"Boring Cruel Romantics" por Paul Krugman

Boring Cruel Romantics
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 20, 2011


There’s a word I keep hearing lately: “technocrat.” Sometimes it’s used as a term of scorn — the creators of the euro, we’re told, were technocrats who failed to take human and cultural factors into account. Sometimes it’s a term of praise: the newly installed prime ministers of Greece and Italy are described as technocrats who will rise above politics and do what needs to be done.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

I call foul. I know from technocrats; sometimes I even play one myself. And these people — the people who bullied Europe into adopting a common currency, the people who are bullying both Europe and the United States into austerity — aren’t technocrats. They are, instead, deeply impractical romantics.

They are, to be sure, a peculiarly boring breed of romantic, speaking in turgid prose rather than poetry. And the things they demand on behalf of their romantic visions are often cruel, involving huge sacrifices from ordinary workers and families. But the fact remains that those visions are driven by dreams about the way things should be rather than by a cool assessment of the way things really are.

And to save the world economy we must topple these dangerous romantics from their pedestals.

Let’s start with the creation of the euro. If you think that this was a project driven by careful calculation of costs and benefits, you have been misinformed.

The truth is that Europe’s march toward a common currency was, from the beginning, a dubious project on any objective economic analysis. The continent’s economies were too disparate to function smoothly with one-size-fits-all monetary policy, too likely to experience “asymmetric shocks” in which some countries slumped while others boomed. And unlike U.S. states, European countries weren’t part of a single nation with a unified budget and a labor market tied together by a common language.

So why did those “technocrats” push so hard for the euro, disregarding many warnings from economists? Partly it was the dream of European unification, which the Continent’s elite found so alluring that its members waved away practical objections. And partly it was a leap of economic faith, the hope — driven by the will to believe, despite vast evidence to the contrary — that everything would work out as long as nations practiced the Victorian virtues of price stability and fiscal prudence.

Sad to say, things did not work out as promised. But rather than adjusting to reality, those supposed technocrats just doubled down — insisting, for example, that Greece could avoid default through savage austerity, when anyone who actually did the math knew better.

Let me single out in particular the European Central Bank (E.C.B.), which is supposed to be the ultimate technocratic institution, and which has been especially notable for taking refuge in fantasy as things go wrong. Last year, for example, the bank affirmed its belief in the confidence fairy — that is, the claim that budget cuts in a depressed economy will actually promote expansion, by raising business and consumer confidence. Strange to say, that hasn’t happened anywhere.

And now, with Europe in crisis — a crisis that can’t be contained unless the E.C.B. steps in to stop the vicious circle of financial collapse — its leaders still cling to the notion that price stability cures all ills. Last week Mario Draghi, the E.C.B.’s new president, declared that “anchoring inflation expectations” is “the major contribution we can make in support of sustainable growth, employment creation and financial stability.”

This is an utterly fantastic claim to make at a time when expected European inflation is, if anything, too low, and what’s roiling the markets is fear of more or less immediate financial collapse. And it’s more like a religious proclamation than a technocratic assessment.

Just to be clear, this is not an anti-European rant, since we have our own pseudo-technocrats warping the policy debate. In particular, allegedly nonpartisan groups of “experts” — the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, the Concord Coalition, and so on — have been all too successful at hijacking the economic policy debate, shifting its focus from jobs to deficits.

Real technocrats would have asked why this makes sense at a time when the unemployment rate is 9 percent and the interest rate on U.S. debt is only 2 percent. But like the E.C.B., our fiscal scolds have their story about what’s important, and they’re sticking to it no matter what the data say.

So am I against technocrats? Not at all. I like technocrats — technocrats are friends of mine. And we need technical expertise to deal with our economic woes.

But our discourse is being badly distorted by ideologues and wishful thinkers — boring, cruel romantics — pretending to be technocrats. And it’s time to puncture their pretensions.

A crise do euro, segundo António Ribeiro Ferreira

Meninos rabinos não querem tomar banho

por: António Ribeiro Ferreira, director do Jornal i

"Os meninos são uns porcos. Fogem da água como o diabo da cruz. O cheiro já é insuportável. A mãe desespera para os pôr na ordem. Os castigos físicos, bofetadas, reguadas, açoites bem dados não resolvem nada. Os meninos já se habituaram a levar pancada e quem fica esgotada é a pobre mãe. Os meninos, porcos e desmazelados, gostam imenso de disfarçar o mau cheiro com umas gotas do perfume da mãe. A mistela entre a porcaria e o perfume é nauseabunda. A casa cheira mal, os quartos dos energúmenos são uma esterqueira. Um dia, desesperada, a mãe usou o último argumento. Se não tomarem banho a sério, com sabão azul e branco e uma escova para remover o sarro acumulado em todo o corpo, não comem. Ponto. Todos os dias, antes de se sentarem para jantar, os meninos têm de tomar banho. Mas como são malandros e preguiçosos, a mãe impôs uma inspecção minuciosa às orelhas, costas, unhas das mãos e dos pés e cabelos. Os meninos protestam, fartam-se de gritar, dizem que a sua liberdade, privacidade e independência estão a ser postas em causa e acusam a mãe de actuar de forma desumana e contra todos os direitos – esqueceram-se dos deveres – das criancinhas. Mas a verdade é que, com mais ou menos berratas, protestos e caras-de-pau na hora da comidinha, os meninos porcos e preguiçosos passaram a sentar-se à mesa bem lavadinhos para saborear os petiscos preparados pela mãezinha que os atura. A Europa, a dos vinte e sete países e também a que usa a moeda única, está na mesma. Desleixaram-se, gastaram à tripa-forra, andaram a fingir que eram ricos e foram acumulando lixo atrás de lixo nas contas públicas e nas dívidas públicas. Reformas, nem pensar. Austeridade, só para os outros. Os direitos adquiridos estão acima de tudo, até de haver dinheiro para os pagar. Quando as coisas apertaram, o dinheiro escasseou e se tornou muito caro, desataram aos gritos, a berrar por tudo e por nada, sempre com imensas soluções milagrosas nas algibeiras. Vociferam contra os pacotes de austeridade, dizem que matam a economia que foi morta e bem morta com os sucessivos aumentos de impostos lançados contra as famílias e as empresas para satisfazer as despesas públicas incontroláveis, e exigem, com voz grossa, que a mãe Alemanha lhes dê comida sem tomarem banho. A solução para esta brutal crise das dívidas soberanas aparece límpida e muito simples. Criam-se as eurobonds, onde entra todo o material tóxico acumulado ao longo destes anos, espera-se que os mercados e as agências de rating acreditem nessa peta, e depois põe-se o Banco Central Europeu a imprimir notas e notas para gáudio de todos os preguiçosos. Com eurobonds no mercado e muitos euros nos bolsos, a Europa voltaria a sorrir, a economia dispararia, o desemprego baixaria para níveis insignificantes e a história desta tragédia teria certamente um final muito feliz e democrático. Acontece que, para bem dos nossos pecados, a Europa tem uma mãe que não vai nas cantigas das cigarras. Antes do pão na mesa é preciso uma boa barrela. Devidamente fiscalizada por causa dos malandros e dos manhosos."

Que opinião tão desconcertante e pueril sobre esta crise!

Dupla de estaurolite

Estaurolite & Estaurolite_DSC_8429, originally uploaded by Pedro Veiga.

Cores de dupla polarização

cores de dupla polarização_DSC_8394, originally uploaded by Pedro Veiga.

Obtidas por uma "dupla nikon" (microscópio e máquina fotográfica).

A opinião de Paul Krugman (crise do euro)

"Eurodämmerung

Things are falling apart in Europe; the center is not holding. Papandreou is going to hold a referendum; the vote will be no. Italian 10-years at 6.29 at pixel time; that’s a level at which the cost of rolling over the existing debt will force a default, even though Italy has a primary surplus. And with everyone simultaneously pushing for fiscal austerity, a recession seems almost certain, aggravating all of the continent’s problems.

I’ve been charting this trainwreck for a couple of years, and am feeling too weary to trace through it again right now. Let’s just say that the euro was an inherently flawed idea that can work only given a strong European economy and a significant degree of inflation, plus open-ended credit to sovereigns facing speculative attack. Yet European elites embraced the notion of economics as morality play, imposing across-the-board austerity, tightening money despite low underlying inflation, and have been too concerned with punishing sinners to notice that everything was going to blow apart without an effective lender of last resort.

The question I’m trying to answer right now is how the final act will be played. At this point I’d guess soaring rates on Italian debt leading to a gigantic bank run, both because of solvency fears about Italian banks given a default and because of fear that Italy will end up leaving the euro. This then leads to emergency bank closing, and once that happens, a decision to drop the euro and install the new lira. Next stop, France.

It all sounds apocalyptic and unreal. But how is this situation supposed to resolve itself? The only route I see to avoid something like this involves the ECB totally changing its spots, fast.

Aside from that, Mr. Draghi, are you enjoying your new job?"

Tempestade à vista! (imagem de satélite)

satélite1_nov_2011, originally uploaded by Pedro Veiga.

Tempestade à vista!

sinóptica2_nov_2011, originally uploaded by Pedro Veiga.