Extra austerity measures leverage new risks - for the Eurozone members which likelihood to become insolvent postponed just for a little longer.
28.2.11
Extra Austerity Measures.Our comment on WSJ Today
Extra austerity measures leverage new risks - for the Eurozone members which likelihood to become insolvent postponed just for a little longer.
26.2.11
1848, 2011: las revueltas del hambre
"La penuria alimentaria se dejó sentir desde la primavera. Se disparó el precio del trigo en todos los países: en Francia, el hectolitro que valía 17,15 francos subió a 39,75 francos e incluso a 43 francos a finales de año... La crisis de subsistencias se tradujo pronto en desórdenes populares..." Así describía la situación agrícola europea entre 1847 y 1848 el historiador Charles Pouthas. Algunas semanas después, toda Europa se inflamaba y se hundía el orden absolutista instaurado por el Congreso de Viena. Originado en Italia, el viento de la revuelta llega a Francia, luego Viena, todo el imperio austro-húngaro y pronto los estados alemanes e incluso Suiza. Entre febrero y marzo de 1848, la monarquía francesa se derrumba con la abdicación de Luis Felipe, Metternich abandona el poder en Viena, Alemania se dota en Francfort de un primer parlamento…
Siempre y cuando todo lo demás no varíe, esa primavera de los pueblos se asemeja al "invierno árabe" que hoy vivimos, con la misma propagación revolucionaria de Túnez a Egipto, a Yemen, a Jordania…Cierto que no había en 1848 ni Internet ni Facebook, pero la información circulaba ya muy rápida: la noticia de la caída de Luis Felipe hace caer a Metternich, igual que la de Ben Alí hace tambalearse a Mubarak. Pero, en los dos casos, el papel que desempeñan las crisis agrícolas y el alza de los precios alimentarios es impresionante.
La Europa continental se encontraba en 1848 lejos de cualquier autosuficiencia agrícola. Para alimentar a las ciudades, hacía falta importar grano de América y de Rusia, y la única arma de la que disponían los gobiernos era la de los derechos aduaneros, que encarecían aún más los precios al consumo. La primera chispa que inflamó Europa a fines de 1847 fue desde luego de origen agrícola.
La situación del mundo árabe en 2011 es algo comparable. De Marruecos al Golfo Arábigo-Pérsico, se trata de una de las principales regiones importadoras del planeta, ya se trate de cereales (10 millones de toneladas para Egipto, 5 millones para Argelia e Irán, 3 para Marruecos e Irak ; 7 millones de toneladas de cebada para Arabia Saudita, etc.), de azúcar, de aceites, aves de corral o carne de vacuno. La mayor parte de estos estados, con la excepción de Marruecos, han abdicado de toda forma de política agrícola y dependen de las importaciones para el suministro de sus ciudades. Con un poco de petróleo se puede, desde luego, comprar trigo, aceite o azúcar. Pero, mal anticipada, el alza de los precios agrícolas mundiales del segundo semestre de 2010 se ha traducido en tensiones en el plano de los consumidores. No ha habido verdaderamente “motines de hambre” sino manifestaciones contra la carestía de la vida.
Como en 1848, el descontento social y político ha hecho el resto. Naturalmente, la situación varía dependiendo de que un país pueda o no pagar sus importaciones con el maná petrolero: los dos eslabones más débiles – Túnez y Egipto – carecen de petróleo, mientras que en Argel, Trípoli, Riad o el Golfo, los gobiernos lo intentan todo para mantener a las plebes urbanas con su pan cotidiano. Es una manera ciega de comprar futuro, pero así es como han procedido siempre las monarquías que envejecen.
En 1848, el zar salvaba al imperio austriaco, Prusia se imponía en Alemania y Luis Napoleón comenzaba ya a horadar la República. Deseemos a este invierno árabe una mejor terminación, pero recordemos una vez más la lección agrícola que golpea al mundo 160 años más tarde.
Resistir à Sangria da Economia
Uma economia de negócios fez do país o agente de enriquecimento de uma minoria que o deixou exangue. Resistir à sangria da economia, se queremos continuar como povo, é uma exigência que coloca os trabalhadores na frente da luta por uma política económica que defenda o emprego e a sua dignidade.Os trabalhadores há muito que perderam a confiança em quem os governa mas é necessário dar expressão popular à revolta. A revolta é um direito dos desempregados e outros trabalhadores que lutam pelo pão. A subida dos preços e o corte nos salários provoca a pauperização crescente e só serve para manter no poder os mesmos que conduziram o país ao desemprego,à dívida,à recessão e à carestia de vida. Qualquer aluno do primeiro ano de economia sabe que essas são as variáveis fundamentais da economia. Sem emprego e crescimento, equilíbrio externo e controlo da inflação a economia adoece e contagia a vida do povo que não acumulou recursos que lhe permitam sobreviver, sem emprego ou com salários desvalorizados que não pode pagar as suas dívidas e muito menos a dos especuladores que os atiraram para o desemprego. O ataque que está a ser feito a quem trabalha, do ponto de vista da economia, como ciência moral e política por parte de quem governa e de quem se prepara para governar, é um ataque que, se não for travado por quem trabalha e tem a força moral para o fazer, terá consequências incalculáveis. A vantagem de quem trabalha é que não precisa de fazer cálculos para saber que se não lutar tem tudo a perder.Vivemos no meio de uma crise da economia que se estende ao estado de direito e à democracia. Mais uma vez são os trabalhadores que terão de defender a uma só voz a economia, o estado de direito e a democracia.
25.2.11
A Partidarização do Estado de Direito [I]
Ouvimos falar da partidarização do estado a propósito de coisas tão diferentes como a casa da música ou a promoção de um juiz. A instrumentalização do estado pelos partidos para satisfação das suas clientelas em empresas públicas e privadas é uma forma de intervenção do estado na economia presente em qualquer economia liberal.A partidarização das funções públicas do estado tem uma contrapartida cada vez maior na sociedade com a privatização de muitas das suas funções mas há uma esfera pública irredutível sem a qual não se pode falar de estado.No estado de direito essa esfera pública deve cumprir exigências de não partidarização.Quer isto dizer que não tem o mesmo significado a partidarização da nomeação de um gestor da casa da música ou a promoção de um juiz. A administração da justiça mesmo quando partidária porque administrada pelos partidos não pode ser partidarizada para ser justa.E é por isso que todos sentimos repulsa por um tratamento de favor.
Marshall Auerback ve pocas esperanzas para una Irlanda presa de su diabólico pacto con la eurozona.
Cualquiera que tuviera esperanzas en que un proceso electoral en Irlanda podría suponer por lo menos el inicio de un cambio en relación con la ruinosa política que se ha puesto en marcha, tiene que estar muy decepcionado con las propuestas de “reforma” del partido de la oposición Fine Gael. Los objetivos parecen absolutamente maravillosos, pero uno se pregunta de qué forma el nuevo gobierno piensa alcanzarlos. El Irish Times publicaba la siguiente noticia:
“Fine Gael publicó su manifiesto electoral, que según el líder del partido Enda Kenny ayudará a transformar Irlanda.
Entre las propuestas contenidas en el documentos se encuentran la promesa de crear miles de nuevos puestos de trabajo, una revisión del sistema de salud pública, una reducción del número de miembros de la clase política, la protección de las pensiones públicas y de las trasferencias a los sectores más vulnerables de la sociedad y una reforma del sector público.
‘Cada sección del manifiesto ha sido preparado con el objetivo de maximizar la creación de puestos de trabajo, el crecimiento, y la transformación y modernización de nuestros servicios públicos’, afirmó Enda Kerry esta mañana.”
Suena fenomenal, ¿verdad? ¿Y cómo pretende el Fine Gael alcanzar este nirvana económico? Según publicó The Guardian:
“Un gobierno liderado por el Fine Gael se centrará en reducir el déficit público irlandés hasta el 3% del PIB en 2014, aseguró su líder Enda Kerry.
En relación con este recorte del déficit público, aseguró: ‘El pueblo irlandés no quiere ni pensar en el futuro oscuro que dibuja esta carga económica’.
Kenny aseguró que la opinión pública quiere que se afronte la cuestión del déficit nacional lo antes posible.
‘El próximo gobierno debe resolver esta situación’, afirmó. ‘Debe alejar al país de la bancarrota solucionando la crisis de la deuda sin por ello dejar de proteger a los más vulnerables y redistribuyendo la carga de forma equitativa’ ”.
En otras palabra, más del sinsentido neoliberal que ha conducido al país hacia el abismo.
Con una tasa de paro situada en el 15% del PIB, la caída del PIB acumulada más importante jamás registrada en la historia de Irlanda, el paquete de rescate de la UE y el FMI ha terminado sin duda de sellar la tumba de la República de Irlanda. El país tiene que cargar con un punitivo tipo de interés del 5,8% de un préstamo de varios miles de millones de euros, que será en su mayor parte usado para pagar a los propietarios de bonos alemanes, franceses y británicos. El contribuyente irlandés, en cambio, no va a recibir nada.
Tal y como demostró Argentina en 2001, los gobiernos soberanos no son necesariamente rehenes de los mercados financieros globales. Pueden trazar un sólido camino hacia la recuperación con políticas orientadas hacia el interior, como por ejemplo introduciendo un Programa de Empleo Garantizado, que beneficie directamente a la población protegiendo a los trabajadores más desaventajados de la devastación que genera una recesión.
Pero una condición necesaria para la salvación de Argentina fue el abandono de su régimen cambiario atado al dólar, que limitaba la capacidad de maniobra fiscal del país.
Irlanda debe hacer lo mismo. Seamos claros: no hay crisis de la deuda sin el euro. Tal y como ha señalado Bill Mitchell, Grecia tiene un ratio de deuda pública de alrededor del 144% del PIB, Italia un nivel del 118%, Bélgica del 102%, Irlanda al 98%, Francia al 83%, etc. Japón está alrededor del 204%, el Reino Unido al 74%, los EEUU al 59%, etc.
Pero contrariamente a estos tres últimos, y a pesar de afirmaciones ridículas en sentido contrario, no existe tal crisis de la deuda. ¿Por qué? La respuesta es que, tal y como señala Mitchell, “estas naciones han mantenido todas su soberanía monetaria y tienen poca o ninguna exposición externa de su deuda. Ello significa que podrán siempre encontrar la manera de cumplir con cualquier compromiso pendiente que tengan en relación con su deuda”.
Por el contrario, ninguno de los países de la UEM tienen la capacidad de cumplir con estos compromisos bajo cualquier circunstancia, porque su deuda está denominada en una “divisa extranjera”, ya que cedieron su divisa individual creando monopolios al entrar en la eurozona. En primer lugar, cedieron su soberanía monetaria al renunciar a sus divisas nacionales y adoptando una supranacional. Al divorciar sus autoridades fiscales y monetarias, han renunciado a la capacidad de su sector público de generar empleo y producción. Los países que no son soberanos está limitados en su capacidad de gastar mediante impuestos y emisión de bonos, y ello es perfectamente aplicable al caso de Irlanda, Portugal e incluso a países como Alemania o Francia.
Además, al entrar en la eurozona, estos países han adoptado también el Tratado de Maastricht, que restringe su déficit presupuestario a un máximo del 3% y su deuda al 60% del PIB. Por lo tanto, aún estando capacitados para tomar prestado y financiar su gasto a cargo del déficit como Alemania o Francia, no deben usar la política fiscal por encima de estos límites. Por supuesto que muchos lo hicieron, como Alemania y Francia. Pero si no estamos equivocados esta deflación de los ingresos domésticos será el resultado final de la contracción fiscal que colisiona con los intentos del sector privado para ahorrar, y por ello seguramente más ciudadanos desesperados tenderán a realizar actos aún más desesperados.
En resumidas cuentas, el crecimiento es necesario para reducir el déficit. El crecimiento llega con el gasto. Si el sector privado no quiere gastar un volumen suficiente para promover el crecimiento, entonces lo tiene que hacer el sector público. De lo contrario lo que se obtiene es estancamiento y un enorme déficit. Pero para poder gastar, un gobierno necesita plena soberanía fiscal. Sólo así puede el Estado darle un empujón a una economía en recesión y restaurar la confianza privada.
Pero habiendo renunciado a la soberanía fiscal, hay poca esperanza para Irlanda. La única vía de escape a este gran lío no es a través de más cansinas predicciones neoliberales ofrecidas por el Fine Gael, sino a través de la imposición de pérdidas a los tenedores de bonos. Ellos son los mismos que se enrolaron en actividades financieras especulativas y que hoy continúan pidiendo compensaciones ilimitadas a costa del pueblo irlandés por sus pérdidas en el casino.
Hasta que no se de este paso, Irlanda no tiene ninguna esperanza de poder estabilizar sus finanzas, y sus perspectivas son tan crudas como en tiempos de la gran hambruna de la patata.
Business As Usual
The Next Wall Street Collapse
The question is not whether we will have another financial crisis. The question is how much worse it will be.
Austerity Fear Hope .Our comment on WSJ today
Ireland is heading towards a sovereign default, limit of austerity fear hope.
Ireland's Not-So-Grand Bargain Options - WSJ.com
Ireland on the turn?
In a landmark study, Daniel Finn surveys the political and economic consequences of the 2008 crash, on both sides of the Irish border. Looming austerity and entrenched sectarian divides in the North; with the demise of the Celtic Tiger in the South, the unravelling of Fianna Fáil’s long dominance and emergence of a new-model Sinn Fein as the one all-Ireland party.
24.2.11
The public restroom does not, upon first glance, appear to offer especially fertile ground for cultural analysis. Indeed, it is a site of intensely private activity, to be experienced individually and generally a topic of mildly uncomfortable discourse in public settings. However, one artifact commonly associated with the public restroom, the urinal, has inspired a fairly eclectic mixture of social, cultural and historical analyses over the past 150 years. Many of these opportunities for investigation involve gender, as nearly all urinal models have been designed exclusively for males. However, the history of the urinal has intersected with quite a few areas beyond gender, including changes to architecture, artistic expression and the greening of America. In many ways, this object has served as a cultural prism reflecting more than just societal trends, engaging with collective fears, desires, attitudes and values specific to time and place. Since its appearance in the United States following the Civil War, the urinal has played a surprising role in a variety of important changes in American history, many of which involve social progress.
The urinal was first patented in the United States immediately following the Civil War, when Andrew Rankin introduced an upright flushing apparatus in 1866 (Urinal, StateMaster.com). The device enjoyed widespread popularity in large northern cities, many of which witnessed wide-scale immigration following the end of the Civil War and the subsequent Reconstruction period in the American south. Cities such as New York and Chicago witnessed tremendous explosions in population, requiring overhauls of their public sewer systems; New York had to bring in water from as far away as the Catskill Mountains (History of New York City’s Water Supply System, NYC Environmental Protection). The late 1800s also saw much technological growth, as new industrial breakthroughs signaled a faith in the power of innovation that continued nearly unabated until the horrors of World War I and trench warfare.
A third cultural trend, increased emphasis on privacy, combined with the growing population and its faith in technology to make the urinal a site of distinct cultural meaning. As more and more people became accustomed to denser living conditions, expectations in regards to privacy were somewhat modified. The outhouse was generally a thing of the past and what had been a solitary act for many was now, by necessity, a partially shared experience when visiting a restroom outside the privacy of one’s home. The value of privacy was not completely undermined by the urinal, however, as certain aspects of design were geared toward maximizing personal comfort by minimizing public exposure. For instance, the single unit model became popular at the expense of the more collective trench model and continues to be the dominant form in the United States today. Certainly, throughout the west, trench models, although more cost effective due to the use of a single drain, are never as popular with users. This tendency can perhaps be attributed to cultural fears of abjection, the psychological theory whereby bodily fluids in which we invest much of our notions of privacy and personal identity, mix thoroughly and publicly with those of others.
The allocation of space within factories and other businesses, and eventually the nature of public architecture, underwent a change in the second half of the 19th century, with better construction engineering and methods for smelting stronger wrought iron (Nineteenth Century Architecture,Columbia University). Although the re-envisioning of public architecture during this time had more to do with issues of popular design and structural engineering, the urinal did play a role in the renegotiation of how space was used. Basic sanitation in the age of the European factory had not been optimal, with workers often urinating or defecating in the same river that provided both power for the factory and drinking water for those living nearby.
With the late-19th century growth of the American city, and subsequent fears concerning the disease outbreaks that such overcrowding could potentially foster, came better engineering in regard to sanitation, with larger and more comprehensive sewer grids introduced to meet the needs of the general populace (History of New York City’s Water Supply System). The urinal drastically reduced the amount of space required for a men’s restroom in that several urinals could occupy the same square footage of a single, sit-down toilet stall. Also, as a general rule, workers spent less time using a urinal than a traditional sit-down toilet. During the late 1800s, theories regarding worker productivity abounded, the most common of which was Taylorism. This movement, and other science-based theories of industrial performance, highlighted the need to maximize efficiency by standardizing worker methods and practices while minimizing interruptions. The decision to move restrooms closer to the factory floor and create space for the easier-to-use urinal resonated with these theories. Ever since, the incorporation of indoor restrooms has been a common feature of corporate architecture, forever changing the ergonomic experience of the worker in a positive way.
In addition to the integration of urinals into factories and other businesses, the growth of the city necessitated public-access restrooms. During the early part of the twentieth century, European city planners sought to capitalize on the popularity of this device, and designed outdoor public urinals known as pissoirs. Also called vespasiennes, these public booths were quite popular in France and other large European cities, reaching their zenith in Paris between the world wars. They ranged in design from mostly enclosed, with the booth obscuring all but the feet of the user and allowing maximum privacy, to mostly open, offering minimal protection from the passerby.Pissoirs were only available for use by men, and thus were vulnerable for criticism as devices that perpetuated gender division and male privilege. It is perhaps for this reason that they never became popular in the United States, although certainly much of the American resistance can be attributed to more puritanical expectations in regards to issues of bodily decorum. Today, pissoirshave largely disappeared, replaced by the sanisette(Urinal, StateMaster.com). These devices, which are popular in contemporary Paris and other European cities, are much larger than their predecessors, and are completely enclosed with a traditional sit-down bowl in addition to a urinal option, thus usable by all. Pissoirs do continue in some British locations, allegedly so that drunken football fans have an alternative to street urination following matches. Other contemporary versions indicate the potential for both humor and political commentary: a pissoir in Iraq has George W. Bush’s face painted onto the background, allowing Iraqi soldiers to urinate into his open mouth.
It is no surprise that, with the urinal symptomatic of several cultural shifts in late-19th century society (privacy, gender equality, and the workplace), a urinal provided one of several fulcrums upon which the conversion from romantic to modernist art turned, when Marcel Duchamp’s La Fontaine sparked a revolution in the avant-garde, highlighting tensions between the high and the low. Duchamp was one of the key modernists, including Picasso, Eliot, Stein, and Joyce, who shattered traditional notions of signification. Duchamp subverted traditional linguistic codes, undermining certain cultural symbols while simultaneously introducing others. By the time World War I began, several cultural shifts had been well underway for over 50 years. The rapid growth of the middle class increased the societal base of those desiring art in their lives. Furthermore, increasingly sophisticated methods of mass production led to visual forms of art (photography and cinema) that spelled the beginning of the post-literate age. These cultural shifts resulted in the democratization of art, a perfect climate for avant-garde artists to mount their text-based challenges to normative signification, including the ability for art to portray artifacts that were esoteric and even profane. It was into this climate of rising challenge that Marcel Duchamp made his biggest contribution.
In 1917, Duchamp entered a urinal into an exhibition titled “The Society of Independent Artists.” After deliberation, the exhibitors agreed to accept the piece, which due to uproar over its inclusion instantly became the most discussed artifact in the exhibition. In order to perhaps imbue it with a bit of mystery, making it more palatable to the public (or perhaps to mask his identity), Duchamp had written upon the urinal’s rim the following cryptic message, in black paint: “R. Mutt 1917.” This artifact immediately sparked controversy even among those who championed modern art, as people were either repelled or intrigued (or both) by Duchamp’s unconventional artistic vision. La Fontaine, as the urinal would become known, tapped into post-Victorian fears and desires regarding the taboo and the profane and called into question the Horatian notion of art as that which pleases or instructs. The furor surrounding this found or readymade object undermined traditional understandings of the artist as creator, also suggesting that low objects (in this case, a receptacle for bodily discharge) could be just as aesthetically interesting or relevant as those held sacred by society. In reconfiguring a urinal as art, and turning what had been purely functional into an object worthy of aesthetic appreciation, Duchamp brought to the surface a debate regarding the boundaries of art.
In 2004, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) surveyed 500 experts in various fields of art regarding the “most influential” piece of art from the twentieth century. Many were shocked whenLa Fontaine was voted into the top position above more celebrated works such as Pablo Picasso’sGuernica, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych, and Jackson Pollock’s No. 5, 1948. Although noting his surprise, art historian (and at the time, spokesperson for the Tate Modern Museum) Simon Wilson commented that La Fontaine “reflects the dynamic nature of art today and the idea that the creative process that goes into a work of art is the most important thing–the work itself can be made of anything and can take any form” (Duchamp’s Urinal Top’s Art Survey”, BBC News, 1 December 2004). In choosing an everyday object with such negative connotations, Duchamp served to free art from the twin tyrannies of traditional taste and selection, allowing a far greater range of that which is deemed acceptable.
Following World War II, gender equality returned to the forefront of the urinal and its march through history. As women were beginning to filter into the American workforce in greater numbers, the object became a symbol of the glass ceiling to be broken, as male bathrooms became a site of water cooler privilege to which women were denied access. Urinals for women were experimented with during this time period, although due to awkwardness of use, the potential obstruction of certain clothing items and the lack of a marketing campaign, this technology never achieved popularity. Newer models have been patented in the past few decades; although they have grown in popularity, the female model is still only employed in a handful of locations (Women’s Installations, Urinal.net). A final intersection between urinals and the growing call for gender equality occurred in America during the early-‘70s, during the state ratification process for the Equal Rights Amendment. After 50 years of controversy, this initiative had, finally achieved support from the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives. The amendment initially enjoyed substantial traction, with 30 of the requisite 38 states voting for acceptance in the first two years of the seven-year ratification window. However, criticism against the ERA began to intensify, and only five more states approved the amendment before the deadline, leading to the defeat of the initiative (The History Behind the Equal Rights Amendment,The Equal Rights Amendment).
Criticism focused primarily upon redundancy (gender inequity had already been outlawed by the Nineteenth Amendment, the “Right to Vote” act passed in 1920) and the loss of rights (no more exclusion from military conscription, certain union protections, etc). However, some positions highlighted the blurring of the genders. One argument used by detractors, such as Phyllis Schlafly, to erode support for the ERA amongst both men and women involved the alleged mandatory construction of unisex bathrooms, which would not employ urinals (Because Constitutional Equality is so Retro, Feministing, 29 March 2007). Cultural codes of privacy and gender division were too engrained with regard to the public restroom, and in the threat of unisex bathrooms opponents of the ERA found a wedge issue that resonated with both genders. Ironically, it was now the disappearance of the urinal, an object that had long stood as a symbol of male privilege and female exclusion, which constituted an imagined symptom of rapid change vis-à-vis gender relations.
The pace of change in urinal function and design has only increased in the last thirty years, with the manufacturers of this device responding to a variety of cultural shifts and societal pressures. The increased tendency of children to accompany their parents to various sites of public consumption (restaurants, theaters, etc) necessitated the manufacture of smaller urinals for children. Larger than normal urinals were subsequently created for taller people; indeed, in very large public restrooms in airports and other areas with high volumes of daily use, it is not uncommon to see urinals set at three different heights. Airports have also been at the cutting edge of no-touch technology when it comes to the public restroom, not just with urinals but also traditional sit-down toilets, in addition to soap, water, and paper towel dispensers. The no-touch urinal, which utilizes an infrared motion proximity sensor to activate the flushing mechanism (Urinal), was a direct reflection of growing concerns over globalism and the ability to rapidly move from one part of the world to another. Cheaper, faster travel meant more people would be traveling from one region to another, exponentially increasing the potential for germs and diseases to be spread into areas with little or no natural resistance. As the hubs of international travel in ascendant globalism, airports were among the first institutions to employ new innovations seeking to minimize human contact with germs. In the ‘90s and after, the fear of viral outbreaks such as Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and lingering threats of biochemical terrorism have led the Centers for Disease Control and other health organizations to recommend that urinals and other restroom devices should operate automatically and without human touch (Brendan O’Brien, Keys to Reducing Cross Contamination, CleanLink, November 2007).
The most recent substantive change in American culture that has been reflected in changing urinal models is the greening of America, where resources such as water are much more closely monitored, and wasteful practices are discouraged. In the past decade, water-free urinals have been introduced widely across the United States. Incorporating one of these models is a way in which a business can signal their allegiance to a greener profile of operation, and units are often accompanied by a decal that claims one can save “up to 40,000 gallons of water per year” simply by switching to this water-free technology. Although these models are still vastly outnumbered by more traditional flush urinals, this latest innovation will only become more and more popular with the water shortages that are predicted to become a growing feature in certain parts of the United States over the next 50 years. Who knows whether the water-free model will become a regional feature in areas that experience such shortages; one thing is certain, however. American culture will continue to evolve, and these modifications will be reflected in the changing face of the urinal.
A Preface to the Students
by Kalle Lasn
You are entering economics at a critical juncture. The inability of economists to incorporate externalities into their models and to account for phenomena such as species extinction, resource depletion and global warming – not to mention the 2008 financial meltdown that blindsided them all – has turned the profession into a target for derision and ridicule. And it’s not just some academic joke – today even ordinary folk look down their noses at the ineptitude of economics.
Read more ...Humanitarian Law.Our comment on WSJ Today
Military intervention the last feasible option to stop genocide or comparable mass slaughter, so long as intervention is likely to do more good than harm - failed states far more weakened and conflict-ridden than prior to interventions- and the intervenor abides strictly by international humanitarian law.
Fondo Monetario Internacional: no basta la autocrítica
El documento que acaba de publicar el Fondo Monetario Internacional contiene un análisis crítico de su actitud ante la crisis que algunos han calificado como demoledor. Es así porque en él se reconocen fallos de todo tipo en su gestión de la crisis, en la percepción de los problemas que la originaron, en su tratamiento e incluso en la actitud intelectual de quienes tienen medios sobrados como para conocer bien lo que ocurre en la economía mundial.
En el documento se reconoce que no se percibió adecuadamente la naturaleza del problema que se estaba gestando porque se asumía la creencia de que los mercados financieros iban a ser suficientemente sólidos. Es decir, que simplemente se dio por buena la creencia que los economistas ortodoxos propagan sin cesar gracias al apoyo de la banca y las grandes empresas que los financian.
También se admite que no se percibió correctamente el riesgo que se acumulaba en el sistema financiero y que no se prestó suficiente atención a la supervisión para haber evitado la propagación o contagio de la crisis. Esto es, que se hizo la vista gorda ante los desmanes de los bancos para poder dejar que acumularan beneficios a sus anchas.
Se reconoce así mismo que los economistas del Fondo no fueron capaces de reconocer la magnitud de los problemas ni la urgencia de las respuestas que había que darle y que no se entendió que los desequilibrios constituían un verdadero riesgo sistémico. O sea, que no se preocuparon ni siquiera de leer a quienes mantienen posiciones distintas a su credo neoliberal, a quienes simplemente desprecian, a pesar de que éstos han demostrado haber sido capaces de analizar muchos mejor lo que estaba ocurriendo y de prever lo que se venía encima mientras que los ortodoxos se limitaban a quitarle importancia a los hechos.
Las razones que el propio Fondo da para explicar que se produjesen esos errores tan graves en la detección y tratamiento de la crisis son igualmente claros y se basan en reconocer que predominó lo que el documento llama el "pensamiento de grupo". Es decir, el sectarismo y la ceguera intelectual que tantos economistas críticos venimos denunciando desde hace años como propios de la economía ortodoxa y que sencillamente consiste en que para quienes la defienden no hay otro pensamiento ni análisis que no sea el que reafirma sus posiciones y creencias.
Se trata de una enfermedad intelectual sumamente arraigada y que no solo es propia de los economistas del Fondo. Ellos, al menos, lo acaban de reconocer. Entre nosotros están los famosos economistas reunidos en torno a FEDEA, defensores en líneas generales de exactamente las mismas posiciones y principios intelectuales "de grupo" que los del Fondo, financiados justamente por ello por la banca y las grandes empresas, y en cuyos escritos puede comprobarse paladinamente que sufren su mismo mal aunque en nuestro caso no sean capaces de reconocerlo: el desarrollo de un mismo pensamiento cerrado que nunca contempla tesis que contradigan las que interesa a sus financiadores que sostengan, lo que incluso materialmente se manifiesta en la ausencia de referencias bibliográficas o de consideraciones analíticas que sean distintas a las propias, y que es la manera más segura, como ahora reconoce el propio Fondo Monetario Internacional, de alejarse de la verdad en lugar de acercarse a ella.
Finalmente, el texto del Fondo reconoce que lo que hizo que se produjeran esos fallos de análisis fue "un débil régimen de gobierno interno, la falta de incentivos para integrar el trabajo de las distintas unidades y plantear opiniones contrarias, y un proceso de revisión que no lograba atar cabos o asegurar que se siguieran todos los pasos necesarios". Algo sencillamente sorprendente y escandaloso en una institución que cuenta con recursos prácticamente ilimitados y que alardea de disponer de los mejores economistas y directivos del mundo. Una circunstancia que una vez más demuestra que las anteojeras ideológicas de la economía convencional pesan mucho más que los grandes títulos y las autoalabanzas que se da a sí misma con la ayuda de los poderes financieros que la sostienen.
Hay que reconocer que el hecho de que el Fondo haya publicado un documento de este tipo reconociendo meridianamente su incompetencia es algo valioso pero no se puede aceptar que eso baste para dejar las cosas como están.
Hay que tener en cuenta que el Fondo ha seguido manteniendo prácticamente el mismo piloto automático que lleva utilizando desde hace años a la hora de proponer políticas en plena crisis y mientras que se detectaban estos fallos. Y que este empeño ha tenido y sigue teniendo consecuencias muy graves en países enteros.
Si un documento realizado por la propia institución reconoce de modo tan flagrante su inoperancia y su incapacidad para ver lo que sucede en la economía a dos palmos de sus narices, uno realizado por expertos independientes iría más lejos y descubriría lo que de verdad hay detrás de esa incompetencia: el servilismo ante los grandes poderes financieros y ante los intereses de Estados Unidos, la falta de sustentación científica de las políticas que se proponen, la arbitrariedad con que se imponen y, lo que es más importante, el daño material que se ha hecho a millones de personas.
Cuando el propio Fondo reconoce lo que está reconociendo, se hace cada vez más urgente que la comunidad internacional se plantee la necesidad de juzgar su actuación y establecer responsabilidades. No se está hablando solo de simples errores de apreciación intelectual sino de la continua justificación sin más base que la de favorecer a los grandes poderes de políticas que han provocando y siguen provocando millones de muertes, el empobrecimiento constante de seres humanos y la ruina de países enteros para favorecer le beneficio de una minoría reducida de privilegiados.
Hay que empezar a tratar el comportamiento del Fondo Monetario como lo que efectivamente es, un crimen orquestado contra la Humanidad.
La comunidad internacional y los pueblos han de dejar de ser indiferentes al daño económico que se produce intencionadamente y a la complicidad de los organismos y autoridades que lo permiten. La economía financierizada y especulativa de nuestro tiempo, convertida en una actividad simplemente al servicio del beneficio de los poderosos, destructora de empresas creadoras de riqueza, de empleo y de bienestar es el peor arma de destrucción masiva hoy día existente y la población mundial debería empezar a declararle la guerra, como en realidad está ocurriendo, aunque se quiera revestir de otros motivos, en los países del norte de Africa, o en Islandia.
23.2.11
22.2.11
Eurozone Chess.Our comment on WSJ Today
Eurozone chess,offering a sacrifice can come as an unpleasant surprise to one's opponent,“Portugal has no need of outside help”,José Sócrates, the prime minister, told the FT ,today portuguese finance minister is in Japan or China might offer a helping hand...
Genocide Should Be Stoped By All Means.Our comment on WSJ Today
Massacres of Gadddafi regime are crimes against humanity nobody should keep silent,companies and governments evacuating their personnel from Libya, the oil shockwave event was a policy wargaming scenario outcome grim genocide against libyan people should be stopped by all means.
21.2.11
Libya History [I]
During the Italian colonial period, between 20% and 50% of the Libyan population died in the struggle for independence, and mainly in prison camps.
Thousands of Libyans were killed during Italian rule, particularly in Cyrenaica. Most died in concentration camps such as that in El Agheila.
Antagonism Revive.Our comment on WSJ Today
The backlash against Merkel in Hamburg - where she had compained hard - is likely to limit her room for manoeuvre in handling the euro crisis,she will be hoping the result will not be repeated elsewhere but antagonistic fortunes may revive from the ashes of this humiliating defeat.
20.2.11
Adam Shatz: After Egypt
After the battle for Tahrir Square, the conceptual grid that Western officials have used to divide the Islamic world into friends and enemies, moderates and radicals, good Muslims and bad Muslims has never looked more inadequate, or more irrelevant. A ‘moderate’ and ‘stable’ Arab government, a pillar of US strategy in the Middle East, has been overthrown by a nationwide protest movement demanding democratic reform, transparent governance, freedom of assembly, a more equitable distribution of the country’s resources and a foreign policy more reflective of popular opinion. It has sent other Arab governments into a panic while raising the hopes of their young, frustrated populations. If the revolution in Egypt succeeds, it will have swept away not only a corrupt and autocratic regime, but the vocabulary, and the patterns of thought, that have underpinned Western policy in the greater Middle East for more than a half century.
The fate of Egypt’s revolution – brought to a pause by the military’s seizure of power on 11 February, after Mubarak’s non-resignation address to his ‘children’ – remains uncertain. Mubarak is gone, but the streets have been mostly cleared of protesters and the army has filled the vacuum: chastened, yet still in power and with considerable resources at its disposal. Until elections are held in six months, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces will be ruling by decree, without the façade of parliamentary government. The parliament, voted into office in rigged elections, has been dissolved, a move that won wide support, and a new constitution is being drafted, but it’s not clear how much of a hand the opposition will have in shaping it. More ominously, the Supreme Council has vowed to punish anyone it can accuse of spreading ‘chaos and disorder’. The blunt rhetoric of its communiqués may be refreshing after the speeches of Mubarak, his son Gamal and the industrialists who dominated the ruling National Democratic Party, with their formulaic promises of reform and their talk of the nobility of the Egyptian people but ten days ago in Tahrir Square the protesters said – maybe even believed - that the army and the people stood together. Today the council’s communiqués are instructions, not proposals to be debated, and it has notably failed to answer the protesters’ two most urgent demands: the repeal of the Emergency Law and the release of thousands of political prisoners.
So far, most Egyptians have been willing to give the Supreme Council the benefit of the doubt. As in any revolutionary situation, the desire for order and security is nearly as strong as the desire for change, and, after 18 days of protests, the army has provided both – with a decided emphasis on the former. Field Marshall Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the 75-year-old defence minister, often described as ‘Mubarak’s shadow’ (and, in US embassy cables released by WikiLeaks, as his ‘poodle’), is not known to look fondly on democracy, or indeed on anything that might weaken the power of the military, which has dominated Egyptian politics since 1952. Tantawi and his men are likely to try to exploit disagreements in the democracy movement, which now faces the formidable challenges of sustaining momentum and maintaining unity. The regime has always excelled at dividing the opposition, and there are already signs of cracks, particularly along class lines. Thousands of workers in critical industries are still on strike, in defiance of the Supreme Council. Nerves may have been calmed when the army first intervened, but poorer Egyptians may be looking for a more far-reaching set of transformations than the middle class has in mind.
Fears of direct rule by the army are misplaced: it has always preferred to remain aloof from politics and to leave it to the civilian government to handle day-to-day affairs. But even if the Emergency Law is suspended and a democratic government is established, any attempt to roll back the army’s intricate system of privileges, or to reconfigure foreign policy, will meet with resistance from the generals. If that happens, the United States is unlikely to impose serious pressure, or to cut off aid: as the White House press secretary Robert Gibbs stressed on 31 January, when Mubarak was still clinging to power, ‘it is not up to us to determine when the grievances of the Egyptian people have been met by the Egyptian government’. With their self-contained military cities, where comfortable apartments and foreign goods can be had at a discount, and with their vast stake in an economy based on a mix of clientelism and neo-liberalism, senior army officers live in a world apart from most Egyptians, which they don’t want to be disturbed. They won’t want to put their aid from the US at risk either, which means they are not going to embrace any dramatic shift in foreign policy – much to Israel’s relief. The army is paid $1.3 billion a year by the United States to maintain the peace with Israel and to provide a variety of related services, from assisting in the blockade of Gaza to undermining Palestinian unity, interrogating prisoners in the ‘war on terror’ and expediting the passage of American ships through the Suez Canal. The army also has close ties with Israel. Omar Suleiman, Mubarak’s intelligence chief and briefly vice-president, according to one of the WikiLeaks cables, told the Israelis they were ‘welcome’ to invade the Philadelphia Route, a narrow strip of land between Egypt and Gaza, to deter arms smuggling by Hamas. And Egyptian firms close to the Mubarak family continue to sell Israel natural gas at a discount – 40 per cent of the Jewish state’s supply. As expected, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces wasted no time in reassuring Israel that the peace treaty will be upheld. It remains to be seen whether, under a more democratic government, Egypt will interpret the treaty in terms quite so responsive to US and Israeli demands.
It is too early to say whether Egypt will make the transition to civilian rule and recover its sovereignty after 30 years as an American client state, much less whether it will ever recapture the regional leadership it enjoyed under Nasser. But it is not too early to speculate on the regional impact of Mubarak’s overthrow. As the Syrian philosopher Sadiq al-Azm has put it, ‘the regimes feel vulnerable now.’ The symptoms of this anxiety are plain to see: Mahmoud Abbas’s hasty cabinet reshuffle; the Algerian government’s mobilisation of 30,000 police officers to confront a few thousand protesters in central Algiers; the violent repression of the recent demonstrations in Iran, Libya and Bahrain. Saudi Arabia, which recommended that Mubarak crush the protests by force – and which offered to continue subsidising the army when the Obama administration briefly hinted that it might reconsider its aid package – is nervously watching developments in Cairo. So is Israel, though it has retreated into radio silence after failing to persuade Obama to continue propping up Mubarak. It’s not just the peace treaty that worries the Israeli government: The last thing it wants to see is a national, Egyptian-style campaign of non-violent resistance against the occupation, or indeed against the Jewish state’s ‘partner in peace’, the increasingly unpopular Palestinian Authority.
If protests continue to spread in the Arab and Muslim world, rulers afraid of going the way of Mubarak are likely to resort to brute force. But this may not be as effective as it has been in the past, thanks to the extraordinary examples of Tunisia and Egypt. Non-violent resistance has acquired a glamour – and reputation for working – it never used to have in the Islamic world, where it was widely believed that governments could not be overturned by peaceful means, and where ‘the armed struggle’ was long considered a manlier style of rebellion, particularly in the heroic early years of the Palestinian Revolution. Another welcome effect of the protests has been to strengthen – indeed, to redeem – the language of democracy in the Islamic world, where it had been tarnished by America’s wars. The birth of an Arab democracy movement is not quite the mortal blow to Islamism that some hopeful Western observers have claimed: as long as millions of poor Arabs are forced to turn to organisations like the Muslim Brotherhood rather than to the state for basic services – and as long as Jerusalem’s Islamic holy sites remain under Israeli control – political Islam will continue to command a substantial base of support. But the Egyptian experience has lessened the old divisions between Islamist and secular forces, and shown that they can work together on a common set of political goals. ‘Tunisia is the solution,’ a chant heard in Tahrir Square, may soon eclipse the Muslim Brotherhood’s old slogan, ‘Islam is the solution.’
In the United States, the revolts were jarring: non-sequiturs in a conversation that, ten years after 11 September, continues to dwell on the threat of radical Islam. As fear turned to fascination, and American journalists and officials sought to make sense of the protests, they reached for explanations that seemed to reflect a desire to refashion them in a more familiar image. The American conversation about Egypt soon became a conversation about America: about the influence of Gene Sharp, a theorist of non-violence credited with writing the ‘playbook’ of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt; about the lessons Egypt’s activists had learned on visits to Belgrade from American-trained, anti-Milosevic activists; and, above all, about the facilitating role played by Twitter and Facebook. American technological ingenuity, graciously passed on to the Arab East, had been the midwife of the revolution. Not surprisingly, the revolt’s most popular face in America was the earnest young Google executive Wael Ghonim, whose entrepreneurial vision of change would not be out of place in Silicon Valley. But the men who built the barricades in Tahrir Square, and defended it when the thugs on horseback arrived, were not Twitter users; they were Muslim Brothers, whose very different views about Egypt’s future will have to be taken into account, and not merely as a danger to be averted.
Pundits on both right and left in America have also tried to lay claim to the revolt. Elliott Abrams in the Washington Post reported that Bush had it right, conveniently forgetting that the administration he served abandoned the cause of Egyptian political reform after the Muslim Brotherhood’s strong showing in the 2005 parliamentary elections. Liberal champions, notably Nicholas Kristof and Roger Cohen in the New York Times, applauded the protesters for focusing on Egypt, rather than on America or Israel: the ‘Arab mind’, Cohen declared, was at last showing signs of maturity, shedding its obsession with American and Zionist plots. He apparently missed the signs in Tahrir Square denouncing Mubarak as an American agent, and suggesting in Hebrew that he go into exile in Tel Aviv. In fact, the revolt grew in part out of a movement that traces its origins to the popular committees in defence of the Second Intifada; many of Egypt’s democrats have long been opponents of the government’s position on Palestine, which they view not merely as unjust but as an insult to national dignity. Domestic and foreign policy in the Middle East are never as neatly distinct as they are in the op-ed pages of the New York Times.
Once Mubarak had fallen, the Obama administration, widely criticised for its incoherent, often stuttering response to the revolt, tried to repackage its performance as a triumph of quiet, heroically persistent diplomacy. The mixed messages, contradictions and sudden shifts reflected, we were now told, the struggle between a White House young guard committed to democratic change in the Middle East, and a cautious old guard in Hillary Clinton’s State Department. Press accounts of the struggle between the White House and the State Department, based in large part on off-the-record interviews given by administration officials, gave the impression that Egypt’s revolution was made possible by a revolution in Washington, led by internet savvy, human-rights friendly White House advisers like Samantha Power with Obama’s support behind the scenes. But even when the young guard prevailed, the administration never wavered in its preference for an ‘orderly’, army-led transition. Mubarak could be abandoned, but not the deep state whose co-operation is essential to American policy in the region, from anti-terrorism to the fight against Iran, from the ‘peace process’ to the Suez Canal. If Washington’s response seemed confused, this had less to do with a generational struggle than with the structural legacy of a 30-year ‘partnership’ with the ‘moderate’ regime of Egypt. Unsurprisingly, the Obama administration has heaped praise on the military, which it hopes will contain those in the protest movement who would like to see more radical change, not only in domestic life but in the conduct of foreign policy; in the words of Robert Gates, the army’s conduct has been ‘exemplary’, a ‘contribution to the evolution of democracy’.
When Obama spoke after Mubarak’s resignation, he made no effort to conceal the nature of America’s relationship with the military government, but he did his best to couch it in the depoliticised rhetoric of friendship and partnership. He looked tight-faced and tense as he spun the defeat of an old American ally. He emphasised, to his credit, that the military would have to see to ensure a ‘credible’ transition, beginning with the writing of a new constitution, the lifting of the Emergency Law and the inclusion of ‘all of Egypt’s voices’ – an implicit nod to the Muslim Brotherhood. But he moved quickly to the exalted, airy plane of history, where he has always been most comfortable, whether discussing revolutions in the Arab world or his own life. He celebrated the ‘moral force of non-violence’, quoting Martin Luther King’s remark that ‘there’s something in the soul that cries out for freedom,’ and compared Egypt’s democratic transformation to the fall of the Berlin wall. What he did not say – because it could not be said – was that he had not played the role of Gorbachev, or that an American client state had fallen, perhaps for good.
It was left to other administration officials to spell out the policy implications of Mubarak’s overthrow. They read from an old script, supporting pro-democracy activists in countries such as Iran and Syria while discouraging them in pro-Western states such as Jordan and Yemen. ‘Egypt will never be the same,’ Obama said in his speech, but his staff didn’t seem to think this required any change in Washington. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, tried to turn the success of the Egyptian revolt – an American defeat – into a future victory in Iran, hailing the Green Movement’s demonstrations in Tehran. He wished, he said, that the Iranian government would honour freedom of assembly as the government in Cairo had; he appeared to have forgotten that at least 365 Egyptian protesters were killed, that thousands were injured and hundreds detained, and that the revolt aimed to overthrow the government he was praising. Days later, as pro-regime militias crushed a new wave of protests in Tehran, Hillary Clinton spoke vigorously in defence of Iran’s pro-democracy movement; conspicuous by their absence were the qualifiers and caveats that marked her speeches on Egypt. Like Gibbs, she overlooked the killings and arrests of Egyptian protesters: ‘We wish the opposition and the brave people in the streets across cities in Iran the same opportunity that they saw their Egyptian counterparts seized in the last week.’ Yet neither she nor Obama appeared to be moved when that ‘something in the soul that cries out for freedom’ was heard in Bahrain. The protests by the oppressed Shia majority against the American-backed Sunni monarchy were inconvenient: King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa, a reliable enemy of Iran, plays host to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet and to more than 2000 American military personnel; and the overthrow of the regime might give ideas to the unhappy Shia majority in Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich eastern province. At least five protesters have been killed so far by the police, but the Obama administration has been as circumspect about Bahrain as it has been vocal about Iran.
All of a sudden it is Washington, not the Middle East, that appears stagnant. The revolts in Tunisia and Egypt – and the proliferating signs of unrest in the American sphere of influence in the Middle East – have occurred in spite of American power, not because of it, and they have left the US looking confused and isolated. America’s closest allies in the region are an absolute monarchy where women aren’t allowed to drive and judicial beheadings are common, and an expansionist, increasingly chauvinist Jewish state whose friendship is as much a liability as an asset. If Obama’s assiduous efforts to rebrand the American empire have made little headway, it is in part because they have not been accompanied by any serious rethinking of these strategic priorities: the grandeur of his rhetoric barely masks the poverty of his vision.
Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the Egyptian revolt is the latest expansion of a new dynamism. A Hizbullah-backed coalition government has come to power in Lebanon by constitutional means, upending Washington’s calculations and deepening Tehran’s influence; Turkey, under an Islamic government, has been pursuing an ambitious foreign policy that ignores the Washington grid. Even in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US can no longer count on the deference of the governments it helped to create.
Despite its uncontested military supremacy in the region, Washington can’t seem to translate its power into real influence, its dominance into lasting hegemony. Its help is rarely even sought in resolving disputes such as the recent tensions over Lebanon’s new government: a distinct preference for regional mediation has emerged. This development is an expression not of a rising anti-Americanism, but of the region’s growing self-reliance and confidence in its ability to find solutions of its own. The best that can be said of Obama’s Middle East policy is that he hasn’t got in the way of this trend as much as his predecessor did. He has been prevented from encouraging it by his own cautious instincts, and by the alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia that he inherited, the terms of which he is unwilling or unable to revise. The days of American hegemony in the Muslim East are not over, but for the first time in years, from Ankara to Cairo, from Tunis to Beirut, the outlines of a post-American Middle East can be glimpsed.
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