Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
O ciclo especulativo
"(...)The Great Depression is blamed on "greedy speculators". With artificially low interest rates, it made sense to borrow and buy assets. If interest rates are 2% and inflation is 10%, then borrowing to invest is sensible. Many farmers and small business owners were forced to borrow to expand, to keep up with their competition.
The "greedy speculators" were acting independently in the "free market". The Federal Reserve and negative interest rates were the real culprit. The speculators were following the false signal the Federal Reserve was sending via artificially cheap interest rates.
In 1929, the Federal Reserve insiders decided to jack up interest rates worldwide, causing a depression. The insiders knew what was coming. They stopped issuing loans and converted all their holding to cash.(...)
The insiders had converted their holdings to cash before the crash. After the crash, they were able to buy assets at a huge discount. Since they were unleveraged, they were able to borrow and buy up even more assets at the bottom of the Great Depression.
In 1933, President Roosevelt confiscated everyone's gold, defaulted on the dollar, and declared the USA bankrupt. The dollar was devalued relative to gold, from $20/oz to $35/oz. Since the dollar was no longer redeemable in gold, this allowed a further increase in the money supply. The insiders who borrowed to buy assets at the bottom of the Great Depression were allowed to default on their loans, repaying their debts with devalued dollars. Many loan contracts contained "gold clauses" requiring payment to be increased if the dollar were devalued relative to gold. Congress declared these "gold clauses" invalid, ripping off creditors and providing a massive subsidy to debtors.
In this way, politically connected insiders profited from all three legs of the Great Depression. They profited by borrowing and buying assets at the start of the boom. They were first in line to buy assets with the newly printed money, so they were the primary beneficiaries of inflation. Due to their political connections, they were able to foresee the crash coming. They converted their holdings to cash before the crash. At the bottom of the Depression, they were able to borrow and buy assets at a discount. Later, they were able to default on these loans via inflation; inflation meant these loans could be repaid with devalued dollars.
(...) The Great Depression accomplished several goals. It forced small farmers off their land when they were unable to repay their mortgages. It forced many small businesses to close. It caused the cartelization of many industries. (...)" FSK'S GUIDE TO REALITY (30-04-2008)
Marx e a crise actual
Chris Dillow argumenta que Marx explica pouco a presente crise:
The credit crunch is making Marx fashionable again. Which I find odd. Strictly speaking, this crisis has made Marx less relevant, not more.Our current crisis is a less Marxist one than almost any post-war recession.
To Marx, crises originated in the real economy. Recessions occur when an over-accumulation of real capital equipment combine with a lack of demand to cause a falling rate of profit and then capital-scrapping, job cuts and slump.
Now, this was a great explanation for previous recessions. The long boom of the 1950s and 60s led to over-accumulation and falling profits and the recessions of the 70s and 80s. The tech bubble of the late 90s caused a massive over-accumulation of capital and nugatory profits. It's this stress upon profits that elevates Marx and his follower such as Kalecki above mere Keynesians.
However, this is a poor description of our current woes. Non-financial profits have been reasonably healthy. Instead, this crisis originates in the financial system.
To Marx, however, finance was not so much a cause of capitalist crises - and for that matter of capitalist growth as well - but a mere accelerant of them. It’s the petrol, not the spark. Credit, he wrote (vol III, p572), “accelerates the violent outbreaks of this contradiction, crises…” Accelerate, note, not cause.
(...)
Of course, I’ve said that this crisis shows that the capitalist mode of ownership is dysfunctional. But I mean this in a different sense to Marx. I mean that individual companies are inefficient. But it’s not clear that Marx thought this. Instead, his big contribution was to show that capitalism was micro efficient but macro inefficient. He showed how individual capitalists, each pursuing profit maximization, could produce an outcome that was bad for capitalists in general - falling profits and crisis. He seems to have taken for granted that individual capitalist enterprises were rationally organized - though this could well have been a postulate for the sake of argument, rather than a direct claim.
A visão austro-libertarian sobre a inflação monetária
(...) Inflation is an unjustifiable redistribution of income in favor of those who receive the new money and money titles first, and to the detriment of those who receive them last. In practice the redistribution always works out in favor of the fiat-money producers themselves (whom we misleadingly call “central banks”) and of their partners in the banking sector and at the stock exchange. And of course inflation works out to the advantage of governments and their closest allies in the business world. Inflation is the vehicle through which these individuals and groups enrich themselves, unjustifiably, at the expense of the citizenry at large.
21In this regard, inflation works in an unholy alliance with the tax code. The main advantage of the successful newcomer is that he has high revenues. But present-day corporate and income tax rates effectively prevent him from accumulating capital quickly enough to sustain the competition of the establishment. As a result, there are virtually no more firms that make it from the very bottom into the major league of corporate capitalism. It took a technological revolution to overcome these obstacles and bring a few firms such as Microsoft to the top of corporate America.
Prémio Dardos
Tal implica:
- exibir esta imagem
- linkar o blogue pelo qual recebeu o prémio
- distinguir mais 15 blogues
Lá consegui arranjar 15 blogues:
O Nadir dos Tempos
Spectrum
Causa Liberal
O Blogger de Portimão
Fénix Vermelha
Troll Urbano
Uma Terra sem Amos
19 meses depois
Almareios
Esquerda Republicana
Rabitt's Blog / Mutual Information (conta como 2?)
Despertar da Mente
Idéias Livres
Ação Humana
Monday, October 20, 2008
A Sushi Model of Capital Consumption
Robert P. Murphy "(...) Without further ado, let's examine a hypothetical island economy composed of 100 people, where the only consumption good is rolls of sushi.
The island starts in an initial equilibrium that is indefinitely sustainable. Every day, 25 people row boats out into the water and use nets to catch fish. Another 25 of the islanders go into the paddies to gather rice. Yet another 25 people take rice and fish (collected during the previous day, of course) and make tantalizing sushi rolls. Finally, the remaining 25 of the islanders devote their days to upkeep of the boats and nets. In this way, every day there are a total of (let us say) 500 sushi rolls produced, allowing each islander to eat 5 sushi rolls per day, day in and day out. Not a bad life, really, especially when you consider the ocean view and the absence of Jim Cramer.
But alas, one day Paul Krugman washes onto the beach. After being revived, he surveys the humble economy and starts advising the islanders on how to raise their standard of living to American levels. He shows them the outboard motor (still full of gas) from his shipwreck, and they are intrigued. Being untrained in economics, they find his arguments irresistible and agree to follow his recommendations.
Therefore, the original, sustainable deployment of island workers is altered. Under Krugman's plan for prosperity, 30 islanders take the boats (one with a motor) and nets out to catch fish. Another 30 gather rice from the paddies. A third 30 use the fish and rice to make sushi rolls. In a new twist, 5 of the islanders scour the island for materials necessary to maintain the motor; after all, every day it burns gasoline, and its oil gets dirtier. But of course, all of this only leaves 5 islanders remaining to maintain the boats and nets, which they continue to do every day. (If the reader is curious, Krugman doesn't work in sushi production. He spends his days in a hammock, penning essays that blame the islanders' poverty on the stinginess of the coconut trees.)
For a few months, the islanders are convinced that the pale-faced Nobel laureate is a genius. Every day, 606 sushi rolls are produced, meaning that everyone (including Krugman) gets to eat 6 rolls per day, instead of the 5 rolls per day to which they had been accustomed. The islanders believe this increase is due to use of the motor, but really it's mostly due to the rearrangement of tasks. Before, only 25 people were devoted to fishing, rice collection, and sushi preparation. But now, 30 people are devoted to each of these areas. So even without the motor, total daily output of sushi would have increased by 20%, assuming the islanders were equally good at the various jobs, and that there were plenty of fish and rice provided by nature. (In fact, the contribution of the motor was really only the extra 6 rolls necessary to feed Krugman.)
But alas, eventually the reduction in boat and net maintenance begins to affect output. With only 5 islanders devoted to this task, instead of the original 25, something has to give. The nets become more and more frayed over time, and the boats develop small leaks. This means that the 30 fishermen don't return each day with as many fish, because their equipment isn't as good as it used to be. The 30 islanders making sushi are then in a fix, because they now have an imbalance between rice and fish. They start cheating, by putting in smaller pieces of fish into each roll. The islanders continue to get 6 rolls per day, but now each roll has less fish in it. The islanders are furious — except for those who are repulsed by the idea of ingesting raw fish.
Being a trained economist, Krugman knows what to do. He suggests that 2 of the rice workers and 2 of the sushi rollers switch over to help the fishermen. Now with 34 workers, the islanders are able to catch almost as many fish per day as they were in the previous months, even though they are now using tattered nets and dilapidated boats. Krugman — being very sharp with numbers — moved just enough workers so that the fish caught by the 34 islanders matches up perfectly with the rice picked by the remaining 28 islanders who go to the paddies every day. With this amount of fish and rice, the 28 workers in the rolling occupation are able to produce 556 sushi rolls per day. This allows everyone to consume about 5 and a half rolls per day, with a bonus roll left over for Krugman.
The islanders are a bit concerned. When they first followed Krugman's advice, their consumption jumped from 5 rolls to 6 per day. Then when things seemed to be all screwed up, Krugman managed to fix the worst of the discoordination, but still, consumption fell to 5.5 rolls per day. Krugman reminded them that 5.5 was better than 5. He finally got the crowd to disperse by talking about "Cobb-Douglas production functions" and drawing IS-LM curves in the sand.
Because this is a family-friendly website, we will stop our story here. Needless to say, at some point the 5 islanders devoted to net and boat production will decide that they have to cut their losses. Rather than trying to maintain the original fleet of boats and original collection of nets with only 5 workers instead of 25, they will instead focus their efforts on the best 20% of the boats and nets, and keep them in great shape. At that point, it will be physically impossible for the islanders to prop up their daily sushi output. In order just to return to their original, sustainable level of 5 sushi rolls per person per day, the islanders will need to suffer a period of privation where many of them are devoted to net and boat production. (We can only hope that Professor Krugman has been rescued by the Swedes by this time.)
The 5 people looking for ways to synthesize gasoline and motor oil will have to abandon that task, because it was never appropriate for the islanders' primitive capital structure. The islanders will of course discard the motor brought to the island by Krugman once it runs out of gas.
Finally, we predict that during the period of transition, some islanders will have nothing to do. After all, there will already be the maximum needed for catching fish with the usable boats and nets, and there will already be the corresponding number of islanders devoted to rice collection and sushi rolling, given the small daily catch of fish. There would be no point in adding extra islanders to boat and net production, because then they would end up building more than could be sustained in the long run. Hence, the elders rotate 10 people every day, who are allowed to goof off. They could of course go try to catch fish with their bare hands, or go gather rice that would just be eaten in piles by itself, but everyone decides that this is a waste of time. Given the realities, it is decided that during the transition, 10 people get the day off, even though everyone is hungry. That is just how bad Krugman's advice was."
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Re: Quem mente? Os factos ou a ideologia verde?
No Público, vem uma notícia assim: agência norte-americana para os oceanos (NOAA) diz que temperatura no Ártico está seis graus acima do normal, e que isto se deve ao degelo.
Mas, depois, vemos que a realidade diz outra coisa, através do trabalho da Universidade de Bremen. Quem mente? A realidade medida pela Univerdidade de Bremen, ou os modelos futuristas da NOAA?
E, atendendo que, à primeira vista, temos factos discordantes (a NOAA a dizer que a temperatura aumentou, a UB a dizer que não), faz tanto sentido perguntar "Quem mente? Os factos ou a ideologia verde?" como perguntar "Quem mente? Os factos ou a ideologia anti-verde?" - na verdade, a questão deveria ser: "Quem está a apresentar factos errados? A NOAA ou a Universidade de Bremen?" (nota: tecnicamente, a UB - pelo menos, pelo link apresentado - não diz que a temperatura não aumentou, diz que a concentração de gelo aumentou; mas, na prática, vai dar ao mesmo). Será que HR prefere os factos apresentados pela UB aos factos apresentados pela NOAA por confiar mais nas instituições da "velha Europa" do que nas norte-americanas (afinal, não nos esqueçamos que a NOAA é um departamento de um governo controlado pela esquerda radical, que até tem vindo a nacionalizar a banca e a seguradoras)?
Mas será que há mesmo alguma contradição entre o que a NOAA diz e o que a UB diz (pelo menos no tal gráfico que diz que há mais gelo no Ártico a 16 de Outubro de 2008 do que a 16 de Outubro de 2007?
Vamos lá ver o que a NOAA diz no seu relatório:
"Autumn temperatures are at a record 5º C above normal, due to the major loss of sea ice in recent years which allows more solar heating of the ocean. Winter and springtime temperatures remain relatively warm over the entire Arctic, in contrast to the 20th century and consistent with an emerging global warming influence.
The year 2007 was the warmest on record for the Arctic, continuing a general, Arctic-wide warming trend that began in the mid-1960s (...).
The summers of 2005 through 2007 all ended with extensive areas of open water (see sea ice section). This allowed extra heat to be absorbed by the ocean from solar radiation. As a result ice freeze-up occurred later than usual in these years. Surface air temperature (SAT) remained high into the following autumns, with warm anomalies above an unprecedented +5° C during October and November across the central Arctic (...).
The major retreat of sea ice extent during the summer of 2007 was set up by sustained winds blowing from the North Pacific across the North Pole (Fig. A3). These winds contributed to sea ice advection toward the Atlantic sector. Additionally, the advection of warm moist air into the central Arctic contributed to melting sea ice, especially in the Pacific sector. The near record minimum sea ice extent in 2008 was nearly the same as in 2007, but the causes were different. The wind pattern in 2007 was unusually constant throughout the summer, while in 2008 the winds were more variable. Summer winds in 2007 appear to be a once in a decade event, while the atmosphere had less of a contribution to sea ice loss in 2008."
E também:Assim, que contradição há entre isto que a NOAA diz e a tal figura postada nos Mitos Climáticos, comparando o gelo em Outubro de 2007 e de 2008?
Em nome da verdade
"Deficientes voltam a ter mais benefícios fiscais em 2009" – Agência Financeira.
"Governo reduz impostos para os contribuintes com deficiência em 2009" – Público
“Deficientes têm redução no IRS” – Diário Económico
“Orçamento para tentar atenuar efeitos da crise” – TVI
Os títulos são estes, mas a verdade é muito diferente. É preciso divulgar junto da opinião pública o que realmente se passa com os impostos dos trabalhadores portadores de deficiência que, para além da parte do salário real que é levada pela inflação, ainda têm que enfrentar um agravamento fiscal, introduzido em 2007 pelo Governo Sócrates, em nome de uma justiça social que afastou a sociedade das suas responsabilidades de inclusão destes cidadãos.
Imagine se os seus impostos tivessem aumentado assim. E imagine que o que lia nos jornais, o que ouvia nas rádios e o que via nas televisões era o oposto da realidade que estava a viver. Para além de sentir na pele a injustiça de uma medida que limita decisivamente o seu direito à inclusão social, ainda se sentiria usado como propaganda numa campanha em que se diz que os seus direitos foram reforçados.
Os trabalhadores portadores de deficiência não têm assessores de imprensa para fazer títulos de jornal. Por isso contam com a colaboração de todos nós para a divulgação de uma verdade que não consta das notas de imprensa distribuídas pelo Governo, que os média se limitam a republicar: a tributação dos cidadãos portadores de deficiência aumentou em 2007, aumentou novamente em 2008 e ainda vai aumentar mais em 2010. O que o Governo fez foi apenas dar uma trégua de um ano nesse agravamento fiscal e adiá-lo de 2009, ano de eleições, para 2010.
Abaixo da animação seguinte, da responsabiliade do Movimento de Trabalhadores Portadores de Deficiência, disponibiliza-se o código html para todos os bloggers que queiram colaborar na divulgação da mensagem nela contida. O apelo de divulgação estende-se a todos aqueles que, não tendo um blog, podem repassar esta mensagem por mail a todos os seus contactos.
Sindicatos e indemnizações
No entanto, mesmo que isso fosse verdade, não vejo onde estaria o grande mal (falo em termos morais, não em termos legais): não faria grande sentido que o sindicato fornecesse apoio jurídico gratuito aos não-sindicalizados, em pé de igualdade com os sindicalizados que descontam todos os meses. Parece que o problema é os sindicatos (alegadamente) cobrarem um percentagem de indemnização, em vez de uma tarifa fixa (o que é ilegal, já que contraria as regras da Ordem dos Advogados). Mas, mesmo que isso fosse verdade, se algum de vocês fosse um trabalhador que perdeu o emprego e a recorrer aos tribunais para conseguir um indemnização, como é que preferiam que quem voz desse apoio jurídico (fosse um sindicato ou um advogado) lhes cobrasse? Uma tarifa fixa ou uma percentagem da indemnização que viesse a ser obtida? Eu até preferia a percentagem: pagando uma tarifa fixa, até me arriscava a perder dinheiro se a indemnização viesse a ser baixa.
Claro que há aqui a questão legal: a Ordem proíbe os advogados (e, para efeitos de apoio jurídico, penso que os sindicatos estão equiparados a advogados) de cobrar à percentagem (isso acontece também se eu quiser processar alguma empresa de automóveis por me vender um carro defeituoso ou coisa assim: não posso fazer um acordo com um advogado pagando-lhe 5% do que ganhasse de indemnização). Mas será que essa regra faz algum sentido?
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Analogia apropriada ao momento?
Re: A classe e o indivíduo representativo
Por exemplo, se o razão para um individuo querer um determinado bem for o facto de os indivíduos do seu "grupo de referência" possuírem esse bem (qual é a razão para alguêm ir ao Sacha Beach? Pelas pessoas que vão ao Sacha Beach), penso que é facílimo integrar isso num modelo neo-clássico: basicamente, é um caso muito semelhante ao QWERTY, algo que já está há uns 20 anos integrado na EN.
Seja como for, penso que essa questão (a das preferências e da sua origem) até é irrelevante para a questão das classes sociais - mesmo que os indivíduos das várias classes sociais (isto é, com diferentes dotações) tivessem a mesma ordenação de preferências, não era por isso que deixavam de constituir classes distintas, com potencial de conflito entre elas - na verdade, pode-se argumentar que até há mais potencial de "luta de classes" se os indivíduos das várias classes tiverem uma ordenação de preferências semelhante (se tiverem preferências muito diferentes, o resultado talvez até seja mais uma sociedade à Ancien Regime - classes fortemente divididas e cada um "feliz no seu lugar").
Aqui parece-me que LG está a usar uma definição de "classe social" muito diferente da minha: o que define um individuo como pertencente à classe social A ou B não é o seu "padrão de comportamento", é a sua dotação de factores (isto é, o que ele possui): dois operários, não proprietários dos "meios de produção", pertencem à mesma classe social, mesmo que, nas horas vagas, um vá para a taberna e outro para a biblioteca municipal (e um "pequeno-burguês" que goste de Iron Maiden não passa a ser "operário" por causa disso).
Friday, October 17, 2008
Argumentos a favor das cooperativas (III)
Imagine a selfish CEO approaching retirement. He wants to get as much cash out of the firm as he can, and shareholders provide no discipline over him. Sounds like a recipe for catastrophe?
Not necessarily. In order to maximize revenues, and hence his own opportunities for rent extraction, the CEO needs his subordinates to work hard. But they won’t do this if they think the CEO is out only to maximize his own short-term rewards at the expense of the health of the company, because they‘ll believe the firm has no future.
In order to motivate them, he’ll have to invest in growing the firm, to give key employees the hope of big rewards in the future. In this way, even a selfish, short-termist CEO can be coerced into acting in the long-term interests of the firm.
And efforts to increase shareholders rights - say by paying big dividends or by getting more activist owners - might be counter-productive. Subordinates’ might reduce their effort if they think shareholders are depressing growth prospects. And shareholder control over a CEO might be a poor substitute for de facto workers’ control, as the latter know more about the firm.
(...)
There is, though, an obvious question here. If quoted firms thrive to the extent that they act a little like co-ops - by giving (some) employees (some) de facto control, why shouldn’t this arrangement be extend and formalized?
