Alan Greenspan

O antigo presidente da Reserva Federal Americana, o homem responsável pela política monetária dos EUA nos últimos 18 anos e muito provavelmente o mais poderoso em termos económicos, isto é, o responsável pelas medidas de desregulamentação que estão na origem da crise actual, admite que a sua ideologia pode estar errada:

no Guardian:

"A long-time cheerleader for deregulation, Greenspan admitted to a congressional committee yesterday that he had been "partially wrong" in his hands-off approach towards the banking industry and that the credit crunch had left him in a state of shocked disbelief. "I have found a flaw," said Greenspan, referring to his economic philosophy. "I don't know how significant or permanent it is. But I have been very distressed by that fact."

It was the first time the man hailed for masterminding the world's longest postwar boom has accepted any culpability for the crisis that has engulfed the global banking system. "

The Ignorant delusion?

The God Delusion (II)

The God Delusion - de Richard Dawkins
Capítulo II

"I have found it an amusing strategy, when asked wether I am an atheist, to point out that the questioner is also an atheist when considering Zeus, Apollo, Amon Ra, Mithras, Baal, Thor... I just go one god further"

on Agnosticism:

“Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existance of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightend age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time. – Bertrand Russel

We would not waste time saying so because nobody, so far as I know, worships teapots; but if pressed, we would not hesitate to declare our strong belief that there is positively no orbiting teapot. Yet strictly we should all be teapot agnostics: we cannot prove, for sure, that there is no celestial teapot.”

http://www.richarddawkins.net/
Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

if the world could vote

here.



Resultados interessantíssimos.

The End of Libertarianism

Artigo completo em Slate.com

"We have narrowly avoided a global depression and are mercifully pointed toward merely the worst recession in a long while. This is thanks to a global economic meltdown made possible by libertarian ideas"

"Their heroic view of capitalism makes it difficult for them to accept that markets can be irrational, misunderstand risk, and misallocate resources or that financial systems without vigorous government oversight and the capacity for pragmatic intervention constitute a recipe for disaster. They are bankrupt, and this time, there will be no bailout."

Mission Accomplished

Fonte: digg

Nacionalizações

EUA – parcial em 9 bancos, 2 empresas de capital aberto especializadas em hipotecas (Fannie Mae e Freddie Mac), 1 empresa seguradora (AIG)

Holanda – 2 bancos

Inglaterra – 3 bancos

Islândia – 2 bancos (em 3)

Suiça – 1 banco

Países que criaram planos para entrar no capital dos bancos como consequência de ajudas de liquidez – França, Holanda, Portugal, Inglaterra, Itália, Bélgica

Países que criaram fundos estatais de emergência para garantir a liquidez dos bancos e para garantir a cobertura de depositos – EUA, Inglaterra, Portugal, Alemanha, Irlanda, Aústria, Suiça

A questão é simples: se os bancos/empresas privadas de capitais ou financiamento quando os resultados são positivos distribuem os lucros entre si (para os privados), e se quando os resultados são negativos ou até existe risco de falência quem tem que pagar a factura são os contribuintes através do Estado (porque, factualmente, se não existir ajuda a economia entraria em grave crise), não existe razão para salvar essas empresas privadas sem contrapartidas: a ajuda deve passar pela entrada do Estado no capital dessas empresas de forma a mais tarde recuperar o dinheiro investido.

Este foi o modelo utilizado com sucesso pelas economias escandinavas durante a crise em 1990 e tem que ser o modelo pelo qual passe qualquer plano de ajuda. Não é surpresa que até a mais capitalista das economias (EUA) recorra a este modelo. No entanto, não faltam vozes que continuem a propaganda liberal dos supostos efeitos nefastos da intervenção governamental na economia.

The Simpsons

The God Delusion

The God Delusion - de Richard Dawkins
Capítulo I


"A widespread assumption, which nearly everybody in our society accepts - the non-religious included - is that religious faith is especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect, in a different class from the respect any human being should pay to any other."

"Here's another weird example of the privileging of religion: on 21 February 2006 The United States Supreme Court ruled, (...) that a church in New Mexico should be exempt from the law, which everybody else has to obey, against the taking of hallucinogenic drugs. Faithfull members of the Centro Espirita Beneficiente União do Vegetal believe that they can understand God only by drinking hoasca tea, which contains the illegal drug dimethyltryptamine. Note that it is sufficient that they believe that the drug enhances their understanding. They do not have to produce evidence. Conversely, there is plenty of evidence that cannabis eases the nausea and discomfort of cancer sufferers undergoing chemotherapy. Yet, again in accordance with the U.S. Constitution, the Supreme Court ruled that all patients who use cannabis for medicinal purposes are vulnerable to federeal prosecution.

"As a typical example, in 2004 James Nixon, a twelve-year-old boy in Ohio, won the right in court to wear a t-shirt to school bearing the words "Homosexuality is a sin, Islam is a lie, abortion is murder. Some issues are just black and white!" The school told him not to wear the t-shirt - and the boy's parents sued the school. The parents might have had a conscionable case if they had based it on the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speach. But they didn't. Instead, the Nixon's lawyers appealed to the constitutional right to freedom of religion. Their victorious lawsuit was supported by the Alliance Defense Fund of Arizona, whose business it is to press the legal battle for religious freedom."

Mais informação (e capítulo I completo) em
http://www.richarddawkins.net/

he's not... he's... he's an Arab

Banksy´s answer to usa crises

more here.

Life Jacket Capitalism

What should we call the economic model emerging from this crisis of capitalism?

"A system in which government must frequently intervene to protect the world from the results of private financial misjudgment is modified capitalism—part invisible hand, part helping hand."

"Where right-wing critics denounce the Paulson plan as socialism, those on the left see it as a form of corporatism. This was the economic philosophy of fascist Italy, which Mussolini defined as a merger of state and corporate power. Under such a system, the largest industries function as adjuncts to the regime."

Help the Planet

Here.