The ultimate form of irony

Hoje, no curso de "Comunicación Afectiva y Efectiva", ao qual o meu hospital obriga todos os R2 a assistir durante 9h, apresentaram este video publicitário como exemplo que "não é bom julgar cedo demais". Eu chorei a rir, mas fui só eu. Ninguém sabia dali o que era a Ameriquest, ou o que representava. Creio que concordarás comigo que é o pior exemplo do mundo para esta lição, que esta gente tinha sim a obrigação de julgar um pouco mais, e que por este motivo são um dos grandes responsáveis desta alhada em que nos encontramos todos metidos.
Let us judge, only a little bit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNo7KTG300w&feature=youtube_gdata_player

PS: Corro o sério risco que também não saibas o que é a Ameriquest. Se tivesses acabado "All the Devils Are Here" (como te aconselhei mil vezes!) sabias, ah pois é. A explicação:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ameriquest_Mortgage

Where's my money?

Lending Growth Slows in Euro Zone
at New York Times, by Jack Ewing, March 28, 2012

FRANKFURT — Bank lending to consumers and businesses continued to grow very slowly in the euro zone in February, according to figures issued Wednesday, a sign that the “wall of money” unleashed by the European Central Bank in recent months has not yet reached borrowers.
Growth of loans to the private sector slowed to an annual rate of 1.1 percent from 1.5 percent in January, the E.C.B. said in its monthly report on the euro zone money supply. The report, normally a fairly routine event, was closely watched for what it said about the impact of €1 trillion, or $1.3 trillion, in low-interest, three-year loans that the E.C.B. has disbursed to banks since December.
Most economists agree that the three-year loans have taken pressure off banks and averted a serious credit shortage that would have been toxic for the euro zone economy. At the end of last year, for the first time in the history of the euro, the overall supply of money as measured by the E.C.B. declined for three months in a row.
The E.C.B. loans seem to have reversed that alarming trend.
But the data released Wednesday showed that the E.C.B. program had not yet translated into a big increase in lending or borrowing.
“The risk of a credit crunch in parts of the region has not fully disappeared,” Martin van Vliet, an economist at ING Bank, said in a note to clients Wednesday.
Top officials of the E.C.B. have said they did not expect the lending to reach borrowers immediately. In fact, compared with January, lending to the private sector fell by €8 billion in February, though the level was still higher than a year earlier.
“The E.C.B. may be not too disappointed about the monetary data published today, as it probably expected the sluggish loan momentum to continue for some time,” Michael Schubert, an economist at Commerzbank, said in a note to clients.
The second round of E.C.B. three-year loans was not issued to banks until March 1 and would not have had any impact on the data released Wednesday.
Tepid lending growth may also reflect reluctance by companies and people to borrow, rather than a lack of banks willing to lend, Mr. Schubert pointed out.
The E.C.B. reported sharp declines in lending in Spain, Portugal, Ireland and other countries struggling to contain government spending. But growth in lending was also slow in Germany, which has avoided much of the pain of the European sovereign debt crisis. Mario Draghi, the president of the E.C.B., expressed optimism this week that the money would soon reach small businesses.
Hundreds of smaller German community banks, the traditional source of credit for smaller companies, were among those taking advantage of the second round of E.C.B. loans, he said. “We cannot say that this money will necessarily go to these smaller enterprises,” Mr. Draghi said in Berlin on Monday, “but it is certainly very close to them.”

Coincidência?

Noticia de La Vanguardia, perdida no meio dos meios de comunicacão que tenho pendentes na minha vida. Ontem dei com ela, no sabia quem era... E, hoje, uma surpresa agradável quando conecto o ipad. Sinto-me em casa com estes acordes...

Luisa Sobral, la nueva revelación portuguesa,
at La Vanguardia, Vivir, 19/03/12

No quiero ser una Lady Gaga”, remarca de entrada Luisa Sobral. “Mi objetivo en la música es que haya gente en muchos países a quienes gusten mis canciones y pueda ir allí a actuar”. Así de clara tiene su voluntad de futuro esta cantautora, que acaba de publicar su debut discográfico, cantado en inglés y portugués.
En The cherry on my cake, el jazz y el pop se dan la mano para tejer una obra elaborada con ternura, que emana el gusto por los clásicos de los años cincuenta. No en vano, entre la lista de las influencias imprescindibles de la cantante lusa figuran tótems como Louis Armstrong, Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald o Billie Holiday. “Me gusta contar historias, hablar de personajes e inventarme algunos, como hicieron los Beatles”. Sobral dice encontrar la inspiración en personas que ve por la calle, en películas, libros, canciones de otros artistas e historias que le cuentan. “Tienes que mirar la vida con las gafas de la inspiración”, resume.
Tiene solamente 23 años, pero su trayectoria no ha sido precisamente coser y cantar. A los 16 participó en un equivalente portugués de Operación triunfo, una etapa de la que siente algo de “vergüenza, aunque tampoco estuvo tan mal”. Con la mayoría de edad se marchó a estudiar a Berklee, donde encontró su “personalidad musical”. Tras cuatro años en Boston optó por un destino “mucho más agresivo”, Nueva York. “Mientras estaba en la universidad pensaba que el mundo era la escuela. Y cuando me decían que era buena, pensaba que todo el mundo lo creía. Pero Nueva York fue un baño de humildad, ya que hay un montón de gente que canta tan bien o mejor que yo”, reconoce sin tapujos.
Aunque las fechas están por cerrar, esta joven políglota –habla portugués, inglés, español, italiano, francés y está estudiando japonés– adelanta que en verano actuará en España. “Junto con viajar, tocar en directo es lo que más me gusta y me niego a hacer playback. Quiero que todo lo que haga sea real, genuino”, concluye.

Humility: In the cinemas near you

Hoje descobri que no site do Banco Central Europeu há uma parte educacional com dois jogos engraçados. O primeiro chama-se Inflation Island

http://www.ecb.int/ecb/educational/inflationisland/html/index.en.html

e mostra diferentes situações da vida real onde o jogo é escolher o cenário de deflação, inflação e estabilidade de preços. Pode parecer fácil, mas acredita que não é (pelo menos para mim!). O segundo chama-se €conomia e és tu que tens de fazer de banco central europeu! Importante, este há para ipad:)

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/id470150691

Humility here I come!!!

Your Head Is In The Cloud

10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life
(Times, versão Internacional, de dia 05/03/12, cover story).
Esta é a ideia nº 2: "Your Head Is In The Cloud":

Inundated by more information than we can possibly hold in our heads, we're increasingly handing off the job of remembering to search engines and smart phones. Google is even reportedly working on eyeglasses that could one day recognize faces and supply details about whoever you're looking at. But new research shows that outsourcing our memory--and expecting that information will be continually and instantaneously available--is changing our cognitive habits.

Research conducted by Betsy Sparrow, an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University, and published last year in the journal Science has identified three new realities about how we process information in the Internet age. First, her experiments showed that when we don't know the answer to a question, we now think about where we can find the nearest Web connection instead of the subject of the question itself. For example, the query "Are there any countries with only one color in their flag?" prompted study participants to think not about flags but about computers.

A second revelation: when we expect to be able to find information again later on, we don't remember it as well as when we think it might become unavailable. Sparrow's subjects were asked to type facts into a computer--for example, "The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during re-entry over Texas in February 2003." Half were told that their work would be saved; the rest were told that their words would be erased. Those who believed that the computer would store the information recalled details less well on their own. Sparrow compares their situation to one we all experience in the hyperconnected real world: "Since search engines are continually available to us, we may often be in a state of not feeling we need to encode the information internally. When we need it, we will look it up." Sound familiar?

The researchers' final observation: the expectation that we'll be able to locate information down the line leads us to form a memory not of the fact itself but of where we'll be able to find it. "We are learning what the computer 'knows' and when we should attend to where we have stored information in our computer-based memories," Sparrow and her colleagues concluded in their report. "We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools."

Before you grow nervous about turning into a cyborg, however, you should know that this new symbiosis with our digital devices is really just a variant of a much more familiar phenomenon, what psychologists call transactive memory. This is the unspoken arrangement by which groups of people dole out memory tasks to each individual, with information to be shared when needed. In a marriage, one spouse might remember the kids' after-school appointments while the other keeps track of the recycling-pickup schedule. In a workplace team, one member may be the designated number cruncher while a colleague is charged with remembering client preferences. The way we delegate to our computers is simply an extension of this principle--an instance of transactive memory carried out on a very grand scale.

But this handoff comes with a downside. Skills like critical thinking and analysis must develop in the context of facts: we need something to think and reason about, after all. And these facts can't be Googled as we go; they need to be stored in the original hard drive, our long-term memory. Especially in the case of children, "factual knowledge must precede skill," says Daniel Willingham, a professor of psychology at the University of Virginia--meaning that the days of drilling the multiplication table and memorizing the names of the Presidents aren't over quite yet. Adults, too, need to recruit a supply of stored knowledge in order to situate and evaluate new information they encounter. You can't Google context.

Last, there's the possibility, increasingly terrifying to contemplate, that our machines will fail us. As Sparrow puts it, "The experience of losing our Internet connection becomes more and more like losing a friend." If you're going to keep your memory on your smart phone, better make sure it's fully charged.

A nossa geração está à rasca, mas não está sozinha

Geração à Rasca - A Nossa Culpa
Um dia, isto tinha de acontecer.
Existe uma geração à rasca?
Existe mais do que uma! Certamente!
Está à rasca a geração dos pais que educaram os seus meninos numa abastança caprichosa, protegendo-os de dificuldades e escondendo-lhes as agruras da vida.
Está à rasca a geração dos filhos que nunca foram ensinados a lidar com frustrações.
A ironia de tudo isto é que os jovens que agora se dizem (e também estão) à rasca são os que mais tiveram tudo.
Nunca nenhuma geração foi, como esta, tão privilegiada na sua infância e na sua adolescência. E nunca a sociedade exigiu tão pouco aos seus jovens como lhes tem sido exigido nos últimos anos.

Deslumbradas com a melhoria significativa das condições de vida, a minha geração e as seguintes (actualmente entre os 30 e os 50 anos) vingaram-se das dificuldades em que foram criadas, no antes ou no pós 1974, e quiseram dar aos seus filhos o melhor.
Ansiosos por sublimar as suas próprias frustrações, os pais investiram nos seus descendentes: proporcionaram-lhes os estudos que fazem deles a geração mais qualificada de sempre (já lá vamos...), mas também lhes deram uma vida desafogada, mimos e mordomias, entradas nos locais de diversão, cartas de condução e 1º automóvel, depósitos de combustível cheios, dinheiro no bolso para que nada lhes faltasse. Mesmo quando as expectativas de primeiro emprego saíram goradas, a família continuou presente, a garantir aos filhos cama, mesa e roupa lavada.
Durante anos, acreditaram estes pais e estas mães estar a fazer o melhor; o dinheiro ia chegando para comprar (quase) tudo, quantas vezes em substituição de princípios e de uma educação para a qual não havia tempo, já que ele era todo para o trabalho, garante do ordenado com que se compra (quase) tudo. E éramos (quase) todos felizes.

Depois, veio a crise, o aumento do custo de vida, o desemprego, ... A vaquinha emagreceu, feneceu, secou.

Foi então que os pais ficaram à rasca.
Os pais à rasca não vão a um concerto, mas os seus rebentos enchem Pavilhões Atlânticos e festivais de música e bares e discotecas onde não se entra à borla nem se consome fiado.
Os pais à rasca deixaram de ir ao restaurante, para poderem continuar a pagar restaurante aos filhos, num país onde uma festa de aniversário de adolescente que se preza é no restaurante e vedada a pais.
São pais que contam os cêntimos para pagar à rasca as contas da água e da luz e do resto, e que abdicam dos seus pequenos prazeres para que os filhos não prescindam da internet de banda larga a alta velocidade, nem dos qualquercoisaphones ou pads, sempre de última geração.

São estes pais mesmo à rasca, que já não aguentam, que começam a ter de dizer "não". É um "não" que nunca ensinaram os filhos a ouvir, e que por isso eles não suportam, nem compreendem, porque eles têm direitos, porque eles têm necessidades, porque eles têm expectativas, porque lhes disseram que eles são muito bons e eles querem, e querem, querem o que já ninguém lhes pode dar!

A sociedade colhe assim hoje os frutos do que semeou durante pelo menos duas décadas.

Eis agora uma geração de pais impotentes e frustrados.
Eis agora uma geração jovem altamente qualificada, que andou muito por escolas e universidades mas que estudou pouco e que aprendeu e sabe na proporção do que estudou. Uma geração que colecciona diplomas com que o país lhes alimenta o ego insuflado, mas que são uma ilusão, pois correspondem a pouco conhecimento teórico e a duvidosa capacidade operacional.
Eis uma geração que vai a toda a parte, mas que não sabe estar em sítio nenhum. Uma geração que tem acesso a informação sem que isso signifique que é informada; uma geração dotada de trôpegas competências de leitura e interpretação da realidade em que se insere.
Eis uma geração habituada a comunicar por abreviaturas e frustrada por não poder abreviar do mesmo modo o caminho para o sucesso. Uma geração que deseja saltar as etapas da ascensão social à mesma velocidade que queimou etapas de crescimento. Uma geração que distingue mal a diferença entre emprego e trabalho, ambicionando mais aquele do que este, num tempo em que nem um nem outro abundam.
Eis uma geração que, de repente, se apercebeu que não manda no mundo como mandou nos pais e que agora quer ditar regras à sociedade como as foi ditando à escola, alarvemente e sem maneiras.
Eis uma geração tão habituada ao muito e ao supérfluo que o pouco não lhe chega e o acessório se lhe tornou indispensável.
Eis uma geração consumista, insaciável e completamente desorientada.
Eis uma geração preparadinha para ser arrastada, para servir de montada a quem é exímio na arte de cavalgar demagogicamente sobre o desespero alheio.

Há talento e cultura e capacidade e competência e solidariedade e inteligência nesta geração?
Claro que há. Conheço uns bons e valentes punhados de exemplos!
Os jovens que detêm estas capacidades-características não encaixam no retrato colectivo, pouco se identificam com os seus contemporâneos, e nem são esses que se queixam assim (embora estejam à rasca, como todos nós).
Chego a ter a impressão de que, se alguns jovens mais inflamados pudessem, atirariam ao tapete os seus contemporâneos que trabalham bem, os que são empreendedores, os que conseguem bons resultados académicos, porque, que inveja!, que chatice!, são betinhos, cromos que só estorvam os outros (como se viu no último Prós e Contras) e, oh, injustiça!, já estão a ser capazes de abarbatar bons ordenados e a subir na vida.

E nós, os mais velhos, estaremos em vias de ser caçados à entrada dos nossos locais de trabalho, para deixarmos livres os invejados lugares a que alguns acham ter direito e que pelos vistos - e a acreditar no que ultimamente ouvimos de algumas almas - ocupamos injusta, imerecida e indevidamente?!!!

Novos e velhos, todos estamos à rasca.
Apesar do tom desta minha prosa, o que eu tenho mesmo é pena destes jovens.
Tudo o que atrás escrevi serve apenas para demonstrar a minha firme convicção de que a culpa não é deles.
A culpa de tudo isto é nossa, que não soubemos formar nem educar, nem fazer melhor, mas é uma culpa que morre solteira, porque é de todos, e a sociedade não consegue, não quer, não pode assumi-la.
Curiosamente, não é desta culpa maior que os jovens agora nos acusam. Haverá mais triste prova do nosso falhanço?
Pode ser que tudo isto não passe de alarmismo, de um exagero meu, de uma generalização injusta.
Pode ser que nada/ninguém seja assim.

Publicado pelo blog "O Assobio Rebelde"
http://assobiorebelde.blogspot.com/2011/03/geracao-rasca-nossa-culpa.html

Greek's CDS: my piggy bank is getting fat!

No 'Wall Street Journal' vinha a notícia. A Grécia conseguiu que 83% da dívida a privados fosse perdoada (restruturada) voluntariamente. Há umas semanas atrás, foi passada na Grécia uma lei de 'acção colectiva' que enforça uma eventual restruturação da dívida grega a privados 'que não concordem voluntariamente'. Claro que isto tem efeitos retroactivos, senão pouco efeito tinha.

Depois de se saber hoje quem respondia ao chamado voluntário, a Grécia esta a pensar activar a accão colectiva para conseguir mais divida restruturada. Se o fizer (e só nesse caso), é então possível colectar as CDS que apostavam no default da Grécia.

Agora fica a pergunta: Os privados que não aceitaram voluntariamente a restruturação, teriam muito a ganhar posteriormente em CDS?

NEW YORK—Payouts on a net $3.2 billion of insurance-like contracts designed to protect against losses on Greek sovereign debt have been triggered, after the country forced certain private creditors into its debt restructuring who did not want to accept the terms of the deal, a committee of dealers and investors decided Friday.

The request made early Friday to the special committee of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, which rules on such matters for the credit-default swaps market, was made following Greece's use of so-called collective-action clauses in its domestic-law bonds.

Collective-action clauses were inserted into the bonds' documentation retroactively, after Greece passed a law last month allowing it to strong-arm all private investors into its restructuring—even investors who said they weren't willing to participate.

That action made the deal, which was billed as voluntary because of the many participants who did sign up, not truly voluntary for all. If a debt restructuring is agreed between "a governmental authority and a sufficient number of holders of such obligation to bind all holders," making it mandatory, CDS can be triggered, according to ISDA's credit derivatives definitions.

The 15-strong Determinations Committee for Europe, convened by ISDA, voted unanimously that a restructuring credit event had occurred, triggering compensation owed to holders of CDS protection on Greek debt. One auction will be held to settle relevant CDS contracts on Greece on March 19.

The association had already indicated in January that if collective-action clauses were used by Greece to effect a reduction in coupon or principal, it could trigger Greek CDS.

CDS, which function like insurance for both corporate and sovereign bonds, can be triggered by a restructuring, a failure to make timely interest or principal payments or a bankruptcy, among other things.

Como era mesmo o desenho da nota de 500 euros?

Sim, é verdade. Pelos vistos anda-se a imprimir notas no BCE. Com as cortinas corridas, às escuras, a partir das 12h da noite, o Draghi lá vai pintando de verde uns euritos para a malta... :)
Agora a serio, a Times tem-me aberto um pouco os olhos... Enquanto a versão para o ipad não chega, tenho disponivel o conteudo das revistas completo em versão online (para subscritores), at your service:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/europe/

The Savior of Europe, at Times Megazine, International Ed, 05/03/12

Europe has been rescued. No, I'm not talking about the deal over Greek debt that was much in the news recently. The real rescue of Europe is being managed quietly, away from the headlines, by a low-key Italian, Mario Draghi, the new head of the European Central Bank (ECB). Over the past two months, Draghi has put the ECB to work, and the results show the power of central banks and the importance of using it effectively.

Don't start cheering yet. I'm not suggesting that Europe has solved its problems. Despite the recent deal, Greece will not be able to pay back its loans and will face another restructuring, which is a fancy word for default. Portugal might face a similar fate. But now such defaults will not trigger a systemwide panic. There will be no Lehman Brothers--type financial collapse in Europe.

Why? There is a famous scene in the movie It's a Wonderful Life: after the Crash of 1929, people run to the bank to pull their money out, and the Bailey Building & Loan just doesn't have enough cash. Thanks to Draghi, Europe's banks will have access to plenty of cash.

On Dec. 21, the ECB offered to lend Europe's banks as much money as they wanted for three years at the astonishingly low interest rate of 1%. "In effect, he printed about $600 billion in a day and changed the game," Sebastian Mallaby, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations, says of Draghi. Then Draghi suggested that he might do it again, possibly at a larger scale. "To put this in perspective, Europe and the IMF labored for almost a year to put together a rescue fund of about $500 billion. Draghi may end up creating one three times the size in two months," says Mallaby. And he could do more. There is no theoretical limit to a central bank's balance sheet.

The market has noticed. European stocks had their best January in nearly 15 years. Bank shares are up 20%. The rates at which governments borrow money have fallen. Investor sentiment is more bullish than it has been in months. Draghi has not fixed Europe's longer-term problems of high debts and low competitiveness. But he has bought crucial time for Europe's leaders to make structural changes to their countries' economies and move toward growth. The ECB's activism is not a new model for what a central bank can do. Here in the U.S., the Federal Reserve did the same thing--four years ago. For its actions, the Fed is under withering criticism from many on the right and left. Newt Gingrich has called Ben Bernanke the most "dangerous" chairman in the Fed's history, Rick Perry practically accused him of treason, and even moderate Mitt Romney has criticized him and announced that he would not reappoint him when his term expires in 2014.

This is dangerous demagoguery. Bernanke is the single individual responsible for preventing the financial crash of 2008 from turning into something much worse. Discussions of the Fed's role can get very esoteric, filled with concepts like fiat money and new monetarism. Let me try some common sense and a history lesson


The fear that a central bank could cause inflation by printing money is justified--except these days. Inflation in rich countries is caused largely by rising wages. How can that happen at a time when unemployment is sky-high? New autoworkers in Michigan are making $14 an hour, less than half the union rate of a few years ago. Youth unemployment in Spain is about 50%. Under these circumstances, wages of Western workers are far more likely to fall than rise.

In an essay for the Financial Times, Mallaby provides a highly intelligent history lesson. After the Japanese tsunami, the Bank of Japan (the country's central bank) printed trillions of yen to stabilize the economy--and it worked. Mallaby contrasts that with the aftermath of the San Francisco earthquake of 1906, a much smaller natural disaster but one that took place in an America that did not have a central bank. Within a year, GDP collapsed, the stock market declined by 50%, and unemployment almost tripled, to 8%. This was not an anomaly. In the recessions of 1873 and 1893, the economy went into free fall while unemployment rose to more than 10% for years--five years in the case of the 1890s. (By comparison, U.S. unemployment hovered close to 10% for three months in the current crisis.)

Modern economies have benefited greatly from having lenders of last resort that act wisely in a crisis. We should discuss how they should use this power. It will take special skill to withdraw, carefully, the cash that all the world's central banks have put into the system in the past few years. But had they not done it in the first place, we would all be discussing a different problem--how to get out of a global Great Depression.

The eurozone is at war with double-entry bookkeeping.

The pain in Spain will test the euro
at Finantial Times, column by Martin Wolfe, 06/03/12

One definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. Germany’s determination to impose a fiscal hair shirt on its eurozone partners did not work in the “stability and growth pact”. Is it going to work in the “treaty on stability, co-ordination and governance” agreed last week? I doubt it. The treaty reflects the view that the crisis was due to fiscal indiscipline and that the solution is more discipline. This is far from the whole truth. Rigorous application of such a misleading idea is dangerous.

Such concerns may now seem remote. The longer-term refinancing operations of the European Central Bank have relieved pressure both on banks and financial markets, including the markets for sovereign debt. In the two tranches of this completed operation, banks have borrowed more than €1tn for three years at just 1 per cent. Italian and Spanish 10-year government bond yields have fallen below 5 per cent, from peaks of 7.3 per cent for Italy and 6.7 per cent for Spain late last year. As important have been declines in credit default swaps on banks: the spread on Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo has fallen from 623 basis points in November 2011 to 321 points this Monday.

Yet the crisis has not passed. To varying degrees, the vulnerable countries are in lasting difficulties. Would these fiscal disciplines have saved the eurozone from its wave of crises? Will they pull afflicted countries out of these crises now? The answer to both questions is: no.

The fundamental new rule is that a member’s structural fiscal deficit should not exceed 0.5 per cent of gross domestic product. In effect, this would require countries to run structural surpluses. Moreover, if a country has debt over 60 per cent of GDP, the excess shall be eliminated at an average rate of a 20th of the excess each year. A country such as Italy, with debt at about 120 per cent of GDP, would lower the ratio at a rate of 3 per cent of GDP each year. This framework is the one to which all eurozone members must accede. These rules are to be embedded in law, preferably constitutional law.

This treaty raises deep legal, political and economic questions.

It does make economic sense to target cyclically adjusted rather than actual deficits. But the improvement in economics is at the cost of a reduction in precision. Nobody knows what a structural deficit is.

This is no quibble. Consider the structural fiscal positions for 2007, the last largely pre-crisis year, estimated by the International Monetary Fund in October 2007 – in “real time”, as it were. This was a year when the indicator needed to scream “crisis”. Yet it showed Spain with a large structural surplus and Ireland in structural balance (see chart). Both were even in better shape than Germany. Greece did have a sizeable structural deficit. But the French deficit was worse than that of Portugal. The rule would not have discriminated between vulnerable countries and immune ones because it ignores asset bubbles and financial manias.

The IMF then had second thoughts. By October 2011, it had concluded that Greece’s structural fiscal deficit in 2007 had been 10.4 per cent of GDP, not 4 per cent, and Ireland’s 8.4 per cent, not 0.1 per cent. This is not a criticism of the IMF. It merely shows that the concept the eurozone wishes to embed in a new treaty will fail when accuracy is most needed. The true structural deficit is unknowable.

Consider the political and legal implications. Would elected governments accept the guesstimates of unaccountable technocrats? How, moreover, are judges to reach a decision? Are they to evaluate the merits of alternative econometric models? Since huge changes in estimates of structural deficits are likely, how is a government to adapt? Putting an unmeasurable concept into the law seems mad.

Right now, a row is brewing between the European institutions and the newly elected Spanish government of Mariano Rajoy. The latter has stated that his government is going to target a fiscal deficit of 5.8 per cent of GDP, down from the 8.5 per cent achieved in 2011, but well above the 4.4 per cent it agreed with the Commission. The latter will huff. But it cannot compel a sovereign government to do what it wants. Spain’s partners can refuse help. But that might redound on themselves.

Spain’s fiscal difficulties are a consequence of the crisis, not a cause. The country experienced huge rises in private debt after 1990, particularly among non-financial corporations (see chart). The overhang of residential construction also rules out substantial household borrowing. Given this, a sharp reduction in government borrowing is most unlikely to be offset by more private borrowing and spending. The result is more likely to be a far deeper recession, along with little progress in reducing actual fiscal deficits. At worst, a vicious downward spiral may occur. Instead of forcing Spain into rapid fiscal retrenchment, it would be far more sensible to give the country the time it needs to let the bold reform of its labour markets work through. This is going to take a number of years.

Yet if the eurozone is to be willing to provide the time needed for such adjustments to occur, the surplus countries need to be aware of their own role. Without doubt, the parallel emergence of current-account surpluses and deficits, the flow of cross-border finance and the folly of cross-border lenders played huge roles in causing today’s crisis.

In a paper published last month, the Commission indicated its intention to examine a number of countries running external deficits. These sinners are even named. Parallel analysis is needed of the surplus countries. The paper even raises the issue. But it does not dare to pick out specific surplus countries for close analysis. The eurozone is at war with double-entry bookkeeping.

So, yes, the ECB has bought the eurozone some time. But little yet suggests that a way has been found towards the necessary rebalancing of the eurozone economy and, above all, towards achieving the desired mix of reform, adjustment and a swift return to growth. The chosen way looks instead to go via years of one-sided adjustment and painful austerity. Will that work? I very much doubt it. At best, we can expect many bumps along that road.

E temos outra vez 8 anos...

A 1ª vez que ouvi esta canção foi no FB, num post de uma amiga do meu antigo hospital. Fechei os olhos, e parecia que estava outra vez numa 5ª à noite, à espera que começasse a Grande Noite. Acredita, foi o meu primeriro pensamento, foi instantaneo... Concluí que devia ser uma canção que imitava bastante bem os belos anos 50 que tanto impressionaram La Feria, e desde então não paro de ouvi-la.
Mas parece que não me enganei tanto. Ao buscar-la no Youtube para este post, descubri que realmente é a versão moderna de uma canção de um velho filme português de 1950, " O Grande Elias" (cantada por Milu e Ribeirinho).
É giro como há coisas que permanecem encondidos nos reconditos da nossa memória, e fazem parte de que somos, mesmo que não saibamos muito bem reconhece-las de entrada...

http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Grande_Elias

Enjoy esta nova versão, e a fina ironia da letra. Acredita, vale mesmo a pena ouvir até ao fim:

Europe according to USA