, most notably via banks."

Depois de explicar como diferentes países europeus olham para o dinheiro de forma diferente começa a massacrar:

"An obvious characteristic that comes from this is that no two economies are the same. Credit at the national level is also colored by a combination of size and diversity.

...

Somewhere along the line, the Europeans misplaced this basic understanding. They conflated the idea that having a unified currency would deepen economic regional integration as well as push Europe along toward the goal of becoming globally powerful.

For reasons that only made sense at the time, in the 1990s and early 2000s it became Europe’s conventional wisdom that everyone in Europe should be able to borrow at terms that previously had only been offered to the most scrupulous of Europeans. Furthermore, such borrowing should be green-lighted in any volume for any project by any government or corporation at any level.

...

The entire European system is now doing little more than going through the motions until the common currency inevitably shatters.

Before you get all judgy about the Asians or Europeans, please understand that they are hardly the only ones taking advantage of the cash-for-everyone world we currently live in. The Americans are no exception."

Não tenho grande opinião sobre os políticos europeus actuais, mas a fazer fé no livro é muito pior, e não só na Europa, é em todo o mundo. 

Planeamento versus pensamento estratégico

Uma boa reflexão de Roger Martin, mais uma. 

"We have things we control, which are called the independent variables. Because we control them, we can conduct experiments in which we vary the independent variables in an attempt to produce desired results on the dependent variable — the variable we don’t control.

...

Customers are the ultimate dependent variable. We don’t control them at all. They make their own decisions. We control all sorts of company assets — people, capital, physical assets, technologies, brands, patents, etc. They are the independent variables. We can utilize them to invest in initiatives of all sorts with the intention of influencing the dependent variable — customer behavior — in the way we want.

I believe that planners do not understand the difference between dependent and independent variables. As a consequence, they don’t think about how their initiatives in combination will compel customers to do the things they wish. Planners are not lacking intelligence. Their initiatives tend to be sensible — or laudable as I have described them. Planners work hard and spend the corporation’s resources at their disposal in an attempt to produce the outcomes they desire. But since they lack an understanding of how independent and dependent variables work, they assume that if they put together enough laudable initiatives, things will work out the way they hope.

...

Strategists, on the other hand, fully understand and appreciate that customers are the ultimate dependent variable. They know that only an artfully integrated set of choices has the chance of compelling customers to act in a fashion that is consistent with the strategist’s aspirations."

Trechos retirados de "How to Compel Customer Action"

O fim da globalização (parte V)

O fim da globalização (parte IV) + Parte I, parte II  e parte III.

O autor prevê o colapso do comércio intercontinental por causa da ascenção da pirataria. Uma perspectiva interessante que nos obriga a pensar no que tomamos como garantido:

"Long-haul transport is what brings everything from areas of high supply to high demand, regardless of participant. For any product that is concentrated in terms of supply or demand, expect market collapse.

...

The Western Hemisphere is fine for foodstuffs and energy but will need to build out its manufacturing capacity for products as wildly varied as laptops and shoes. The German bloc’s manufacturing capacity is largely in-house, but the raw inputs that enable it to operate are wholly absent. The Japanese and Chinese are going to have to head out to secure food and energy and raw materials and markets. It’s a good thing that Japan likes to manufacture products where it sells them, and fields a potent long-reach navy. It’s a bad thing that most of China’s navy can’t make it past Vietnam, even in an era of peace

...

First and most obvious are the pirates. Any zone without a reasonably potent local naval force is one that is all but certain to host Somalia-style pirate harassment. Second and less obvious are the privateers, in essence pirates sponsored by an actual country to harass their competitors, and who have been granted rights to seek succor, fuel, and crew (and sell their *ahem* booty) in allied ports.

...

The third security concern isn’t likely to be constrained to the no-man’s-lands: state piracy. We’re moving into a world where the ability to import anything—whether it be iron ore or diesel fuel or fertilizer or wire or mufflers—will be sharply circumscribed.

...

Everything we’ve come to expect about transport since 1946 dies in this world. Bigger, slower, more specialized vessels are little more than tasty floating buffets for whatever privateer or pirate (state or otherwise) happens to be in the area. Larger vessels might maximize efficiency in a unified, low-threat world, but in a fractured, high-threat environment they also concentrate risk.

...

That’s a massive problem for German manufacturing, as many of its suppliers are from beyond the horizon and roughly half of its customers aren’t even in Europe."

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan. 

Curiosidade do dia

 Não percebo a comoção:

O Guardian pública hoje uma extensíssima investigação sobre o modo como a Uber se impôs no mundo, em particular na Europa, quebrando leis, aliciando políticos e promovendo violência. Macron não sai nada bem do filme revelado por mais de 120 mil e-mails a que o jornal teve acesso. pic.twitter.com/RCokYczW3c

— Carlos Vaz Marques (@cvazmarques) July 11, 2022

Recordo daqui:

"É claro que muitos olham para hoje e vêem as Uber e as AirBnB e adivinham um futuro dominado por essas mega-plataformas. Prefiro considerá-las como entidades transitórias, úteis para dinamitar as grilhetas criadas pelos governos para proteger os incumbentes do Normalistão. Depois? Depois, virão as plataformas de 2ª geração ou cooperativas, porque existe estratégia em todo o lado, às vezes é só uma questão de tempo." 

O fim da globalização (parte IV)

Recently leaked China's population data confirm my estimates: births began to decline in 1991, with no peak in 2004 or 2011; Population is now less than 1.28 billion, not the official 1.41 billion; Population began to shrink in 2018, not 2031 as officially predicted. pic.twitter.com/xCge7cTRFS

— 易富贤YI Fuxian《大国空巢》 (@fuxianyi) July 9, 2022

Parte I, parte II  e parte III.

"The average grocery store today has about forty thousand individual items, up from about two hundred at the dawn of the twentieth century.

...

Take this concept of utter availability, apply it to absolutely everything, and you now have a glimmer of the absolute connectivity that underpins the modern, globalized economy. The ingredients of today’s industrial and consumer goods are only available because they can be moved from—literally—halfway around the world at low costs and high speeds and in perfect security. Phones, fertilizers, oil, cherries, propylene, single-malt whiskey . . . you name it, it is in motion. All. The. Time. Transportation is the ultimate enabler.

...

The East India Company traded about 50 tons of tea a year at the start of the nineteenth century and 15,000 toward the end of it. Today that same 15,000 tons is loaded or unloaded somewhere in the world every forty-five seconds or so.

...

In the age of globalization, everyone could get in on global access, manufacturing, and mass consumption. No longer was value-added work sequestered to the Imperial Centers. Manufacturing elsewhere required fuel and raw materials. Expanding industrial bases and infrastructure elsewhere required the same. Expanding middle classes elsewhere demanded even more.

...

In a world "safe" for all, the world's "successful" geographies could no longer lord over and/or exploit the rest. A somewhat unintended side effect of this was to demote geography from its fairly deterministic role in gauging the success or failure of a country, to something that became little more than background noise. Those geographies once left behind could now bloom in safety.

...

The ability to diversify supply systems over any distance means it is economically advantageous to break up manufacturing into dozens, even thousands of individual steps. Workers building this or that tiny piece of widget become very good at it, but they are clueless as to the rest of the process. The workforce that purifies silicon dioxide does not and cannot create silicon wafers, does not and cannot build motherboards, and does not and cannot code.

This combination of reach and specialization takes us to a very clear, and foreboding, conclusion: no longer do the goods consumed in a place by a people reflect the goods produced in a place by a people. The geographies of consumption and production are unmoored."

Segundo o autor de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning", Peter Zeihan, a globalização está a descarrilar pelo descalabro demográfico nos países produtores e consumidores, e pelo fim da Ordem Americana. Há muito que escrevo sobre a desglobalização, mas por causa de Mongo. A demografia é uma variável que raramente é considerada como refiro na parte III. 

Alguns flashes sobre o futuro

Alguns flashes sobre o futuro:

• The rental washing machine arrives: Haier revolutionizes laundry

Pay-per-wash com manutenção e consumíveis incluídos. 

• Grupo de Braga constrói hotel em Guimarães, com seis pisos, em 10 meses

Isto para mim é voltar a 2004-2008 e a um projecto industrial nesta vertente. (Uma harmonia de propostas de valor recíprocas). Destruído por um suicidio na Alemanha na sequência do VW short squeeze.

Por que é então uma das [regiões] mais pobres de toda a UE?

Ouvi o elogio de JMF ao Norte a partir da perspectiva que concordo. Deixo no entanto aqui o desafio: sendo uma região tão bem sucedida em termos económicos, porque é então uma das mais pobres de toda a UE?

— pvsalvador (@pvsalvador1) July 6, 2022

Uma excelente pergunta.

Julgo que a razão está ilustrada nesta figura:

Figura usada em:

• Mea culpa (parte II) - Novembro de 2021
• Competitividade sem competitividade? Mas o que é ser competitivo? - Junho de 2022

Muitas empresas da região Norte conseguem ser competitivas, mas não são produtivas (aqui no sentido de produtividade que gera margens superiores). Conseguem ser competitivas porque os clientes não compram simplesmento de acordo com o preço mais baixo, também valorizam a rapidez, a flexibilidade e algum design. No entanto, como estão em sectores tradicionais, os preços conseguidos nunca conseguem libertar margens superiores porque o preço unitário nunca pode atingir um valor que os consumidores não são capazes de suportar em loja. O que José Manuel Fernandes e muitos economistas defendem é que estas empresas precisam de crescer para serem mais produtivas, só que isso não é possível. Empresas maiores nestes sectores tradicionais já não competem com base na flexibilidade e rapidez, mas no preço custo puro e simples. Isso requer outro tipo de organização interna, outro tipo de hardware da produção, outro tipo de actividade comercial para outro tipo de clientes.

Por mais que se pressione estas empresas tradicionais a aumentarem a sua produtividade, os ganhos possíveis serão sempre baixos e não permitirão colmatar o gap com a média europeia. Porque os ganhos necessários dependem do crescimento do numerador na equação da produtividade (recordar o Evangelho do Valor).

Quer dizer que estamos condenados a estes níveis de produtividade? Não, mas para mudarmos de paradigma temos de ter outros agentes económicos, temos de, sem atacar as empresas existentes, criar as condições para que outras apareçam para que esta evolução ocorra:

Recordar, por exemplo este postal - The "flying geese" model, ou deixem as empresas morrer!!! de Novembro de 2021.

Reparar que o Japão não ficou mais rico porque porque criou empresas têxteis maiores, ficou mais rico porque fizeram o mesmo que os franceses e alemães nos anos 70, as empresas têxteis incapazes de competir com os salários praticados por outros sectores emergentes migraram para outros países. Não digo que se matem empresas, digo simplesmente: deixem as empresas morrer, ponto!!!

Como é que podemos promover esta transformação? Portugal não tem capital, nem know-how, ... devíamos aprender a lição irlandesa - Tamanho, produtividade e a receita irlandesa.

Qual o grande risco que Portugal pode correr? Fazer tudo para manter artificialmente as empresas de um sector, por exemplo "industrializando" a importação massiça de trabalhadores asiáticos.

Recordar:

• Mais bofetadas e a turbulência em curso - Novembro de 2019
• Bofetadas e locus de controlo - produtividade é que não. - Novembro de 2019 (Estávamos no mundo pré-covid, com o turismo a bombar ... recuem a esse tempo. O que tínhamos? "Sector a bombar como nunca esteve, sector com falta de pessoal para trabalhar e pede que os contribuintes os apoiem com dinheiro para manter a empregabilidade!!!"
• Uma bofetada que recebo como um aviso - Agosto de 2019 

A escolha com os pés

 

"With the world’s consumption-led economies taking responsibility for more and more of their own production and becoming more and more insular, there simply won’t be many economic opportunities for working-age adults living in export-led systems, much less postgrowth systems. Even if such weakening countries survive, their workers will have a choice between steadily higher tax rates to support their aging populations, or leaving. Expect a lot of the world’s remaining labor—especially its high-skilled labor—to soon be knocking on America’s door."

Relacionar com o que por cá já acontece, "FMI quer mexidas no sistema de pensões e Governo concorda".

O problema não é o irs, o problema sãos os trinta e tal % que o ponzi da segurança social come

— Carlos P da Cruz 🇺🇦 (@ccz1) October 22, 2021

Trecho retirado de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

Imagem retirada de "Ide, ide"

 

O fim da globalização (parte III)

Parte I e parte II. 

Na parte II ilustro como o autor aborda o tema do colapso demográfico. Nesta parte III sublinho os trechos que se seguem:

"More products. More players. Bigger markets. More markets. Easier transport. More interconnectivity. More trade. More capital. More technology. More integration. More financial penetration. More and bigger and bigger and more. A world of more.

Ever since Columbus sailed the ocean blue, human economics have been defined by this concept of more. The world's evolution within the idea of more, this reasonable expectation of more, is ultimately what destroyed the old economies of the pre-deepwater imperial and feudal systems. 

...

Geopolitics tells us the post–World War II and especially the post–Cold War economic booms were artificial and transitory. Going back to something more “normal” by definition requires . . . shrinkage. Demographics tells us that the number and collective volume of mass-consumption-driven economies has already peaked. In 2019 the Earth for the first time in history had more people aged sixty-five and over than five and under. By 2030 there will be twice as many retirees, in relative terms.

...

Combine geopolitics and demographics and we know there will be no new mass consumption systems. Even worse, the pie that is the global economy isn't going to simply shrink; it is being fractured into some very nonintegrated pieces, courtesy of American inaction.

...

We aren't simply looking at a demographically induced economic breakdown; we are looking at the end of a half millennium of economic history.

...

First, everything is going to change. Whatever new economic system or systems the world develops will be something we're unlikely to recognize as being viable today. We will probably need far higher volumes of capital (retirees absorb it like sponges), but we'll have far less of it (fewer workers means fewer taxpayers). That suggests economic growth and technological progress (both of which require capital as an input) will stall out.

...

Second, the process will be the very definition of traumatic. The concept of more has been our guiding light as a species for centuries. From a certain point of view, the past seventy years of globalization have simply been "more" on steroids, a sharp uptake on our long-cherished economic understandings. Between the demographic inversion and the end of globalization, we are not simply ending our long experience with more, or even beginning a terrifying new world of less; we face economic free fall as everything that has underpinned humanity's economic existence since the Renaissance unwinds all at once."

Já repararam que no discurso ambiental este tema não é referido? No cenário central, até 2080 Portugal perde 2 milhões de habitantes. Ao mesmo tempo que o número de idosos crescerá mais um milhão de pessoas e a população em idade ativa (15 a 64 anos) diminuirá de 6,6 para 4,2 milhões de pessoas. O tipo e quantidade de consumo vai cair.

O autor, americano, julgo que vítima da doença anglo-saxónica foca-se muito na produção em massa. Teremos menos produção em massa e mais Mongo. Por isso, este capítulo designado "The end of more". Teremos menos globalização e mais blocos económicos.

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan. 

Curiosidade do dia

No mesmo dia em que leio "Costa diz a empresários alemães que Portugal é de confiança com estabilidade política e contas certas", leio também:

We are proud of our 🇪🇪 tax system. Simple, transparent and with few exemptions. https://t.co/EetSMXWbAZ

— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) July 6, 2022

Sim, 35º em 37 países (corporate tax rank)

 

O fim da globalização (parte II)

Part I.

O autor faz uma descrição do rápido envelhecimento das sociedades industrializadas. Aponta para um tipo de economia em que nunca vivemos no passado. No passado, "much of the economic growth comes from a swelling population". Agora, com a paragem do crescimento primeiro e, depois, com o colapso populacional que começará durante esta década, entraremos em "terra incógnita".

"Globalization was always dependent upon the Americans’ commitment to the global Order and that Order hasn’t served Americans’ strategic interests since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989. Without the Americans riding herd on everyone, it is only a matter of time before something in East Asia or the Middle East or the Russian periphery (like, I don’t know, say, a war) breaks the global system beyond repair . . . assuming that the Americans don’t do it themselves.

...

A central factor in every growth story that accompanies industrialization is that much of the economic growth comes from a swelling population. What most people miss is that there's another step in the industrialization cumurbanization process: lower mortality increases the population to such a degree that it overwhelms any impact from a decline in birth rates . but only for a few decades. Eventually gains in longevity max out, leaving a country a greater population, but with few children. Yesterday's few children leads to today's few young workers leads to tomorrow's few mature workers. And now, at long last, tomorrow has arrived.

...

No matter how you crunch the numbers, China in 2022 is the fastest-aging society in human history.

...

The country's demographic contraction is now occurring just as quickly as its expansion, with complete demographic collapse certain to occur within a single generation. China is amazing, just not for the reasons most opine. The country will soon have traveled from preindustrial levels of wealth and health to postindustrial demographic collapse in a single human lifetime. With a few years to spare. Nor will China die alone. The time-staggered nature of the industrialization process-from Britain to Germany to Russia and northwestern Europe and Japan to Korea to Canada and Spain combined with the steadily accelerating nature of that process, means that much of the world's population faces mass retirements followed by population crashes at roughly the same time. The world's demographic structure passed the point of no return twenty to forty years ago. The 2020s are the decade when it all breaks apart.

For countries as varied as China, Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Ukraine, Canada, Malaysia, Taiwan, Romania, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria, the question isn't when these countries will age into demographic obsolescence. All will see their worker cadres pass into mass retirement in the 2020s. None have sufficient young people to even pretend to regenerate their populations. All suffer from terminal demographics. The real questions are how and how soon do their societies crack apart? And do they deflate in silence or lash out against the dying of the light?

...

Economic development, quality of life, longevity, health, and demographic expansion are all subject to the whims of globalization. Or rather, in this case, deglobalization."

Trechos retirados de "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

O fim da globalização (parte I)

"Globalization brought development and industrialization to a wide swath of the planet for the first time, generating the mass consumption societies and the blizzard of trade and the juggernaut of technological progress we all find so familiar. And that reshaped global demographics. Mass development and industrialization extended life spans, while simultaneously encouraging urbanization. For decades that meant more and more workers and consumers, the people who give economies some serious go. One outcome among many was the fastest economic growth humanity has ever seen. Decades of it.

...

The American-led Order is giving way to Disorder. Global aging didn't stop once we reached that perfect moment of growth. Aging continued. It's still continuing. The global worker and consumer base is aging into mass retirement. In our rush to urbanize, no replacement generation was ever born.

Since 1945 the world has been the best it has ever been. The best it will ever be. Which is a poetic way of saying this era, this world-our world-is doomed. The 2020s will see a collapse of consumption and production and investment and trade almost everywhere. Globalization will shatter into pieces. Some regional. Some national. Some smaller. It will be costly. It will make life slower. And above all, worse. No economic system yet imagined can function in the sort of future we face.

...

The coming global Disorder and demographic collapse will do more than condemn a multitude of countries to the past; it will herald the rise of others."

"The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan.

Os trouxas engolem tudo

O que nos disse Welch em 2006 quando veio a Portugal? Lembram-se disto?

"Afirmou também que« os gestores que apenas gostam de números e que não querem saber de pessoas – mas elas existem na empresa! – são uns idiotas»."

E o que praticava? Ver "How Jack Welch Revolutionized the American Economy":

"He “instituted a series of mass layoffs,” and enthusiastically industrialized even this process by rating every employee and then each year firing the lowest-rated 10 percent."

Recordar:

• Apologia da flexibilidade - Junho de 2010
• Passou-lhe completamente ao lado ... no fim MacGyver vence a Sandy - Abril de 2011

Continuam a querer que comamos gelados com a testa

Em 2009 escrevi aqui no blogue sobre as espécies que vivem à boca das fumarolas - Fake recoveries, os 3 amigos e a linguagem de carroceiro. Há dias em "Expert opinion" citei este trecho:

"The scholar, of course, had an answer. Scholars always have an answer. To him, the greatness of an idea should be judged by a panel of experts who opine on whether the idea is “novel” and “technically brilliant.” However, in the business context, “well executed” means commercially successful. When I pointed out that there is no known correlation between expert opinion on novelty or technical brilliance and commercial success"

Agora, encontro mais um exemplo da Big Man Economy tão querida das elites portuguesas, "Banco de Fomento vai capitalizar 12 empress de "interesse nacional", incluindo a de Mário Ferreira". Empresas tão boas, ou com projectos tão bons que nem têm acesso a capital da banca comercial.

Lembram-se das campeãs nacionais e as empresas PIN? 

• Os PIN
• Fiem-se nos PIN's e nos campeões nacionais e não corram não, que eu não quero
• Campeões nacionais versus campeões escondidos
• Comemos gelados com a testa!!!

 

Já lhe falaram? (parte II)

Parte I.

Interessante encontrar este exemplo dos dias de hoje, "Falta de stock, el mayor freno en la compra online para el 43% de los consumidores", relacioná-lo com este artigo do mês passado, "A “globalização” morreu. Viva a “blocalização!", com a possibilidade desta política por mais 5 anos, "Alarm in Beijing after announcement zero-Covid policy may last five years".

Com estas forças em movimento como é que nos podiam prometer nem há 1 mês que a inflação alta era transitória? Por que tivemos inflação baixa nas últimas décadas? Por causa da globalização. Se ela está a acabar ...

Entretanto, começo a ler "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" de Peter Zeihan:

“Perhaps the oddest thing of our soon-to-be present is that while the Americans revel in their petty, internal squabbles, they will barely notice that elsewhere the world is ending!!! Lights will flicker and go dark. Famine’s leathery claws will dig deep and hold tight. Access to the inputs—financial and material and labor—that define the modern world will cease existing in sufficient quantity to make modernity possible. The story will be different everywhere, but the overarching theme will be unmistakable: the last seventy-five years long will be remembered as a golden age, and one that didn’t last nearly long enough at that.

The center point of this book is not simply about the depth and breadth of changes in store for every aspect of every economic sector that makes our world our world. It is not simply about history once again lurching forward. It is not simply about how our world ends. The real focus is to map out what everything looks like on the other side of this change in condition. What are the new parameters of the possible? In a world deglobalized, what are the new Geographies of Success?

What comes next?”