Tempos interessantes

"O dia em que Portugal se tornou na nova "presa dos mercados""

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"Dia negro nas bolsas e risco da dívida pública em novos máximos"

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"Cortes a sério" (Peres Metelo é um optimista: "Entre 2008 e 2009, o défice saltou dos 4456 milhões de euros (2,7% do PIB) para os 15 367 milhões (9,3%). Deste agravamento em cerca de 10 900 milhões, 6500 resultaram da quebra das receitas, devido à quebra do produto. O mais tardar até 2012, a economia terá recuperado desse recuo ao ponto de gerar de novo o nível de receita pública de 2008, sem agravamento de impostos." O governador do banco de Itália prevê no mínimo 4 anos! Portugal, campeão do crescimento anémico da década vai consegui-lo até, o mais tardar, 2012!!! Será razoável?)

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"Portugal: Fiscal Policy and Public Finances"

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"Fears of 'Lehman-style' tsunami as crisis hits Spain and Portugal"

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Os juros a praticar pelos bancos nacionais a subir, Upa!Upa! ""

Quando se afirma algo, pode estar a afirmar-se exactamente o contrário (parte II)

Parte I.

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Apliquemos agora a mesma técnica a alguns títulos do dia:

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"Bruxelas recusa que tenha “comparado” Grécia com Portugal e Espanha"

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"Spain: We’re Not Greece"

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Há coisas que quando são negadas... são confirmadas!

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Por isso:

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"Risco da dívida portuguesa bate novo recorde e ultrapassa 200 pontos", ""Portugal arrisca uma sobre-reacção dos mercados"" e "Portugal faz manchetes na imprensa internacional"

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"A presa dos mercados agora somos nós":

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"Os mercados estiveram “muito focados numa presa. A Grécia parece ter-se desembaraçado [e os investidores] agora viraram-se para outra. Viraram-se para nós”, afirmou, acrescentando que “sem razão”, pois “não temos nada a ver com a Grécia”.
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Assumindo que se tratam de duas economias que estão “nos níveis mais baixos da Europa”, Teixeira dos Santos reiterou que a comparação “não se justifica”."

Afinal Medina Carreira sempre teve razão

"O tempo esgotou-se"

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Mas é nestes pormenores que se percebe o que é ser funcionário do jornal do Governo:

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"Agora que a pior crise económica global desde 1930 parece estar, finalmente, a ser debelada, é altura de os países pensarem em voltar a crescer acima dos 2,5% ou 3% para começarem a combater o flagelo do desemprego, o que em Portugal, de acordo com as últimas estimativas, não deverá acontecer antes de 2012."

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Que estimativas? De quem? Onde foram publicadas? As previsões da OCDE são negras.

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O próximo combate vai ser trocar Paulo Bento (aka Teixeira dos Santos) e contratar Carlos Carvalhal para nos convencer que sem mudar de paradigma vamos crescer entre 2,5 e 3% nos próximos anos (sem recurso a insuflação governamental, ou seja, construção de pirâmides, expos e estádios de futebol em Faro, Aveiro e Leiria). O que é preciso é confiança e auto-estima.

Folhas na corrente (parte V)

Regis McKena publicou o artigo "Marketing in an Age of Diversity" na revista Harvard Business Review em Setembro-Outubro de 1988.

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Defendo a tese de que o que aconteceu nessa altura nos EUA é equivalente ao que nos tem acontecido em Portugal na última década.

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Pois bem, McKenna apresenta esta figura:

Entre 1981 e 1987 o número médio de produtos apresentados nas prateleiras dos supermercados americanos subiu 60%.

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"manufacturers are making more and more high-quality products in smaller and smaller batches; today 75% of all machined parts are produced in batches of 50 or fewer.

Consumers demand - and get - more variety and options in all kinds of products, from cars to clothes.

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In trying to respond to the new demands of a diverse market, the problem ... is not fundamental change, not a total turnabout in what an entire nation of consumers wants. Rather, it is the fracturing of mass markets. To contend with diversity, managers must drastically alter how they design, manufacture, market, and sell their products."

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"Customization by users as flexible manufacturing makes niche production every bit as economic as mass production.

Changing leverage criteria as economies of scale give way to economies of knowledge - knowledge of the customer's business, of current and likely future technology trends, and of the competitive environment that allows the rapid development of new products and services.

Changing company structure as large corporations continue to downsize to compete with smaller niche players that nibble at their markets.

Smaller wins - fewer chances for gigantic wins in mass markets, but more opportunities for healthy profits in smaller markets."

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As multinacionais que já partiram e a Rhode, estavam concebidas para um paradigma que desapareceu e quanto mais pouparmos ou amortecermos o choque com a realidade... atrasamos a chegada do futuro e desviamos recursos para apoiar o passado... num esforço inglório que não evita o dia do julgamento final.

Sei o que não me disseste na última campanha eleitoral (parte III)

Ai está a retoma:
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Para mim, vulgar humano de Lineu isto é tão básico...
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Estavam à espera de quê?
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"Whoever wins today's elections in Germany will face the reckoning so deftly dodged before (Moi ici: Isto não se aplica ao nosso caso. Oh, nem por sombras, tudo corre bem. Já não estamos em recessão técnica e as contas estão controladas). Kurzarbeit, that subsidises firms not to fire workers, is running out. The cash-for-clunkers scheme ended this month. It certainly "worked"."
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Car sales were up 28pc in August, but only by stealing from the future (Moi ici: Se consumir hoje, com base em dívida, é roubar crescimento futuro... dá para tremer só de pensar no crescimento que se evaporou... e só de pensar no investimento não reprodutivo que se faz hoje à conta de endividamento, é roubo puro e duro das gerações actuais às futuras) The Center for Automotive Research says sales will fall by a million next year: "It will be the largest downturn ever suffered by the German car industry."
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Fiat's Sergio Marchionne warns of "disaster" for Italy unless Rome renews its car scrappage subsidies (Moi ici: so... wordless). Chrysler too will see some "harsh reality" following the expiry of America's scheme this month. Some expect US car sales to slump 40pc in September.
Weaker US data is starting to trickle in. Shipments of capital goods fell by 1.9pc in August. New house sales are stuck near 430,000 – down 70pc from their peak – despite an $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers. It expires in November.
We are moving into a phase when most OECD states must retrench to head off debt-compound traps.
Britain faces the broad sword; Spain has told ministries to slash 8pc of discretionary spending; the IMF says Japan risks a funding crisis."
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Bem me parece que a destruição calvinista...

Uma solução para Portugal e não só...

Além do euro pôr a circular outras moedas:
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" California's innovative IOU proposal represents a way of alleviating the state's fiscal crisis, not exacerbating it.
While it might appear that the new law seems merely to allow California to deficit spend just like the Federal Government - in actuality, the effect is far more profound than that. Allowing the IOUs to become an acceptable payment method for state taxes, instantly imparts value to them - in effect, what you have is a state of the union creating a parallel currency right under the noses of the Treasury, alleviating its fiscal straitjacket in the process.
So why are so objections being raised? The confusion seems to arise because of a mistaken understanding of the nature of modern money. Modern money has no intrinsic value in the absence of state sanction. In the words of economist Abba Lerner:

The modern state can make anything it chooses generally acceptable as money…It is true that a simple declaration that such and such is money will not do, even if backed by the most convincing constitutional evidence of the state’s absolute sovereignty. But if the state is willing to accept the proposed money in payment of taxes and other obligations to itself the trick is done.

The modern state, then, imposes and enforces a tax liability on its citizens and chooses that which is necessary to pay taxes. The unit of account has no real value if not ultimately sanctioned by use from the State. By extension, the state is never revenue constrained because it alone determines what is money. The tax is what gives the currency its value insofar as it functions to create the notional demand for federal expenditures of fiat money, not to raise revenue per se. Value has been given to the money by requiring it to be used to fulfill a tax obligation, but the money is already in existence, not “created” by the revenue.

It is in this context that one has to look at the California IOU proposal. It is important to note that the IOU would not replace the dollar, but operate in parallel to extinguish state liabilities. And if the IOU becomes functionally like a currency, then California’s bankruptcy problems are over."
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Estão já a imaginar serem obrigados a receber o salário em partes, uma parte em euros e outra parte (10%? 20%?) em xxx?
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Já esteve bem mais longe.
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Trecho daqui.

Nas costas dos outros...

"That is what happens to a country that has not only spent freely, but now finds itself far poorer than it had hoped. It is clear what this must mean: a sustained freeze on the pay bill; decentralised pay bargaining; employee contributions to public pensions; and a pruning of benefits. It is obvious, too, that this will mean massive and painful conflict between governments and public workers."
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Quem quiser saber o que é o "what happens" pode ler o parágrafo anterior aqui:
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"Tackling Britain’s fiscal debacle" de Martin Wolf

Será mau carácter?

Será mau carácter da minha parte?
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Não sei explicar, mas tenho um feeling que me diz que a história que a Elaine conta "Trade Deficits Kill Empires" faz muito mais sentido que a história que Ambrose conta "Asia will author its own destruction if it triggers a crisis over US bonds"
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Ou me engano muito ou estamos a assistir ao fim do Império Americano ponto! Kaput! Finito! The End! Fim! Koniec!
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É História com agá grande a acontecer em tempo real.
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E quem vai comprar os bens que os desgraçados dos cidadãos americanos compravam ao resto do mundo com todo o crédito a que tinham acesso e deixaram de ter?
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Aqueles conselhos que os antigos que viveram a sua infância na primeira metade do século XX nos davam não eram conversa salazarista... eram o fruto da experiência de quem já passou por isto e sabe que a onda volta sempre para cobrar o payback time.
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Outra fonte "Will The Dollar Standard Collapse?" onde se pode ler este resumo significativo:
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"The US gets goods; China gets dollars. China takes its excess dollars, and invests them back in the US, whether in the form of treasury bonds, Freddie Mac mortgage-backed securities, or US corporate bonds. The US takes those dollars and buys more Chinese goods. China gets more excess dollars and reinvests in the US. The US buys more Chinese goods. And on and on, until the US credit market debt as a % of GDP goes from 150% in 1970 to 350% in 2008. Just as reference, that number was 130% in 1950. During the gold standard, debt-to-GDP hardly grew. Under fiat money, it has soared. America isn’t awash in debt because we’re inherently greedy, profligate consumers. It’s because money is no longer backed by gold. China and Japan eagerly reinvest their dollars back in the United States so as to keep their currencies low relative to the US dollar. American consumers and companies happily borrow the money foreigners are throwing their way. The party lasted until 2007, when Americans finally began having trouble paying their enormous debts."

Como é que foi?

Como é que foi justificada a baixa do IVA de 21 para 2o% no final do primeiro semestre de 2008?
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A casa estava arrumada!?
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"Falências de empresas subiram 51 por cento no primeiro semestre de 2008"
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Birras e políticos que não sabem dizer não

Mário Soares que sempre defendeu que Portugal entrasse no pelotão da frente do euro, sem nunca perceber as consequências da adopção de uma moeda forte, num país habituado a desvalorizações deslizantes para obter vantagens desleais nas suas exportações e, por isso, sem nunca ter dito quais seriam as consequências da adesão ao euro para a economia portuguesa, vem dizer que a Europa tem líderes mediocres e que a chanceler alemã não é fixe pois não quer pagar as irresponsabilidades cometidas pelos outros países da eurozona "à preocupação da chanceler Angela Merkel de, com eleições à porta, «não impor medidas que possam desagradar aos eleitores». " (aqui).
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Pois, políticos fixes são aqueles que tomam decisões sem saber, sem imaginar quais as consequências que elas vão originar e, sem verdadeiramente se preocuparem com isso.
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Mário Soares podia olhar cá para dentro de portas e apontar o dedo cá dentro.
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O mundo económico tal como o conhecemos está a desmoronar-se:
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Alguns trechos do The New York Times "Rapid Declines in Manufacturing Spread Global Anxiety":
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"Orders are down 50 percent from a year ago" (numa fábrica alemã)
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"That manufacturing is in decline is hardly surprising, but the depth and speed of the plunge are striking and, most worrisome for economists, a self-reinforcing trend not unlike the cascading bust that led to the Great Depression.
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In Europe, for example, where manufacturing accounts for nearly a fifth of gross domestic product, industrial production is down 12 percent from a year ago. In Brazil, it has fallen 15 percent; in Taiwan, a staggering 43 percent.
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Even in China, which has become the workshop of the world, production growth has slowed, with exports falling more than 25 percent and millions of factory workers being laid off.
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In the United States, until recently a relative bright spot for manufacturing despite the steady erosion of blue-collar jobs, industrial output fell 11 percent in February from a year ago, according to statistics released Monday by the Federal Reserve.
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“Manufacturing has fallen off the cliff, and it’s certainly the biggest decline since the Second World War,” said Dirk Schumacher, senior European economist with Goldman Sachs in Frankfurt."
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Edward Hugh no seu blog ilustra profusamente em gráficos o descalabro que vai por esse mundo fora, por exemplo:

• Slovenia's Economy Falls Off The Roof, While Slovakia Slides Into Recession
• Italian Business Confidence and Retail Sales Fall As Bond Spreads Rise
• Europe's Economic Contraction Intensifies In February
• Germany's Incredible Shrinking Economy
• As Unemployment Soars and Manufacturing Contracts Is Spain Now Entering Deflation?

Este humilde blogger ainda antes da queda da Lheman Brothers escrevia Como vai ser o próximo ano? e desde 15 de Setembro de 2007 usa este marcador desde que ouvi o ministro pinho dizer que a crise financeira não afectará a economia...,
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Agora, só quando a realidade irrompe como um tsunami pelas nossas vidas e se torna impossível escondê-la ou ignorá-la é que os ministros começam a balbuciar umas coisas "Teixeira dos Santos admite estar preocupado com défice"
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Pois bem, é no meio deste cenário global que o ministro do trabalho no congresso da UGT não tinha mais nada para dizer do que "Salário mínimo: Governo vai discutir aumento para 600 euros"
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Quando temos um país a que já chamam cheque careca on-the-making, um país que é usado como exemplo, "the portuguese trap", do que acontece quando se conjuga uma moeda forte com salários incompatíveis com uma produtividade baixa o ministro do trabalho não tem mais nada para dizer...
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Recorda-me a última figura de bébé que me recordo de fazer em público. Fui com os meus pais passear numa feira de barracas na Rotunda da Boavista no Porto na época dos santos populares, ao passar por uma banca apaixonei-me por um brinquedo e pedi-o aos meus pais. Eles recusaram, e eu insisti, e eles voltaram a recusar, e eu comecei a fazer uma birra com choro ...
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O mundo mudou, a produção industrial está em queda livre, as encomendas escasseiam, e a UGT e o ministro do trabalho entretêm-se com a subida do SMN.
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Bom... tem o seu lado positivo, acelera o dia do julgamento final, o day of reckoning. OK, pode ser.
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Este políticos da oposição e da situação fazem-me cada vez mais recordar o aquecimento global:
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Taxes must rise to pay for climate change, MPs warn vs The 'Global Warming Three' are on thin ice

Acordar as moscas que estão a dormir (parte X)

Quando escrevo sobre o acordar as moscas que estão a dormir, escrevo sobre a necessidade de um novo discurso chegar ao mainstream, o discurso de um estado sem dinheiro e sem grandes possibilidades de se endividar, por falta de crédito, ou de não mais ser possível sobrecarregar o jugo sobre os desgraçados dos saxões impostados, embora os normandos do costume consigam sempre surpreender neste campo.
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Como terá de mudar o discurso político para se ajustar a esse novo paradigma?
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Como é que políticos habituados a gastar dinheiro reagirão? Será o fim das rotundas autárquicas e das 'rotundas' governamentais?
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Este artigo na imprensa inglesa começa a abrir o panorama "Welcome to the inescapable era of no money":
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"For the next ten years British politics is going to be about living with the consequences of the State being flat broke
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We are insolvent. Out of money. Financially embarrassed. Strapped. Cleaned out. We are skint, borassic lint, Larry Flynt, lamb and mint. We are lamentably low on loot. We are maxed out. We are indebted, encumbered, in hock, in the hole. We are broke, hearts of oak, coals and coke. It doesn't matter whether money can buy us love, because we haven't got any.
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Welcome to the era of no money. The central fact of British politics in the next ten years, and perhaps longer, is not hard to spot. British politics isn't going to be dominated by interesting debates on the future of capitalism. It isn't going to be the stage for a revival of interest in democratic socialism. It isn't going to play host to the interplay of competing ambitious projects. No. We're in for a hard slog. Because what British politics is going to be about in the next ten years is living with the consequences of the State being broke, of the Government running out of money"

An L of a recession – reform is the way out

By Wolfgang Münchau

"So it looks like it is going to be an L – not a V or a U. I mean an L-shaped recession, one that starts with a steep decline, followed by very low growth for many years.
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In a V-type recession, the recovery is instant. In a U-type, it comes eventually. My guess is that we are currently somewhere in the middle of the vertical bit of the L, but it is the horizontal bit that is the scariest. History never repeats itself exactly, but we know from economic history that financial crises are surprisingly similar.
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This looks like Japan all over. Without financial restructuring, the economy is not going to recover. And Japan was lucky. It was surrounded by a booming global economy."
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"An L-shaped recession will make the adjustment of balance sheets even more painful. Unemployment will continue to rise. House prices will keep on falling. US consumers and banks will spend the next five or more years deleveraging, getting their respective balance sheets back in order. In that period, the US current-account deficit will fall sharply, as will that of the UK, Spain and several central and eastern European countries. This process can take a long time, and in an L-shaped recession it takes longer.
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But the effect is also brutal on the rest of the world. The fall in current-account deficits will be partially compensated for by lower surpluses from oil and gas exporters, such as Middle Eastern countries and Russia. But the bulk of the adjustment would be borne by the world’s largest exporters: Germany, China and Japan. Globally, current-account deficits and surpluses add up to zero – minus some statistical reporting errors. You can do the maths. If the US stops buying German cars, Germany will eventually stop making them."
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"We are nowhere near a solution to the crisis. After committing errors of omission, global leaders are now producing errors of commission. The Americans dream about a return to a world of credit finance consumption while the Germans dream about assembly lines. In an L-shaped world, these are nightmares."

The Great American Ponzi

Just American?
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"Guest Post: More Debt Won't Rescue the Great American Ponzi"
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"At the end of the day, flushing more debt through the system is the only lever policy-makers know how to pull. Lower interest rates, quantitative easing, deficit spending, it's all the same. It's all borrowing against future income. Each time we bump up against recession, we borrow a bit more to keep the economy going. With garden variety recessions, this can work. Everyone wants the good times to continue, so no one demands debts be paid back. Creditors accept more IOUs and economic "growth" continues apace. If it sounds like Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme, that's because it is."
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"European economies face even more oppressive debt loads.
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The great Ponzi scheme that is the Western World's economy has grown so big there's simply no "fixing" it. Flushing more debt through the system would be like giving Madoff a few billion to tide him over. Or like adding another floor to the Tower of Babel. To what end?
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The collapse is already here. The question is: How much do we want it to hurt?
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Using the public's purse to finance "confidence" in a system that is already kaput may delay the Day of Reckoning, sure, but at the cost of multiplying our losses. Perhaps fantastically.Bottom line....We can bankrupt ourselves propping up a system that is collapsing anyway, or we can dig ourselves out of debt, if not with higher interest rates then certainly with fiscal austerity. That would be a hard sell to the American people, I know. But deep down, Summers and Geithner know it is the right thing to do. It is, after all, the prescription they wrote for emerging markets facing financial crises."

Sem atacar as causas-raiz de um problema ...

... apenas estamos a transferir o fardo para outros, ou para mais tarde e, ainda por cima, ampliado. É um dos arquétipos avançados por Peter Senge no seu livro "A Quinta Disciplina", o shift the burden:
Perante os sintomas de um problema, em vez de ir à solução fundamental (a que elimina as causas-raiz), opta-se pelas soluções sintomáticas superficiais que vão contribuir, estilo avalanche, para o agudizar do problema.
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Evans-Pritchard, além de nos recordar cenários vividos nos anos 30 do século passado, escreve:
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"The wash of money should ensure that the next 18 months will not mimic the cascade of disasters from late 1931 to early 1933.
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It buys time.
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But it does not solve the deeper problem, which is that a West addicted to Ponzi credit has put off the day of reckoning with ever more extreme monetary policy with each downturn, stealing prosperity from the future."
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ADENDA: A argumentação de Peres Metelo na TSF ... agora a culpa é da Standards & Poor!!!
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Frugalidade e ilusionismo

Como escreve o José Silva no Norteamos sem um retorno à frugalidade tudo o que se faça não passará de pensos-rápidos.
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Como escreve Ricardo Arroja no Portugal Contemporâneo sem um retorno à poupança tudo o que se faça não passará de ilusionismo.
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"There are about six savers for every borrower in Britain, although you might not guess that from the way rate cuts are usually reported.
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The explanation is that borrowers make more noise than savers because they tend to be younger and more photogenic. Homebuyers struggling to meet mortgage payments are easier for TV and the tabloids to cover than pensioners fretting about their savings. Oh, and borrowers are wildly over-represented in news rooms for reasons that need not detain us here.
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That’s why rate cuts are usually reported as good news. But the reality of the mathematics cannot be eluded forever; no more than we can borrow our way out of debt. All the government can do is delay the day of reckoning and probably make a bad situation worse. That is what the stock market was warning us with its adverse reaction on Thursday. When the silent majority realise how much this week’s crowd-pleasing rate cut may cost them, it will prove the opposite of popular." ("Savers will pay a heavy price for the Bank of England’s desperation")