Senhora Governabilidade, por Rui Daher

finanças, economia, justiça, política, negócios, mídia, artes Vamos ser totalmente realistas para o curto prazo, nem pessimistas nem otimistas… Atualmente por enquanto, na minha opinião, a governabilidade, ou em outras palavras, o poder real está nas mãos dos Poderosos donos do Grande Capital. O governante eleito pelo povo chega ao poder, porém não tem o poder real da governabilidade como deveria ser, saindo da teoria da Constituição e indo para prática real na vida de um governante, do povo e de uma nação. Ainda hoje tudo isso é uma boa vontade e um grande teatro a ser entendido. Na verdade prática, hoje “Eles” fornecem apenas pão, água e circo, isto é, o básico para o povo. É o que temos para hoje. Não que isso não possa ser mudado. Eu creio que esta realidade vai mudar para o futuro de médio a longo prazos. 

The Establishment, o Império, o Sistema, o Sistema Capitalista, Capitalismo (Selvagem), o Poder, a Realpolitik, o Mercado, o Mercado Financeiro, o Grande Capital, os Donos do Dinheiro Grosso (não importa o termo a ser utilizado) determinam as regras do jogo e/ou da guerra/luta, usam e abusam das leis, decretos, normas, regras, insiders, informações privilegiadas, expertise, indexações (Selic, juros, taxa de senhoriagem, regime de câmbio flutuante/flexível, swap cambial, precificações pré e pós-fixadas de ativos e passivos), especulações imobiliárias e financeiras, etc., etc. que os favorecem sempre.

 

O Sistema (não importa o termo a ser utilizado) deverá ser seguido e obedecido, o qual foi implantado no mundo baseado nas premissas da elite branca do padrão judaico anglo-saxônico com um nível científico, tecnológico, financeiro, econômico, social, artístico e moral superior a todas as outras elites e outros povos do mundo. O povo americano e o povo judeu se acham privilegiados e escolhidos por Deus. O Império quer continuar mandando nas colônias. Ele gosta de usar de arma(s)/espada e/ou de dívida(s) para manter suas colônias como reféns.

 

Da História do homem no planeta Terra a gente conclui que sempre houve, há e haverá não apenas o uso da ameaça dos aparelhos repressivos por quem está de plantão no poder supremo ou alto comando com completa arrogância, mas também o uso da arma da informação/desinformação, comunicação, do termo retroalimentação (https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroalimenta%C3%A7%C3%A3o) e do termo FUD em inglês (“Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt” que significam “Medo, Incerteza e Dúvida” – é uma prática de marketing que consiste em desacreditar o concorrente espalhando desinformação sobre o produto rival. Apesar de ser uma prática moralmente condenável em muitos países, o FUD é aceito nos Estados Unidos.) para reprimir, intimidar, assustar, desmoralizar, vender uma ideia/produto/serviço/solução, etc..

 

No livro “Cybernetics: or the Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine” (ou em português: Cibernética ou Controle e Comunicação no Animal e na Máquina) o Norbert Wiener explica a utilidade da retroalimentação para criar mecanismos autorregulados que poderão ser aplicados para o bem e para o mal na Sociedade.

 

Favor ler sobre a retroalimentação

 (https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroalimenta%C3%A7%C3%A3o) ou feedback

 

… A retroalimentação é um procedimento existente em diversos tipos de sistemas, sejam eles biológicos, econômicos, elétricos (circuitos), sociais ou outros.

 

O termo é utilizado nas Teorias de Sistemas e de Controle, na Engenharia Elétrica, na Engenharia de Controle, na Psicologia, na Biologia e especificamente na Endocrinologia.

 

Embora o conceito de retroalimentação, num sentido restrito, refira-se simplesmente ao retorno de informações do efeito para a causa de um fenômeno, no âmbito da comunicação e das interações humanas ele não se refere a nada de “simples”. Diluindo as distinções formais entre emissor e receptor, por exemplo, ou explicitando a dinâmica recorrente que explicaria o fenômeno dos boatos e as “profecias autorrealizadoras” (self-fulfilling prophecies) que operam no mundo da política e da publicidade, este conceito não cessa de revelar o quanto a própria palavra se encontra tomada indicialmente na camada dos comportamentos, ações e reações cuja sequência nunca é linear, mas emaranhada, recursiva ou complexa.

 

Bem-vindo à terceira guerra mundial! Ela é complexa e duradoura e já começou há algum tempo gradualmente, talvez muitos ainda não perceberam. Uma definição usando termos atuais: ela é uma guerra híbrida ou bimodal (ou talvez transdisciplinar, interdisciplinar, ambivalente, polivalente) ampla e profunda, um conceito novo dentro de um cenário ou contexto complexo ímpar, uma mistura de guerra social/cultural/educacional/ideológica/metafísica/espiritual com guerra política/geopolítica/financeira/científica/tecnológica/cibernética/física/material, ou seja, tudo junto misturado.

 

A guerra declarada ou não declarada da elite manipula ou tenta manipular tudo e todos, está em um nível amplo e profundo e encontra-se envolvida em tudo tanto na dimensão material quanto na dimensão espiritual (só para dar uma pequena noção, favor lembrar da famosa e antiga frase do William Shakespeare, por exemplo: “Há mais coisas entre o céu e a terra do que pode imaginar nossa vã filosofia”), não apenas na política, mídia e justiça.

 

Se alguém não entender o âmago ou núcleo de todas das causas (ou o cerne dos problemas pontuais e recorrentes) na fase 1, não poderá entender as consequências, efeitos ou desdobramentos posteriores (continuará sem as devidas soluções efetivas e duradouras) na fase 2. Ficará sem compreender de forma precisa e eficaz o início, o meio e o fim de tudo.

 

Infelizmente segundo levantamento feito no Brasil, apenas uma pequena parcela (8% ou oito por cento) da população brasileira consegue fazer as quatro operações básicas de aritmética e ler e interpretar o que foi lido corretamente.

 

Favor ler sobre o relatório “Alfabetismo e o Mundo do Trabalho”:

 

No Brasil, apenas 8% têm plenas condições de compreender e se expressar

http://educacao.uol.com.br/noticias/2016/02/29/no-brasil-apenas-8-escapam-do-analfabetismo-funcional.htm

 

Nesta atual fase do capitalismo totalmente selvagem em que estamos vivendo no Brasil e no mundo, a qual começou principalmente a partir dos anos 80 do século passado (depois da quebra do lastro entre ouro e dólar ou moedas em geral, ou seja, depois do fim do padrão ouro, da crise do petróleo e do fim do comunismo soviético), o poder do dinheiro (incluindo ativos financeiros com/sem lastro e/ou riqueza fictícia de papel pintado) da elite cresceu de forma sem precedentes e compra praticamente tudo ou, pelo menos, quase tudo.

 

“Eles” estão unidos e não estão brincando em ação, por exemplo: favor ler o que os americanos Warren Buffet e Thomas Stewart falam abertamente. Parece surreal, brincadeira sem graça, loucura total, porém isso é verdade sincera nua e crua.

 

Com isso, todas as áreas estão cada vez mais envolvidas/integradas como estiveram desde sempre: finanças, economia, justiça, política, geopolítica, negócios, mídia, artes, jogos em geral, drogas, contrabando, prostituição, corrupção, lavagem de dinheiro, etc., etc..

 

Portal iG

Lava Jato: Documentos revelam esquema global de corrupção em paraísos fiscais

Vazamento de milhões de documentos revela paraísos fiscais de ricos e poderosos

http://ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/mundo/2016-04-03/vazamento-de-milhoes-de-documentos-revela-paraisos-fiscais-de-ricos-e-poderosos.html

BBC Brasil

Favor ler matéria completa clicando no link:

http://ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/mundo/2016-04-03/vazamento-de-milhoes-de-documentos-revela-paraisos-fiscais-de-ricos-e-poderosos.html

 

 

Portal UOL

Panama Papers

PDT, PMDB, PP, PSB, PSD, PSDB e PTB têm políticos e parentes com offshores

http://fernandorodrigues.blogosfera.uol.com.br/2016/04/04/pdt-pmdb-pp-psb-psd-psdb-e-ptb-tem-politicos-e-parentes-com-offshores/

UOL

 

Favor ler matéria completa clicando no link:

http://fernandorodrigues.blogosfera.uol.com.br/2016/04/04/pdt-pmdb-pp-psb-psd-psdb-e-ptb-tem-politicos-e-parentes-com-offshores/

 

Warren Buffet atualmente, segundo a classificação 2016 da revista americana Forbes, é o terceiro bilionário do mundo

 

Favor ler principalmente na frase final do Warren Buffett no jornal “Folha de São Paulo”, na versão traduzida em português: “Quem disse que não há luta de classe? Claro que há, e nós estamos vencendo”.

 

Folha de São Paulo – Caderno Opinião

22/04/2014

VLADIMIR SAFATLE

Como não pagar IPVA

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/fsp/opiniao/162401-como-nao-pagar-ipva.shtml

Todos os anos você precisa pagar o IPVA do seu carro. Como o nome diz, trata-se de um Imposto de Propriedade sobre Veículos Automotores. Bem, um veículo automotor é, pasmem vocês, “aquele dotado de motor próprio”.

 

Por exemplo, um carro de boi não pagará IPVA por não ter motor próprio: o motor é o boi, a saber, uma entidade ontologicamente a parte do aparato técnico de motricidade desenvolvido pelo saber humano. A bicicleta não pagará o imposto pela mesma razão, assim como o helicóptero do banqueiro, o jato particular do escroque e o iate do Naji Nahas.

 

“Assim como o helicóptero, o jato particular e o iate”? Sim. Você poderá procurar todos os meandros do saber jurídico, encontrar explicações surreais, como aquela que afirma que o atual IPVA substituiu a antiga TRU (Taxa Rodoviária Única), logo os veículos automotores que pagarão impostos são apenas aqueles colados no chão.

 

No entanto, a verdade é uma só: helicópteros, jatos particulares e iates não pagam IPVA porque, no Brasil, os ricos definem as leis que protegerão seus rendimentos e desejos de ostentação. Bem-vindo àquilo que economistas como o francês Thomas Piketty chamam de “capitalismo patrimonial”: um capitalismo construído para quem ganha mais continuar a ganhar mais, a não precisar devolver nada para a sociedade, enquanto quem ganha menos é continuamente espoliado e recebe cada vez menos serviços do Estado.

 

Se os 20 mil jatos particulares e os 2.000 helicópteros que voam livremente no Brasil pagassem IPVA, teríamos algo em torno de mais R$ 8 bilhões. Esse valor é o equivalente a, por exemplo, dois orçamentos da USP. Ou seja, se aqueles que têm mais capacidade de contribuição simplesmente pagassem para ter seu singelo helicóptero o mesmo que você paga para ter seu carro, poderíamos financiar mais duas universidades com 90 mil alunos estudando gratuitamente.

 

Esse é apenas um dentro vários exemplos de como o Brasil se organizou para ser um país onde ser rico é um ótimo negócio. Um país que, só em 2014, deverá ter mais 17 mil milionários e nenhum deles pagando aquilo que você paga. Porque, aqui, quanto mais você sobe (de preferência de jato ou helicóptero), mais você é protegido. Isso pode parecer uma explicação primária, mas muitas vezes o óbvio é o que há de mais difícil a enxergar.

 

Como disse, não um esquerdista de centro acadêmico, mas o megainvestidor norte-americano Warren Buffett: “Quem disse que não há luta de classe? Claro que há, e nós estamos vencendo”.

 

VLADIMIR SAFATLE escreve às terças-feiras nesta coluna.

 

 

Favor ler principalmente na parte falada pelo Warren Buffett no jornal “The New York Times”, na versão original em inglês:

… It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

 

… Descobriu-se que o Sr. Buffett, com imenso rendimento proveniente de dividendos e ganhos de capital, pagou muito, muito menos, ou seja, como uma fração menor de sua renda em relação à renda das secretárias, funcionários ou de qualquer outra pessoa em seu escritório. Além disso, na conversa surgiu que o Sr. Buffett não utiliza absolutamente nenhum planejamento tributário. Ele só paga como o Código da Receita Federal exige. “Como isso pode ser justo?”, ele perguntou de quão pouco ele paga em relação aos seus empregados. “Como isto pode estar certo?”

 

Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.

 

Mesmo que eu concordei com ele, eu avisei que sempre que alguém tentasse levantar a questão, ela ou ele poderia ser acusado de fomentar a luta de classes.

 

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

 

“Há luta de classes, tudo bem”, disse Buffett, “mas é a minha classe, a classe rica, que está fazendo a guerra, e nós estamos ganhando.”

 

The New York Times – Your Money

EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS

In Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html?_r=0

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html?_r=0&pagewanted=print

 

By BEN STEIN

Published: November 26, 2006

 

NOT long ago, I had the pleasure of a lengthy meeting with one of the smartest men on the planet, Warren E. Buffett, the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, in his unpretentious offices in Omaha. We talked of many things that, I hope, will inspire me for years to come. But one of the main subjects was taxes. Mr. Buffett, who probably does not feel sick when he sees his MasterCard bill in his mailbox the way I do, is at least as exercised about the tax system as I am.

 

Put simply, the rich pay a lot of taxes as a total percentage of taxes collected, but they don’t pay a lot of taxes as a percentage of what they can afford to pay, or as a percentage of what the government needs to close the deficit gap.

 

Mr. Buffett compiled a data sheet of the men and women who work in his office. He had each of them make a fraction; the numerator was how much they paid in federal income tax and in payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, and the denominator was their taxable income. The people in his office were mostly secretaries and clerks, though not all.

 

It turned out that Mr. Buffett, with immense income from dividends and capital gains, paid far, far less as a fraction of his income than the secretaries or the clerks or anyone else in his office. Further, in conversation it came up that Mr. Buffett doesn’t use any tax planning at all. He just pays as the Internal Revenue Code requires. “How can this be fair?” he asked of how little he pays relative to his employees. “How can this be right?”

 

Even though I agreed with him, I warned that whenever someone tried to raise the issue, he or she was accused of fomenting class warfare.

 

“There’s class warfare, all right,” Mr. Buffett said, “but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

 

This conversation keeps coming back to mind because, in the last couple of weeks, I have been on one television panel after another, talking about how questionable it is that the country is enjoying what economists call full employment while we are still running a federal budget deficit of roughly $434 billion for fiscal 2006 (not counting off-budget items like Social Security) and economists forecast that it will grow to $567 billion in fiscal 2010.

 

When I mentioned on these panels that we should consider all options for closing this gap — including raising taxes, particularly for the wealthiest people — I was met with several arguments by people who call themselves conservatives and free marketers.

 

One argument was that the mere suggestion constituted class warfare. I think Mr. Buffett answered that one.

 

Another argument was that raising taxes actually lowers total revenue, and that only cutting taxes stimulates federal revenue. This is supposedly proved by the history of tax receipts since my friend George W. Bush became president.

 

In fact, the federal government collected roughly $1.004 trillion in income taxes from individuals in fiscal 2000, the last full year of President Bill Clinton’s merry rule. It fell to a low of $794 billion in 2003 after Mr. Bush’s tax cuts (but not, you understand, because of them, his supporters like to say). Only by the end of fiscal 2006 did income tax revenue surpass the $1 trillion level again.

 

By this time, we Republicans had added a mere $2.7 trillion to the national debt. So much for tax cuts adding to revenue. To be fair, corporate profits taxes have increased greatly, as corporate profits have increased stupendously. This may be because of the cut in corporate tax rates. Anything is possible.

 

The third argument that kind, well-meaning people made in response to the idea of rolling back the tax cuts was this: “Don’t raise taxes. Cut spending.”

 

The sad fact is that spending rises every year, no matter what people want or say they want. Every president and every member of Congress promises to cut “needless” spending. But spending has risen every year since 1940 except for a few years after World War II and a brief period after the Korean War.

 

The imperatives for spending are built into the system, and now, with entitlements expanding rapidly, increased spending is locked in. Medicare, Social Security, interest on the debt — all are growing like mad, and how they will ever be stopped or slowed is beyond imagining. Gross interest on Treasury debt is approaching $350 billion a year. And none of this counts major deferred maintenance for the military.

 

The fourth argument in response to my suggestion was that “deficits don’t matter.”

 

There is something to this. One would think that big deficits would be highly inflationary, according to Keynesian economics. But we have modest inflation (except in New York City, where a martini at a good bar is now $22). On the other hand, we have all that interest to pay, soon roughly $7 billion a week, a lot of it to overseas owners of our debt. This, to me, seems to matter.

 

Besides, if it doesn’t matter, why bother to even discuss balancing the budget? Why have taxes at all? Why not just print money the way Weimar Germany did? Why not abolish taxes and add trillions to the deficit each year? Why don’t we all just drop acid, turn on, tune in and drop out of responsibility in the fiscal area? If deficits don’t matter, why not spend as much as we want, on anything we want?

 

The final argument is the one I really love. People ask how I can be a conservative and still want higher taxes. It makes my head spin, and I guess it shows how old I am. But I thought that conservatives were supposed to like balanced budgets. I thought it was the conservative position to not leave heavy indebtedness to our grandchildren. I thought it was the conservative view that there should be some balance between income and outflow. When did this change?

 

Oh, now, now, now I recall. It changed when we figured that we could cut taxes and generate so much revenue that we would balance the budget. But isn’t that what doctors call magical thinking? Haven’t the facts proved that this theory, though charming and beguiling, was wrong?

 

THIS brings me back to Mr. Buffett. If, in fact, it’s all just a giveaway to the rich masquerading as a new way of stimulating the economy and balancing the budget, please, Mr. Bush, let’s rethink it. I don’t like paying $7 billion a week in interest on the debt. I don’t like the idea that Mr. Buffett pays a lot less in tax as a percentage of his income than my housekeeper does or than I do.

 

Can we really say that we’re showing fiscal prudence? Are we doing our best? If not, why not? I don’t want class warfare from any direction, through the tax system or any other way.

 

Ben Stein is a lawyer, writer, actor and economist. E-mail: [email protected].

 

 

 

Favor ler principalmente as partes em que o Thomas A. Stewart fala sobre “eles” em várias partes do seu artigo (“eles” significando quatro grupos: judeus, maçons, banqueiros, e políticos comprados) e a riqueza do Brasil (Manaus, Amazonas e Região Amazônica/Bacia Amazônica)

 

… In the 1870s an Englishman named Henry Wickham managed to elude Brazilian inspectors and smuggle rubber-tree seeds out of the country. They were planted at Kew Gardens outside London. From there, seeds were sent to tropical British colonies in Malaya and Ceylon, and rubber plantations were created. When they became productive, in the years just before World War I, the price of rubber plunged, and Manaus’ prosperity with it.

 

… Na década de 1870 um inglês chamado Henry Wickham conseguiu enganar os inspetores brasileiros e contrabandear sementes de seringueira para fora do país. Elas foram plantadas nos Jardins Kew fora de Londres. De lá, as sementes foram enviadas para as colônias britânicas tropicais na Malásia e Ceilão (nome atual: Sri Lanka) e as plantações de seringueiras foram criadas. Quando elas se tornaram produtivas, nos anos imediatamente antes da Primeira Guerra Mundial, o preço da borracha despencou e a prosperidade de Manaus com isso.

 

Obs.: Os Jardins Kew são os Jardins Botânicos Reais em Kew, em Richmond, Londres. Eles foram desenvolvidos pela mãe de George III com a ajuda de Sir Joseph Banks.

 

You’ll hear the story time and again in Manaus, and always with the wrong moral. One version emphasizes the perfidy of Albion and foreign investors generally. Another argues that unmanaged or sustainable rain forest harvesting can’t compete. The tale I heard from a jungle guide says that Big Money was so burned, it vowed never again to let the people of the forest prosper from its wealth. After the rubber boom ended, he said, “they” hatched a lengthy conspiracy; over and over “they” have blocked the development of a periodic tableful of Amazon gold, niobium, and on and on. “They” have, most recently, concocted environmental scare stories to keep the forest off-limits because if the wealth of the Amazon basin found its way to market, prices would plunge and dozens of banks would fail. I didn’t ask, but “they” no doubt are conspiracy theorists’ usual cabal–Jews, Freemasons, bankers, and bought pols–up to their usual sinister tricks.

 

Você vai ouvir o tempo da história e novamente em Manaus, e sempre com a moral errada. Uma versão enfatiza a traição da Grã-Bretanha e investidores estrangeiros em geral. Outra argumenta que a colheita da floresta tropical não gerenciada ou sustentável não pode competir. A história que eu ouvi de um guia da selva diz que o Grande Capital foi tão esbanjado que ele jurou nunca mais deixar o povo da floresta prosperar a partir da sua riqueza. Após o período de rápido crescimento econômico da borracha terminar, ele disse, “eles” montaram uma longa conspiração; repetidas vezes “eles” têm bloqueado o desenvolvimento de uma tabela periódica completa de nióbio, ouro da Amazônia, e assim por diante. “Eles” têm, mais recentemente, inventado histórias assustadoras ambientais para manter a floresta fora dos limites, porque se a riqueza da bacia amazônica encontrar o seu caminho para o mercado, os preços afundariam e dezenas de bancos faliriam. Eu não perguntei, mas “eles”, sem dúvida, são conluio habitual dos teóricos da conspiração – judeus, maçons, banqueiros, e políticos comprados – até seus truques sinistros habituais.

 

But the really dangerous fantasy, because it has condemned hundreds of millions to poverty, is mundane: the all-too-common dream that wealth can be found in commodities. Money doesn’t grow on trees, and never did, not even in the rubber boom. The money made by Dunlop and Michelin and Goodyear dwarfs what the world’s rubber growers made. In 1995 world crude natural rubber exports, worth $5.4 billion, were less than half of Goodyear’s sales. Gold, black gold, black earth, it doesn’t matter: Every commodity is a mug’s game.

 

Mas a fantasia realmente perigosa, porque ela tem condenado centenas de milhões para a pobreza, é comum: o sonho por demais comum que a riqueza pode ser encontrada em commodities. O dinheiro não cresce em árvores, e nunca cresceu, nem mesmo no auge da borracha. O dinheiro ganho pela Dunlop, Michelin e Goodyear ofusca o que os produtores de borracha do mundo ganharam. Em 1995 as exportações mundiais de borracha natural bruta, no valor de US$ 5,4 bilhões, foram menos de metade das vendas da Goodyear. Ouro, ouro preto, terra preta, não importa: Toda commodity é um jogo de tolo.

 

Obs.: Commodities são mercadorias ou produtos “in natura”, cultivados ou de extração mineral, que podem ser estocados por certo tempo sem perda sensível de suas qualidades, como suco de laranja congelado, soja, trigo, bauxita, prata ou ouro, e são cotados e negociados em bolsas de valores.

 

The reason: Over time all commodities decline in price.

O motivo: Com o passar do tempo, todas as commodities declinam em preço.

 

 

FORTUNE Magazine

Knowledge, the Appreciating Commodity Nations’ real wealth doesn’t reside in forests of rubber trees or acres of diamond mines, but in the techniques and technologies for exploiting them.

http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1998/10/12/249274/index.htm

(FORTUNE Magazine)

By Thomas A. Stewart

October 12, 1998

 

(FORTUNE Magazine) – So much for the new economy,” a friend said the day the Dow dived 512 points. With all due respect–and he’s a smart cookie, so respect is due–my friend got it exactly wrong. First, the new economy was never about the market’s irrational exuberance, though some of its boosters and bashers linked the two. Instead, the new economy is about the growing value of knowledge as an input and output, making it the most important ingredient of what people buy and sell; it is about the rise in the relative weight of intellectual capital vis-a-vis real estate, plant and equipment, and financial capital; and it is about the development of new techniques and technologies to manage and measure knowledge materials and assets more effectively. The bull displayed (and has sometimes exaggerated) those happenings, but they are not bull.

 

Second, and more important, the Saint Vitus’ dance of world markets is in fact another manifestation of the emergence and the workings of the new economy. The financial chorea carries at least one significant lesson about this new world, not only for economies but also for companies and managers. The lesson is called the “commodity trap,” and there are any number of ways to hang a tale on it. We might begin ours on a hot night in the Amazon jungle.

 

In 1839, Charles Goodyear discovered how to vulcanize rubber, a process that turned it from a curiosity into a useful material. In the years that followed, thanks especially to cars, great fortunes were made in rubber. Ground zero of the rubber boom was the Brazilian city of Manaus, which sits smack in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, halfway between the great river’s source and its mouth. A century ago Manaus stank of money. It was the second city in Latin America to be electrified, and had an electric tramway before Boston did. The most conspicuous relic of the rubber boom is the city’s famous opera house, its marble and bronzes and chandeliers imported from Europe, its auditorium ringed with busts of great European composers and playwrights. Rubber barons’ mansions stud the city and its surrounding jungle like cloves in ham fat.

 

The boom went bust; booms do. In the 1870s an Englishman named Henry Wickham managed to elude Brazilian inspectors and smuggle rubber-tree seeds out of the country. They were planted at Kew Gardens outside London. From there, seeds were sent to tropical British colonies in Malaya and Ceylon, and rubber plantations were created. When they became productive, in the years just before World War I, the price of rubber plunged, and Manaus’ prosperity with it.

 

You’ll hear the story time and again in Manaus, and always with the wrong moral. One version emphasizes the perfidy of Albion and foreign investors generally. Another argues that unmanaged or sustainable rain forest harvesting can’t compete. The tale I heard from a jungle guide says that Big Money was so burned, it vowed never again to let the people of the forest prosper from its wealth. After the rubber boom ended, he said, “they” hatched a lengthy conspiracy; over and over “they” have blocked the development of a periodic tableful of Amazon gold, niobium, and on and on. “They” have, most recently, concocted environmental scare stories to keep the forest off-limits because if the wealth of the Amazon basin found its way to market, prices would plunge and dozens of banks would fail. I didn’t ask, but “they” no doubt are conspiracy theorists’ usual cabal–Jews, Freemasons, bankers, and bought pols–up to their usual sinister tricks.

 

A circle of light in a dark forest is a perfect place for far-fetched paranoia, surrounded as one is by inexplicable sounds, crocodiles with glowing eyes, hordes of insects, and lord knows what else. (By the same token, a house in a First World suburb is a perfect setting from which to oversimplify the struggles of people living in developing countries.) It almost seems possible that city slickers in air-conditioned rooms could maintain, for decades, a global plot to keep valuable resources off the market, even though the interests of most of the conspirators would be better served by developing them. Occasionally a demagogic genius can turn that nonsense into horror.

 

But the really dangerous fantasy, because it has condemned hundreds of millions to poverty, is mundane: the all-too-common dream that wealth can be found in commodities. Money doesn’t grow on trees, and never did, not even in the rubber boom. The money made by Dunlop and Michelin and Goodyear dwarfs what the world’s rubber growers made. In 1995 world crude natural rubber exports, worth $5.4 billion, were less than half of Goodyear’s sales. Gold, black gold, black earth, it doesn’t matter: Every commodity is a mug’s game.

 

The reason: Over time all commodities decline in price. They always have; they always will. To build your economic house on commodities is to build it on an inexorably sinking foundation. People keep getting this fact wrong too. They multiply Malthusian logic by the law of diminishing returns but leave out innovation, and come to the conclusion that led Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, to make his celebrated losing wager with the late Julian Simon, a professor of business at the University of Maryland. Simon bet that a basket of five metals chosen by Ehrlich–copper, chrome, nickel, tin, and tungsten–would be cheaper in 1990 than in 1980.

 

To Simon, it was the surest thing since Citation. He wrote later: “The costs of raw materials have fallen sharply over the period of recorded history, no matter which reasonable measure of cost one chooses to use.” The International Monetary Fund’s index of real non-oil commodity prices, for example, is today about one-third the level of its 20th-century peak at the end of World War I; the IMF calculates that real commodity prices have declined on average 0.6% a year since the turn of the century. DeBeers, which not only mines the world’s priciest commodity but has a near monopoly on it, has begun burning a brand inside its diamonds to protect their value.

 

Yet nations rich in natural resources still fall into the commodity trap, the belief that their mines, rather than their minds, are the source of their prosperity. Little do they understand that a wealth of natural resources will be exploited by people with a wealth of knowledge; that it represents value extracted from a place, rather than value created in a place.

 

Not that gold in the ground is worthless: All else being equal, I’d rather have it than not–but the “all else” is what really matters. Asia’s a mess, but notice that its most successful postwar economies and the ones that have hung toughest in this crisis–Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore–boast nary a smidgen of natural “wealth.” By contrast, Russia and Indonesia are rolling in resources, and in the gutter. No wonder: Commodity prices are down 20% this year. The global markets’ fits have more to do with the senescence of the old economy than the nascence of the new. It’s the prospect of a further meltdown in commodity prices that has economic pundits sweating, not the fear that Amazon.com’s stock is too high.

 

This is a management column, and I promised you a managing lesson. The lesson is about price. If the world is in a low- or no-growth patch–and it is, with Asia in recession or worse and U.S. and European growth flattening as a result–then there are two ways to grow the top line, thereby getting yourself a raise and impressing your shareholders. One is to take advantage of cheap capital (your stock may be less overvalued, but interest rates are still low) to make acquisitions–a few of which will turn out to be smart. The rest of them will just make you bigger, not more profitable, but you will seem to be growing and can probably fool investors long enough to make a killing on your options. Later your successors can make another killing by undoing the deals.

 

The other way is to command higher prices for your work. Don’t laugh: Real price increases are still possible for those who deliver more real value. How? Let’s go macroeconomic again for a bit. You won’t get price from raw materials, because (a) they keep getting cheaper, and (b) in the new economy they don’t count for much. John Thornton, an OECD staff member, did a study for the IMF that shows that there is no discernible causal link between world commodity prices and retail prices. If anything, Thornton found, retail price changes are more likely to cause changes in raw-material prices than vice versa. Thornton’s case was Britain, but there is no reason to think his conclusions are not applicable to other advanced economies.

 

Who gets price increases? While raw-material prices fall, the price of services rises. In the past 40 years U.S. consumer prices for services have octupled, rising more than twice as fast as prices for consumer durables, which rose 3.3 times. In the past ten years, services prices have risen three times faster than durables. Prices for labor confirm the trend: Goods producers’ compensation has been rising at a 2.6% annual rate, vs. 4% for service producers’. Why do you think Jack Welch and Lou Gerstner have pushed their companies into services?

 

And within the service sector, which includes everything from short-sellers to short-order cooks, the price winners are–you guessed it–the intellectual capitalists, companies that offer knowledge- intensive services such as consulting, legal counsel, medical care, research, and financial services. High-brainpower activities produce knowledge products for which people pay a premium. Many are monopolies because they are inherently unique (there is only one Alan Dershowitz, thank goodness) or enjoy intellectual property protection; others are quasi-monopolies because they can be customized or can become an industry standard.

 

One smart way to play the price game is to look for these knowledge products and develop new ways to price and sell them. Chances are you already create many more knowledge products than you know about because they are bundled with something else, or you don’t exploit your knowledge products well because it hasn’t occurred to you that you can do better. Arthur Andersen’s KnowledgeSpace, for example, takes knowledge the firm produces in the course of its consulting business–such as its best-practices database–and sells it by subscription on the World Wide Web. Advertising agencies are starting to unbundle their services–ad placement, ad creation, and marketing consulting–and price them separately. Ditto stock brokerages. When E-Trade realized that winning a price war has a downside, the superdiscounter began offering customers the chance to pay extra to get research reports; Morgan Stanley, which gives full-commission customers access to all its research, now has a limited package of research for sale to its discount-brokerage customers. How long, I wonder, before they offer the product to buyers, whether or not they use Morgan Stanley’s brokerage operations?

 

Every business these days–manufacturers, service companies–claims it sells “solutions.” The way out of the commodity trap is to price your wares as if you mean what you say

 

 

Thomas A. Stewart

http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/tom-stewart

Journalist & Author

Thomas A. Stewart is Editor-in-Chief of Harvard Business Review and a bestselling author and progenitor of the intellectual approach to managing products, processes and people in order to profit. Former member of the Board of Editors of Fortune Magazine and Editorial Director for Business 2.0, his column, “The Leading Edge” in Fortune was considered the most important forum about intellectual capital and knowledge management and led to his groundbreaking book, Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth of Organizations. In turn, Intellectual Capital was named one of the most important business books of the year by the Financial Times, and has been translated into seventeen languages. A fellow of the World Economic Forum, Stewart received the International Knowledge Management Awareness Award, presented at the International Knowledge Management Conference in London in 1996 In recognition of his expertise.

 

In his book, The Wealth of Knowledge: Intellectual Capital and the Twenty-first Century Organization, Stewart reveals how today’s companies are applying the concept of intellectual capital into day-to-day operations to dramatically increase their success in the marketplace. “Knowledge management is not a strategy,” Tom says. “E-business is, god knows, not a strategy. What I’m offering here is a practical way to sort through the possibilities that the Information Age presents, so that companies can develop their intellectual capital and, what’s more, make money from it.”

 

Stewart has written on a wide range of management subjects–from productivity to stock options, from the management of churches to the failings of human resources departments. In addition to his extensive writing about intellectual capital, he has explored emerging electronic marketplaces, the influence of networks on business, and the economic and management implications of the Information Age in cover stories such as “Managing in a Wired World” and “Managing in an Era of Change.”

 

 

 

Favor ler principalmente as páginas 193, 209 e 210 da “Senhoriagem ou soberania?” do Randall Wray

… Em primeiro lugar, precisamos reconhecer que os Estados Unidos são a única superpotência remanescente e que exerce o poder político e militar de acordo com os seus interesses. Se assim o desejarem, os Estados Unidos podem reduzir qualquer nação a pó e, provavelmente, derrubar qualquer governo e impor outro mais disposto a atender aos seus desejos. Poderiam, provavelmente, forçar qualquer nação a adotar um currency board baseado no dólar, assim como anexar qualquer nação e sujeitar a população ao poder soberano imposto aos cidadãos norte-americanos.

 

Senhoriagem ou soberania? L. Randall Wray

http://www.eco.unicamp.br/docprod/downarq.php?id=541&tp=a

file:///C:/Users/Usuario/Downloads/01-wray.pdf

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:ek4dAYH9j8wJ:www.eco.unicamp.br/docprod/downarq.php%3Fid%3D541%26tp%3Da+&cd=1&hl=pt-BR&ct=clnk&gl=br

 

 

Senhoriagem ou soberania?

L. Randall Wray

Resumo

 

Este artigo contrasta o conhecido conceito de senhoriagem com o de soberania, o qual relaciona a capacidade de o Estado emitir moeda denominada na unidade por ele escolhida, sem qualquer garantia explícita de conversibilidade, a um poder fundamental diretamente associado a nações soberanas. Qualquer Estado soberano com capacidade de impor tributos estará apto a emitir moeda fiduciária, a definir exogenamente a taxa de juros básica e a financiar seus gastos na aquisição de bens e serviços mediante a criação de reservas bancárias, não sendo necessário que o Estado se endivide antes de gastar. Muitas nações optaram por não exercer esse poder soberano, escolhendo em contrapartida fixar as taxas de câmbio, emitir dívida público denominada em moedas estrangeiras, ou adotar o regime de currency board. Este artigo mostrará que isso é um equívoco e argumentará que a abordagem da soberania oferece instrumentos mais adequados à compreensão da operação de sistemas monetários modernos do que a noção de senhoriagem.

 

Palavras-chave: Moeda; Soberania; Senhoriagem, Taxa cambial.

 

Abstract

 

This paper contrasts the well known concept of seigniorage with sovereignty. The sovereignty approach links the State’s ability to issue a currency denominated in the unit of account it has chosen, without any explicit guarantee that the currency will be converted to anything, to a fundamental power that is directly associated with sovereign nations. Any sovereign State that has the ability to impose tax liabilities will be able to issue a fiat money, to exogenously maintain overnight interest rates, and to deficit spend, purchasing goods and services by crediting bank reserves. It will never need to borrow before it can spend. Many nations have chosen not to exercise this sovereign power, choosing instead to fix exchange rates, to issue government debt denominated in a foreign currency, or to operate with a currency board. This paper will show why this is a mistake, and will argue that the sovereignty approach offers insights into operation of modern money systems that the notion of seigniorage cannot provide.

 

Key words: Money; Sovereignty; Seigniorage; State money; Floating exchange rate system.

 

 

 

Sistema Monetário e Financeiro Internacional

 

http://www.santiagodantassp.locaweb.com.br/novo/grade-curricular/sistema-monetario-e-financeiro-internacional.html

 

 

Anotações sobre o dólar e o Sistema Monetário Internacional

 

http://www.vermelho.org.br/noticia_print.php?id_noticia=17647&id_secao=2

http://www.vermelho.org.br/noticia_print.php?id_noticia=17647&id_secao=2