Gugacalifornia

Literature in search of liberty by mario lvargas losa

2011-11-08T05:02:00.000-08:00

By MARIO VARGAS LLOSA, WSJ

What is lost on collectivists is the prime importance of individual freedom for societies to flourish and economies to thrive.

The blessings of freedom and the perils of its opposite can be seen the world over. It is why I have so passionately adhered to advancing the idea of individual freedom in my work.

Having abandoned the Marxist myths that took in so many of my generation, I soon came to genuinely believe that I had found a truth that had to be shared in the best way I knew—through the art of letters. Critics on the left and right have often praised my novels only to distance themselves from the ideas I've expressed. I do not believe my work can be separated from its ideals.

It is the function of the novelist to tell timeless and universal truths through the device of a fashioned narrative. A story's significance as a piece of art cannot be divorced from its message, any more than a society's prospects for freedom and prosperity can be divorced from its underlying principles. The writer and the man are one and the same, as are the culture and its common beliefs. In my writing and in my life I have pursued a vision not only to inspire my readers but also to share my dream of what we can aspire to build here in our world.

Those who love liberty are often ridiculed for their idealism. And at times we can feel alone, as there appear to be very few dedicated to the ideals of true "liberalism."

In the United States, the term "liberal" has come to be associated with leftism, socialism, and an ambitious role for government in the economy. Many who describe their politics as "liberal" emphatically favor measures which desire to push aside free enterprise. Some who call themselves liberal show even greater hostility toward business, loudly protesting the very idea of economic freedom and promoting a vision of society not so different from the failed utopian experiments of history's socialist and fascist regimes.

In Latin America and Spain, where the word "liberal" originated to mean an advocate of liberty, the left now uses the label as an invective. It carries connotations of "conservative" or reactionary politics, and especially a failure to care for the world's poor. I have been maligned in this way.

Ironically enough, part of the confusion can be pinned on some who champion the market economy in the name of old liberalism. They have at times done even more damage to freedom than the Marxists and other socialists.

There are those who in the name of the free market have supported Latin American dictatorships whose iron hand of repression was said to be necessary to allow business to function, betraying the very principles of human rights that free economies rest upon. Then there are those who have coldly reduced all questions of humanity to a matter of economics and see the market as a panacea. In doing so they ignore the role of ideas and culture, the true foundation of civilization. Without customs and shared beliefs to breathe life into democracy and the market, we are reduced to the Darwinian struggle of atomistic and selfish actors that many on the left rightfully see as inhuman.

What is lost on the collectivists, on the other hand, is the prime importance of individual freedom for societies to flourish and economies to thrive. This is the core insight of true liberalism: All individual freedoms are part of an inseparable whole. Political and economic liberties cannot be bifurcated. Mankind has inherited this wisdom from millennia of experience, and our understanding has been enriched further by the great liberal thinkers, some of my favorites being Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper, F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises. They have described the path out of darkness and toward a brighter future of freedom and universal appreciation for the values of human dignity.

When the liberal truth is forgotten, we see the horrors of nationalist dictatorship, fascism, communism, cult fanaticism, terrorism and the many savageries that have defined all too much in the modern era. The problem is less pronounced in the United States, but here there still remain problems resulting from the abandonment of these key principles.

Many cling to hopes that the economy can be centrally planned. Education, health care, housing, money and banking, crime control, transportation, energy and far more follow the failed command-and-control model that has been repeatedly discredited. Some look to nationalist and statist solutions to trade imbalances and migration problems, instead of toward greater freedom.

Yet there is reason for hope here and elsewhere. The American system still allows for open dissent, the hallmark of a free society, and in a healthy fashion both left and right practice this cherished freedom. Throughout the world, anti-Americanism and anticapitalism are in decline. In Latin America, outside of Venezuela and Cuba, dictatorship of the old socialist and fascist varieties is dead, with market reforms sweeping even nominally leftist regimes.

The search for liberty is simply part of the greater search for a world where respect for the rule of law and human rights is universal—a world free of dictators, terrorists, warmongers and fanatics, where men and women of all nationalities, races, traditions and creeds can coexist in the culture of freedom, where borders give way to bridges that people cross to reach their goals limited only by free will and respect for one another's rights. It is a search to which I've dedicated my writing, and so many have taken notice. But is it not a search to which we should all devote our very lives? The answer is clear when we see what is at stake.

Mr. Vargas Llosa, the 2010 Nobel laureate in literature, will receive the Alexis de Tocqueville Award on Nov. 15 from the Independent Institute at its 25th anniversary celebration. He wrote this essay for the occasion.

60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days by Marelisa

2011-08-04T19:53:00.000-07:00

60 Small Ways to Improve Your Life in the Next 100 Days
May 30 by Marelisa | 108 Comments and 1169 Reactions | Lifestyle | Tags: improve your life, life improvement, small ways to improve your life, work/life-balance

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to make drastic changes in order to notice an improvement in the quality of your life. At the same time, you don’t need to wait a long time in order to see the measurable results that come from taking positive action. All you have to do is take small steps, and take them consistently, for a period of 100 days.

Below you’ll find 60 small ways to improve all areas of your life in the next 100 days.
Home

1. Create a “100 Days to Conquer Clutter Calendar” by penciling in one group of items you plan to declutter every day, for the next 100 days. Here’s an example:

Day 1: Declutter Magazines
Day 2: Declutter DVD’s
Day 3: Declutter books
Day 4: Declutter kitchen appliances

2. Live by the mantra: a place for everything and everything in its place. For the next 100 days follow these four rules to keep your house in order:

If you take it out, put it back.
If you open it, close it.
If you throw it down, pick it up.
If you take it off, hang it up.

3. Walk around your home and identify 100 things you’ve been tolerating; fix one each day. Here are some examples:

A burnt light bulb that needs to be changed.
A button that’s missing on your favorite shirt.
The fact that every time you open your top kitchen cabinet all of the plastic food containers fall out.

Happiness

4. Follow the advice proffered by positive psychologists and write down 5 to 10 things that you’re grateful for, every day.

5. Make a list of 20 small things that you enjoy doing, and make sure that you do at least one of these things every day for the next 100 days. Your list can include things such as the following:

Eating your lunch outside.
Calling your best friend to chat.
Taking the time to sit down and read a novel by your favorite author for a few minutes.

6. Keep a log of your mental chatter, both positive and negative, for ten days. Be as specific as possible:

How many times do you beat yourself up during the day?
Do you have feelings of inadequacy?
Are you constantly thinking critical thoughts of others?
How many positive thoughts do you have during the day?

Also, make a note of the emotions that accompany these thoughts. Then, for the next 90 days, begin changing your emotions for the better by modifying your mental chatter.

7. For the next 100 days, have a good laugh at least once a day: get one of those calendars that has a different joke for every day of the year, or stop by a web site that features your favorite cartoons.
Learning/Personal Development

8. Choose a book that requires effort and concentration and read a little of it every day, so that you read it from cover to cover in 100 days.

9. Make it a point to learn at least one new thing each day: the name of a flower that grows in your garden, the capital of a far-off country, or the name of a piece of classical music you hear playing in your favorite clothing boutique as you shop. If it’s time for bed and you can’t identify anything you’ve learned that day, take out your dictionary and learn a new word.

10. Stop complaining for the next 100 days. A couple of years back, Will Bowen gave a purple rubber bracelet to each person in his congregation to remind them to stop complaining. “Negative talk produces negative thoughts; negative thoughts produce negative results”, says Bowen. For the next 100 days, whenever you catch yourself complaining about anything, stop yourself.

11. Set your alarm a minute earlier every day for the next 100 days. Then make sure that you get out of bed as soon as your alarm rings, open the windows to let in some sunlight, and do some light stretching. In 100 days you’ll be waking up an hour and forty minutes earlier than you’re waking up now.

12. For the next 100 days, keep Morning Pages, which is a tool suggested by Julia Cameron. Morning Pages are simply three pages of longhand, stream of consciousness writing, done first thing in the morning.

13. For the next 100 days make it a point to feed your mind with the thoughts, words, and images that are most consistent with who you want to be, what you want to have, and what you want to achieve.
Finances

14. Create a spending plan (also known as a budget). Track every cent that you spend for the next 100 days to make sure that you’re sticking to your spending plan.

15. Scour the internet for frugality tips, choose ten of the tips that you find, and apply them for the next 100 days. Here are some possibilities:

Go to the grocery store with cash and a calculator instead of using your debit card.
Take inventory before going to the grocery store to avoid buying repeat items.
Scale back the cable.
Ask yourself if you really need a landline telephone.
Consolidate errands into one trip to save on gas.

Keep track of how much money you save over the next 100 days by applying these tips.

16. For the next 100 days, pay for everything with paper money and keep any change that you receive. Then, put all of your change in a jar and see how much money you can accumulate in 100 days.

17. Don’t buy anything that you don’t absolutely need for 100 days. Use any money you save by doing this to do one of the following:

Pay down your debt, if you have any.
Put it toward your six month emergency fund.
Start setting aside money to invest.

18. Set an hour aside every day for the next 100 days to devote to creating one source of passive income.
Time Management

19. For the next 100 days, take a notebook with you everywhere in order to keep your mind decluttered. Record everything, so that it’s safely stored in one place—out of your head—where you can decide what to do with it later. Include things such as the following:

Ideas for writing assignments.
Appointment dates.
To Do list items

20. Track how you spend your time for 5 days. Use the information that you gather in order to create a time budget: the percentage of your time that you want to devote to each activity that you engage in on a regular basis. This can include things such as:

Transportation
Housework
Leisure
Income-Generating Activities

Make sure that you stick to your time budget for the remaining 95 days.

21. Identify one low-priority activity which you can stop doing for the next 100 days, and devote that time to a high priority task instead.

22. Identify five ways in which you regularly waste time, and limit the time that you’re going to spend on these activities each day, for the next 100 days. Here are three examples:

Watch no more than half-an-hour of television a day.
Spend no more than half-an-hour each day on social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbleupon.
Spend no more than twenty minutes a day playing video games.

23. For the next 100 days, stop multi-tasking; do one thing at a time without distractions.

24. For the next 100 days, plan your day the night before.

25. For the next 100 days, do the most important thing on your To-Do list first, before you do anything else.

26. For the next 14 weeks, conduct a review of each week. During your weekly review, answer the following:

What did you accomplish?
What went wrong?
What went right?

27. For the next 100 days, spend a few minutes at the end of each day organizing your desk, filing papers, and making sure that your work area is clean and orderly, so that you can walk in to a neat desk the next day.

28. Make a list of all of the commitments and social obligations that you have in the next 100 days. Then, take out a red pen and cross out anything that does not truly bring you joy or help move you along the path to achieving your main life goals.

29. For the next 100 days, every time that you switch to a new activity throughout the day stop and ask yourself, “Is this the best use of my time at this moment?”
Health

30. Losing a pound of fat requires burning 3500 calories. If you reduce your caloric intake by 175 calories a day for the next 100 days, you’ll have lost 5 pounds in the next 100 days.

31. For the next 100 days, eat five servings of vegetables every day.

32. For the next 100 days, eat three servings of fruit of every day.

33. Choose one food that constantly sabotages your efforts to eat healthier—whether it’s the decadent cheesecake from the bakery around the corner, deep-dish pizza, or your favorite potato chips—and go cold turkey for the next 100 days.

34. For the next 100 days, eat from a smaller plate to help control portion size.

35. For the next 100 days, buy 100% natural juices instead of the kind with added sugar and preservatives.

36. For the next 100 days, instead of carbonated drinks, drink water.

37. Create a list of 10 healthy, easy to fix breakfast meals.

38. Create a list of 20 healthy, easy to fix meals which can be eaten for lunch or dinner.

39. Create a list of 10 healthy, easy to fix snacks.

40. Use your lists of healthy breakfast meals, lunches, dinners, and snacks in order to plan out your meals for the week ahead of time. Do this for the next 14 weeks.

41. For the next 100 days, keep a food log. This will help you to identify where you’re deviating from your planned menu, and where you’re consuming extra calories.

42. For the next 100 days, get at least twenty minutes of daily exercise.

43. Wear a pedometer and walk 10,000 steps, every day, for the next 100 days. Every step you take during the day counts toward the 10,000 steps:

When you walk to your car.
When you walk from your desk to the bathroom.
When you walk over to talk to a co-worker, and so on.

44. Set up a weight chart and post it up in your bathroom. Every week for the next 14 weeks, keep track of the following:

Your weight.
Your percentage of body fat.
Your waist circumference.

45. For the next 100 days, set your watch to beep once an hour, or set up a computer reminder, to make sure that you drink water on a regular basis throughout the day.

46. For the next 100 days, make it a daily ritual to mediate, breath, or visualize every day in order to calm your mind.
Your Relationship

47. For the next 100 days, actively look for something positive in your partner every day, and write it down.

48. Create a scrapbook of all the things you and your partner do together during the next 100 days. At the end of the 100 days, give your partner the list you created of positive things you observed about them each day, as well as the scrapbook you created.

49. Identify 3 actions that you’re going to take each day, for the next 100 days, in order to strengthen your relationship. These can include the following:

Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” to your significant other every morning.
Hug your significant other as soon as you see each other after work.
Go for a twenty minute walk together every day after dinner; hold hands.

Social

50. Connect with someone new every day for the next 100 days, whether it’s by greeting a neighbor you’ve never spoken to before, following someone new on Twitter, leaving a comment on a blog you’ve never commented on before, and so on.

51. For the next 100 days, make it a point to associate with people you admire, respect and want to be like.

52. For the next 100 days, when someone does or says something that upsets you, take a minute to think over your response instead of answering right away.

53. For the next 100 days, don’t even think of passing judgment until you’ve heard both sides of the story.

54. For the next 100 days do one kind deed for someone every day, however small, even if it’s just sending a silent blessing their way.

55. For the next 100 days, make it a point to give praise and approval to those who deserve it.

56. For the next 100 days, practice active listening. When someone is talking to you, remain focused on what they’re saying, instead of rehearsing in your head what you’re going to say next. Paraphrase what you think you heard them say to make sure that you haven’t misinterpreted them, and encourage them to elaborate on any points you’re still not clear about.

57. Practice empathy for the next 100 days. If you disagree with someone, try to see the world from their perspective; put yourself in their shoes. Be curious about the other person, about their beliefs and their life experience, and about the thinking process that they followed to reach their conclusions.

58. For the next 100 days, stay in your own life and don’t compare yourself to anyone else.

59. For the next 100 days, place the best possible interpretation on the actions of others.

60. For the next 100 days, keep reminding yourself that everyone is doing the best that they can.

Top ten international tourism destinations in 2010

2011-08-01T06:14:00.000-07:00

Out of a global total of 940 million tourists, the top ten international tourism destinations in 2010 were
Rank Country International tourist arrivals
1 France 76.80 million
2 United States 59.75 million
3 China 55.67 million
4 Spain 52.68 million
5 Italy 43.63 million
6 United Kingdom 28.13 million
7 Turkey 27.00 million
8 Germany 26.88 million
9 Malaysia 24.58 million
10 Mexico 22.40 million

top ten destinations in Americas in 2010

2011-08-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

Out of the total of almost 150 million tourists to the Americas in 2010, the top ten destinations were:
Rank Country International tourist arrivals to the Americas
1 United States 59.75 million
2 Mexico 22.40 million
3 Canada 16.10 million
4 Argentina 5.29 million
5 Brazil 5.16 million
6 Dominican Republic 4.13 million
7 Puerto Rico 3.68 million
8 Chile 2.77 million
9 Cuba 2.51 million
10 Colombia 2.39 million

The Road Not Taken By DAVID BROOKS

2011-07-19T06:44:00.000-07:00

The Road Not Taken
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: July 18, 2011

Over the past months, Republicans enjoyed enormous advantages. Opinion polls showed that voters are eager to reduce the federal debt, and they want to do it mostly but not entirely through spending cuts.

Josh Haner/The New York Times

David Brooks
Go to Columnist Page »

David Brooks’s Blog

The intellectual, cultural and scientific findings that land on the columnist’s desk nearly every day.
Go the Blog »

Related
In Debt Crisis, a Legislative Trick Up the Sleeve (July 19, 2011)
Times Topic: Federal Debt Limit (Debt Ceiling) & Deficit Talks
Related in Opinion
Room For Debate

What Will the Debt Debate Mean for 2012?

For voters, this political standoff is a frustrating sideshow for what they really care about: jobs.

Readers’ Comments
Share your thoughts.
Post a Comment »

There was a Democratic president eager to move to the center. He floated certain ideas that would be normally unheard of from a Democrat. According to widespread reports, White House officials talked about raising the Medicare eligibility age, cutting Social Security by changing the inflation index, freezing domestic discretionary spending and offering to pre-empt the end of the Bush tax cuts in exchange for a broad tax-reform process.

The Democratic offers were slippery, and President Obama didn’t put them in writing. But John Boehner, the House speaker, thought they were serious. The liberal activists thought they were alarmingly serious. I can tell you from my reporting that White House officials took them seriously.

The combined effect would have been to reduce the size of government by $3 trillion over a decade. That’s a number roughly three times larger than the cost of the Obama health care law. It also would have brutally fractured the Democratic Party.

But the Republican Party decided not to pursue this deal, or even seriously consider it. Instead what happened was this: Conservatives told themselves how steadfast they were being for a few weeks. Then morale crumbled.

This week, Republicans will probably pass a balanced budget Constitutional amendment that has zero chance of becoming law. Then they may end up clinging to a no más Senate compromise. This proposal would pocket cuts that have already been agreed on, and it would eliminate leverage for future cuts and make them less likely.

It could be that this has been a glorious moment in Republican history. It could be that having persuaded independents that they are a prudent party, Republicans will sweep the next election. Controlling the White House and Congress, perhaps they will have the guts to cut Medicare unilaterally, reform the welfare state and herald in an era of conservative greatness.

But it’s much more likely that Republicans will come to regret this missed opportunity. So let us pause to identify the people who decided not to seize the chance to usher in the largest cut in the size of government in American history. They fall into a few categories:

The Beltway Bandits. American conservatism now has a rich network of Washington interest groups adept at arousing elderly donors and attracting rich lobbying contracts. For example, Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform has been instrumental in every recent G.O.P. setback. He was a Newt Gingrich strategist in the 1990s, a major Jack Abramoff companion in the 2000s and he enforced the no-compromise orthodoxy that binds the party today.

Norquist is the Zelig of Republican catastrophe. His method is always the same. He enforces rigid ultimatums that make governance, or even thinking, impossible.

The Big Government Blowhards. The talk-radio jocks are not in the business of promoting conservative governance. They are in the business of building an audience by stroking the pleasure centers of their listeners.

They mostly give pseudo Crispin’s Day speeches to battalions of the like-minded from the safety of the conservative ghetto. To keep audience share, they need to portray politics as a cataclysmic, Manichaean struggle. A series of compromises that steadily advance conservative aims would muddy their story lines and be death to their ratings.

The Show Horses. Republicans now have a group of political celebrities who are marvelously uninterested in actually producing results. Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann produce tweets, not laws. They have created a climate in which purity is prized over practicality.

The Permanent Campaigners. For many legislators, the purpose of being in Congress is not to pass laws. It’s to create clear contrasts you can take into the next election campaign. It’s not to take responsibility for the state of the country and make it better. It’s to pass responsibility onto the other party and force them to take as many difficult votes as possible.

All of these groups share the same mentality. They do not see politics as the art of the possible. They do not believe in seizing opportunities to make steady, messy progress toward conservative goals. They believe that politics is a cataclysmic struggle. They believe that if they can remain pure in their faith then someday their party will win a total and permanent victory over its foes. They believe they are Gods of the New Dawn.

Fortunately, there are still practical conservatives in the G.O.P., who believe in results, who believe in intelligent compromise. If people someday decide the events of the past weeks have been a debacle, then practical conservatives may regain control.

Brasil, um exemplo de quê? by CARLOS ALBERTO SARDENBERG

2011-07-19T06:43:00.001-07:00

Brasil, um exemplo de quê? CARLOS ALBERTO SARDENBERG
O Estado de S.Paulo - 18/07/11

Hillary Clinton andou elogiando o sistema tributário brasileiro, pela ampla capacidade de arrecadação de impostos, como definiu, e o modo como o governo gasta o dinheiro em programas sociais que tiram pessoas da pobreza. O comentário serviu para o momento político nos EUA.

O governo democrata de Barack Obama, ao qual pertence Hillary, como secretária de Estado, está justamente numa guerra fiscal com os republicanos, que dominam o Congresso. Os democratas querem um programa de ajuste que aumente os impostos - mas só para os mais ricos, ressalva Obama - sem prejudicar programas sociais. Os republicanos querem um forte e amplo corte de gastos públicos e se opõem a qualquer aumento de imposto.

Faz sentido falar em aumentar imposto nos EUA? Sim, se a comparação se dá entre os países desenvolvidos. Nesse grupo, excetuando o Japão, os EUA têm a mais baixa carga tributária, em torno dos 27% do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB). Nos demais, essa carga está acima dos 35% e passa dos 40% em muitos europeus, como na França.

Mas há diferenças enormes no modo de organização da sociedade. Nos europeus, o governo precisa de mais dinheiro porque presta mais serviços diretamente à população. Os serviços de saúde, por exemplo, são basicamente públicos na Europa e privados nos EUA. Idem para o sistema de aposentadoria e de escolas.

Na verdade, porém, todo mundo paga. Os americanos recolhem menos impostos, mas precisam pagar quando vão ao médico ou às universidades. Os europeus são atendidos de graça (ou fortemente subsidiados), mas pagam mais caro pelos produtos que compram por causa dos impostos.

E, curiosamente, tanto os EUA como muitos países europeus estão com o mesmo problema: déficit no orçamento dos governos e dívidas públicas muito elevadas.

Por outro lado, entre os emergentes, o Brasil ostenta, disparado, a maior carga tributária, em torno dos 35% do PIB. Na China, por exemplo, os impostos levam apenas 20% da renda nacional. Na América Latina é a Argentina que arrecada mais impostos, depois do Brasil, mas não chega aos 30%. No México está em torno dos 20%.

Embora arrecade mais, o setor público brasileiro deve mais do que na maior parte dos emergentes, especialmente quando se considera a dívida bruta. E opera com déficit nominal no orçamento total do governo (federal, estadual e municipal.)

Resumindo, o governo brasileiro arrecada mais e toma mais dinheiro emprestado. Gasta mais, portanto, e bastante em programas sociais, como disse Hillary Clinton.

Por exemplo, um quarto da população brasileira recebe os pagamentos mensais do Bolsa-Família. Mas também um quarto da população mexicana está no Oportunidades, o Bolsa-Família deles e que, aliás, é anterior ao nosso. Também no Chile, que recolhe ainda menos impostos que no México, há o Solidariedade, distribuição de renda tão ampla e eficiente quanto os outros dois.

Considerando padrões como saúde e educação, os indicadores brasileiros de qualidade e eficiência não são superiores aos dos demais emergentes. Ao contrário, nossos alunos, nos testes internacionais, perdem de colegas de países onde a arrecadação e o gasto por estudantes é menor do que aqui.

O Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS) é admirado em alguns países da América Latina, pela sua ampla capacidade de atendimento. Mas o pessoal talvez não saiba que, além de recolher os impostos que financiam o SUS, cerca de 45 milhões de brasileiros pagam planos de saúde privados. (E que Hugo Chávez vai ser tratado num hospital privado, onde se trataram, aliás, José Alencar e Dilma Rousseff).

De todo modo, um tema frequente aqui na região é, como na proposta de Hillary, aumentar impostos para financiar saúde e educação - e melhorar esses indicadores. Dizem: já que a carga tributária ainda é baixa...

Ora, isso, em si, já mostra como algo deu errado no Brasil. Nossos impostos já estão lá em cima e não se nota desempenho notável dos serviços públicos prestados. Mas a aposentadoria pública funciona bem, especialmente para os mais pobres, no caso do INSS, e para os funcionários públicos. Só que é também uma fonte enorme de déficit. Ou seja, aqui, paradoxalmente, a arrecadação de impostos e contribuições não é suficiente.

Entre os ricos também há comparações interessantes: o ensino médio europeu, basicamente público e gratuito, é superior ao americano, público e privado. Mas as universidades dos EUA, privadas e pagas, mesmo quando pertencem a governos, são muito superiores às da Europa, públicas em geral.

Somando dinheiro público e privado, os EUA são os que mais gastam (per capita) em saúde, com resultados contraditórios. Há setores da população que não conseguiam nenhuma assistência - objeto do novo programa de Obama - e setores atendidos com medicina de alto nível.

Transporte e infraestrutura nos EUA, mais privados, igualam ou superam muitos europeus, públicos.

Dá o que pensar, não é mesmo? Leva a uma conclusão que a muitos parece tão simples que não pode ser isso. Mas considerem: a questão central não está no tamanho da carga tributária e do gasto, mas na eficiência de uma e de outro. E, olhando por esse lado, o elogio de Hillary ao modelo brasileiro foi apenas uma fala para a política interna, ou resulta de falta de informação, ou as duas coisas. O governo, aqui, arrecada muito, complica e encarece a vida do contribuinte e não entrega serviços e obras na proporção esperada.

Claro que, com pouco dinheiro, governos podem fazer pouco. Mas não decorre daí que, com muito, farão mais e melhor. O Brasil é exemplo disso. Nosso caso, aqui, é como reduzir impostos e aumentar a eficiência do gasto.

Wine & food pairing chart

2011-06-21T05:45:00.000-07:00

7 Must Lessons From Ben Franklin

2011-06-15T17:02:00.000-07:00

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2011-06-15T16:49:00.000-07:00

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St. Thomas Aquinas: The Existence of God can be proved in five ways.

2011-05-31T09:04:00.000-07:00

St. Thomas Aquinas:
The Existence of God can be proved in five ways.
Argument Analysis of the Five Ways © 2004 Theodore Gracyk

The First Way: Argument from Motion

Our senses prove that some things are in motion.

Things move when potential motion becomes actual motion.

Only an actual motion can convert a potential motion into an actual motion.

Nothing can be at once in both actuality and potentiality in the same respect (i.e., if both actual and potential, it is actual in one respect and potential in another).

Therefore nothing can move itself.

Therefore each thing in motion is moved by something else.

The sequence of motion cannot extend ad infinitum.

Therefore it is necessary to arrive at a first mover, put in motion by no other; and this everyone understands to be God.

The Second Way: Argument from Efficient Causes

We perceive a series of efficient causes of things in the world.

Nothing exists prior to itself.

Therefore nothing is the efficient cause of itself.

If a previous efficient cause does not exist, neither does the thing that results.

Therefore if the first thing in a series does not exist, nothing in the series exists.

The series of efficient causes cannot extend ad infinitum into the past, for then there would be no things existing now.

Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.

The Third Way: Argument from Possibility and Necessity (Reductio argument)

We find in nature things that are possible to be and not to be, that come into being and go out of being i.e., contingent beings.

Assume that every being is a contingent being.

For each contingent being, there is a time it does not exist.

Therefore it is impossible for these always to exist.

Therefore there could have been a time when no things existed.

Therefore at that time there would have been nothing to bring the currently existing contingent beings into existence.

Therefore, nothing would be in existence now.

We have reached an absurd result from assuming that every being is a contingent being.

Therefore not every being is a contingent being.

Therefore some being exists of its own necessity, and does not receive its existence from another being, but rather causes them. This all men speak of as God.

The Fourth Way: Argument from Gradation of Being

There is a gradation to be found in things: some are better or worse than others.

Predications of degree require reference to the “uttermost” case (e.g., a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is hottest).

The maximum in any genus is the cause of all in that genus.

Therefore there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.

The Fifth Way: Argument from Design

We see that natural bodies work toward some goal, and do not do so by chance.

Most natural things lack knowledge.

But as an arrow reaches its target because it is directed by an archer, what lacks intelligence achieves goals by being directed by something intelligence.

Therefore some intelligent being exists by whom all natural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

Gold hunters in the Madeira river

2011-05-22T18:18:00.000-07:00

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

2010-12-04T07:37:00.000-08:00

5 Eye exercises to improve your vision by STEVEN AITCHISON

2010-12-02T18:10:00.000-08:00

5 Exercises to strengthen your eye muscles and improve your vision

1.Blinking

Blinking is an often overlooked yet simple way to keep your eyes fresh and being able to focus longer. Computer users and television watchers tend to blink less, especially when they are intently focused on something. Try it just now as a simple exercise. For the next two minutes blink every 3 – 4 seconds. After you have done this for two minutes, mentally take note of how your eyes feel, are they strained, relaxed, tired. Now try and not blink for 30 seconds at a time for two minutes. Do you feel any difference?

Whenever you blink your eyes are going into a brief period of darkness which helps to keep your eyes fresh and discharges previous information ready for new information, this helps to reduce eye strain.

Your blink rate can also help with your communication skills. Think about someone who looked at you intently and you possibly felt threatened by them. What you may have missed is the fact that they had stopped blinking. When someone stops blinking and stares at you when you are talking it’s a sign of aggression. However whenever you are talking to someone and they are blinking at a 3 -4 second interval it’s a sign of a relaxed and friendly listener. Check out people’s blink rates the next time you are talking. Check out this article for more info Dramatically improve your eye contact skills

2.Palming

This is done to relieve stress around the eyes and as a way to relax your eyes whilst taking a computer break.

Instructions for palming

1. Take a few deep breathes before you begin.

2. Make yourself comfortable whilst leaning forward on a desk or with your elbows resting on your knees. Close your eyes.

3. Place your two hands over your eyes with the cup of your palm covering your eyes, your fingers on your forehead and the heel of your hand will rest on your cheekbone. Make sure you can blink freely and you are not putting too much pressure on your eyes.

That’s it. Palming gives you the opportunity to rest your mind and your eyes for a few minutes at a time. It may not sound much of an exercise but it can make a big difference in your working day if you stop for a few minutes and do this exercise.

3.Figure of eight

This is to exercise your eye muscles and increase their flexibility. This is quite a simple exercise but a good one.

Imagine a giant figure of eight in front of you about 10 feet in front of you. Now turn the 8 on it’s side. Now trace the figure of eight with your eyes, slowly. Do it one way for a few minutes and then do it the other way for a few minutes. It may seem very alien at first but it’s worth persevering with it.

4.Near and far focussing

This is one of my favourite exercises as you can do it almost anywhere, I say almost as I couldn’t imagine doing it on the underground without getting strange looks from those around me.

Instructions for Near and far focussing.

Sit in a comfortable position, or stand, this will only take 2-3 minutes at a time.
Put your thumb about 10 inches in front of you and focus on it.
Now focus on something else about 10 – 20 feet in front of you.
On each deep breath switch between focussing on your thumb and the 10-20 feet object in front of you.
This will strengthen the muscles in your eyes over time and improve your vision overall.

5.Zooming

This is another one of my favourites as it is very easy and quick to do.

Instructions for zooming

Sit in a comfortable position
Stretch out your arm with your thumb in the hitchhike position
Focus on your thumb as your arm is outstretched.
Now bring your thumb closer to you, focussing all the time, until your thumb is about 3 inches in front of your face.
Now move your thumb away again until your arm is fully outstretched.
Do this for a few minutes at a time throughout the day.
This exercise will strengthen your focussing skills and your eye muscles in general.

Good Decisions. Bad Outcomes by Dan ariely

2010-11-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

If you practice kicking a soccer ball with your eyes closed, it takes only a few tries to become quite good at predicting where the ball will end up. But when “random noise” is added to the situation—a dog chases the ball, a stiff breeze blows through, a neighbor passes by and kicks the ball—the results become quite unpredictable.

If you had to evaluate the kicker’s performance, would you punish him for not predicting that Fluffy would run off with the ball? Would you switch kickers in an attempt to find someone better able to predict Fluffy’s involvement?

That would be absurd. And yet it’s exactly how we reward and punish managers. Managers attempt to make sense of the environment and predict what will result from their decisions.

The problem is that there’s plenty of random noise in competitive strategic decisions. Predicting where the ball will go is equivalent to deciding whether to open a chain of seafood restaurants on the Gulf Coast. The dog running off with the ball is the BP oil spill. When the board reviews the manager’s performance, they’ll focus on the failed restaurants. The stock is down. The chain lost money. Since the manager’s compensation is tied to results, he’ll incur financial penalties. To save face and appear to be taking action, the board may even fire him—thus giving up on someone who may be a good manager but had bad luck.

The oil spill example is an extreme case. In the real world, the random noise is often more subtle and various—a hundred little things rather than one big thing. But the effect is the same. Rewarding and penalizing leaders based on outcomes overestimates how much variance people actually control. (This works both ways: Just as good managers can suffer from bad outcomes not of their own making, bad managers can be rewarded for good outcomes that occur in spite of their ineptitude.) In fact, the more unpredictable an environment becomes, the more an outcomes-based approach ends up rewarding or penalizing noise.

In the last year I’ve asked many board members how much of a company’s stock value they think should be attributed to the CEO’s strength, and the answer is surprising. They estimate that you’ll get about 10% more stock value, on average, from a good CEO than from a mediocre one. Implicit in that estimate is the understanding that many outcomes are outside a leader’s control.

We can’t entirely avoid outcome-based decisions. Still, we can reduce our reliance on stochastic outcomes. Here are four ways companies can create more-sound reward systems.

1. Change the mind-set. Publicly recognize that rewarding outcomes is a bad idea, particularly for companies that deal in complex and unpredictable environments.

2. Document crucial assumptions. Analyze a manager’s assumptions at the time when the decision takes place. If they are valid but circumstances change, don’t punish her, but don’t reward her, either.

3. Create a standard for good decision making. Making sound assumptions and being explicit about them should be the basic condition for getting a reward. Good decisions are forward-looking, take available information into account, consider all available options, and do not create conflicts of interests.

4. Reward good decisions at the time they’re made.Reinforce smart habits by breaking the link between rewards and outcomes.

Our focus on outcomes is understandable. When a company loses money, people demand that heads roll, even if the changes are more about assuaging shareholders than sound management. Moreover, measuring outcomes is relatively easy to do; decision-making–based reward systems will be more complex. But as I’ve I said before, “It’s hard” is a terrible reason not to do something. Especially when that something can help reward and retain the people best able to help you grow your business.

The Secret Powers of Time by Professor Philip Zimbardo

2010-11-17T19:07:00.000-08:00

The strange new world of Nanoscience, narrated by Stephen Fry

2010-11-09T20:02:00.000-08:00

To Sleep Less And Dream More by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

2010-10-31T18:25:00.000-07:00

If for a moment God were to forget that I am a rag doll and granted me a piece of life, I probably wouldn't say everything that I think; rather, I would think about everything that I say.
I would value things, not for their worth but for what they mean. I would sleep less, dream more, understanding that for each minute we close our eyes, we lose sixty seconds of light.

I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others sleep, I would listen when others talk.

And how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream!

If God were to give me a piece of life, I would dress simply, throw myself face first into the sun, baring not only my body but also my soul.

My God, if I had a heart, I would write my hate on ice, and wait for the sun to show. Over the stars I would paint with a Van Gogh dream a Benedetti poem, and a Serrat song would be the serenade I'd offer to the moon.

I would water roses with my tears, to feel the pain of their thorns and the red kiss of their petals... My God, if I had a piece of life... I wouldn't let a single day pass without telling the people I love that I love them.

I would convince each woman and each man that they are my favorites, and I would live in love with love.

I would show men how very wrong they are to think that they cease to be in love when they grow old, not knowing that they grow old when they cease to be in love!

To a child I shall give wings, but I shall let him learn to fly on his own. I would teach the old that death does not come with old age, but with forgetting.

So much have I learned from you, oh men ... I have learned that everyone wants to live at the top of the mountain, without knowing that real happiness is in how it is scaled.

I have learned that when a newborn child first squeezes his father's finger in his tiny fist, he has him trapped forever.

I have learned that a man has the right to look down on another only when he has to help the other get to his feet.

From you I have learned so many things, but in truth they won't be of much use, for when I keep them within this suitcase, unhappily shall I be dying

2010-10-30T16:09:00.001-07:00

Via: DegreeSearch.org

Study Finds Adversity Does Make Us Stronger By LAURA LANDRO

2010-10-30T09:46:00.000-07:00

Wall Street Journal -Study Finds Adversity Does Make Us Stronger

By LAURA LANDRO

Friedrich Nietzsche was right—sort of.

The German philosopher's oft-quoted adage,

"What does not destroy me, makes me stronger,"

was put to the test as part of a national study of the effects of adverse life events on mental health by researchers at the University at Buffalo-the State University of New York and the University of California, Irvine.

The study, published in the latest issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, found that people who had experienced a few adverse events in their lives reported better mental health and well being than people with a history of frequent adversity and people with no history of misfortune.

The study, which included 2,398 participants ranging in age from 18 to 101, is part of a larger research effort started after Sept. 11, 2001 to test the notion of resilience—how successfully people adapt after exposure to stressful or potentially traumatic life events or circumstances.

In studies of human resilience over the last three decades, particular adverse events, including physical or sexual assault, the loss of a parent, homelessness and natural disasters, have generally been linked to poorer mental-health outcomes. Studies of people who suffer disability or unemployment have shown lower life satisfaction that lasted over at least several years. And more adversity has generally predicted worse outcomes.

But Mark Seery, a researcher at the Department of Psychology at the University at Buffalo who co-authored the new study, says many studies have focused on personal characteristics or social resources that promote resilience. But the potential benefits of exposure to some adversity, relative to no adversity, have received less attention, he says.

Dr. Seery says his study shows that, under the right conditions, experiencing some adversity may foster resilience. Participants were asked whether they had experienced each of 37 negative events and the ages at which they occurred. Subjects with a history of some lifetime adversity showed lower distress, fewer symptoms of post-traumatic stress, and higher life satisfaction. They also appeared to handle recent adverse events better than other participants. Dr. Seery says age, personality characteristics and social support systems had no measurable impact on the relationship between adversity and mental health.

"So much of the existing literature shows that having experience with a negative life event is bad, with negative effects on mental and physical health," says Dr. Seery. "But we've found that that is not the whole story, and that people are more resilient in general than we may think."

Adversity, Dr. Seery adds, can help people develop a "psychological immune system" to help them cope with the slings and arrows that life throws, while those with no experience of adversity may have a hard time dealing with tough times.

At the same time, higher levels of adversity, the study found, can overtax coping skills and support networks, creating feelings of hopelessness and loss of control, disrupting the development of toughness and taking a toll on mental health and well-being. Under those circumstances, Dr. Seery says, even the most minor hassles can seem overwhelming.

Dr. Seery says people who have experienced around two to four adverse events in their lifetimes appeared to be the best off. Recent events—within the last six to 18 months—signaled worse mental health on the whole, suggesting that it may take time for an experience of adversity to bolster resilience.

Ann Masten, an expert in resilience in young people at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, says that even if people are capable of adapting to adversity, it is still important to have community and social networks in place to help people deal with the aftermath of adverse events. "We do have enormous capacity for resilience, but that doesn't mean horrible experiences are good for you," says Dr. Masten. "We need to have a better understanding of how protective systems work and how to mobilize them when they aren't present."

About 53% of the adversity-study participants were female, and nearly 74% identified themselves as white, non-Hispanic.

2010-10-29T15:14:00.001-07:00

Via: creditscore.net

Stormy road.. Yucatan Peninsula

2010-10-29T09:57:00.000-07:00

The Strangest Secret Earl Nightingale Conant 1950

2010-10-27T08:20:00.000-07:00

Life is a matter of choice...

2010-10-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

120 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power

2010-10-23T18:28:00.000-07:00

120 Ways to Boost Your Brain Power

Boost your Brain Power

Here are 120 things you can do starting today to help you think faster, improve memory, comprehend information better and unleash your brain’s full potential.

1. Solve puzzles and brainteasers.
2. Cultivate ambidexterity. Use your non-dominant hand to brush your teeth, comb your hair or use the mouse. Write with both hands simultaneously. Switch hands for knife and fork.
3. Embrace ambiguity. Learn to enjoy things like paradoxes and optical illusions.
4. Learn mind mapping.
5. Block one or more senses. Eat blindfolded, wear earplugs, shower with your eyes closed.
6. Develop comparative tasting. Learn to properly taste wine, chocolate, beer, cheese or anything else.
7. Find intersections between seemingly unrelated topics.
8. Learn to use different keyboard layouts. Try Colemak or Dvorak for a full mind twist!
9. Find novel uses for common objects. How many different uses can you find for a nail? 10? 100?
10. Reverse your assumptions.
11. Learn creativity techniques.
12. Go beyond the first, ‘right’ answer.
13. Transpose reality. Ask “What if?” questions.
14. SCAMPER!
15. Turn pictures or the desktop wallpaper upside down.
16. Become a critical thinker. Learn to spot common fallacies.
17. Learn logic. Solve logic puzzles.
18. Get familiar with the scientific method.
19. Draw. Doodle. You don’t need to be an artist.
20. Think positive.
21. Engage in arts — sculpt, paint, play music — or any other artistic endeavor.
22. Learn to juggle.
23. Eat ‘brain foods’.
24. Be slightly hungry.
25. Exercise!
26. Sit up straight.
27. Drink lots of water.
28. Deep-breathe.
29. Laugh!
30. Vary activities. Get a hobby.
31. Sleep well.
32. Power nap.
33. Listen to music.
34. Conquer procrastination.
35. Go technology-less.
36. Look for brain resources in the web.
37. Change clothes. Go barefoot.
38. Master self-talk.
39. Simplify!
40. Play chess or other board games. Play via Internet (particularly interesting is to play an ongoing game by e-mail).
41. Play ‘brain’ games. Sudoku, crossword puzzles or countless others.
42. Be childish!
43. Play video games.
44. Be humorous! Write or create a joke.
45. Create a List of 100.
46. Have an Idea Quota.
47. Capture every idea. Keep an idea bank.
48. Incubate ideas. Let ideas percolate. Return to them at regular intervals.
49. Engage in ‘theme observation’. Try to spot the color red as many times as possible in a day. Find cars of a particular make. Invent a theme and focus on it.
50. Keep a journal.
51. Learn a foreign language.
52. Eat at different restaurants – ethnic restaurants specially.
53. Learn how to program a computer.
54. Spell long words backwards. !gnignellahC
55. Change your environment. Change the placement of objects or furniture — or go somewhere else.
56. Write! Write a story, poetry, start a blog.
57. Learn sign language.
58. Learn a musical instrument.
59. Visit a museum.
60. Study how the brain works.
61. Learn to speed-read.
62. Find out your learning style.
63. Dump the calendar!
64. Try to mentally estimate the passage of time.
65. “Guesstimate”. Are there more leaves in the Amazon rainforest or neuron connections in your brain? (answer).
66. Make friends with math. Fight ‘innumeracy’.
67. Build a Memory Palace.
68. Learn a peg system for memory.
69. Have sex! (sorry, no links for this one! :) )
70. Memorize people’s names.
71. Meditate. Cultivate mindfulness and an empty mind.
72. Watch movies from different genres.
73. Turn off the TV.
74. Improve your concentration.
75. Get in touch with nature.
76. Do mental math.
77. Have a half-speed day.
78. Change the speed of certain activities. Go either super-slow or super-fast deliberately.
79. Do one thing at a time.
80. Be aware of cognitive biases.
81. Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. How would different people think or solve your problems? How would a fool tackle it?
82. Adopt an attitude of contemplation.
83. Take time for solitude and relaxation.
84. Commit yourself to lifelong learning.
85. Travel abroad. Learn about different lifestyles.
86. Adopt a genius. (Leonardo is excellent company!)
87. Have a network of supportive friends.
88. Get competitive.
89. Don’t stick with only like-minded people. Have people around that disagree with you.
90. Brainstorm!
91. Change your perspective. Short/long-term, individual/collective.
92. Go to the root of the problems.
93. Collect quotes.
94. Change the media you’re working on. Use paper instead of the computer; voice recording instead of writing.
95. Read the classics.
96. Develop your reading skill. Reading effectively is a skill. Master it.
97. Summarize books.
98. Develop self-awareness.
99. Say your problems out loud.
100. Describe one experience in painstaking detail.
101. Learn Braille. You can start learning the floor numbers while going up or down the elevator.
102. Buy a piece of art that disturbs you. Stimulate your senses in thought-provoking ways.
103. Try different perfumes and scents.
104. Mix your senses. How much does the color pink weigh? How does lavender scent sound?
105. Debate! Defend an argument. Try taking the opposite side, too.
106. Use time boxing.
107. Allocate time for brain development.
108. Have your own mental sanctuary.
109. Be curious!
110. Challenge yourself.
111. Develop your visualization skills. Use it at least 5 minutes a day.
112. Take notes of your dreams. Keep a notebook by your bedside and record your dreams first thing in the morning or as you wake up from them.
113. Learn to lucid dream.
114. Keep a lexicon of interesting words. Invent your own words.
115. Find metaphors. Connect abstract and specific concepts.
116. Manage stress.
117. Get random input. Write about a random word in a magazine. Read random sites using StumbleUpon or Wikipedia.
118. Take different routes each day. Change the streets you follow to work, jog or go back home.
119. Install a different operating system on your computer.
120. Improve your vocabulary.
121. Deliver more than what’s expected.

2010-10-21T18:38:00.001-07:00

Social Selling Software - InsideView.com

Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living

2010-10-17T20:54:00.000-07:00

Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living

At the start of the new millennium the Dalai Lama apparently issued eighteen rules for living. Since word travels slowly in the digital age these have only just reached me. Here they are.

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
1. Respect for self
2. Respect for others
3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

OwenKelly blog

Hamburgers America's Favorite Food

2010-10-13T21:39:00.000-07:00

www.mint.com

Eleitor num boteco do Leblon by João Ubaldo Ribeiro

2010-10-13T08:04:00.001-07:00

Eleitor num boteco do Leblon
João Ubaldo Ribeiro
O Estado de S.Paulo

-Cara, eu vou te contar, parece perseguição, caso pensado do destino contra mim.

- É verdade, o Flamengo...

- Dispenso insinuações. Se é para desacatar, pode dizer, que eu mudo de mesa, não tem nada a ver com o Flamengo.

- Que é que foi então, a Martinha casou de novo, você está de genro novo outra vez?

- Não, quanto a isso tudo bem. Ela casa de seis em seis meses, eu já acostumei, já tenho até uma rotina de conhecer genro novo que eu sigo automaticamente, só misturo os nomes de vez em quando, mas ela também mistura, ninguém liga, eles são modernos. Sem problema, nessa área eu não tenho mais problema, é coisa do passado. Não, cara, é esse segundo turno, esse segundo turno não tinha nada que pintar, cortou a minha legal mesmo. Não digo que seja um grande problema, mas é mais uma frustraçãozinha, eu já tinha entrado em outra e agora vou ter de adiar até o segundo turno. Eu queria já estar comemorando hoje, mas vou ter que esperar até o dia 31.

- Não, vai esperar até 1.º de novembro. A eleição é que é no dia 31, o resultado só deve sair em 1.º de novembro.

- Mas eu não queria comemorar resultado nenhum, não estou falando em resultado. Por mim, pode dar o resultado que der, é tudo mera formalidade, as tetas continuam as mesmas, só substituíram algumas bocas. Não comemoro resultado nenhum, eles que comemorem, chega de ser otário. Eles é que entram no bem-bom e eu é que vou ficar aqui feito um bobo alegre, comemorando? Não é nada disso, é que eu já tinha me programado todo para esse momento. Minha última eleição, a última vez em que eu tenho de passar por isso.

- Também não é tão dramático assim, votar hoje em dia é muito fácil, ninguém demora muito.

- Você não está sacando nada, a questão não é essa. É a humilhação, eu não quero é sofrer a humilhação outra vez.

- Você vai me desculpar, mas então não saquei mesmo. Eu não vejo humilhação nenhuma nas eleições.

- É uma questão de sensibilidade. Você não tem a mesma sensibilidade que eu, eu sou um cara muito sensível e meu pai sempre incutiu nos filhos o senso do ridículo, o velho sempre passou para nós um grande senso de ridículo. E talvez você nunca tenha parado para pensar. Acho que meu problema é esse, eu paro muito para pensar e também tenho muito senso de ridículo. Na última eleição, não sei se lhe contei, eu tive uma crise de riso na frente da urna que os mesários quase chamam uma ambulância, grande mico. Na hora eu ri, mas a lembrança é muito desagradável. No fim do ano eu emplaco setentinha, quer dizer, era votar agora e nunca mais. Aí vem esse segundo turno adiar minha festa e renovar a humilhação.

- Eu ainda não entendi que humilhação é essa.

- É uma questão de sensibilidade mesmo. A você pode não afetar, a mim afeta muito. Em primeiro lugar, eleição é somente para carimbar o visto para eles se locupletarem nossa custa, não importa que papo mandem para cima da gente, tem que prestar atenção no que eles fazem, não no que eles dizem.

- Está certo que muitos deles sejam assim, mas não todos. Ainda há uns caras sérios por aí.

- Quem, os da esquerda?

- Não necessariamente, não é isso que eu quero dizer.

- Eu explico a diferença entre a esquerda e a direita. A turma da esquerda mete a mão esquerda no pirão, a da direita mete a mão direita e a do centro deve meter as duas, ou então o bocão logo direto. A função do eleitor é somente carimbar a autorização. E o comparecimento é obrigatório, tem que tomar parte na presepada, mesmo que não queira. Nem a liberdade de se recusar a fazer papel de besta o sujeito tem, é muita humilhação.

- Não concordo, você está sendo radical.

- Para que serve o título de eleitor? Você tem que ter o título, tem que mostrar nas repartições que nem o CPF. É para isso que o título serve, para mostrar que você tem título. Você parou para pensar nisso direito, não é humilhação? Os caras te obrigam a entrar numa fila e encarar burocracia para tirar um documento cuja única finalidade é mostrar que você tem esse documento. É como ganhar um diploma de diplomado. Atenção, cidadão, o título de eleitor é um elemento importante de sua cidadania e será exigido para tudo, só não será aceito para votar. Para votar, será aceito qualquer documento, menos o título de eleitor, e você acha que não estão curtindo com a cara da gente?

- Realmente acabou dando nessa confusão, mas é uma coisa que pode ser corrigida, é um pormenor sem importância. Claro que não vai ficar assim, eu tenho certeza de que vão consertar isso, devem bolar um título novo, com a fotografia do eleitor.

- Ah, devem. Vão fazer até melhor, eles não vão deixar passar essa. Vai sair um kit-eleitor, com um exemplar da Constituição, um CD com os hinos brasileiros e o título de eleitor, tudo obrigatoriamente comprado na mão de um único fornecedor. E, enquanto isso, o que eu faço com o título velho?

- Bem, há uma boa resposta para isso.

- Eu sei. E deve ser isso mesmo que eles estão querendo nos dizer, eles humilham.

The Cost of Calories

2010-10-10T18:46:00.000-07:00

Via: WeightLoss.org

Martial Art- Japan kyudo archery

2010-10-10T18:17:00.000-07:00

- Japan kyudo archery
Cargado por okculuksporu. - Videos de deportes, baloncesto, béisbol, wrestling y lucha libre.

10 lessons of a web start up by Evan Williams.

2010-10-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

10 lessons of a web start up

Evan Williams

#1: Be Narrow Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do. Small things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you think when you zoom in. You can much more easily position and market yourself when more focused. And when it comes to partnering, or being acquired, there's less chance for conflict. This is all so logical and, yet, there's a resistance to focusing. I think it comes from a fear of being trivial. Just remember: If you get to be #1 in your category, but your category is too small, then you can broaden your scope—and you can do so with leverage.  

#2: Be Different Ideas are in the air. There are lots of people thinking about—and probably working on—the same thing you are. And one of them is Google. Deal with it. How? First of all, realize that no sufficiently interesting space will be limited to one player. In a sense, competition actually is good—especially to legitimize new markets. Second, see #1—the specialist will almost always kick the generalist's ass. Third, consider doing something that's not so cutting edge. Many highly successful companies—the aforementioned big G being one—have thrived by taking on areas that everyone thought were done and redoing them right. Also? Get a good, non-generic name. Easier said than done, granted. But the most common mistake in naming is trying to be too descriptive, which leads to lots of hard-to-distinguish names. How many blogging companies have "blog" in their name, RSS companies "feed," or podcasting companies "pod" or "cast"? Rarely are they the ones that stand out.  

#3: Be Casual We're moving into what I call the era of the "Casual Web" (and casual content creation). This is much bigger than the hobbyist web or the professional web. Why? Because people have lives. And now, people with lives also have broadband. If you want to hit the really big home runs, create services that fit in with—and, indeed, help—people's everyday lives without requiring lots of commitment or identity change. Flickr enables personal publishing among millions of folks who would never consider themselves personal publishers—they're just sharing pictures with friends and family, a casual activity. Casual games are huge. Skype enables casual conversations.  

#4: Be Picky Another perennial business rule, and it applies to everything you do: features, employees, investors, partners, press opportunities. Startups are often too eager to accept people or ideas into their world. You can almost always afford to wait if something doesn't feel just right, and false negatives are usually better than false positives. One of Google's biggest strengths—and sources of frustration for outsiders—was their willingness to say no to opportunities, easy money, potential employees, and deals.  

#5: Be User-Centric User experience is everything. It always has been, but it's still undervalued and under-invested in. If you don't know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board. Better to iterate a hundred times to get the right feature right than to add a hundred more. The point of Ajax is that it can make a site more responsive, not that it's sexy. Tags can make things easier to find and classify, but maybe not in your application. The point of an API is so developers can add value for users, not to impress the geeks. Don't get sidetracked by technologies or the blog-worthiness of your next feature. Always focus on the user and all will be well.  

#6: Be Self-Centered Great products almost always come from someone scratching their own itch. Create something you want to exist in the world. Be a user of your own product. Hire people who are users of your product. Make it better based on your own desires. (But don't trick yourself into thinking you are your user, when it comes to usability.) Another aspect of this is to not get seduced into doing deals with big companies at the expense or your users or at the expense of making your product better. When you're small and they're big, it's hard to say no, but see #4.  

#7: Be Greedy It's always good to have options. One of the best ways to do that is to have income. While it's true that traffic is now again actually worth something, the give-everything-away-and-make-it-up-on-volume strategy stamps an expiration date on your company's ass. In other words, design something to charge for into your product and start taking money within 6 months (and do it with PayPal). Done right, charging money can actually accelerate growth, not impede it, because then you have something to fuel marketing costs with. More importantly, having money coming in the door puts you in a much more powerful position when it comes to your next round of funding or acquisition talks. In fact, consider whether you need to have a free version at all. The TypePad approach—taking the high-end position in the market—makes for a great business model in the right market. Less support. Less scalability concerns. Less abuse. And much higher margins.  

#8: Be Tiny It's standard web startup wisdom by now that with the substantially lower costs to starting something on the web, the difficulty of IPOs, and the willingness of the big guys to shell out for small teams doing innovative stuff, the most likely end game if you're successful is acquisition. Acquisitions are much easier if they're small. And small acquisitions are possible if valuations are kept low from the get go. And keeping valuations low is possible because it doesn't cost much to start something anymore (especially if you keep the scope narrow). Besides the obvious techniques, one way to do this is to use turnkey services to lower your overhead—Administaff, ServerBeach, web apps, maybe even Elance.  

#9: Be Agile You know that old saw about a plane flying from California to Hawaii being off course 99% of the time—but constantly correcting? The same is true of successful startups—except they may start out heading toward Alaska. Many dot-com bubble companies that died could have eventually been successful had they been able to adjust and change their plans instead of running as fast as they could until they burned out, based on their initial assumptions. Pyra was started to build a project-management app, not Blogger. Flickr's company was building a game. Ebay was going to sell auction software. Initial assumptions are almost always wrong. That's why the waterfall approach to building software is obsolete in favor agile techniques. The same philosophy should be applied to building a company.  

#10: Be Balanced What is a startup without bleary-eyed, junk-food-fueled, balls-to-the-wall days and sleepless, caffeine-fueled, relationship-stressing nights? Answer?: A lot more enjoyable place to work. Yes, high levels of commitment are crucial. And yes, crunch times come and sometimes require an inordinate, painful, apologies-to-the-SO amount of work. But it can't be all the time. Nature requires balance for health—as do the bodies and minds who work for you and, without which, your company will be worthless. There is no better way to maintain balance and lower your stress that I've found than David Allen's GTD process. Learn it. Live it. Make it a part of your company, and you'll have a secret weapon.  

#11 (bonus!): Be Wary Overgeneralized lists of business "rules" are not to be taken too literally. There are exceptions to everything.

For anyone under 50 reading this, I have some good news for you. 50 is pretty darned good!

2010-10-07T18:25:00.000-07:00

25 Lessons I’ve Learned In 50 Years

1. 50 doesn’t feel like 50. It doesn’t feel like the age you imagined when you are in your 20’s or 30’s. For the most part, it feels the way you feel right now. But smarter and more confident. You also have more time and resources to enjoy life. So don’t fear it. Look forward to it.
2. Experience life before you settle down. Whatever it is you want to do or experience, do as much of it as you can before you have children. Especially travel. Live in a hovel and drive a beat-up Dodge Dart if you have to. But go have some really great, amazing, mind-blowing experiences.
3. Money and stuff are not all that important. Yes, you want enough to be comfortable and do the things you want to do. But accumulating for the sake of accumulating is so boring and empty. Feed the soul, not the ego.
4. Don’t try to impress people. That’s an act that brings nothing but a momentary ego boost. Be real with people instead. Connect with fewer people on a level that is deeper and more profound.
5. Let your kids fail. Your kids will be okay, even if you think they are headed for the juvie right now. Don’t come to their rescue all the time. Don’t manage every detail of their lives or over-schedule them with tao quan dao or viola lessons. Give them some boundaries, and then relax about them.
6. Bad things will happen. Part of living and getting older is experiencing upheavals in life. People lose jobs, get divorced, die. When you are younger, and things have gone pretty well, this can be shocking. The bad things won’t kill you. You will learn from them if you allow it.
7. Not much is worth fighting about. If you can avoid it, don’t fight. Step back from arguments with your spouse or family member or neighbor. When you feel anger surging up and you want to say that snarky thing on the tip of your tongue, just close your mouth and walk away. Let yourself calm down. You don’t have to be right or win the argument. It just doesn’t matter that much.
8. Little things stick with you. So pay attention to them. Like watching your child sleep. Preparing a meal with your family. Sharing a great laugh with an old friend. That is the real stuff life is made of.
9. Keep having fun. Fun is way underrated. With all of our responsibilities, fun seems like an indulgence. It shouldn’t be. It should be a requirement. Remember what you did to have fun when you were younger, and go do it again. Leave the house messy and the yard un-mowed for the weekend. You will remember the fun, not the clean house or yard. Make time for fun.
10. Make things simpler. Pick the five most important things in your life now, and focus on those things. Let the other stuff go. Let go of the activities, the events, the commitments, the shopping, the to-do lists. Stop the busyness and really enjoy the important things you have right now.
11. Keep your brain active. Don’t get into a mental rut. Do new things, learn new things, explore new ideas in all areas of your life. Keep challenging yourself and your mind. Be curious and interested in the world around you.
12. Hang out with younger people. Stay connected with what the generation behind you is doing and thinking. Establish friendships with them. You will benefit and learn from each other. Don’t act superior, because younger people may know a whole lot more than you do!
13. Keep exercising and eating healthy. You know this, but I’ll remind you anyway. The older you get, the more important a healthy lifestyle is. In my 20’s, I could shovel down a Wendy’s hamburger and fries every day and never see the difference. Now I just look at a hamburger and my butt gets bigger.
14. Manage aging, but why fight it? You can spend a fortune on face creams, plastic surgery, hair growth formulas, and botox, but eventually you realize you are fighting an uphill battle. Groom yourself nicely. Stay fit. Have unsightly things removed. But accept the beauty of aging. A striking mature man or woman is much more attractive than someone who looks overly taunt, tanned or top-heavy.
15. Everyone doesn’t have to like you and vice versa. One of my friends likes to say, “She’s not in my cluster.” Sometimes there are people in your life who are just not the right fit or who drain you dry. It is fine to back off from them or even let them go.
16. Marriages evolve and change. The feelings you had for the man or woman you married will mutate and evolve several times over the life of a marriage. Hopefully you will evolve in the same direction or at least embrace and accept the changes in the other person. It takes work, and sometimes it takes counseling. Don’t gloss over those changes or you may wake up next to a stranger one day.
17. Yes, you can still have great sex. When I was in my 20’s, I thought you stopped doing it when you were in your early 40’s. I assumed middle aged people would no longer want to disrobe in front of each other. I’m happy to inform you that this is not the case.
18. Tend to your friendships. Especially your oldest friendships. These are the people who know and love you best, in spite of your flaws. Treat them like the precious gems they are.
19. Stop worrying. Worry does absolutely nothing productive. In fact, it is counterproductive. The more you worry, the more you reinforce the problem or concern in your brain.
20. Everything is not always black or white. Life is often very ambiguous. Sometimes there isn’t a right or wrong decision or choice. Things are not always completely clear. You may not get THE answer, so you just have to wing it.
21. Take action on your dreams. If you’ve been putting things off — a new career, more education, the big trip — start taking action right now to make it happen. Don’t dream about it anymore. Start doing it.
22. Don’t dwell on your wounds. Everyone has something that has caused pain and has been limiting them in some way. If you need help to deal with it, then get it right away. Don’t let the past limit your future.
23. Embrace change. As uncomfortable as it is sometimes, change allows us to stretch and grow. New things feel awkward and scary at first, but those feelings go away, and you are left with something bigger and bolder in your life.
24. Be vulnerable. Allow yourself to feel, to be open and authentic. Tear down any emotional brick walls you have built around yourself and feel every exquisite emotion, both good and bad. This is real life. This is how you welcome new opportunities.
25. Count your blessings every day. I know, this is a refrigerator magnet line, but practice it daily anyway. There is so much good, so much beauty, so much love in your life. What more do you really need? You have so much right now, you just need to pause long enough to appreciate it.

Law of Diminishing Returns by Celes

2010-10-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

Law of Diminishing Returns

Wikepedia Law of Diminishing Return

When I studied economics in junior college, I learned about the law of diminishing returns, referring to a phenomenon encountered in labor and production. If you studied economics before, that wouldn’t be new to you.

Let’s say you have a plot of land growing maize. You want to use fertilizer to get the maximum yield (other conditions such as sunlight, water and oxygen are already in place). Fertilizer is the input, and yield is the return. However to do that, you need to understand two principles:

(1) Every additional unit of fertilizer generates a different increase in yield. The first few units probably gives a burst in yield compared to without fertilizer. After that, adding more fertilizer will still give more yield, but at a decreasing rate.

(2) There is an optimal point where adding X amount of fertilizer which will give you maximum yield. This is known as the point of diminishing returns. Any additional fertilizer beyond that will lead to a smaller increase in yield which does not justify the cost of buying more fertilizer. This is where the law of diminishing returns kicked in. The law refers to how every additional unit of input you put in leads to lesser and lesser additional output.

law-of-diminishing-returns

(3) If you continue to keep adding beyond that the point of diminishing returns, you will reach a stage where not only does your output not increase, your overall output decreases! In the case of the fertilizers, your overall yield will decrease because your crops get damaged or even killed.

Here’s another example – If you run a big restaurant and only have a cook, you are only going to get Y amount of cooked meals. Adding more cooks will definitely result in higher supply of cooked meals – initially. After that, you will reach a point where your additional output per new cook decreases instead even though the new cooks you are hiring have the exact same level of expertise as the existing ones. That’s because there is a limited number of kitchen supplies (pots, pans, stove, etc) which they can use.

If you continue to keep hiring beyond that point, you will hit a stage where overall output decreases with every new cook! That’s because everyone is going to start jostling and competing for kitchen supplies inside the kitchen, which results in a chaotic situation and affects the work of existing cooks. Cooking will less effective than if there are lesser cooks. This is also what they mean when they say ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’. ;)
Law of Diminishing Returns in Our Life

So how does this apply to the domain of personal growth? Everywhere! :D If you look closely, you can see this law in effect in different areas, probably more than you are normally aware of:

* Learning curve: After working at a new workplace for a period of time, your learning curve starts to slow down
* Daily work: After spending X amount of time at a certain task, your level of output decreases
* Recreation: After playing games/watching shows/engaging in your hobby for X number of hours, your enjoyment level decreases
* Sleep: After sleeping for X amount of hours, the amount you get rejuvenated by becomes smaller
* Exercise: After exercising for X amount of time, the amount of exercise you can do becomes lesser
* Friends: After spending X amount of time with your friends consecutively, your additional utility you get from hanging out decreases
* Eating: After eating X amount of food, your satisfaction of the additional food becomes lesser
* And many, many more

The ability to recognize the point of diminishing returns and cut off further activity from that point onwards can result in a huge benefits. These benefits can manifest in the form of increased productivity, fulfillment, happiness and vitality, depending on what area you are using it in.

If you are not conscious of the point of diminishing returns, you will fall into the trap of investing more input then your return is worth. That results in ineffective usage of your energy. This is something neurotic perfectionists are often guilty of. They keep hammering at a task, refusing to let go of it even till the last minute, because they want to beat them into perfection. In trying to fulfill their satisfaction of having a ‘perfect’ or near perfect outcome, they jeopardize the bigger picture. The effort they invested in trying to get the last few nuggets of output in place could have been more effectively spent in generating a lot more output in tasks. This is why quitting to win is so important.

The law of diminishing returns is related to the 80-20 rule. With 80-20 rule, 20% of your effort usually leads to 80% of output. The law of diminishing returns kicks in beyond the 20th percentile. With every additional unit of effort after the 20th percentile (this figure is dependent on the situation nature), the amount of output you get in return is minimal.

How do you find the point of diminishing returns then? It’s easy when the task is something quantifiable (such as with money, weight loss, time, etc). However, it gets tricky if you are involving intangibles, such as amount of happiness, fulfillment, quality of written work, and so on.

There isn’t a hard and fast rule to identify this. Obviously, if there is a radar that goes off whenever we hit the point of diminishing returns, that’ll make things a lot simpler ;) My advice is to use your gut feeling. Get a good sense of when you think you are not getting your worth of returns for the effort you are putting in. The best way to develop your gut is (1) keep building up your experience (2) constantly evaluate and exercise your gut every step of the way.

The point of diminishing returns doesn’t remain there forever. With increased skill level through leveling up, it takes more input for you to hit the point where you are getting negative output. When I initially started off writing posts at my blog in Dec ’08, the quality of the writing started to decrease in the 3rd hour of writing or so. After 6 months of experience in writing, I can maintain the same quality of output even beyond the 4th hour. The point of diminishing returns has moved outwards since I’m now a more seasoned writer and I’m becoming more and more connected with my inner muse.
Be aware of diminishing returns in your life

Are there any areas in your life where the law of diminishing returns is in action? Here are some examples:

* Career:
o Are the additional hours you are spending at work justified with the additional work you finish?
o Are you past the point where you can learn and grow in your current role? Is it time to request promotion/advancement?
o Have you lost the passion for your work? Is it time to pursue something else you enjoy more?
* Relationships:
o Are you trying to keep up with so many friends that you are losing balance in your other priorities?
o Are you spending so much of your time with your partner that it has become an act of habit which does not result in increased fulfillment?
* Daily life:
o Are you sleeping more than necessary to become well-rested?
o Are you watching TV/playing games/engaging in recreation beyond what you really enjoy?
o Are you spending more time on facebook/twitter/social networking sites/forums than is necessary?

Exercise your gut and become conscious of the diminishing point. This will be an extremely important skill to use as you optimize your days and maximize not just your productivity, but also your happiness level.

Einstein’s Secret to Amazing Problem Solving (and 10 Specific Ways You Can Use It)

2010-10-06T19:39:00.000-07:00

Einstein’s Secret to Amazing Problem Solving (and 10 Specific Ways You Can Use It)

Einstein's Secret to Jaw-Dropping Problem Solving

Einstein is quoted as having said that if he had one hour to save the world he would spend fifty-five minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution.

This quote does illustrate an important point: before jumping right into solving a problem, we should step back and invest time and effort to improve our understanding of it. Here are 10 strategies you can use to see problems from many different perspectives and master what is the most important step in problem solving: clearly defining the problem in the first place!
The Problem Is To Know What the Problem Is

The definition of the problem will be the focal point of all your problem-solving efforts. As such, it makes sense to devote as much attention and dedication to problem definition as possible. What usually happens is that as soon as we have a problem to work on we’re so eager to get to solutions that we neglect spending any time refining it.

What most of us don’t realize — and what supposedly Einstein might have been alluding to — is that the quality of the solutions we come up with will be in direct proportion to the quality of the description of the problem we’re trying to solve. Not only will your solutions be more abundant and of higher quality, but they’ll be achieved much, much more easily. Most importantly, you’ll have the confidence to be tackling a worthwhile problem.
Problem Definition Tools and Strategies

The good news is that getting different perspectives and angles in order to clearly define a problem is a skill that can be learned and developed. As such, there are many strategies you can use to perfect it. Here are the 10 most effective ones I know.
1. Rephrase the Problem

When a Toyota executive asked employees to brainstorm “ways to increase their productivity”, all he got back were blank stares. When he rephrased his request as “ways to make their jobs easier”, he could barely keep up with the amount of suggestions.

Words carry strong implicit meaning and, as such, play a major role in how we perceive a problem. In the example above, ‘be productive’ might seem like a sacrifice you’re doing for the company, while ‘make your job easier’ may be more like something you’re doing for your own benefit, but from which the company also benefits. In the end, the problem is still the same, but the feelings — and the points of view — associated with each of them are vastly different.

Play freely with the problem statement, rewording it several times. For a methodic approach, take single words and substitute variations. ‘Increase sales’? Try replacing ‘increase’ with ‘attract’, ‘develop’, ‘extend’, ‘repeat’ and see how your perception of the problem changes. A rich vocabulary plays an important role here, so you may want to use a thesaurus or develop your vocabulary.
2. Expose and Challenge Assumptions

Every problem — no matter how apparently simple it may be — comes with a long list of assumptions attached. Many of these assumptions may be inaccurate and could make your problem statement inadequate or even misguided.

The first step to get rid of bad assumptions is to make them explicit. Write a list and expose as many assumptions as you can — especially those that may seem the most obvious and ‘untouchable’.

That, in itself, brings more clarity to the problem at hand. But go further and test each assumption for validity: think in ways that they might not be valid and their consequences. What you will find may surprise you: that many of those bad assumptions are self-imposed — with just a bit of scrutiny you are able to safely drop them.

For example, suppose you’re about to enter the restaurant business. One of your assumptions might be ‘restaurants have a menu’. While such an assumption may seem true at first, try challenging it and maybe you’ll find some very interesting business models (such as one restaurant in which customers bring dish ideas for the chef to cook, for example).
3. Chunk Up

Each problem is a small piece of a greater problem. In the same way that you can explore a problem laterally — such as by playing with words or challenging assumptions — you can also explore it at different “altitudes”.

If you feel you’re overwhelmed with details or looking at a problem too narrowly, look at it from a more general perspective. In order to make your problem more general, ask questions such as: “What’s this a part of?”, “What’s this an example of?” or “What’s the intention behind this?”.

For a detailed explanation of how this principle works, check the article Boost Your Brainstorm Effectiveness with the Why Habit.

Another approach that helps a lot in getting a more general view of a problem is replacing words in the problem statement with hypernyms. Hypernyms are words that have a broader meaning than the given word. (For example, a hypernym of ‘car’ is ‘vehicle’). A great, free tool for finding hypernyms for a given word is WordNet (just search for a word and click on the ‘S:’ label before the word definitions).
4. Chunk Down

If each problem is part of a greater problem, it also means that each problem is composed of many smaller problems. It turns out that decomposing a problem in many smaller problems — each of them more specific than the original — can also provide greater insights about it.

‘Chunking the problem down’ (making it more specific) is especially useful if you find the problem overwhelming or daunting.

Some of the typical questions you can ask to make a problem more specific are: “What are parts of this?” or “What are examples of this?”.

Just as in ‘chunking up’, word substitution can also come to great use here. The class of words that are useful here are hyponyms: words that are stricter in meaning than the given one. (E.g. two hyponyms of ‘car’ are ‘minivan’ and ‘limousine’). WordNet can also help you finding hyponyms.
5. Find Multiple Perspectives

Before rushing to solve a problem, always make sure you look at it from different perspectives. Looking at it with different eyes is a great way to have instant insight on new, overlooked directions.

For example, if you own a business and are trying to ‘increase sales’, try to view this problem from the point of view of, say, a customer. For example, from the customer’s viewpoint, this may be a matter of adding features to your product that one would be willing to pay more for.

Rewrite your problem statement many times, each time using one of these different perspectives. How would your competition see this problem? Your employees? Your mom?

Also, imagine how people in various roles would frame the problem. How would a politician see it? A college professor? A nun? Try to find the differences and similarities on how the different roles would deal with your problem.
6. Use Effective Language Constructs

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all formula for properly crafting the perfect problem statement, but there are some language constructs that always help making it more effective:

* Assume a myriad of solutions. An excellent way to start a problem statement is: “In what ways might I…”. This expression is much superior to “How can I…” as it hints that there’s a multitude of solutions, and not just one — or maybe none. As simple as this sounds, the feeling of expectancy helps your brain find solutions.
* Make it positive. Negative sentences require a lot more cognitive power to process and may slow you down — or even derail your train of thought. Positive statements also help you find the real goal behind the problem and, as such, are much more motivating.
For example: instead of finding ways to ‘quit smoking’, you may find that ‘increase your energy’, ‘live longer’ and others are much more worthwhile goals.
* Frame your problem in the form of a question. Our brain loves questions. If the question is powerful and engaging, our brains will do everything within their reach to answer it. We just can’t help it: Our brains will start working on the problem immediately and keep working in the background, even when we’re not aware of it.
* If you’re still stuck, consider using the following formula for phrasing your problem statement:
“In what ways (action) (object) (qualifier) (end result)?”
Example: In what ways might I package (action) my book (object) more attractively (qualifier) so people will buy more of it (end result)?

7. Make It Engaging

In addition to using effective language constructs, it’s important to come up with a problem statement that truly excites you so you’re in the best frame of mind for creatively tackling the problem. If the problem looks too dull for you, invest the time adding vigor to it while still keeping it genuine. Make it enticing. Your brain will thank (and reward) you later.

One thing is to ‘increase sales’ (boring), another one is ‘wow your customers’. One thing is ‘to create a personal development blog’, another completely different is to ‘empower readers to live fully’.
8. Reverse the Problem

One trick that usually helps when you’re stuck with a problem is turning it on its head.

If you want to win, find out what would make you lose. If you are struggling finding ways to ‘increase sales’, find ways to decrease them instead. Then, all you need to do is reverse your answers. ‘Make more sales calls’ may seem an evident way of increasing sales, but sometimes we only see these ‘obvious’ answers when we look at the problem from an opposite direction.

This seemingly convoluted method may not seem intuitive at first, but turning a problem on its head can uncover rather obvious solutions to the original problem.
9. Gather Facts

Investigate causes and circumstances of the problem. Probe details about it — such as its origins and causes. Especially if you have a problem that’s too vague, investigating facts is usually more productive than trying to solve it right away.

If, for example, the problem stated by your spouse is “You never listen to me”, the solution is not obvious. However, if the statement is “You don’t make enough eye contact when I’m talking to you,” then the solution is obvious and you can skip brainstorming altogether. (You’ll still need to work on the implementation, though!)

Ask yourself questions about the problem. What is not known about it? Can you draw a diagram of the problem? What are the problem boundaries? Be curious. Ask questions and gather facts. It is said that a well-defined problem is halfway to being solved: I would add that a perfectly-defined problem is not a problem anymore.
10. Problem-Solve Your Problem Statement

I know I risk getting into an infinite loop here, but as you may have noticed, getting the right perspective of a problem is, well, a problem in itself. As such, feel free to use any creative thinking technique you know to help. There are plenty to choose from:

You may want to give yourself an Idea Quota of problem statements. Or write a List of 100 problems to solve. SCAMPER your problem definition. These are just some of dozen techniques you can try.

Of course, how much effort you invest in defining the problem in contrast to how much effort you invest in solving your actual problem is a hard balance to achieve, though one which is attainable with practice.

Personally, I don’t think that 55 minutes of defining a problem versus 5 minutes acting on it is usually a good proportion. The point is that we must be aware of how important problem defining is and correct our tendency to spend too little time on it.

In fact, when you start paying more attention to how you define your problems, you’ll probably find that it is usually much harder than solving them. But you’ll also find that the payoff is well worth the effort.

Litemind

Exploring ways to use our minds efficiently.

El ogro filantrópico by Octavio Paz

2010-10-04T05:41:00.000-07:00

El ogro filantrópico por Octavio Paz
terrenos de anarquía y guerra civil, los mexicanos hemos vivido a la sombra de gobiernos alternativamente despóticos o paternales pero siempre fuertes: el rey-sacerdote azteca, el virrey, el dicta- dor, el señor presidente. La excepción
es el corto período que Cosío Villegas Ila- ma la República Restaurada y durante el cual los liberales trataron de limar las garras del Estado heredado de Nueva España. Esas garras se llamaban (se Ila- man): burocracia y ejército. Los libera- les querían una sociedad fuerte y un Es- tado débil. Tentativa ejemplar que pronto fracasó: Porfirio Díaz invirtió los términos e hizo de México una socie- dad débil dominada por un Estado fuer- te. Los liberales pensaban que la mo- dernización sería la obra -como en otras partes del mundo: Inglaterra, Francia, Estados Unidos- de la bur-
guesía y la clase media. No fue así y con Díaz el Estado comienza a conver- tirse en el agente de la modernización. Cierto, la acción económica del régi- men se apoyó en las empresas privadas y en el capitalismo extranjero. Pero la fundación de empresas industriales y la construcción de fábricas y ferrocarriles no fue tanto la expresión del dinamis- mo de una clase burguesa como el re- sultado de una deliberada política gu- bernamental de estímulos e incentivos. Además, lo decisivo no fue la acción económica sino el fortalecimiento del Estado. Para que un organismo sea ca- paz de llevar a cabo tareas históricas como la modernización de un país, el primer requisito es que sea fuerte. Con Porfirio Díaz el Estado mexicano reco- bró el poder que había perdido durante los conflictos y guerras que sucedieron a la Independencia.
El historiador conservador Carlos Pereyra señala que las convulsiones políticas y el estado caótico del país hasta la dictadura de Díaz fueron. esen- cialmente. una consecuencia de la de- bilidad de los gobiernos desde la Inde- pendencia. El Estado novohispano había sido una construcción de extraor- dinaria solidez y que fue capaz de hacer frente lo mismo a los revoltosos enco- menderos que a los obispos despóticos. Al derrumbarse, dejó una clase rica muy poderosa y dividida en facciones irreconciliables. La ausencia de un po- der central moderador tanto como la inexistencia de tradiciones democráti- cas explican que las facciones no tarda-
sen en acudir a la fuerza para dirimir sus diferencias. Así nació la plaga del mili- tarismo: la espada fue la respuesta a la debilidad del Estado y al poderío de las facciones. ¿Por qué era débil el Estado mexicano? La debilidad, dice Pereyra, era una consecuencia de la pobreza. Aclaro: no pobreza del país sino del po- der político. El Estado era pobre frente a una Iglesia dueña de la mitad del país y una clase de propietarios y hacendados inmensamente ricos. ¿Cómo someter a los obispos y cómo lograr que prevale- ciera la ley en una sociedad donde cada jefe de familia se sentía un monarca? Bajo la dictadura del general Díaz el Es- tado mexicano empezó a salir de la po- breza. Los gobiernos que sucedieron a Díaz, pasada la etapa violenta de la Re- volución, impulsaron el proceso de enri- quecimiento y muy pronto, con Calles. otro general, el gobierno mexicano ini- ció su carrera de gran empresario. Hoy es el capitalista más poderoso del país aunque, como todos sabemos, no es ni el más eficiente ni el más honrado.
El Estado revolucionario hizo algo más que crecer y enriquecerse. Como el Japón durante el periodo Meiji, a través de una legislación adecuada y de una política de privilegios, estímulos y cré- ditos, impulsó y protegió el desarrollo de la clase capitalista. El capitalismo mexicano nació mucho antes que la Revolución pero maduró y se extendió hasta llegar a ser lo que es gracias a la acción y a la protección de los gobier- nos revolucionarios. Al mismo tiempo. el Estado estimuló y favoreció a las or- ganizaciones obreras y campesinas. ES- tos grupos vivieron y viven a su sombra. ya que son parte del PRI*. No obstante. sería inexacto y simplista reducir su re- lación con el poder público a la del súb- dito y el señor. La relación es bastante más compleja: por una parte, en un ré- gimen de partido único como es el de México, las organizaciones sindicales y populares son la fuente casi exclusiva de legitimación del poder estatal; por la otra, las uniones populares, sobre todo las obreras, poseen cierta libertad de maniobra. El gobierno necesita a IoS sindicatos tanto como los sindicatos al gobierno. En realidad, las dos únicas fuerzas capaces de negociar con el go- bierno son los capitalistas y los dirigen-
* Partido Revolucionario Institucional. en el poder. con distintos nombres, desde 1929.
tes obreros. Por último, no contento con impulsar y, en cierto sentido, mo- delar a su imagen al sector capitalista y al obrero, el Estado postrrevolucionario completó su evolución con la creación de dos burocracias paralelas. La prime- ra está compuesta por administradores y tecnócratas; constituye el personal gubernamental y es la heredera históri- ca de la burocracia novohispana y de la porfirista. Es la mente y el brazo de la modernización. La segunda está forma- da por profesionales de la política y es la que dirige. en sus diversos niveles y escalones, al PRI. Las dos burocracias viven en continua ósmosis y pasan in- cesantemente del Partido al Gobierno y viceversa.
La descripción que acabo de hacer es apresurada y esquemática pero no es inexacta. Por ella no es difícil com- probar que el poder central. en México, no reside ni en el capitalismo privado ni en las uniones sindicales ni en los parti- dos políticos sino en el Estado. Trinidad secular. el Estado es el Capital. el Tra- bajo y el Partido. Sin embargo, no es un Estado totalitario ni una dictadura. En la Unión Soviética el Estado es el propie- tario de las cosas y de los hombres, quiero decir: es el dueño de los medios de producción, de los productos y de los productores. A su vez, el Estado es la propiedad del Partido Comunista y el Partido es la propiedad del Comité Cen- tral. En México el Estado pertenece a la doble burocracia: la tecnocracia admi- nistrativa y la casta política. Ahora bien, estas burocracias no son autónomas y viven en contínua relación -rivalidad,- complicidad, alianzas y rupturas- con los otros dos grupos que comparten la dominación del país: el capitalismo pri- vado y las burocracias obreras. Estos grupos, por lo demás, tampoco son ho- mogéneos y están divididos por quere- llas de intereses, ideas y personas. Ade- más, hay otro sector, cada vez más in- fluyente e independiente: la clase me- dia y sus voceros, los estudiantes y los intelectuales. La función de los frailes y los clérigos en Nueva España la desem- peñan ahora los universitarios y los es- critores. El lugar que antes ocupaban la teología y la religión, lo ocupa hoy la
ideología. Por fortuna México es una sociedad más y más plural y el ejercicio de la crítica -único antídoto contra las ortodoxias ideológicas- crece a medi- da que el país se diversifica.
Letras, letrillas, letrones
La acción de todas estas clases, gru- pos e individuos se despliega dentro de un marco: el contexto internacional. Al- gunos países, a través de distintos gru- pos. influyen indirectamente en la opi- nión, sobre todo entre los estudiantes, los periodistas y otros sectores profe- sionales. A veces, como en el caso de Cuba, esa influencia no está en relación ni con su poderío real -su fuerza mili- tar es impresionante pero no es propia sino dependiente de la Unión Soviéti- ca- ni con sus avances en materia eco- nómica, social o cultural. En nuestro si- glo la ideología no sólo es un vidrio de
aumento: también es un cristal defor- mante que produce toda clase de abe- rraciones, no cromáticas sino morales. En el caso de los Estados Unidos, por el contrarío, no es necesario acudir a la ideología para explicarse las imágenes que provoca en la conciencia de los me- xicanos: su poder es múltiple y ha sido constante en nuestra historia desde ha- ce siglo y medio. Un poder que es eco- nómico, científico, técnico, militar y cul- tural. El poderío norteamericano asume la forma de la fascinación, es decir, sus- cita una reacción contradictoria hecha de atracción y revulsión. Su influencia es particularmente profunda -y con frecuencia nefasta- en la vida econó- mica: asimismo, penetra en los domi- nios de la técnica, la ciencia, la cultura. la sensibilidad popular y, claro, la polítí- ca. La presencia de los Estados Unidos en la vida mexicana es una evidencia histórica que no necesita demostra- ción: posee una realidad física. mate- rial. La observación que he hecho a pro- pósito de la relación ambigua que pre- valece entre los sindicatos y el Estado mexicano. puede aplicarse. hasta cierto punto, a la que nos une con Washíng- ton; quiero decir: es una relación de do- minación que no puede reducirse pura v simplemente al concepto de dependen- cia y que permite cierta libertad de ne- gociación y de movimientos. Hay un
margen de acción. Por más estrecho que nos parezca ese margen, es de todos modos mucho más amplio que el de Po- lonia, Hungría, Checoslovaquia o Cuba frente a la Unión Soviética. Porsupuesto. en momentosde crisis política la influen- cia del Embajador de Estados Unidos en México puede ser - y de hecho ha sido- tan importante y decisiva como la del Sá trapa del Gran Rey durante la guerra de
Peloponeso.
Los autores radicales que, a princi- pios de siglo, se ocuparon de la historia social de la Rusia pre-revolucionaria -Plejanov, Trotsky, Lenin- coíncídian en señalar la debilidad de la burguesía frente al Estado autoritario. Una de las características del capitalismo ruso fue su dependencia del Estado zarista. La burguesía jamás logró liberarse del to- do de la tutela de la autocracia. Esta fla- queza le impidió finalmente llevar a ca- bo la tarea que, según los marxistas. constituía su misión histórica: la mo- dernización de Rusia. Toda la polémica entre los bolcheviques y los mencheví- ques arranca de las distintas posiciones
que unos y otros adoptaron frente a es- ta situación. Aparte de la debilidad de la burguesía, hay que mencionar otro fac- tor que se omite con frecuencia: el Es-
tado zarista no podía ser un agente efi- caz de modernización porque en su es- tructura, en sus cuadros dirigentes y en el espíritu que lo animaba era todavía. en gran parte, un Estado patrimonialis- ta, en el sentido en que Max Weber em- plea esta expresión. En suma, es indu- dable que la debilidad de la burguesía rusa frente al Estado patrimonialísta fue la causa determinante de la suerte ulte- rior de la Revolución. La burocracia so- viética, sucesora de la autocracia. se enfrentó a la tarea que históricamente
-según los marxistas- correspondía a la burguesía (la modernización) pero el resultado fue diametralmente opuesto tanto a las previsiones de los menchevi- ques como a las de los bolcheviques. La conjunción del poder político y del po- der económico -ambos absolutos- no produjo ni la revolución democrática burguesa ni el socialismo sino la im- plantación de una ideocracía totalitaria.
diferencias capitales. La primera: entre el Estado novohispano y el moderno se interpone el breve pero imborrable pe- riodo democrático de la República Res- taurada (1867- 1876). La segunda: mientras el Estado totalitario liquidó a la burguesía rusa, sometió a los campe- sinos ya los obreros, exterminó a sus ri- vales políticos, asesinó a sus críticos y creó una nueva clase dominante, el Es- tado mexicano ha compartido el poder no sólo con la burguesía nacional sino con los cuadros dirigentes de los gran- des sindicatos. Ya he apuntado que la relación entre los gobiernos mexicanos, los dirigentes obreros y campesinos y la burguesía es ambigua, una suerte de alianza inestable no exenta de quere- llas. sobre todo entre el sector privado y el público. Todo esto puede condensar- se en una diferencia que las engloba a todas y que es capital: mientras en Ru- sia el Partido es el verdadero Estado, en México el Estado es el elemento subs- tancial y el Partido es su brazo y su íns- trumento. Así, aunque México no es realmente una democracia tampoco es una ideocracía totalitaria.
Me falta mencionar otra característi- ca notable del Estado mexicano: a pe- sar de que ha sido el agente cardinal de la modernización, él mismo no ha logra- do modernizarse enteramente. En mu- chos de sus aspectos, especialmente en su trato con el público y en su mane- ra de conducir los asuntos, sigue siendo patrimonialista. En un régimen de ese tipo el jefe de Gobierno -el Príncipe o el Presidente- consideran al Estado como su patrimonio personal. Por tal razón. el cuerpo de los funcionarios y empleados gubernamentales, de los ministros a los ujieres y de los magís- trados y senadores a los porteros. lejos de constituir una burocracia imperso-
nal, forman una gran familia política lí- gada por vínculos de parentesco, amis- tad, compadrazgo, paisanaje y otros factores de orden personal. El patrímo- nialísmo es la vida privada incrustada en la vida pública. Los ministros son los familiares y los criados del rey. Por eso.
He recordado el caso de Rusia por- que, por más alejado que parezca. ilu- mina indirectamente las peculiaridades de la situación mexicana. Como en la Rusia de principios de siglo, el proyecto histórico de los intelectuales mexicanos y asimismo, el de los grupos dirigentes y el de la burguesía ilustrada. puede condensarse en la palabra moderniza- ción (industria, democracia, técnica, aunque todos los cortesanos comul-
laicismo. etc.). Como en Rusia. ante la relativa debilidad de la burguesía nati- va. el agente central de la moderniza- ción ha sido el Estado. Por último. co- mo en Rusia, nuestro Estado es el here- dero de un régimen patrimonial: el vi- rreinato novohispano. No obstante, hay
guen en el mismo altar, los regímenes patrímonialistas no se petrifican en or- todoxias ni se transforman en burocra- cias. Son lo contrario de una iglesia y de ahí que, a la inversa de lo que ocurre en cuerpos como la Iglesia Católica y el Partido Comunista, los vínculos entre
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los cortesanos no sean ideológicos sino personales. En las burocracias políticas y eclesiásticas el orden jerárquico es sagrado y está regido por reglas objeti- vas y por principios inmutables, tales como la iniciación. el noviciado o aprendizaje, la antigüedad en el servi- cio, la competencia, la diligencia, la obediencia a los superiores, etc. En el régimen patrimonial lo que cuenta en último término es la voluntad del Prínci- pe y de sus allegados.
En el interior del Estado mexicano hay una contradicción enorme y que nadie ha podido o intentado siquiera re- solver: el cuerpo de tecnócratas y ad- ministradores, la burocracia profesio- nal, comparte los privilegios y los ries- gos de la administración pública con los amigos, los familiares y los favoritos del Presidente en turno y con los amigos, los familiares y favoritos de sus Minis- tros. La burocracia mexicana es moder- na, se propone modernizar al país y sus valores son valores modernos. Frente a ella. a veces como rival y otras como asociada, se levanta una masa de ami- gos, parientes y favoritos unidos por la- zos de orden personal. Esta sociedad cortesana se renueva parcialmente ca- da seis años, es decir, cada vez que as- ciende al poder un nuevo Presidente. Tanto por su situación como por su ideología implícita y su modo de reclu- tamiento, estos cuerpos cortesanos no son modernos: son una supervivencia del patrimonialismo. La contradicción entre la sociedad cortesana y la buro- cracia tecnócrata no inmoviliza al Esta- do pero sí vuelve difícil y sinuosa su marcha. No hay dos políticas dentro del Estado: hay dos maneras de entender la política. dos tipos de sensibilidad y de moral.
Lo mismo en Inglaterra que en Fran- cia, los regímenes modernos se esfor- zaron desde el principio por dotar al nuevo Estado burgués de una burocra- cia ad-hoc, radicalmente distinta a la de las monarquías de los siglos XVII y
XVIII. Mejor dicho. como ha mostrado admirablemente Norbert Elías, las bu- rocracias del siglo XIX y del XX, en Oc- cidente, se formaron dentro del Tercer Estado y la “nobleza de toga”, en lucha permanente contra la sociedad cortesa- na de los regímenes absolutistas. Por
Su evolución fue la misma de la bur- guesía, que pasó del derecho a la eco- nomía y de la lógica jurídica a la lógica de la empresa privada. Así, impuso la racionalidad económica, esencialmente cuantitativa. en el despacho de los ne- gocios del Estado. Exigencia imposible: el Estado no es una empresa. Las ga- nancias y las pérdidas de una nación se calculan de una manera distinta a la que nos enseñan las reglas de contabili- dad. Esta es una contradicción que el Estado burgués liberal no ha podido re- solver. Desde la perspectiva de la admi- nistración de las cosas, las burocracias de las sociedades democráticas bur- guesas han sido incomparablemente
superiores no sólo a las de las antiguas monarquías sino a las de los Estados totalitarios de nuestros días. Agrego que, además de ser más eficaces, han sido más humanas y más tolerantes. Pero esta superioridad de orden profe- sional y moral se convierte en inferiori- dad si se pasa de la administración a la política. La inferioridad se vuelve mani- fiesta en el dominio de las relaciones in- ternacionales.
Abundan los ejemplos de la inepti- tud política de las democracias burgue- sas. Su actitud ante Hitler fue una mez- cla extraordinaria de inconsistencia y de ceguera. Al principio, su intransigen- cia y su egoísmo frente a Alemania fa- vorecieron el surgimiento del nazismo; después, a veces por cálculo y otras por cobardía, fueron cómplices del dicta- dor. Su política con Stalin no fue más clarividente. La misma mezcla de rea- lismo pérfido y a corto plazo inspira su actitud ante las satrapías y tiranías del
Nuevo y el Viejo,Mundo. El oportunis- mo no explica enteramente estas fla-
quezas e incoherencias. La falla es con- génita y ya apunté la razón más arriba: el Estado no es una fábrica ni un nego- cio. La lógica de la historia no es cuanti- tativa. La racionalidad económica de- pende de la relación entre el gasto y el producto, la inversión y la ganancia, el trabajo y el ahorro. La racionalidad del Estado no es la utilidad ni el lucro sino el poder: su conquista, su conservación y su extensión. El arquetipo del poder no está en la economía sino en la gue- rra, no en la relación polémica capital/ trabajo sino en la relación jerárquica je- fes/soldados. De ahí que el modelo de las burocracias políticas y religiosas sea la milicia: la Compañía de Jesús, el Par- tido Comunista.
La naturaleza peculiar del Estado mexicano se revela por la presencia en su interior de tres órdenes o formacio- nes distintas (pero en continua comuni- cación y ósmosis): la burocracia guber- namental propiamente dicha. más o menos estable, compuesta por técnicos y administradores, hecha a imagen y semejanza de las burocracias de las so- ciedades democráticas de Occidente; el conglomerado heterogéneo de ami- gos, favoritos, familiares, privados y protegidos, herencia de la sociedad cor- tesana de los siglos XVII y XVIII: la bu- rocracia política del PRI, formada por profesionales de la política, asociación no tanto ideológica como de intereses faccionales e individuales, gran canal de la movilidad social y gran fraternidad abierta a los jóvenes ambiciosos. gene- ralmente sin fortuna, recién salidos de las universidades y los colegios de edu- cación superior. La burocracia del PRI está a medio camino entre el partido político tradicional y las burocracias que militan bajo una ortodoxia y que operan como milicias de Dios o de la
Historia. El PRI no es terrorista, no quiere cambiar a los hombres ni salvar al mundo: quiere salvarse a sí mismo. Pero eso quiere reformarse. Pero sabe que su reforma es inseparable de la del país. La cuestión que la historia ha planteado a México desde 1968 no consiste únicamente en saber si el Es- tado podrá gobernar sin el PRI sino si los mexicanos nos dejaremos gobernar sin un PRI.
El tema de la Reforma Política, como se llama a las recientes tentativas del Gobierno mexicano por introducir el
su origen, sus métodos de trabajo, sus jerarquías y su moral, la nueva burocra- cia fue la negación del patrimonialismo. pluralismo, merece una pequeña digre-
Letras, letrillas, letrones bbbob.bbbbbbbbbbbbbb.*b*.bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbobbbb...bb*bbobebbbeob*bbebbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb.bbbb*bb*bbbbbb*.e*bb
sión. El PRI nació de una necesidad: asegurar la continuidad de régimen postrrevolucionario, amenazado por las querellas entre los jefes militares sobre- vivientes de las guerras y trastornos que sucedieron al derrocamiento de Porfirio Díaz. Su esencia fue un com- promiso entre la auténtica democracia de partidos y la dictadura de un caudillo como en los otros paises de América Latina. El régimen nacido de la Revolu- ción Mexicana vivió durante muchos años sin que nadie pusiese en duda su legitimidad. Los sucesos de 1968, que culminaron en la matanza de varios cientos de estudiantes, quebrantaron gravemente esa legitimidad, gastada además por medio siglo de dominación ininterrumpida. Desde 1968 los Go- biernos mexicanos buscan, no sin con-
tradicciones, una nueva legitimidad. La fuente de la antigua era por una parte. de orden histórico o más bien. genea- lógico, pues el régimen se ha conside- rado siempre no sólo el sucesor sino el heredero, por derecho de primogenito- ra, de los caudillos revolucionarios; por la otra, de orden constitucional. ya que era el resultado de elecciones formal- mente legales. La nueva legalidad que busca el régimen se funda en el recono- cimiento de que existen otros partidos y proyectos políticos, es decir, en el plu- ralismo. Es un paso hacia la democra- cia.
A la larga, si no se malogra, la Refor- ma Política realizará el sueño de mu- chos mexicanos, sin cesar diferido des- de la Independencia: transformar al país en una verdadera democracia mo- derna. A corto plazo, sin embargo, es Ií- cito dudar que baste con unas cuantas medidas de orden legal para cambiar las estructuras políticas de una socie- dad. En efecto, ante todo hay que pre- guntarse: ¿cuáles son los partidos polí- ticos que podrían disputarle al PRI su dominación? Si descartamos a los par- tidos peleles que durante años han de- sempeñado el papel de títeres en la far- za electoral, el único rival serio del PRI ha sido el PAN. Es un partido naciona- lista, católico y conservador que, como su nombre lo indica (Partido Acción Na- cional), estuvo emparentado en su ori- gen con tendencias más o menos influi- das por el pensamiento de Maurras y de su Action Française (el monarquismo v el antisemitismo excluidos). El PAN ha sido el eterno derrotado en las eleccio- ..............................................................................................................
nes. aunque no siempre legalmente. No hay que olvidar que el PRI no es un par- tido que ha conquistado el poder: es el brazo político del poder. Hasta ahora sólo a unos cuantos les ha importado que el PRI gane invariablemente las elecciones. Esta indiferencia explica por qué ni el PAN ni ninguno de los otros grupos de oposición, de la derecha o la izquierda. han sido capaces de organi- zar un movimiento de resistencia nacio- nal. El descontento del pueblo mexica- no no se ha expresado en formas políti- cas activas sino como abstención y es- cepticismo. Hoy el régimen busca una nueva legalidad en el pluralismo y en esto reside la novedad de la situación.’ Pero la crisis del sistema político mexi- cano no ha beneficiado al PAN, que no ha podido capitalizar en su favor el des- contento contra el partido oficial. Al contrario: hoy el PAN es más débil que hace quince años. Para colmo, desga- rrado por luchas intestinas, padece una suerte de crisis de identidad. Aunque trata de olvidar sus inclinaciones autori- tarias y “maurrasianas”, no ha logrado convertirse en un partido demócrata- cristiano. ¿Y los otros partidos?
del Partido Comunista francés, el más conservador y centralista de los tres grandes partidos europeos. (Althusser lo ha descrito hace unos meses, en Le Monde, como una organización cerrada de tipo militar. una “fortaleza”.) Otra característica de la situación mexicana: la nula influencia de los intelectuales de izquierda en esta evolución del Partido Comunista de México. El cambio de los Partidos Comunistas europeos, como es sabido, se debe en buena parte a la crítica de sus intelectuales disidentes; en México -salvo raras excepciones co- mo las de José Revueltas, Eduardo Lizal- de y otros pocos más- los intelectuales marxistas han sido los fieles aunque po- co imaginativos apologistas del “socia- lismo histórico”, a través de todas sus contradictorias metamorfosis, de Stalin a Brejnev.
El Partido Demócrata Mexicano tie- ne orígenes semejantes a los del PAN. aunque su clientela no es la clase me- dia sino los campesinos pobres de la re-
El Partido Comunista Mexicano. a pesar de que fue fundado hace más de cincuenta años, antes que el PRI, es una agrupación pequeña, con nula o es- casa influencia entre los trabajadores. Sin embargo. gracias a su control de aI- gunos grupos de estudiantes y, sobre todo, a su dominación en varios sindica- tos de empleados y profesores. se ha hecho fuerte en las Universidades. El Partido Comunista de México es un partido universitario y esta paradoja.
gión central. Un partido auténticamen- te plebeyo. Es el descendiente directo de la Unión Nacional Sinarquista. una organización animada por un populis- mo nacionalista y religioso en el que no era difícil reconocer, al lado de retazos de ideologías fascistas, las aspiraciones tradicionales de los movimientos revo- lucionarios campesinos. Entre los sinar- quistas todavía estaba viva la tradición de los levantamientos agrarios. nota constante de la historia de México des- de el siglo XVII. Extraño amasijo: la her-
que habría escandalizado a Marx. signi- fica una conquista estratégica aprecia- ble. Las Universidades son uno de los puntos sensibles del país. Desde hace poco, inspirado y alentado sin duda por el ejemplo de los europeos (Italia. Espa- ña y Francia), el Partido Comunista de México se ha declarado partidario del pluralismo democrático, aunque sin re- nunciar al “centralismo democrático”
crisis de identidad semejante a la del PAN, y no acaba de definir su nuevo perfil democrático. Sin embargo, a pe- sar de ser un partido pobre lo mismo en recursos materiales que en ideas. tiene
leninista. Este cambio implica en cierto modo una autocrítica de su pasado es- talinista. Por desgracia, no ha sido una crítica explícita; además, ha sido dema- siado tímida y está llena de lagunas v reticencias. Es revelador que el Partido Comunista mexicano, en varias decla- raciones y manifestaciones recientes. se haya mostrado afín a las posiciones
todavía influencia entre los campesinos y la clase media baja del centro del país. Un rasgo común de estos parti- dos: los tres quisieran olvidar su pasado autoritario. Pero no acaban de exorcisar las sombras de Maurras, Mussolini y Stalin... Una agrupación política que no arrastra ningún pasado terrible y que surgió de un genuino anhelo de cambio social y democrático: el Partido Mexi- cano de los Trabajadores. Nacido de la crisis de 1968, su aparición fue vista con gran simpatía por muchos grupos de estudiantes e intelectuales; asimis-
mandad religiosa, la falange fascista y la jacquerie revolucionaria. El Partido Demócrata Mexicano atraviesa por una
mo, por los veteranos de los descala- bros del movimento obrero en el pasa- do. Por desgracia, este partido todavía no ha sido capaz de formular un progra- ma claro ni, lo que no es menos grave, claramente democrático. Un programa que le otorgue fisonomía política y que lo distinga de los otros grupos de iz- quierda. Podría mencionara otros parti- dos independientes pero son minúscu- Ios y sin fuerza apreciable.
El espectador más distraído descu- bre inmediatamente en este panorama dos grandes ausencias. Una, la de un partido conservador como el Republi-
cano de los Estados Unidos o los parti- dos conservadores de la Gran Bretaña, Francia, Alemania y España; otra, la de un auténtico partido socialista, con in- fluencia entre los trabajadores, los inte- lectuales y la clase media. Esto último es lo verdaderamente lamentable y re- vela cruelmente una de las carencias más graves de México y de América La- tina: la inexistencia de una tradición so- cialista democrática. ¿El pluralismo mexicano que prepara la Reforma Polí- tica estará compuesto por partidos mi- noritarios y que difícilmente merecen el calificativo de democráticos? Lo más probable es que ese remedo del plura- lismo, lejos de aliviarla, agrave la crisis de legitimidad del régimen. Si así fuese. el desgaste del PRI se acentuaría y el
Estado, para no disolverse, tendría que apoyarse en otras fuerzas sociales:’ no en una burocracia política como el PRI sino, según ha sugerido recientemente Jean Meyer. en la burocracia militar.’ Hay, sin embargo, otro remedio. Pero es un remedio visto con horror por la clase política mexicana: dividir al PRI. Tal vez su ala izquierda, unida a otras fuerzas, podría ser el núcleo de un ver- dadero partido socialista.
La Reforma política ha sido concebi- da por uno de los hombres más inteli- gentes de México, un verdadero inte- lectual que es asimismo un político sa- gaz. Sin embargo, como se ha visto, es- te proyecto se enfrenta al mismo muro que ha cerrado el paso a otras iniciati- vas de nuestros intelectuales y hom- bres de Estado, de Juárez y los liberales de 1857 a nuestros días. No es un mu- ro de piedras ni ideas ni intereses: es un muro de vacío. Entre “la idea y la reali-
Technocrates en uniforme: L’Etat Symbio- tique, Critique, Aout-Septembre 1977.
dad, entre el impulso y el acto, cae la sombra”. Como en el poema de Eliot, ¿México es “la tierra muerta, la tierra de cactos”, cubierta de ídolos rotos y de imágenes apolilladas de santos y san- tas? ¿No hacemos sino “dar vueltas y vueltas al nopal”? Pero ese nopal no es, en nuestra mitología, la planta del reino de los muertos; al contrario: es la planta herádica de la fundación de México Tenochtitlán y sus frutos sangrientos simbolizan la unión del principio solar y el agua primordial. Tal vez hemos equi- vocado el camino; tal vez la salida está en volver al origen.
Aclaro: no condeno prematura y pre- cipitadamente a la Reforma Política. ES benéfica incluso dentro de sus limita-
ciones. Creo que hay que profundizarla y, por decirlo así, democratizarla: des- cender del nivel de los partidos; que es el nivel de la ideología, al de los intere- ses y sentimientos concretos y particu- lares de los pueblos, los barrios y los grupos. En el caso de la Reforma Políti- ca la expresión “volver al origen” quiere decir: tratar de insertarla en las prácti- cas democráticas tradicionales de nuestro pueblo. Esas prácticas y esas tradiciones -ahogadas por muchos años de opresión y recubiertas por unas estructuras legales formalmente demo- cráticas pero que son en realidad abs- tracciones deformantes- están vivas todavía. Vivas en muchas formas de convivencia social y, sobre todo, vivas en la memoria colectiva. Pienso. por ejemplo, en la democracia espontánea de los pequeños pueblos y comunida- des, en el autogobierno de los grupos indígenas, en el municipio novo-
hispano y en otras formas políticas tra- dicionales. Ahí está, creo, la raíz de una posible democracia mexicana. Sólo que para que la Reforma Política llegase al pueblo real, el Estado tendría que co- menzar por su autorreforma. Si demo- cracia es pluralismo, lo primero que hay que hacer es descentralizar. (Es posi- ble? Por una parte, la otra tradición his- tórica mexicana es el centralismo. En México la realidad de realidades se Ila- ma, desde Izcóatl, poder central. Contra esa realidad se estrellaron los liberales y federalistas del siglo pasado. Ade- más, burocracia es sinónimo de centra- lismo y el Estado mexicano, como to- dos los del siglo XX, inexorablemente tiende a convertirse en un Estado buro- crático.
La situación de los partidos políticos es uno de los signos de la ambigua mo- dernidad de México. Otro signo es la corrupción. Desde la perspectiva de la persistencia del patrimonialismo es más fácil entender este fenómeno. En todas las cortes europeas, durante los siglos XVII y XVIII. se vendían los em- pleos públicos y había tráfico de in- fluencias y favores. Durante la regencia de Mariana de Austria, el privado de la reina, Don Fernando Valenzuela (el Duende de Palacio), en un momento de apuro del erario público, decidió con- sultar con los teólogos si era lícito ven- der al mejor postor los altos cargos, en- tre ellos los virreinatos de Aragón, Nue- va España, Perú y Nápoles. Los teólo- gos no encontraron nada en las leyes divinas ni en las humanas que fuese contrario a este recurso. La corrupción de la administración pública mexicana. escándalo de propios y extraños, no es en el fondo sino otra manifestación de la persistencia de esas maneras de pen- sar y de sentir que ejemplifica el dicta- men de los teólogos españoles. Perso- nas de irreprochable conducta privada. espejos de moralidad en su casa yen su barrio, no tienen escrúpulos en dispo- ner de los bienes públicos como si fue- sen propios. Se trata no tanto de una inmoralidad como de la vigencia in- consciente de otra moral: en el régimen patriomonial son más bien vagas y fluc- tuantes las fronteras entre la esfera pú- blica y la privada, la familia y el Estado.
Si cada uno es el rey de su casa, el reino es como una casa y la nación como una familia. Si el Estado es el patrimonio del Rey, ¿cómo no va a serlo también de
Letras, letrillas, letrones
sus parientes, sus amigos, sus servido- res y sus favoritos? En España el Primer Ministro se llamaba, significativamen- te, Privado.
La presencia de la moral patrimonia- lista cortesana en el interior del Estado mexicano es otro ejemplo de nuestra incompleta modernidad. Lo mismo en los estratos más bajos -la sociedad campesina y sus creencias religiosas y morales- que en la clase medía y en la alta burocracia tropezamos con la mez- cla desconcertante de rasgos modernos y arcaicos. La modernización de Méxi- co, iniciada a fines del siglo XVIII por los virreyes de Carlos III, sigue siendo un proyecto realizado sólo a medias y que afecta sólo a la superficie de las conciencias. La mayoría de nuestras
actitudes profundas ante el amor. la muerte, la amistad, la cocina, la fiesta, no son modernas. Tampoco lo son
nuestra moralidad pública. nuestra vida
familiar, el culto a la Virgen, nuestra imagen del Presidente... ¿Por qué? En otros escritos he tratado de responder a esta pregunta. Aquí sólo repetiré que desde la gran ruptura hispánica -la cri- sís del final del siglo XVIII y su conse- cuencia: la Independencia- los mexi- canos hemos adoptado varios proyec- tos de modernización. Todos ellos no sólo se han revelado inservibles sino que nos han desfigurado. Máscaras de Robespierre y Bonaparte. Jefferson y Lincoln, Comte y Marx, Lenin y Mao: si la historia es teatro, la de nuestro país ha sido una mascarada interrumpida una y otra vez por el estallido del motín y la revuelta. No predico el regreso a un pasado, imaginario como todos los pa- sados, ni pretendo volver al encierro de una tradición que nos ahogaba. Creo que, como los otros países de América Latina, México debe encontrar su pro- pía modernidad. En cierto sentido debe
inventarla. Pero inventarla a partir de las formas de vivir y morir, producir y gastar, trabajar y gozar que ha creado nuestro pueblo. Es una tarea que exige, aparte de circunstancias históricas y sociales favorables, un extraordinario realismo y una imaginación no menos extraordinaria. No necesito recordar que el renacimiento de la imaginación. lo mismo en el dominio del arte que en el de la política, siempre ha sido prepa- rado y precedido por el análisis y la crí- tica. Creo que a nuestra generación y a la que sigue les ha tocado este queha- cer. Pero antes de emprender la crítica de nuestras sociedades, de su historia y de su presente, los escritores híspanoa- mericanos debemos empezar por la crí- tica de nosotros mismos. Lo primero es curarnos de la intoxicación de las ideo- logías simplistas y simplificadoras.
México, D. F., a 28 de Marzo de 1978.

Important operas...

2010-10-03T19:53:00.001-07:00

"Without music, life would be a mistake."
— Friedrich Nietzsche

A Basic List Of Famous And Important Operas You Should Get To Know

Opera is a vast subject, and one of infinite variety. I't been estimated that in the past 400 years, approximately 40,000 have been written, in countries all over Europe, America and elsewhere. So here's a basic list of some of the most famous and popular, starting with the 17th century up to the present era. You can attend live performances, get them on DVD or CD, or listen to radio broadcasts.

Claudio Monteverdi : (1567 - 1643 ). L'Orfeo. (Orpheus and Euridice). L'Incoronazione di Poppea. (The Coronation of Poppea , based on the life of the emperor Nero.) Henry Purcell (1659 -1695 ) Dido and Anaeas.

George Frideric Handel (1685 - 1759 ) Giulio Cesare (Julius Caesar). Alcina (pronounced al-chee-na).

Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714 - 1787 ). Orfeo & Euridice. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ( 1756 - 1791 ) Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro), Don Giovanni, Cosi Fan Tutte (So do they all ), Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute), Die Entfuhrung Aus dem Serail (The Abduction From The Seraglio ), Idomeneo.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827 ). Fidelio. Carl Maria von Weber (1786 - 1826 ) Der Freischutz.

Gioacchino Rossini (1792 - 1868 ) Il Barbiere di Sviglia (The Barber of Seville), La Cenerentola (Cinderella), L'Italiana in Algeri (The Italian Woman in Algiers ). Vincenzo Bellini (1801 - 1835 ) . Norma . I Puritani. La Sonnambula (The Sleepwalker ). Donizetti, Gaetano (1797 - 1848 ). Lucia di Lammermoor. Don Pasquale, L'Elisir d'Amore (The Elixir of Love ).

Giuseppe Verdi (1813 - 1901 ). Rigoletto. La Traviata . Il Trovatore. Un Ballo in Maschera. (A Masked Ball ), La Forza del Destino (The Power of Destiny ), Don Carlo, Macbeth, Otello , Falstaff. Arrigo Boito (1842 - 1918 ) Mefistofele. Amilcare Ponchiellei (1834 - 1887 ). La Gioconda. Pietro Mascagni (1863 - 1945 ) Cavalleria Rusticana (Rustic Chivalry ) Ruggero Leoncavallo (1857 - 1918 ) Pagliacci. Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924 ), La Boheme, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, Turandot.

Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875 ) Carmen. Jules Massenet ( 1842 - 1912 ), Manon, Werther, Thais. Camille Saint -Saens (1835 - 1921 ) Samson & Dalilah. Leo Delibes . Lakme. Charles Gounod (1818 - 1893 ) Faust. Romeo & Juliette. Claude Debussy ( 1862 - 1918 ) Pelleas & Melisande.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. (1840 - 1893 ) Eugene Onegin. Queen of Spades. Modest Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881 ). Boris Godunov. Khovanshchina. Bedrich Smetana (1824 - 1884) The Bartred Bride. Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904 ) Rusalka. Leos Janacek (1854 - 1928 ) Jenufa. Katya Kabanova. The Cunning Little Vixen. From the House of the Dead.

Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883 ). Der Fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman. ) Tannhauser. Lohengrin. The Ring : Das Rheingold. Die Walkure, Siegfried. Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods). Tristan & Isole. Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg). Parsifa. Engelbert Humperdinck (1854 - 1921 ), Hansel & Gretel. Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949 . Salome Elelktra. Der Rosenkavalier. Ariadne auf Naxos. Die Frau Ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow ), Arabella, Capriccio.

Alban Berg (1885 - 1935) Wozzeck. Lulu. Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951 ). Moses & Aron. George Gershwin (1898 - 1937 ) Porgy and Bess. Benjamin Britten (1913 - 1976 ) Peter Grimes. Billy Budd.

Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953 ) The Love For Three Oranges. War And Peace. Dimitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975 ), Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District.

There are an enormous number of complete recordings of these and countless other operas on CD, and a large and growing number on DVD. Check arkivmusic.com and classicstoday.com for recommended versions. Enjoy

2010-10-03T19:28:00.001-07:00

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

2010-10-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new guards for their future security — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. — The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free system of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislature, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do.

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Que falta nesta cidade?… Verdade. by Gregorio de MAtos

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Que falta nesta cidade?… Verdade.
Que mais por sua desonra?… Honra.
Falta mais que se lhe ponha?… Vergonha.

O demo a viver se exponha,
Por mais que a fama a exalta,
Numa cidade onde falta
Verdade, honra, vergonha.
by Gregório de Matos.

Watermelon Limeade

2010-10-02T21:25:00.000-07:00

10 commandments for a Good customer Service

2010-10-02T16:14:00.000-07:00

Customer Service Quotes

2010-10-02T16:10:00.000-07:00

10 Ways To Explain Things More Effectively By Calvin Sun

2010-09-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

In the course of your work, you may sometimes need to explain technical concepts to your customers. Having them understand you is important not only for technical reasons, but also to ensure customer satisfaction. The ability to explain things clearly and effectively can help you in your career, as well. Here are a few tips to help make your explanations understandable and useful.

#1: Keep in mind others' point of view

You've probably seen the famous illusion that looks like either a young woman or an old woman. Two people can look at that same picture, and they can have opposite views of what they're seeing. Keep this idea in mind when explaining a concept. Something that might be perfectly understandable to you might be incomprehensible to someone else. Don't be the person customers complain about as using "geek speak."

2: Listen and respond to questions

It's easy to become annoyed when someone is asking questions. However, try to resist that reaction. A better attitude is to be happy that the other person is interested enough to ask questions. To minimize confusion and misunderstanding, try to paraphrase or summarize a question before you answer it. This step is particularly important if you're in a group setting, and you've just taken a question from someone in the audience. Repeating the question for the entire group helps everyone better understand your answer.

#3: Avoid talking over people's head

When you explain things to people, do their eyes glaze over? Chances are it's because you're talking over their head. Symptoms of such behavior include the use of jargon and acronyms. Remember, the people you're talking to probably lack your specialized knowledge, so you should use readily understandable terms.

The same goes for acronyms. They're important, but if you use them, define them in "longhand," followed by the acronyms in (parentheses), so that everyone's clear. Doing so avoids the scenario of situation normal, all fouled up (SNAFU).

Even within IT, the same acronym can mean different things. For example, both "active server page" and "application service provider" have the acronym ASP. A story from the Vietnam War era further illustrates this point. A young woman brought her boyfriend home to meet her father, a retired military officer. The woman was nervous because the boyfriend was a conscientious objector. When the father asked the young man to talk about himself, the latter replied, nervously, that he was a CO. The father clapped the young man on the back and congratulated him, thinking the latter was a commanding officer.

#4: Avoid talking down to people

Avoid the other extreme as well. Don't insult people by assuming that they're only as intelligent as a three-year-old. An attendee at one of my communications training classes described it aptly as "Barney communications."

Greek mythology has references to two monsters, Scylla and Charybdis, who sat on opposite sides of a narrow strait of water. If a ship sailed too close to Scylla, it was destroyed and the sailors eaten up. If the ship sailed too close to Charybdis, it was destroyed by a whirlpool that Charybdis created. The ship had to go right between them to survive. Follow that same principle with your customers: Make your explanations neither too complicated or too simple.

#5: Ask questions to determine people's understanding

The people you're talking to shouldn't be the only ones asking questions. You should be asking questions as well, to make sure they understand. Your questions can be open ended, which gives people a chance to provide detailed information, or they can be closed ended, which generally calls for a simple yes/no response. In either case, asking questions tells people that you're interested that they understand.
#6: Focus on benefits, not features

What's the difference? A feature is some inherent property of an object. A benefit, on the other hand, is a way the feature helps a person. For example, one of the features of a Styrofoam cup, because of the material used, is insulation. Someone who's planning a party probably doesn't care how the cup provides insulation. That person is more interested in the fact that such a cup keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.

In the same way, try to focus on benefits of technology rather than features of technology. This distinction becomes more important the higher the level of the person you're talking to. The CFO probably has little need to know about the specific commands and steps involved in setting up database mirroring. That person will want to know, however, that such a practice reduces the chances of data loss.
#7: Use analogies to make concepts clearer

An analogy involves explaining an unfamiliar concept in terms of a familiar one. For example, in drawing an analogy between a firewall and a bank teller, you could say that people don't just go directly into a bank and take money out. They go to the teller and identify themselves; the teller makes sure they have enough money; and then the teller gives them the money. Similarly, a firewall ensures that people who want access to a system really are permitted to have that access.

When choosing an example for an analogy, first figure out the general principle you're trying to explain. Then, choose something from real life that illustrates that principle. Say, for example, that you're trying to explain memory leaks. Suppose you conclude that the principle involved is that of taking without giving back completely. An example/analogy might be the consequences of pouring a cup of pancake batter into successive measuring cups, or the consequences of lending money to your brother-in-law.
#8: Compare new concepts to familiar ones

Another illustrative technique is to use a familiar or existing product as a comparison. If you're explaining a new release of a software product, the comparison is easy. Simply discuss the additional capabilities it has over the previous one or how key features are different. If the person hearing your explanation is also an IT person and is familiar with different or older technology, try explaining in those terms if you can. For example, when explaining thin clients, consider a comparison to the old 3270-type terminals that IBM once used for connection to mainframes.
#9: Use the concepts of subsets and supersets

Brooklyn is a subset of New York City, because all of it is a part of that city. Conversely, New York City is a superset of Brooklyn, because the former contains, in addition to all of the latter, other boroughs as well. These concepts are helpful in describing, for example, a "lite" versus a "professional" version of a software product. If the latter does everything the former does, plus more, it truly is a superset of the former, and the former is a subset of the latter. Be careful, though: If the "lite" version does even one thing that's missing from the professional version, there's no longer a subset/superset relationship.
#10: Confirm that your explanation makes sense

Once you've finished explaining your point or answering a question, ask a final question yourself. Make sure the people who heard your explanation truly did understand it. Consider asking them to give you the explanation in their own words, just to double-check.
About the Author

Calvin Sun works with organizations in the areas of customer service, communications, and leadership. His Web site is http://www.calvinsun.com and his e-mail address is csun@calvinsun.com.

Ciudad Juarez,Mexico

2010-09-25T08:19:00.000-07:00

Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

Quote about private enterprise..

2010-09-24T06:22:00.001-07:00

Some people regard private enterprise as a predatory tiger to be shot. Others look on it as a cow they can milk. Not enough people see it as a healthy horse, pulling a sturdy wagon.

Winston Churchill
Sent from my BlackBerry Wireless Handheld

"MANIFESTO EM DEFESA DA DEMOCRACIA" Brasil

2010-09-22T09:10:00.000-07:00

"MANIFESTO EM DEFESA DA DEMOCRACIA"
"MANIFESTO EM DEFESA DA DEMOCRACIA"
"Em uma democracia, nenhum dos Poderes é soberano.
Soberana é a Constituição, pois é ela quem dá corpo e alma à soberania do povo.
Acima dos políticos estão as instituições, pilares do regime democrático. Hoje, no Brasil, os inconformados com a democracia representativa se organizam no governo para solapar o regime democrático.
É intolerável assistir ao uso de órgãos do Estado como extensão de um partido político, máquina de violação de sigilos e de agressão a direitos individuais.
É inaceitável que a militância partidária tenha convertido os órgãos da administração direta, empresas estatais e fundos de pensão em centros de produção de dossiês contra adversários políticos.
É lamentável que o Presidente esconda no governo que vemos o governo que não vemos, no qual as relações de compadrio e da fisiologia, quando não escandalosamente familiares, arbitram os altos interesses do país, negando-se a qualquer controle.
É inconcebível que uma das mais importantes democracias do mundo seja assombrada por uma forma de autoritarismo hipócrita, que, na certeza da impunidade, já não se preocupa mais nem mesmo em fingir honestidade.
É constrangedor que o Presidente da República não entenda que o seu cargo deve ser exercido em sua plenitude nas vinte e quatro horas do dia. Não há ''depois do expediente'' para um Chefe de Estado. É constrangedor também que ele não tenha a compostura de separar o homem de Estado do homem de partido, pondo-se a aviltar os seus adversários políticos com linguagem inaceitável, incompatível com o decoro do cargo, numa manifestação escancarada de abuso de poder político e de uso da máquina oficial em favor de uma candidatura. Ele não vê no ''outro'' um adversário que deve ser vencido segundo regras da Democracia , mas um inimigo que tem de ser eliminado.
É aviltante que o governo estimule e financie a ação de grupos que pedem abertamente restrições à liberdade de imprensa, propondo mecanismos autoritários de submissão de jornalistas e empresas de comunicação às determinações de um partido político e de seus interesses.
É repugnante que essa mesma máquina oficial de publicidade tenha sido mobilizada para reescrever a História, procurando desmerecer o trabalho de brasileiros e brasileiras que construíram as bases da estabilidade econômica e política, com o fim da inflação, a democratização do crédito, a expansão da telefonia e outras transformações que tantos benefícios trouxeram ao nosso povo.
É um insulto à República que o Poder Legislativo seja tratado como mera extensão do Executivo, explicitando o intento de encabrestar o Senado. É um escárnio que o mesmo Presidente lamente publicamente o fato de ter de se submeter às decisões do Poder Judiciário.
Cumpre-nos, pois, combater essa visão regressiva do processo político, que supõe que o poder conquistado nas urnas ou a popularidade de um líder lhe conferem licença para rasgar a Constituição e as leis. Propomos uma firme mobilização em favor de sua preservação, repudiando a ação daqueles que hoje usam de subterfúgios para solapá-las. É preciso brecar essa marcha para o autoritarismo.
Brasileiros erguem sua voz em defesa da Constituição, das instituições e da legalidade.
Não precisamos de soberanos com pretensões paternas, mas de democratas convictos."

Handbook for Life… 2010 from Linda’s Yoga Journey

2010-09-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

Handbook for Life… 2010
Cross Posted (& Edited) from Linda’s Yoga Journey

HEALTH:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is
manufactured in plants.
4. Live with the 3 E’s — Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy.
5. Make time to meditate.
6. (Breathe)

7. Read more books than you did in 2009.
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day.
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minute walk daily. And while you walk, smile.

PERSONALITY:

11. Comparing our lives to others is fruitless. We have no idea what their journey is about.

12. Replace negative thoughts with positive ones especially about things out of our control. Invest energy in the positive present moment.
13. Try not to over do. Understand limits.
14. Why take ourselves so seriously. No one else does.
15. Gossip drains precious energy.
16. Dream more while we are awake.
17. Envy is a waste of time. We already have all we need.
18. Forget issues of the past. Let go of our partners mistakes of the past. Focus on our present/future happiness.
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

20. Make peace with our past so it won’t spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of our happiness except us.
22. Realize that life is a school and we are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons we learn will last a lifetime.
23. Smile and laugh more.
24. We don’t have to win arguments. It’s ok to agree to disagree.

SOCIETY:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything.
28. Spend time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is insignificant compared to what you think of yourself.
31. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends & family will. Stay in touch.

LIFE:
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. (Higher powers) heal everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.
36. No matter how we feel, get up, dress up, and show up.
37. The best is yet to come.
38. When we awake alive in the morning, be thankful.
39. Our Inner most is always happy. Release your “Inner Happy” on the world every day!

Dan Ariely asks, Are we in control of our own decisions?

2010-09-18T21:48:00.001-07:00

2010-09-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel or envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery."

O socialismo/comunismo é uma filosofia do fracasso, o credo da ignorância e o evangelho da inveja. Sua virtude inerente é a distribuição equitativa da miséria. (Winston Churchill)

God Bless America

2010-09-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

Green Hosting By DreamHost.com

God Bless America
Words and music by Irving Berlin
© Copyright 1938, 1939 by Irving Berlin
© Copyright Renewed 1965, 1966 by Irving Berlin
© Copyright Assigned to the Trustees of the God Bless America Fund
International Copyright Secured. All Rights Reserved.
Used by Permission

"While the storm clouds gather far across the sea,
Let us swear allegiance to a land that's free,
Let us all be grateful for a land so fair,
As we raise our voices in a solemn prayer. "

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.
From the mountains, to the prairies,
To the oceans, white with foam
God bless America, My home sweet home.

Wisdom from Dalai Lama

2010-09-04T20:26:00.001-07:00

Self-discipline, although difficult, and not always easy while combating negative emotions, should be a defensive measure. At least we will be able to prevent the advent of negative conduct dominated by negative emotion. That is ‘shila’, or moral ethics. Once we develop this by familiarizing ourselves with it, along with mindfulness and conscientiousness, eventually that pattern and way of life will become a part of our own life.” – Dalai Lama

“The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual’s own reason and critical analysis.” – Dalai Lama

50 Life Secrets and Tips

2010-09-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

50 Life Secrets and Tips

1. Memorize something everyday. Not only will this leave your brain sharp and your memory functioning, you will also have a huge library of quotes to bust out at any moment. Poetry, sayings and philosophies are your best options.
2. Constantly try to reduce your attachment to possessions. Those who are heavy set with material desires will have a lot of trouble when their things are taken away from them or lost. Possessions do end up owning you, not the other way around. Become a person of minimal needs and you will be much more content.
3. Develop an endless curiosity about this world. Become an explorer and view the world as your jungle. Stop and observe all of the little things as completely unique events. Try new things. Get out of your comfort zone and try to experience as many different environments and sensations as possible. This world has so much to offer, so why not take advantage of it?
4. Remember people’s names so that they feel appreciated and for your own future benefit when you want something from that person. To do this, say their name back to them when they introduce themselves. Then repeat the name in your head a number of times until you are sure you have it. Continue to use their name in conversation as much as possible to remove any chance of forgetting it. If you’re still having trouble, make up a rhyme about their name: “Dan the Man” or “Natalie flatters me.”
5. Get fit! It’s ridiculous to think that we have one body, one sole means of functioning, and people are too lazy to take care of themselves. Fit bodies lead to better health, confidence and more success with the opposite sex. I’d say those are 3 very good reasons to get in shape.
6. Learn to focus only on the present. The past is unchangeable so it is futile to reflect on it unless you are making sure you do not repeat past mistakes. The future is but a result of your actions today. So learn from the past to do better in the present so that you can succeed in the future.
7. Even more specifically, live in THIS moment. Even 10 minutes ago is the past. If you live purely in this moment you will always be happy because there is nothing wrong in this split-second.
8. Smile more often. Whenever you get a grin on your face, your brain is releasing serotonin, the happy hormone. Smiling is the natural way to force yourself to be happy. Many people even smile for five minutes straight in the morning to get themselves in a great mood for the day. It is a very powerful tool that is utilized less and less as we grow older and need happiness more than ever. Just remember that while happiness leads to smiles, smiles also lead to happiness.
9. Drink water. Hydration is tremendously important for overall health. Soda has absolutely ZERO nutritional content; it’s like pouring a punch of sugar and syrup into your cup. Instead, fill it with life-replenishing water. It may taste plain at first if you’re coming off of a heavy soda-drinking streak, but you’ll soon find yourself addicted to it. 10 glasses per day is optimal, how many have you been getting lately?
10. Don’t take life so seriously! Learn to laugh at the little things and this whole “existence” thing will be a whole lot easier. Be amused by your mistakes and failures and be thankful that you learned your lesson and won’t mess up like that again. And most importantly do things that you enjoy! Life is not strictly business, it can be mixed with pleasure.
11. Think positive thoughts. When you find yourself thinking a negative thought, stop it immediately by any means necessary. Slap yourself in the face, yell something positive at the top of your lungs or jump up and down. Do whatever it takes to get back to a positive mindset as such is essential for continual happiness and success.
12. Read books. No explanation needed.
13. Get in the sun. Superman was completely re-energized when he flew out to space and soaked in some rays and you can do the same right outside your front door (if you live in a constantly dreary place, my apologies). The sun feels amazing: your entire body will be coursing with warmth and life.
14. Help others. I’ll just give you a plethora of reasons why this is a MUST
* Helping people has a ripple effect. If you help someone they will feel more obliged to help someone else, and so on. Pay it forward
* You grow by giving and helping others. It can change you in ways you never expected
* Your relationship with that person will become stronger
* It’s the most fulfilling thing you can do on this planet. It not only feels amazing physically, you also feel like a good person
* You might be able to call in a favor later when you need some help
* Karma (if you believe in it)
* Because there are more people in this world than just you

15. Set aside a specific time to worry each day. Ponder all of your problems and anxieties during that time so that they will not distract you during work or moments of pleasure. This way you can be extremely efficient with your time and avoid focusing on negative things as much as possible. If you get all of your worry out of the way and have the mental fortitude to keep from reverting back to them, you will be much happier on the daily.
16. Be honest at all times. Lies lead to nothing but trouble. Being known as trustworthy is an excellent trait to maintain and essential to having integrity.
17. Sleep less. Fully adjusting to a new sleep cycle can take up to 21 days so don’t give up if you feel tired after switching to 5-hour nights. The “required” 8 hour/night is for normal people. If you’re reading THIS article on THIS site, you are not normal. So figure out how much sleep YOU really need and adjust accordingly. As enjoyable as sleep is, waking existence is much more fulfilling and efficient. IF this really sparks your interest, check out alternate sleep cycles with which you can be fine off of 2 hours of sleep per day.
18. Read “Bringers of Light” and “Conversations with God” by Neale Donald Walsch. These books will help you decide what you want to do in this life and how to get to that point. They will also profoundly change the way you look at the purpose of existence. Read them!
19. Figure out what your goals and dreams are. So many people wander aimlessly through life simply go for whatever small thing they want moment by moment. Instead, decide what your perfect life consists of and begin to put the steps in motion to reach that place. The most satisfying thing in the world (yes, better than sex, much better) is overcoming a challenge and reaching a goal. We are the happiest when we are growing and working towards something better.
20. Start your day off right. Wake up and set aside an hour for personal development activities (meditation, self-introspection, observing nature, etc.) Do the things that make you feel blissful, optimistic and empowered so that you can set a positive tone for your day. I guarantee that once you start doing this, your days will be more enjoyable and fulfilling. Today is going to be the best day of your life. Duh.
21. Utilize ‘The Burning Method.’ Whenever a fear or worry or complaint comes to mind, close your eyes and imagine writing down the thought on a piece of paper. Then proceed to light the paper and fire and watch it disintegrate. Even better, actually write it down and burn it. You won’t have any problem ridding your mind of the thought after doing this.
22. Travel. Frequent Flyer Master Anyone who has ever gone anywhere will tell you that traveling is one of the most exciting and life-changing activities that you can do. Observing a different culture will expand your mind while making you further appreciate the life you already live. This goes back to becoming an explorer: this world is your jungle so go explore! Who knows, maybe you’ll find a place you love so much that you decide to move. Imagine the positive repercussions a new environment could have on your life.
23. The Rubber Band Method This is the third and final way to rid yourself of negative thoughts (hopefully by now you have figured out that this is very important!). Place a rubber band around your wrist and snap it against your skin anytime a negative thought finds its way into your head. This classical conditioning technique associates a slight pain with negative thoughts like Pavlov associated food/salivation with the sound of a bell. Sounds a bit cruel at first but it only stings for a second, I promise. Plus the outcome, having only positive thoughts, far outweighs a little slap on the wrist here and there.
24. Learn to be unaffected by the words of others. Most people get very upset when they are called negative names by others, but there is a simple trick to overcoming this. Here it is: If I went up to you and called you a fire hydrant, would you be upset? Of course not. Obviously you are not a fire hydrant, you are a human being. The same concept applies to when someone calls you something that you know you are not. They are foolish for saying such things, so why would you react with such anger? The only exception is when someone calls you something that is true! In this case, you should thank them for alerting you to a weakness, one that you can now work on changing.
25. Read “Zen and the Art of Happiness” by Chris Prentiss. This book will give you the knowledge and instruction to be happy at all times regardless of the circumstances. Yes, this sounds like an oversimplification of happiness, but I assure you that this book will change you in an amazing way.
26. Develop the ability to forgive. Forgiveness is something that most people fail miserably at even thought it’s so simple. Grudges only bring more misery to those who hold them and prevent good relations with the target. YOU makes mistakes all of the time so why not have mercy when other do? Remaining angry feels horrible while forgiving someone brings a refreshing sensation to the mind and healing to the relationship.
27. Be the person that makes others feel special. Be known for your kindness and sympathy.
28. Learn to lucid dream, or to realize when you are dreaming so that you can control your dreams. Sleep feels good, but its rather boring and unproductive. With lucid dreaming under your belt, night time can be even more exciting than when you are awake. You can do anything: fly, travel to other planets, party with a celebrity, get intimate with your dream boy/girl, etc. Many lucid dreams have also reported being able to speak directly with the subconscious during dreams by demanding to be taken to it after becoming lucid. For those that know a thing or two about your subconscious, that is a BIG deal.
29. Visualize daily. It has been said and proven time and time again that what you focus on is what you get. If you complain all of the time, you will run into more of the things you complain about. The same goes for good things like health, wealth and happiness. So spend some time in the morning imagining yourself achieving whatever it is that you currently desire. Focus is key in this exercise, so choose a quiet environment where you won’t be disturbed. If you’re having trouble focusing and continually find that your mind has wandered to something else, read about meditation in the following life tip. There is a lot more to this concept, so check out the full article on visualization and the law of attraction here.
30. Meditate everyday for at least 20 minutes. In this modern world where everyone is so connected to everything else via cell phones, TV and internet, most people rarely enjoy the beauty of silence. The ability to quiet your mind and relax your body is an art and skill that everyone should develop. Simply sit somewhere, preferably in nature, and focus on your breathing or try to think about nothing. This is going to be extremely hard at first! You might find it boring or just plain impossible to think of nothing, but you will get better and you will learn to love it. Post-meditation, you will feel extremely clear headed and.. well, just plain wonderful. The only way to really understand this sensation is to try it.
31. Learn to control your mind. What kind of skilled human are you if you cannot even control your own thoughts? While the human mind is described as being a stream of consciousness, that does not mean you can’t decide where your stream flows. Techniques like meditation and the 3 ways to flush out negative thoughts will aid you immensely in learning to control your mind.
32. Learn to control your emotions. The only person that can make you unhappy is you! You are the one that decides to be affected by the words and actions of others. Realize this so that the next time you experience a negative emotion, you can find the strength within yourself to overcome it.
33. Take a class in speed reading. Books are full of information that can enhance your knowledge-base, vocabulary and yourself as a person. Speed reading is an easy way to get at this info faster so that you can have more time for other endeavors.
34. Relax! This one is for you work-o-holics out there (myself included). Yes, work is very important and productive but you need to take some time to chill out everyday or you are going to burn out faster than a candle with no oxygen. Additionally, you need to reward yourself for a job well done. What’s the use of doing all of that work if you can’t have a little fun from time to time anyways?
35. Work on making good first impressions. Practice a strong, firm handshake and the small talk that generally goes along with meeting someone for the first time. People won’t know what to think of you if you have nothing more to say beyond “My name is _______, nice to meet you.” Also make sure you remember names, as mentioned previously. Who knows, you may be going into business with or marrying this person you’re meeting for the first time if you make a good impression. Be sure and make an excellent one.
36. Learn to use your eyes to their full potential:
* Make constant eye contact when in conversation. Looking away (especially down) is a sign of inferiority and unsureness. Instead, look at your conversation partner dead in the eyes and keep them locked on
* Master the piercing stare. You know when someone looks at you and it feels like they can see into your soul? Well that’s not a hereditary characteristic, it just takes practice. Work on sharpening your gaze in the mirror. You’ll know you have it when it’s intimidating to continue looking at yourself
* Master the one-eyebrow raise. This one isn’t necessary by any means, but hey, why not? Pick a brow to learn with and go look in a mirror. Raise both of your eyebrows but use your hand to hold down the brow that you want to stay down. This will probably feel very stupid at first but if you keep trying, you will eventually pin down the muscle you need to flex to get that one brow up
37. Be mysterious. Don’t let off everything about you and definitely leave out some major details. There is something both alluring and mesmerizing about someone that no one knows fully about. I’m not saying to confide in no one or to alienate yourself. Just think James Bond.
38. Come up with a life mantra. You know, like “Carpe Diem” or “Live life to the fullest,” but not as cliché. Make it something that really hits home with you so that you will actually stick to it. Make sure it’ not so specific that it rarely applies but also not so general that it’s not personal.
39. Get good at something. Call it a hobby or a passion, whatever it is, just get damn good at it. Your occupation does not count! Make it something that you can practice often enough to excel at. Examples: Magic tricks, surfing, ping pong, creating short films, and unicycling. It can be anything but I would recommend choosing something that: 1) You are passionate about 2) You can bust out at any moment to display your skills for any discerning crowd. My mind goes immediately to aerobatics and break dancing, but that’s just me.
40. Work out those abs. Above any other muscle group in the entire body, the abs are the most important AND, for guys, the most impressive to the opposite sex. They constitute your core, the center point of your body. Your ability to balance comes almost completely from the strength of your abdominal muscles and balance is vital to performance in any physical activity. Summary: they’re very important. For more info on how to work out your abs, check out this video.
41. Keep your brain sharp. The majority of people are stuck in ruts. They go to the same job everyday, hang out with the same friends and eat at the same places. While that may feel safe, it’s not the most stimulating lifestyle for your brain. Those synapses have been built up enough, so try something that you do NOT know how to do! Buy a model car kit, master the art of sudoku or crosswords, or go pick up another major at your nearest college. The point is you need to be learning new things to keep your brain honest. Form new synapses by forcing your mind to work in ways it has not worked before. Just like physical workouts, doing too much of the same exercise will eventually give no results. Switch it up!
42. Read something inspirational right before bed and after waking. This will set get you in a great mood for sleep and for the day. Read anything from a famous speech to your favorite self-improvement book. Try to read something that get’s you really excited in the morning especially so that you’ll leave your house beaming with energy and wonder.
43. Do what you love.Working for Yourself Guide There is a huge difference between making a life and making a living; which one are you making right now? So many spend their entire lives trying to make as much money as possible so that they can afford to do what they really want later. It makes no sense to settle in life until you’re 65 so that you can retire and do what you want when you’re already WAY past your prime. We only live life once so why wouldn’t you want to spend it pursuing your bliss? To do anything else would be a tragic waste of the freedom you are allowed if you are reading this right now. Follow your bliss and you will be a thousand times more happy than your retirement date and 40+ years younger.
44. Choose your friends wisely. You are affected far more than you think by the people you spend your time with. Do your friends share your values? Do they encourage you when you speak of your goals and dreams or do they scoff? Make sure the people around you are conducive to the lifestyle you want to lead or you will find yourself being dragged again and again into behavior that distances you from your desires. Friends with a habit of producing negative thoughts will especially hinder you. This can be a hard task to follow through with if you realize you good friend is one of these saboteurs, but you must be firm! Don’t let anyone get in the way of you being all that you can be.
45. Don’t burn bridges. By that I mean maintain your relationships with people even if you think you are never going to see them again. For example, if you are quitting your job, don’t chew out your boss before leaving! You might run into him/her again later and life and wish you had never severed ties so harshly. You never know when you might need the help of someone you knew in the past. Plus there is already too much hatred in this world, why add more towards the people you interact with?
46. Keep a journal/diary. It sounds like a very monotonous habit at first, but when you get into it, that little book will become a great way to organize your thoughts and track your growth over the years. Most of us already stay awake in bed at night pondering the events of the day anyways so why not document those thoughts in an organized fashion? That will allow you to look back and observe how your way of thinking has changed over time.
47. Read “New Pyscho-Cybernetics” by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. This book will explain why the content of your thoughts has such a profound effect on your life through religious, philosophical and scientific arguments. A must read for completely understand who this life thing works.
48. Learn to use and trust your subconscious/intuition. When you spend time in silence everyday, listen not for words but for a feeling that tells you to do something. Do not mistake your own reasoning and thoughts for those of your subconscious. If you can track where the thought came from, (this thought led to that thought which led to this thought, etc.) then it was not from your subconscious. Learning to accurately discern between the two will allow you to tap into knowledge that you don’t consciously have.
49. Develop a charismatic personality. You know, the kind of personality that is surrounded by people constantly and is the life of the party. Start visualizing yourself as THAT person. Maybe take a short course on dynamic speaking and learn some jokes. Take the time to learn some party tricks and sleight of hand. Most importantly, believe that you already are charismatic even if you fail at beign the center point of the next party. Lie to yourself constantly and tell yourself that you are more warm and gregarious than Ronald Regan. Belief is the first step! Reality will come soon after.
50. Love is all there is. If you truly want to be a master of life, let love be in your every action. Love your friends, family and enemies alike. This is the most difficult thing to do out of this entire list, which is why it is listed at #50. But if you accomplish this, you will be seen as a leader among everyone that allows hate, envy, disgust and all other negative emotions into their lives. Think Gandhi. Love is so rare in this world when compared to the massive presence of hate that by exuding love, you will immediately see yourself and the people around you change. Love. Love. Love.

Wyclef Jean with Eric Clapton ....

2010-09-03T19:30:00.000-07:00

Tribes of the indian nations

2010-09-02T20:16:00.000-07:00

tribes of the indian nations

Great selection of Famous Quotes

2010-09-02T18:05:00.000-07:00

Wisdom and Inspirational Quotes

1. It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
—Albert Einstein
2. Eighty percent of success is showing up.
—Woody Allen
3. I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
—Wilson Mizner
4. The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.
—Daniel J. Boorstin
5. The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
—William Arthur Ward
6. If you don’t make mistakes, you’re not working on hard enough problems. And that’s a big mistake.
—Frank Wilczek

7. You can never get enough of what you don’t really need.
—Eric Hoffer
8. Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
—Albert Einstein
9. Do not confuse motion and progress. A rocking horse keeps moving but does not make any progress.
—Alfred A. Montapert
10. I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.
—Bill Cosby
11. Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.
—Spanish Proverb
12. Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
—Oscar Wilde
13. There is a great difference between worry and concern. A worried person sees a problem, and a concerned person solves a problem.
—Harold Stephens
14. It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.
—Alfred Adler
15. I hear: I forget / I see: I remember / I do: I understand
—Chinese Proverb
16. Discipline is just choosing between what you want now and what you want most.
—Unknown Author
17. The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.
—Wallace Wattles
18. Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
—Barry LePatner
19. When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad, and that is my religion.
—Abraham Lincoln
20. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
—Winston Churchill
Humor Quotes

21. If it weren’t for my lawyer, I’d still be in prison. It went a lot faster with two people digging.
—Joe Martin
22. Acquaintance, n.: A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to.
—Ambrose Bierce
23. I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.
—Noel Coward
24. The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.
—Will Rogers
25. You know you’re getting old when you stop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.
—George Burns
26. Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana.
—Groucho Marx
27. Those are my principles. If you don’t like them I have others.
—Groucho Marx
28. Somewhere on this globe, every ten seconds, there is a woman giving birth to a child. She must be found and stopped.
—Sam Levenson
29. Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur. (Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.)
—Unknown Author
30. The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.
—Calvin Trillin
31. The tooth fairy teaches children that they can sell body parts for money.
—David Richerby
32. My friends tell me I have an intimacy problem. But they don’t really know me.
—Garry Shandling
33. I don’t deserve this award, but I have arthritis and I don’t deserve that either.
—Jack Benny
34. I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.
—Lily Tomlin
35. If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us tickets.
—Mel Brooks
36. If I only had a little humility, I’d be perfect.
—Ted Turner
37. When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
—Henny Youngman
38. The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.
—Groucho Marx
39. Hofstadter’s Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter’s Law.
—Douglas Hofstadter
40. Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a relative, a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger.
—Franklin P. Jones
Otherwise Interesting Quotes

41. Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
—Albert Einstein
42. Millions long for immortality who do not know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
—Susan Erz
43. Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
—Pablo Picasso
44. A genius! For 37 years I’ve practised fourteen hours a day, and now they call me a genius!
—Pablo Sarasate
45. There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.
—Don Herold
46. The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.
—Michael Althsuler
47. The little I know I owe to my ignorance.
—Orville Mars
48. The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
—George Bernard Shaw
49. In God we trust; all others bring data.
—Dr. W. Edwards Deming
50. The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.
—Mark Twain
51. Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.
—Mark Twain
52. My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
—Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.
53. Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex and intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior.
—Dee Hock
54. Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
—Albert Einstein
55. In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower
56. The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
—Niels Bohr
57. Before you go and criticize the younger generation, just remember who raised them.
—Unknown Author
58. Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
—Arthur Schopenhauer
59. It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
—Harry Truman
60. A conclusion is the place where you got tired thinking.
—Martin H. Fischer

GOD BLESS AMERICA

2010-08-29T18:41:00.000-07:00

God bless america

View more presentations from gugacalifornia.

Do you wanna be happy?

2010-08-27T23:07:00.001-07:00

“It's not where you take things from—it's where you take them to.” ...Godard

2010-08-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

A classic example of the prisoner's dilemma...

2010-08-23T07:58:00.000-07:00

The prisoner's dilemma is a fundamental problem in game theory that demonstrates why two people might not cooperate even if it is in both their best interests to do so. It was originally framed by Merrill Flood and Melvin Dresher working at RAND in 1950. Albert W. Tucker formalized the game with prison sentence payoffs and gave it the "prisoner's dilemma" name (Poundstone, 1992).

A classic example of the prisoner's dilemma (PD) is presented as follows:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated the prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies for the prosecution against the other (defects) and the other remains silent (cooperates), the defector goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

If we assume that each player cares only about minimizing his or her own time in jail, then the prisoner's dilemma forms a non-zero-sum game in which two players may each either cooperate with or defect from (betray) the other player. In this game, as in most game theory, the only concern of each individual player (prisoner) is maximizing his or her own payoff, without any concern for the other player's payoff. The unique equilibrium for this game is a Pareto-suboptimal solution, that is, rational choice leads the two players to both play defect, even though each player's individual reward would be greater if they both played cooperatively.

In the classic form of this game, cooperating is strictly dominated by defecting, so that the only possible equilibrium for the game is for all players to defect. No matter what the other player does, one player will always gain a greater payoff by playing defect. Since in any situation playing defect is more beneficial than cooperating, all rational players will play defect, all things being equal.

In the iterated prisoner's dilemma, the game is played repeatedly. Thus each player has an opportunity to punish the other player for previous non-cooperative play. If the number of steps is known by both players in advance, economic theory says that the two players should defect again and again, no matter how many times the game is played. However, this analysis fails to predict the behavior of human players in a real iterated prisoners dilemma situation, and it also fails to predict the optimum algorithm when computer programs play in a tournament. Only when the players play an indefinite or random number of times can cooperation be an equilibrium, technically a subgame perfect equilibrium meaning that both players defecting always remains an equilibrium and there are many other equilibrium outcomes. In this case, the incentive to defect can be overcome by the threat of punishment.

In casual usage, the label "prisoner's dilemma" may be applied to situations not strictly matching the formal criteria of the classic or iterative games, for instance, those in which two entities could gain important benefits from cooperating or suffer from the failure to do so, but find it merely difficult or expensive, not necessarily impossible, to coordinate their activities to achieve cooperation.

Strategy for the classical prisoner's dilemma

The classical prisoner's dilemma can be summarized thus:

Prisoner B Stays Silent Prisoner B Betrays
Prisoner A Stays Silent Each serves 6 months Prisoner A: 10 years
Prisoner B: goes free
Prisoner A Betrays Prisoner A: goes free
Prisoner B: 10 years Each serves 5 years

"Seven Blunders of the World" by Mahatma Gandhi

2010-08-21T19:54:00.000-07:00

"Seven Blunders of the World"

1. Wealth without work

2. Pleasure without conscience

3. Knowledge without character

4. Commerce without morality

5. Science without humanity

6. Worship without sacrifice

7. Politics without principle

—Mahatma Gandhi

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

2010-08-21T19:35:00.000-07:00

How to Win Friends and Influence People
This is Dale Carnegie's summary of his book, from 1936
Table of Contents

1. Fundamental Techniques in Handling People
2. Six Ways to Make People Like You
3. How to Win People to Your Way of Thinking
4. Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment

Part One
Fundamental Techniques in Handling People

1. Don't criticize, condemn or complain.
2. Give honest and sincere appreciation.
3. Arouse in the other person an eager want.

Part Two
Six ways to make people like you

1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
2. Smile.
3. Remember that a person's name is to that person the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
5. Talk in terms of the other person's interests.
6. Make the other person feel important - and do it sincerely.

Part Three
Win people to your way of thinking

1. The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
2. Show respect for the other person's opinions. Never say, "You're wrong."
3. If you are wrong, admit it quickly and emphatically.
4. Begin in a friendly way.
5. Get the other person saying "yes, yes" immediately.
6. Let the other person do a great deal of the talking.
7. Let the other person feel that the idea is his or hers.
8. Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view.
9. Be sympathetic with the other person's ideas and desires.
10. Appeal to the nobler motives.
11. Dramatize your ideas.
12. Throw down a challenge.

Part Four
Be a Leader: How to Change People Without Giving Offense or Arousing Resentment
A leader's job often includes changing your people's attitudes and behavior. Some suggestions to accomplish this:

1. Begin with praise and honest appreciation.
2. Call attention to people's mistakes indirectly.
3. Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person.
4. Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.
5. Let the other person save face.
6. Praise the slightest improvement and praise every improvement. Be "hearty in your approbation and lavish in your praise."
7. Give the other person a fine reputation to live up to.
8. Use encouragement. Make the fault seem easy to correct.
9. Make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest.

How to win friends and influence people

Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living

2010-08-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

Dalai Lama’s 18 rules for living

At the start of the new millennium the Dalai Lama apparently issued eighteen rules for living.

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three Rs:
1. Respect for self
2. Respect for others
3. Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don’t let a little dispute injure a great friendship.
7. When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honourable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It’s a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

textsnip

The Gambler's Fallacy

2010-08-20T23:03:00.000-07:00

The Gambler's Fallacy

The Gambler's Fallacy is a powerful and deceptive false belief — if this fallacy were to suddenly disappear, many gambling casinos would go out of business.

Here's how it works — let's say we flip a fair coin, one that has an equal chance of coming up heads or tails. By definition, the probability for heads on the first flip is 0.5 or ½. Now think about these questions:

* If you have just gotten one heads result, what is the probability for heads on the next flip?
* If you have just gotten one tails result, what is the probability for heads on the next flip?
* If you have just gotten eight heads results in a row, what is the probability for heads on the next flip?

Contrary to a widely held belief, the answer to all the above questions is ... 0.5 or ½. Regardless of what has happened before, the probability for heads in the next coin flip is exactly the same.

This fallacy has its roots in confusion between the probability of a sequence of events and the probability of an event separate from the sequence in which it appears:

* The probability of tossing eight heads in a row is 2-8, or 1/256.
* But during the eight coin tosses, the probability of each new heads result considered separately is ½.

Casinos make vast sums of money from people who think, "I've lost repeatedly at this (roulette wheel / slot machine / card game), therefore my probability of winning must be increasing, so no only should I keep playing, but I should increase my bets." But in fact, a past winning or losing streak cannot change one's future odds of winning.

I've often wondered whether an education in math might cure the Gambler's Fallacy.

The Gambler's Fallacy

An Essay by Einstein -- The World As I See It

2010-08-20T22:24:00.001-07:00

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving...

"I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves -- this critical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty. The ideals that have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth. Without the sense of kinship with men of like mind, without the occupation with the objective world, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific endeavors, life would have seemed empty to me. The trite objects of human efforts -- possessions, outward success, luxury -- have always seemed to me contemptible.

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."
"My political ideal is democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and reverence from my fellow-beings, through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the few ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that for any organization to reach its goals, one man must do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility. But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader. In my opinion, an autocratic system of coercion soon degenerates; force attracts men of low morality... The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the political state, but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.

"This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor... This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism -- how passionately I hate them!

"The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it and can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed. It was the experience of mystery -- even if mixed with fear -- that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. In this sense, and only this sense, I am a deeply religious man... I am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the Reason that manifests itself in nature."

Albert Einstein (signature)

One Love By Boob Marley

2010-08-20T14:45:00.000-07:00

Really Unusually Uncertain By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

2010-08-18T17:27:00.000-07:00

Really Unusually Uncertain
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
August 17, 2010
The New York Times

Over the past few weeks I’ve had a chance to speak with senior economic policy makers in America and Germany and I think I’ve figured out where we are. It’s like this: things are getting better, except where they aren’t. The bailouts are working, except where they’re not. Things will slowly get better, unless they slowly get worse. We should know soon, unless we don’t.

It is no wonder that businesses are reluctant to hire with such “unusual uncertainty,” as Fed chief Ben Bernanke put it. One reason it is so unusual is that we are not just trying to recover from a financial crisis triggered by crazy mortgage lending. We’re also having to deal with three huge structural problems that built up over several decades and have reached a point of criticality at the same time.

And as Mohamed El-Erian, the C.E.O. of Pimco, has been repeating, “Structural problems need structural solutions.” There are no quick fixes. In America and Europe, we are going to need some big structural fixes to get back on a sustained growth path — changes that will require a level of political consensus and sacrifice that has been sorely lacking in most countries up to now.

The first big structural problem is America’s. We’ve just ended more than a decade of debt-fueled growth during which we borrowed money from China to give ourselves a tax cut and more entitlements but did nothing to curtail spending or make long-term investments in new growth engines. Now our government owes more than ever and has more future obligations than ever — like expanded Medicare prescription drug benefits, expanded health care, an expanded war in Afghanistan and expanded Social Security payments (because the baby boomers are about to retire) — and less real growth to pay for it all.

America will probably need some added stimulus to kick start employment, but any stimulus right now must be in growth-enabling investments that will yield more than their costs, or they just increase debt. That means investments in skill building and infrastructure plus tax incentives for starting new businesses and export promotion. To get a stimulus through Congress it must be paired with spending cuts and/or tax increases timed for when the economy improves.

Second, America’s solvency inflection point is coinciding with a technological one. Thanks to Internet diffusion, the rise of cloud computing, social networking and the shift from laptops and desktops to hand-held iPads and iPhones, technology is destroying older, less skilled jobs that paid a decent wage at a faster pace than ever while spinning off more new skilled jobs that pay a decent wage but require more education than ever.

There is only one way to deal with this challenge: more innovation to stimulate new industries and jobs that can pay workers $40 an hour, coupled with a huge initiative to train more Americans to win these jobs over their global competitors. There is no other way.

But the global economy needs a healthy Europe as well, and the third structural challenge we face is that the European Union, a huge market, is facing what the former U.S. ambassador to Germany, John Kornblum, calls its first “existential crisis.” For the first time, he noted, the E.U. “saw the possibility of collapse.” Germany has made clear that if the eurozone is to continue, it will be on the German work ethic not the Greek one. Will its euro-partners be able to raise their games? Uncertain.

Keeping up with Germany won’t be easy. A decade ago Germany was the “sick man of Europe.” No more. The Germans pulled together. Labor gave up wage hikes and allowed businesses to improve competitiveness and worker flexibility, while the government subsidized firms to keep skilled workers on the job in the downturn. Germany is now on the rise, but also not free of structural challenges. Its growth depends on exports to China and it is the biggest financier of Greece. Still, “Germany is no longer the country with the oldest students and youngest retirees,” said Kornblum.

By contrast, America’s two big parties still cling to their core religious beliefs as if nothing has changed. Republicans try to undermine the president at every turn and offer their nostrum of tax-cuts-will-solve-everything — without ever specifying what services they’ll give up to pay for them. Mr. Obama gave us expanded health care before expanding the economic pie to sustain it.

You still don’t sense our politicians are saying, “Wait a minute; stop everything; we have got to work together.” Don’t these people have 401k plans of their own and kids worried about jobs?

The president needs to take America’s labor, business and Congressional leadership up to Camp David and not come back without a grand bargain for taxes, trade promotion, energy, stimulus and budget cutting that offers the market some certainty that we are moving together — not just on a bailout but on an economic rebirth for the 21st century. “Fat chance,” you say. Well then, I say get ready for a long phase of stubborn unemployment and anemic growth.

Quem mais ainda é de esquerda? by Alexandre Barros - O Estado de S.Paulo

2010-08-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

Quem mais ainda é de esquerda?
17 de agosto de 2010 | 0h 00

Alexandre Barros - O Estado de S.Paulo

A esquerda completou 200 anos. Começou na Revolução Francesa. Eram os antimonarquistas que, na Assembleia dos Estados Gerais, se sentavam do lado esquerdo. Desde então, a esquerda foi mudando sutilmente de sentido, mantendo a ideia geral de que esquerda eram os favoráveis ao povo e contra os privilégios.

O progresso tecnológico que tomou impulso ali por 1850 e a Revolução Soviética de 1917 mudaram o mundo, mas, por inércia, perpetuou-se a ideia de que esquerda seria tudo o que era pró-povo. Era uma distorção, mas as desigualdades mantinham o conceito vivo, já apoiado na bengala.

A partir de 1950 o consumo de massa deu os primeiros passos, com o fim da 2.ª Guerra Mundial e a aceleração do crescimento nos Estados Unidos, na Europa do Plano Marshall e no Japão. A tomada do poder pelos comunistas de Mao Tsé-tung, na China, e a guerra fria engessaram o conceito, mas nessa altura ele já andava de muletas, e não mais de bengala.

A política brasileira manteve, entretanto, uma característica curiosa, herdada, talvez, do populismo getulista. Todos queriam ser a favor do povo e, encabulados, definiam-se como "meio de esquerda". As ditaduras latino-americanas iniciadas nas décadas de 1960 e 1970 ajudavam. No Brasil, ser de esquerda era ser contra a ditadura, e aí o conceito parou. Velhos políticos, como os nossos principais candidatos presidenciais, formaram-se nessa época e congelaram o conceito em sua cabeça.

O País passou por muita coisa e mudou, principalmente a demografia. O Brasil de 2010 tem mais que o triplo da população da década de 1950. E esse crescimento acelerou-se até 1980, quando as mulheres brasileiras chegaram à conclusão de que não era mais vantagem ter tantos filhos, apesar do que achavam igrejas, militares e governos, que nada faziam para reduzir o ritmo de crescimento da população.

Os 66% da população brasileira nascidos a partir dos anos 50 já pegaram o conceito de esquerda à morte. O crescimento econômico acelerado incorporava cada vez mais pessoas à sociedade de consumo, por mais básico que fosse esse consumo.

A mídia de massa mostrava às pessoas como viviam a classe média e os ricos. E todos queriam ser ricos. A esquerda não era o caminho. Quando Ronald Reagan disse a Mikhail Gorbachev, em Berlim, "sr. Gorbachev, derrube esse muro", o Muro finalmente caiu em 9 de novembro de1989. Aí o conceito de esquerda perdeu qualquer significado, inclusive no Brasil.

Curiosamente, ainda em 2010 os dois candidatos à Presidência da República mais bem colocados nas pesquisas, formados politicamente que foram durante o regime militar, continuam com a dicotomia maniqueísta. Parecem não perceber que o Brasil e o mundo mudaram.

Fernando Henrique Cardoso, que, alegadamente, teria dito "esqueçam tudo o que eu escrevi", libertou-se das algemas. Lula só era "de esquerda" porque seus opositores assim o definiam. Ele estava fora da ideia de esquerda dos tempos da guerra fria. No dizer de um general importante do período 1964-1990, Lula sempre foi do sistema, isto é, ele lutou com as armas políticas aceitas e possíveis do fim do regime militar. Marina Silva é outra que não se encaixava nisso. Estava lutando pela sua floresta e era mais verde do que o azul ou o vermelho da guerra fria.

Mas os dois candidatos majoritários nas pesquisas seguem atraídos por conceitos que não fazem mais sentido. Em sua retórica de campanha batalham para responder à pergunta que o eleitorado não está fazendo: quem é mais de esquerda?

A candidata Dilma Rousseff (PT) - que num esquema tradicional seria chamada "de esquerda" -, curiosamente, porém, busca se afastar um pouco do conceito oco, enquanto o candidato José Serra (PSDB) se apega a ele, tentando convencer o eleitorado de que é mais "de esquerda" que sua principal concorrente.

Enquanto isso, em outros pontos do universo político, Aldo Rebelo, do PCdoB (SP), apoia e promove um projeto de lei para desengessar as regulamentações ambientais e facilitar o crescimento do moderno agronegócio brasileiro, e outros projetos essenciais para o enriquecimento. Uma postura totalmente inesperada para os que ainda se apegam aos conceitos anacrônicos de esquerda e direita. Eduardo Campos, do PSB, governador de Pernambuco, neto de Miguel Arraes, livrou-se da prisão conceitual e faz um governo tão livre quanto possível da dicotomia ultrapassada. Sérgio Cabral (PMDB), no Rio de Janeiro, filho de um comunista histórico, possivelmente ganhará em primeiro turno tentando ser um governador moderno.

Em São Paulo, o presidenciável José Serra, que insiste em se dizer de esquerda, quase não fala com o candidato a governador pelo PSDB, que faz questão de não ter nada que ver com esquerda ou direita, tendo chegado a ser apelidado de "picolé de chuchu", numa analogia com o que de mais insosso pode existir em gastronomia.

Quando será que os candidatos a presidente vão acordar e perceber o que o povo brasileiro já aprendeu: que a esquerda e a direita ficaram ocas? Elas não querem dizer mais nada. Com inflação baixa, crédito abundante e produtos para consumir, os eleitores de hoje são conservadores em relação a manter o que conquistaram ou ganharam nos últimos três governos - Itamar Franco, Fernando Henrique e Lula.

Roucos de tanto ouvir isso, os dois candidatos mais bem colocados nas pesquisas bradam coisas que a maioria do eleitorado brasileiro nem sequer sabe o que querem dizer. Insistem em responder à pergunta: quem é mais de esquerda? Quando o máximo que o moderno eleitorado brasileiro, de 135 milhões de pessoas, quer saber mesmo é: quem mais ainda é de esquerda?

Acordem, Dilma Rousseff e José Serra, parem de se esforçar para responder à pergunta que o Brasil não está mais fazendo.

CIENTISTA POLÍTICO, É DIRETOR-GERENTE DA EARLY WARNING: OPORTUNIDADE E RISCO POLÍTICO (BRASÍLIA). E-MAIL: ALEX@EAW.COM.BR

Brucia La Terra... Godfather III song

2010-08-14T23:47:00.000-07:00

Gian Campione - Brucia la terra
Cargado por ginagrigento. - Más video blogs y vloggers.

Title: Brucia La Terra

Brucia la luna n’cielu
E ju bruciu d’amuri
Focu ca si consuma
Comu lu me cori
L’anima chianci
Addulurata

Non si da paci
Ma cchi mala nuttata

Lu tempu passa
Ma non agghiorna
Non c’e mai suli
S’idda non torna

Brucia la terra mia
E abbrucia lu me cori
Cchi siti d’acqua idda
E ju siti d’amuri

Acu la cantu
La me canzuni

Si no c’e nuddu
Ca s’a affacia
A lu barcuni

Brucia la luna n’cielu
E ju bruciu d’amuri
Focu ca si consuma
Comu lu me cori
Title: Earth Is Burning

The moon is burning in the sky
And I am burning with love
The fire that is consumed
Like my heart
My soul crys
Painfully

I’m not at peace
What a terrible night

The time passes
But there is no dawn
There is no sunshine
If she doesn’t return

My earth is burning
And my heart is burning
What she thirsts for water
I thirst for love

Who will I sing
My song to

If there is no one
Who shows herself
On the balcony

The moon is burning in the sky
And I am burning with love
The fire that is consumed
Like my heart

Via Crucis by Bruno Tolentino

2010-08-10T14:34:00.000-07:00

Via Crucis

A Via Crucis foi uma selvageria,
a Crucifixão uma brutalidade;
mas em três, quatro horas, acabou a agonia,
baixou a eternidade.

Eu vivo aqui, crucificada noite e dia,
carrego da manhã à tarde
o meu lenho de opróbrio e a noite me excrucia,
lenta, fria, covarde.

Ah, como eu preferia
que me crucificassem de uma vez, sem o alarde
de algum terceiro dia!

Mas toca-me seguir nessa monotonia,
a agonia de alçar-me do catre
e abrir de novo os braços, vazia.
(De As Horas de Katharina)

Niccoló Machiavelli, about BUREACRACY & BUREAUCRATS..The Discourses. 1517.

2010-08-09T19:14:00.000-07:00

The institutions of a city never should place it in the power of a few to interrupt all the important business of the republic. -

my "Lucky clover"

2010-08-03T16:10:00.001-07:00

The four-leaf clover is an uncommon variation of the common, three-leaved clover. According to tradition, such leaves bring good luck to their finders, especially if found accidentally.[1] According to legend, each leaf represents something: the first is for hope, the second is for faith, the third is for love, and the fourth is for luck.
Lucky Clover

I found my lucky clover in 1968 in my grand mother's house yard at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.. in the picture is a the real one -which has been in my possession for four decades.. my Grandma ... wrote the words describing the event personally..

.É uma ameaça: tente abrir uma empresa! CARLOS ALBERTO SARDENBERG

2010-07-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

Triste realidade do emprrsario brasileiro.!!!!!

O Globo

Claro, você não pode abrir um estabelecimento sem a assistência e a fiscalização dos bombeiros. Também é claro que o Corpo de Bombeiros não vai fazer isso de graça. Quer dizer, já não é tão claro, porque pagamos impostos demais neste país, mas, enfim, vá lá.

Agora, qual o preço dessa atividade dos bombeiros? Dependeria, digamos, da qualidade dos serviços? Se for assim, então os melhores bombeiros do Brasil são os de Sergipe.

Lá, o empreendedor tem que pagar nada menos que R$ 2.442 para obter o competente alvará. No Acre é bem mais barato. Sai por apenas R$ 72. Como se explica? Duas possibilidades: ou os bombeiros do Acre são mais eficientes, de modo que conseguem fazer o mesmo serviço por menos dinheiro; ou fazem tudo de qualquer jeito, qualquer trocado está bem pago.

Visto de outro ângulo: será que o custo de operação dos bombeiros de Sergipe é tão elevado assim, de modo a justificar o alvará mais caro do Brasil? Ou seja, não tem critério algum. A definição do preço é totalmente arbitrária, dependendo de conveniências e necessidades locais.

E não é só nesse item. Claro que você não pode abrir um negócio de porte médio para grande sem um contrato. E como fazer isso sem um advogado? O cara é profissional, não vai trabalhar de graça. Quanto custa o serviço? A OAB fixa tabela mínima.

Em Santa Catarina, os advogados devem ser de primeira. Lá, o “visto”, como se diz, custa nada menos que R$ 2.681, o mais caro do país. Já na Paraíba, sai por apenas 200 reais, o mais barato. Terão os meios jurídicos nacionais percebido que as empresas registradas em Santa Catarina têm os melhores contratos do Brasil? Mas sabe se que a constituição de uma empresa média em Santa Catarina é a mais cara do Brasil. O custo é de R$ 4.432, isso se não for do ramo de alimentação, por exemplo. Aí, precisa do alvará sanitário. No Rio, isso custa um pouco mais de dois mil reais. Assim, abrir uma empresa sem alvará sanitário é mais caro em Santa Catarina. Com, fica mais caro no Rio, mais de cinco mil reais.

Segundo uma pesquisa nacional da Firjan, divulgada nesta semana, a abertura da empresa exige de 6 a 8 etapas burocráticas, o pagamento de 12 a 16 taxas, com 43 documentos.

Aí o empresário venceu todo esse caminho e começa a produzir. Agora é faturar e lucrar, certo? Nada disso.

Antes de vender, ele já está pagando impostos.

Digamos que tenha montado uma siderúrgica.

Sabem qual a tributação sobre a produção de aço? De 35% a 38% do custo total da operação, segundo um estudo do Ministério de Minas e Energia.

Pagar impostos não é simples. Dada a enorme complexidade de nosso sistema tributário, a empresa precisa de contadores, advogados, administradores — com seus computadores, sistemas e funcionários auxiliares, em instalações às vezes maiores que a fábrica.

Ou seja, tem o custo tributário e o

custo operacional do custo tributário.

E todas essas despesas feitas antes de faturar o primeiro centavo.

A Fiesp, em outro estudo divulgado nesta semana, calculou quanto as empresas brasileiras gastam com a burocracia a que são submetidas.

São nada menos que R$ 46,3 bilhões/ ano, equivalente a 1,5% do PIB.

Para comparar: os investimentos totais no Brasil chegam, na média recente, a 17% do PIB. Ou seja, a burocracia comeu nada menos que 10% disso. Ou ainda, as empresas gastam com burocracia três vezes mais do que gastam em pesquisa e desenvolvimento.

Isso em um país que precisa de mais investimentos e mais empresas privadas, que são a principal base do crescimento.

Mas, tudo bem. Todas as etapas foram vencidas, a empresa está lá funcionando, o produto é bom, vende bem, vida que segue. Segue? O administrador avisa que saiu uma nova regulamentação para marcar o ponto. Agora, toda empresa precisa ter uma máquina eletrônica que emite um recibo em papel com a hora de entrada e de saída do trabalhador.

Mais custos: com a nova máquina (pelo menos 4 mil reais) e com o papel dos recibos. Paciência, o diretor manda comprar o aparelho.

Não está disponível na praça. Talvez importando. (É como a cadeirinha de crianças para automóveis. A regra tornou-a obrigatória, mas não tinha no mercado).

Mas o bravo empresário importou a máquina, pagou ágio e está satisfeito com o rigor do controle de entrada e saída.

Está lá sossegado, achando que merece uma medalha ou um desconto nos impostos por cumprir tão bem a lei e as regras, quando aparece um outro fiscal. E essas tomadas que não foram substituídas? — Tomadas? — Ora, o senhor não sabe que saiu uma regra dizendo que todas as tomadas têm de ser brasileiras? — Como brasileiras? — É um modelo autêntico brasileiro, não tem igual em nenhum outro lugar, tem que trocar tudo.

— Caramba! O empresário ganha um prazo para trocar as tomadas, mas seu engenheiro eletricista diz que os aparelhos, internacionais, não são adequados à novas tomadas. Ora, compre adaptadores.

Não tem desse tipo na praça.

E depois reclamam quando ....

Bom, deixa pra lá.

Admirável Brasil novo by Nelson Motta

2010-07-23T12:50:00.001-07:00

Admirável Brasil novo Nelson Motta

O Globo - 23/07/2010

Estamos vivendo a alvorada de uma nova era no Brasil, com grandes transformações econômicas e sociais, gerando novos significados para velhas expressões. E até novos conceitos filosóficos, como minto, logo, existo, como foi comprovado nos depoimentos das CPIs.

Atualmente, os empresários não querem mais ter lucro, eles só trabalham para gerar empregos. Os bancos e grandes empresas só pensam em salvar o planeta, pela sustentabilidade.

As organizações não governamentais são sustentadas pelo governo.

Só falta o almoço grátis.

Modernizamos até mesmo provérbios universais consagrados pela sabedoria popular. As apavorantes galerias de fotos de nossas casas legislativas são o desmentido cabal de que as aparências enganam. Nas Comissões de Ética, ladrão que julga ladrão dá cem anos de perdão, e é mais fácil o Marcelo Camelo passar pelo buraco de uma agulha do que o STF condenar um parlamentar. Aqui se faz e aqui se apaga. No Brasil, o ladrão faz a ocasião, com emendas parlamentares e contribuições de campanha. Porque a liberdade deles começa onde termina a nossa.

Neste país, quem dá (dinheiro público) aos pobres, empresta aos seus, naturalmente eleitores. Contra fatos não há argumentos, só bons advogados e lobistas eficientes. Macacos velhos têm suas cumbucas em paraísos fiscais, dinheiro sujo não se lava em casa. São partidos, partidos, negócios à parte a parte de cada um no negócio. Afinal, tudo vale a pena se a multa é pequena.

Como se ve no noticiário politico, mentir e coçar é só começar, conversa mole tanto bate até que cola, e CPI que é ladra não morde. Quem não mama, chora. Aqui, o barato não sai caro, no Senado sai de graça. O segredo é a lama do negócio.

No Brasil, tristezas não pagam dívidas de campanha, quando um burro fala os outros aplaudem, os cães ladram e a caravana é assaltada, e quando um não quer dois não roubam, chamam mais gente: os meios justificam os afins.

Aqui se dá a Lula o que é de Deus e a César, talvez, o Senado, porque Lula é a voz do povo e dá a bolsa conforme o eleitor. O principe é o sapo.

Só espero que quem o voto fere, pelo voto seja ferido

Karate Shotokan sequence

2010-07-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

Lula: jugar en primera división sin mojarse by JORGE CASTAÑEDA el Pais.com

2010-05-24T16:17:00.000-07:00

Lula: jugar en primera división sin mojarse

JORGE CASTAÑEDA 24/05/2010

Hace tiempo que el Brasil de Lula busca un papel global, y que el mundo reconoce sus méritos y celebra sus esfuerzos. La prensa internacional ha hecho del gigante sudamericano la niña de sus ojos, colocando en un mismo plano el carisma de Lula, el Mundial de Fútbol del 2014, las Olimpiadas del 2016, el desempeño de Itamaratí (la Cancillería) en la Ronda Doha y el creciente papel brasileño en América Latina, desplazando tanto a México como a Estados Unidos, incluso en el patio trasero de ambos: Honduras.

A Washington le irrita que un aliado sin "vela en el entierro" entorpezca sus planes, sean o no justos

Lula puede salir airoso de su mediación en Irán o acabar mal con todos

En realidad, detrás de unas magníficas relaciones públicas y 16 años de buen gobierno (Cardoso y Lula), aunados a un crecimiento económico mediano pero sostenido, se perfilan varias aventuras diplomáticas fallidas, disimuladas por la superficialidad y la inercia mediáticas. Pero quizás se acerque la hora de la verdad, ya sea para confirmar el surgimiento de un nuevo protagonista global, ya sea para corroborar una obviedad: no bastan las ganas para ser una potencia mundial.

En efecto, el intento de Lula por lograr, de la mano de Turquía y de su mágica mancuerna diplomática (el primer ministro Erdogan y el canciller Davutoglu), un acuerdo con el régimen iraní que impidiera la imposición de nuevas sanciones a Teherán puede convertirse en un éxito notable o en una debacle. Los dos miembros no permanentes del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU (CSONU) presentaron la semana pasada un acuerdo con el presidente Ahmadineyad cuyo propósito ostensible consiste en evitar que el programa de enriquecimiento de uranio iraní se traduzca en la fabricación de una arma atómica. Para ello, propusieron canjear, en el plazo de un año, uranio enriquecido de bajo grado iraní por varillas occidentales de uranio enriquecido de alto grado, destinadas exclusivamente al reactor de investigación de Teherán.

El propósito real residió, sin embargo, en impedir que el Consejo de Seguridad de Naciones Unidas considerara -y en su caso aprobara- un paquete de nuevas sanciones contra el país gobernado por los ayatolás. Dicha eventualidad hubiera obligado a Ankara y a Brasilia a afrontar una disyuntiva del diablo: seguir el consenso anti-Teherán y traicionar su propia retórica, u oponerse a una resolución patrocinada por los miembros permanentes del Consejo de Seguridad y quedarse solos en el intento, mostrando el aislamiento y la confrontación que entraña su "nueva diplomacia".

La lógica turca es evidente. La república aún kemalista posee intereses reales en la zona. Lleva a cabo un comercio intenso con su vecino; tiene en común una población kurda significativa; recibe parte de su gas y petróleo de Irán; una proporción importante de la población iraní habla turco. Su nueva política exterior consiste en alejarse de las viejas posturaspro Estados Unidos y pro Israel (Turquía es miembro fundador de la OTAN) y en acercarse a sus vecinos -Siria, Grecia e Irán, por supuesto- y al mundo islámico en su conjunto.

La lógica brasileña es menos obvia. No hay intereses significativos de Brasil en Irán, el antisemitismo de Ahmadineyad es mal visto por la comunidad judía de São Paulo, e Itamaratí sabe muy bien que pocas cosas exasperan más a los norteamericanos que un país aliado sin "vela en el entierro" entorpezca sus propósitos, con independencia de la justeza de estos últimos. En el fondo, el gambito de Lula es otro: utilizar la inminente crisis iraní para consolidar su lugar en el firmamento diplomático internacional.

El problema es que el acuerdo de Teherán no bastó para impedir la presentación de un proyecto de resolución por Washington y los demás miembros permanentes del Consejo, que contempla una cuarta etapa de sanciones con más dientes y más amplias. Todo indica, incluso, que los norteamericanos pudieron contar desde antes del esfuerzo turco-brasileño con los nueve votos necesarios para aprobar su resolución, dada por lo menos la abstención rusa y china para evitar un veto. Austria, Japón, Gabón, Uganda y México se encontraban en principio a bordo y Bosnia-Herzegovina y Nigeria en el limbo. Ya existía en principio una coalición suficiente para imponer nuevas sanciones, incluyendo un embargo de materiales susceptibles de ser utilizados para la construcción de misiles y no sólo de la ojiva nuclear que portarían.

Así, de prosperar la iniciativa de Estados Unidos, Francia y el Reino Unido (apoyada por Alemania y tolerada, en todo caso, por Rusia y por China), Brasil se hallaría en el peor de los mundos posibles. Tendrá que tomar partido, después de buscar evitarlo a través de un compromiso que adoleció de un defecto congénito. Una de las partes, es decir, Washington, nunca estuvo de acuerdo, aunque Davutoglu insista en que todo fue consultado con la secretaria de Estado Clinton. Si Brasil aprueba las sanciones en el CSONU, se habrá desdicho de su rechazo a las mismas; si vota en contra, lo hará en compañía, en el mejor de los casos, solo de Turquía y Líbano. Y si se abstiene, confirmará lo que muchos hemos reiterado: Lula quiere jugar en primera división, pero sin mojarse.

He aquí el quid del asunto. En realidad, Brasil ha logrado poco en el ámbito internacional, más allá de titulares. El objetivo diplomático número uno de Lula -lograr un escaño permanente en el Consejo de Seguridad- se ve, al término de ocho años de esfuerzos, menos viable que nunca. La aventura en Honduras resultó en una tragicomedia tropical: Brasil no pudo restituir a su asilado huésped Manuel Zelaya, este permaneció varios meses en la Embajada brasileña, y hoy Itamaratí solo puede chantajear a españoles y mexicanos con su ausencia en caso de cualquier invitación o reconocimiento al nuevo presidente hondureño. La reanudación de la Ronda de Doha sigue indefinidamente pospuesta, Copenhague no resultó y Cancún no promete, e incluso las diversas iniciativas regionales presentadas por Brasil de la mano con Hugo Chávez se hallan estancadas.

Ello se debe a una debilidad intrínseca del esquema. El tamaño de una economía (Japón) o de una demografía (India) no otorga ipso facto el estatuto de actor mundial. Más bien es la toma de partido, los valores impulsados y la eficacia a escala regional lo que, en su conjunto, pueden (o no) convertirse en una catapulta al estrellato internacional. Brasil linda con nueve países, y todos ellos padecen serios conflictos internos (Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela) o con sus vecinos (Argentina con Uruguay, Colombia con Venezuela y Ecuador, Perú con Ecuador y con Chile, Bolivia con Chile). Pero Lula en ese pantano no ha querido incursionar: mantiene una prudente pasividad antiintervencionista, o un franco respaldo a las posiciones bolivarianas de Chávez, Correa, Morales, Daniel Ortega en Nicaragua y los hermanos Castro en La Habana. Se resiste a impulsar valores, a tomar partido, o a buscar resultados concretos en su propio terreno.

Tal vez resulte más fácil mediar entre Teherán y Washington (aunque nadie lo ha logrado desde 1979) que entre Caracas y Bogotá, o entre Buenos Aires y Montevideo. A pesar de su patente irritación, quizás Barack Obama y Hillary Clinton prefieran darle el beneficio de la duda al proyecto turco-brasileño antes que ceder a la impaciencia de Israel y de Francia. Lula puede salir airoso de su lance en las planicies persas o acabar mal con todos. Posiblemente debiera haberse mostrado satisfecho con las portadas de las revistas, sin buscar en exceso llenarlas de contenido. Suele ser más difícil.

Jorge Castañeda, ex secretario de Relaciones Exteriores de México, es profesor de Estudios Latinoamericanos en la Universidad de Nueva York.

Ensinando o ódio by DEMÉTRIO MAGNOLI

2010-05-14T05:25:00.000-07:00

O Estado de S.Paulo - 13/05/10

"Uma certa miopia social pode ser mais produtiva politicamente do que
um olho perfeitamente são." A frase, do ex-diretor da Capes Renato
Janine Ribeiro, conclui uma comunicação acadêmica consagrada às
políticas de identidades - ou seja, no caso do Brasil, especialmente
às políticas de preferências raciais. O cerne do texto encontra-se na
ideia de que "uma estratégia política das diferenças (...) pode
sustentar uma tática política da desigualdade, num sentido fortemente
compensatório - isto é, de que para chegarmos à igualdade será preciso
passarmos pela desigualdade".

Renato Janine é um pensador íntegro, não um panfletário rancoroso. Seu
texto, pontilhado de dúvidas e perplexidade, é algo como uma renúncia
à utopia marxista organizada em torno da luta de classes. No lugar do
fracassado programa revolucionário, seria a hora de aceitar a "miopia"
mais "produtiva" das políticas diferencialistas, que descortina o
cenário de uma sociedade constituída por segmentos identitários:
afro-brasileiros, europeus étnicos, indígenas, quilombolas...

O marxismo, a ditadura do proletariado e o totalitarismo stalinista,
que não são idênticos uns aos outros, certamente formam galhos da
vasta árvore iluminista nascida à sombra do estandarte da igualdade.
Mas, ao contrário do que parece sugerir Renato Janine, a árvore tem
muitos galhos saudáveis. Fora da esfera soviética, as lutas sociais
romperam o círculo de ferro do liberalismo elitista. O voto feminino,
a educação e a saúde públicas, os sistemas de previdência social
atestam a "produtividade" de um credo assentado sobre o princípio da
igualdade política dos cidadãos. Por que motivo deve ser abandonada a
obra infinita, ainda tão precária entre nós? Como se justifica a sua
substituição por uma estratégia que fragmenta o povo em segmentos
circundados pelas muralhas das "identidades"?

De acordo com Renato Janine, a luta de classes tenderia à guerra de
extermínio, enquanto a "política das diferenças" se orienta pela meta
do "reconhecimento do outro". A primeira assertiva é desmentida por
cem anos de lutas trabalhistas nas democracias "burguesas". A segunda,
por genocídios colossais ou pequenos massacres cotidianos que, da
Alemanha nazista à Ruanda hutu e da Índia das castas à Nigéria das
etnias oficiais, formam um plantel de experiências históricas sobre a
dinâmica das políticas identitárias. As pessoas mudam de ideia, de
partido, de estrato de renda e de classe social, mas não podem mudar
de "raça" ou "etnia". Eis o motivo pelo qual as Constituições
democráticas rejeitam a classificação oficial dos cidadãos segundo o
critério do sangue.

"Nós tivemos de ensinar o povo a odiar os sulistas, a enxergá-los como
pessoas que expropriavam os seus direitos", explicou um líder dos
hauçás da Nigéria setentrional, referindo-se ao sistema de
preferências étnicas inscrito nas leis do país. A "estratégia política
das diferenças" é uma pedagogia do ódio destinada a construir
comunidades identitárias coesas. No Brasil, percorremos a etapa
inicial dessa trajetória pedagógica. Como em tantos outros lugares,
tenta-se ensinar o ódio primordialmente na escola. A missão, conduzida
pelo MEC, tem como alvos as crianças e os jovens das escolas públicas.

A palavra "revanche" encontrou sentido positivo na resolução do MEC,
de junho de 2004, que regulamenta as Diretrizes para a Educação das
Relações Étnico-Raciais e para o Ensino de História e Cultura
Afro-Brasileira e Africana. Nela o Brasil é descrito como um país
binacional no qual "convivem (...) de maneira tensa, a cultura e o
padrão estético negro e africano e um padrão estético e cultural
branco europeu". Neste país partido em dois, "não é fácil ser
descendente de seres humanos escravizados", mas também é difícil
"descobrir-se descendente dos escravizadores" e "temer, embora
veladamente, a revanche dos que, por cinco séculos, têm sido
desprezados e massacrados". Qual será a opinião de Renato Janine sobre
tais passagens, convertidas em ato legal por Tarso Genro e
referendadas por Fernando Haddad?

A pedagogia do ódio é também a da falsificação da História. A
resolução, que manda celebrar o 20 de novembro como Dia da Consciência
Negra, não traz palavra alguma sobre o movimento popular
abolicionista, definindo o 13 de maio como "o dia de denúncia das
repercussões das políticas de eliminação física e simbólica da
população afro-brasileira no pós-abolição". No dia de hoje, se os
professores seguirem as diretrizes do MEC, nenhum estudante ouvirá os
nomes de Joaquim Nabuco, José do Patrocínio, Antônio Bento e Luís Gama
ou conhecerá os feitos de incontáveis anônimos, de todas as cores e
classes sociais, que derrotaram a escravidão e derrubaram os pilares
do Império. Por outro lado, serão apresentados a nada menos que um
genocídio racial, evento que clamaria pela "revanche".

As palavras da resolução têm consequências cotidianas. Nas escolas
públicas, o MEC distribui livros didáticos dedicados a dividir os
jovens estudantes em "brancos" ("descendentes dos escravizadores") e
"negros" ("os que, por cinco séculos, têm sido desprezados e
massacrados"), enquanto suas comissões de seleção aplicam as diretivas
oficiais para excluir as obras que não retratam o Brasil como o país
binacional inventado por "uma certa miopia social". Uma gosma de
doutrinação racial escorre para dentro das salas de aula,
emporcalhando todo o sistema de ensino.

As pessoas aprendem a odiar. O ódio racial é um substituto míope, mas
fácil, para a complexa, nuançada reflexão política sobre nossas ruínas
sociais. Renato Janine não deixaria de comparecer ao simpósio
promovido pela Capes e pela British Academy no qual fez o elogio da
miopia. Estará ele presente quando jovens colegas de escolas públicas
atirarem pedras uns nos outros porque os tons da pele separam seus
destinos no umbral da universidade?

SOCIÓLOGO E DOUTOR EM GEOGRAFIA HUMANA PELA USP

Câmbio mata Rubens Ricupero FOLHA DE S. PAULO

2010-05-10T19:42:00.001-07:00

Parecem estar contados os dias de saldo comercial; é bom apertar os
cintos para o mergulho na montanha-russa

O CÂMBIO já está estrangulando o setor de maior tecnologia e valor
agregado de nossa indústria (eletrônica, farmacêutica, química,
automobilística e maquinaria). Apenas nos três primeiros meses do ano
esse setor teve o chocante deficit de US$ 13,6 bilhões, maior do que
em todo o ano de 2006 e superior em 42% ao do mesmo período do ano
passado.

Os dados do Iedi (Instituto de Estudos para o Desenvolvimento
Industrial) servem de necrológio à indústria brasileira, mostrando que
o câmbio continua sendo tão mortal como no tempo da advertência de
Mário Henrique Simonsen. A tendência está colada à apreciação do real
e ao declínio do saldo comercial em geral, que em abril foi o menor em
oito anos, tendo caído nada menos que 65% em comparação ao de abril de
2009.

Aliás, parecem estar contados os dias de saldo comercial, uma vez que
as importações estão crescendo em ritmo quase duas vezes maior do que
as exportações (65% ante 23%).

É bom apertar os cintos para o mergulho na montanha-russa, já que o
fim do saldo comercial elimina o único fator que compensava em parte o
aumento vertiginoso de todos os demais componentes do deficit em
conta-corrente.

Essa é a cara oculta da atual euforia com o crescimento puxado somente
pelo consumo do governo e das pessoas, com baixa poupança e pouco
investimento. Cada vez se depende mais de recursos de fora para cobrir
o buraco, e a desindustrialização precoce entra no segundo estágio de
agravamento. No primeiro, as importações substituem os componentes
locais, mas o produto continua a ser montado no Brasil; no segundo,
importa-se o produto pronto e as indústrias se tornam meras
distribuidoras e prestadoras de assistência.

A situação tende a piorar com as elevações de juro que o Banco Central
terá de realizar para segurar o superaquecimento do consumo. As
previsões de que no fim do ano o dólar se aproxime de R$ 1,60 ou menos
vão sacrificar ainda mais os manufaturados. Até agora a valorização
dos primários pela demanda da China tem atenuado a deterioração do
comércio exterior. É um erro, porém, imaginar que as commodities
aguentam qualquer valorização da moeda.

Tenho idade bastante para me lembrar do tempo em que quase todos os
produtos primários brasileiros eram gravosos, isto é, seu custo de
produção superava, devido ao câmbio, o preço internacional.

Quando as cotações também caem, como sucede no momento com muitos
produtos agrícolas, a renda do campo sofre duplo golpe: preço e
câmbio.

De onde poderá vir o socorro às contas externas se o panorama negativo
se acentuar, como vem acontecendo há anos? Do petróleo? É o que já
ocorre, como mostra Raquel Landim em perceptivo comentário em "O
Estado de S. Paulo" (4/5/10).

Nele se aprende que o petróleo passou a ser o principal item das
exportações, quase 10% do total! Sem ele, as vendas externas cresceram
apenas 16%, agravando o descompasso com o aumento das importações.

Está aí um bom tema para o debate eleitoral. Em vez da discussão
pueril sobre qual governo foi melhor, por que não debater como evitar
que o Brasil vire uma grande Venezuela, onde 96% das exportações vêm
das commodities? Sem mexer no câmbio, como melhorar a competitividade?
Com esses juros? Com a infraestrutura em pedaços? Com carga tributária
o dobro da da China? Com a redução da semana de trabalho?

20 Things You Will Need To Survive

2010-05-08T07:14:00.000-07:00

2010-03-19T05:33:00.000-07:00

Quem passou pela vida em branca nuvem
E em plácido repouso adormeceu
Quem não sentiu o frio da desgraça,
Quem passou pela vida e não sofreu...
Foi espectro de homem, não foi homem,
Só passou pela vida e não viveu...
Francisco Otaviano

The Inflationist View of History - Ludwig von Mises - Mises Institute

2010-03-07T20:08:00.000-08:00

The Inflationist View of History

Mises Daily: Friday, March 05, 2010 by Ludwig von Mises

[This article is excerpted from chapter 17 of Human Action: The Scholar's Edition and is read by Jeff Riggenbach.]
Montgolfier brothers' hot-air balloon, Paris 1783

A very popular doctrine maintains that progressive lowering of the monetary unit's purchasing power played a decisive role in historical evolution. It is asserted that mankind would not have reached its present state of well-being if the supply of money had not increased to a greater extent than the demand for money. The resulting fall in purchasing power, it is said, was a necessary condition of economic progress. The intensification of the division of labor and the continuous growth of capital accumulation, which have centupled the productivity of labor, could ensue only in a world of progressive price rises. Inflation creates prosperity and wealth; deflation distress and economic decay.[1] A survey of political literature and of the ideas that guided for centuries the monetary and credit policies of the nations reveals that this opinion is almost generally accepted. In spite of all warnings on the part of economists it is still today the core of the layman's economic philosophy. It is no less the essence of the teachings of Lord Keynes and his disciples in both hemispheres.

The popularity of inflationism is in great part due to deep-rooted hatred of creditors. Inflation is considered just because it favors debtors at the expense of creditors. However, the inflationist view of history which we have to deal with in this section is only loosely related to this anticreditor argument. Its assertion that "expansionism" is the driving force of economic progress and that "restrictionism" is the worst of all evils is mainly based on other arguments.

It is obvious that the problems raised by the inflationist doctrine cannot be solved by a recourse to the teachings of historical experience. It is beyond doubt that the history of prices shows, by and large, a continuous, although sometimes for short periods interrupted, upward trend. It is of course impossible to establish this fact otherwise than by historical understanding. Catallactic precision cannot be applied to historical problems. The endeavors of some historians and statisticians to trace back the changes in the purchasing power of the precious metals for centuries, and to measure them, are futile. It has been shown already that all attempts to measure economic magnitudes are based on entirely fallacious assumptions and display ignorance of the fundamental principles both of economics and of history. But what history by means of its specific methods can tell us in this field is enough to justify the assertion that the purchasing power of money has for centuries shown a tendency to fall. With regard to this point all people agree.

But this is not the problem to be elucidated. The question is whether the fall in purchasing power was or was not an indispensable factor in the evolution which led from the poverty of ages gone by to the more satisfactory conditions of modern Western capitalism. This question must be answered without reference to the historical experience, which can be and always is interpreted in different ways, and to which supporters and adversaries of every theory and of every explanation of history refer as a proof of their mutually contradictory and incompatible statements. What is needed is a clarification of the effects of changes in purchasing power on the division of labor, the accumulation of capital, and technological improvement.

In dealing with this problem one cannot satisfy oneself with the refutation of the arguments advanced by the inflationists in support of their thesis. The absurdity of these arguments is so manifest that their refutation and exposure is easy indeed. From its very beginnings economics has shown again and again that assertions concerning the alleged blessings of an abundance of money and the alleged disasters of a scarcity of money are the outcome of crass errors in reasoning. The endeavors of the apostles of inflationism and expansionism to refute the correctness of the economists' teachings have failed utterly.

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The only relevant question is this: Is it possible or not to lower the rate of interest lastingly by means of credit expansion? This problem will be treated exhaustively in the chapter dealing with the interconnection between the money relation and the rate of interest. There it will be shown what the consequences of booms created by credit expansion must be.

But we must ask ourselves at this point of our inquiries whether it is not possible that there are other reasons that could be advanced in favor of the inflationary interpretation of history. Is it not possible that the champions of inflationism have neglected to resort to some valid arguments that could support their stand? It is certainly necessary to approach the issue from every possible avenue.

Let us think of a world in which the quantity of money is rigid. At an early stage of history the inhabitants of this world have produced the whole quantity of the commodity employed for the monetary service which can possibly be produced. A further increase in the quantity of money is out of the question. Fiduciary media are unknown. All money-substitutes — the subsidiary coins included — are money-certificates.

On these assumptions the intensification of the division of labor, the evolution from the economic self-sufficiency of households, villages, districts, and countries to the world-embracing market system of the 19th century, the progressive accumulation of capital, and the improvement of technological methods of production would have resulted in a continuous trend toward falling prices. Would such a rise in the purchasing power of the monetary unit have stopped the evolution of capitalism?

The average businessman will answer this question in the affirmative. Living and acting in an environment in which a slow but continuous fall in the monetary unit's purchasing power is deemed normal, necessary, and beneficial, he simply cannot comprehend a different state of affairs. He associates the notions of rising prices and profits on the one hand and of falling prices and losses on the other. The fact that there are bear operations too and that great fortunes have been made by bears does not shake his dogmatism. These are, he says, merely speculative transactions of people eager to profit from the fall in the prices of goods already produced and available. Creative innovations, new investments, and the application of improved technological methods require the inducement brought about by the expectation of price rises. Economic progress is possible only in a world of rising prices.

This opinion is untenable. In a world of a rising purchasing power for the monetary unit everybody's mode of thinking would have adjusted itself to this state of affairs, just as in our actual world it has adjusted itself to a falling purchasing power of the monetary unit. Today everybody is prepared to consider a rise in his nominal or monetary income as an improvement of his material well-being. People's attention is directed more toward the rise in nominal wage rates and the money equivalent of wealth than to the increase in the supply of commodities. In a world of rising purchasing power for the monetary unit they would concern themselves more with the fall in living costs. This would bring into clearer relief the fact that economic progress consists primarily in making the amenities of life more easily accessible.

In the conduct of business, reflections concerning the secular trend of prices do not play any role whatever. Entrepreneurs and investors do not bother about secular trends. What guides their actions is their opinion about the movement of prices in the coming weeks, months, or at most years. They do not heed the general movement of all prices. What matters for them is the existence of discrepancies between the prices of the complementary factors of production and the anticipated prices of the products. No businessman embarks upon a definite production project because he believes that the prices, i.e., the prices of all goods and services, will rise. He engages himself if he believes that he can profit from a difference between the prices of goods of various orders. In a world with a secular tendency toward falling prices, such opportunities for earning profit will appear in the same way in which they appear in a world with a secular trend toward rising prices. The expectation of a general progressive upward movement of all prices does not bring about intensified production and improvement in well-being. It results in the "flight to real values," in the crack-up boom and the complete breakdown of the monetary system.

If the opinion that the prices of all commodities will drop becomes general, the short-term market rate of interest is lowered by the amount of the negative price premium.[2] Thus the entrepreneur employing borrowed funds is secured against the consequences of such a drop in prices to the same extent to which, under conditions of rising prices, the lender is secured through the price premium against the consequences of falling purchasing power.

A secular tendency toward a rise in the monetary unit's purchasing power would require rules of thumb on the part of businessmen and investors other than those developed under the secular tendency toward a fall in its purchasing power. But it would certainly not influence substantially the course of economic affairs. It would not remove the urge of people to improve their material well-being as far as possible by an appropriate arrangement of production. It would not deprive the economic system of the factors making for material improvement, namely, the striving of enterprising promoters after profit and the readiness of the public to buy those commodities that are apt to provide them the greatest satisfaction at the lowest costs.

Such observations are certainly not a plea for a policy of deflation. They imply merely a refutation of the ineradicable inflationist fables. They unmask the illusiveness of Lord Keynes's doctrine that the source of poverty and distress, of depression of trade, and of unemployment is to be seen in a "contractionist pressure." It is not true that "a deflationary pressure … would have … prevented the development of modern industry." It is not true that credit expansion brings about the "miracle … of turning a stone into bread."[3]

Economics recommends neither inflationary nor deflationary policy. It does not urge the governments to tamper with the market's choice of a medium of exchange. It establishes only the following truths:

1.

By committing itself to an inflationary or deflationary policy a government does not promote the public welfare, the commonweal, or the interests of the whole nation. It merely favors one or several groups of the population at the expense of other groups.
2.

It is impossible to know in advance which group will be favored by a definite inflationary or deflationary measure and to what extent. These effects depend on the whole complex of the market data involved. They also depend largely on the speed of the inflationary or deflationary movements and may be completely reversed with the progress of these movements.
3.

At any rate, an expansion results in misinvestment of capital and overconsumption. It leaves the nation as a whole poorer, not richer.
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4.

Continued inflation must finally end in the crack-up boom, the complete breakdown of the currency system.
5.

Deflationary policy is costly for the treasury and unpopular with the masses. But inflationary policy is a boon for the treasury and very popular with the ignorant. Practically, the danger of deflation is but slight and the danger of inflation tremendous

A decepcionante visita de Lula by MARIO VARGAS LLOSA

2010-03-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

O ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO - 07/03/2010

Minha capacidade de indignação política atenua-se um pouco nos meses do ano que passo na Europa. Suponho que a razão disso seja o fato de que, lá, vivo em países democráticos nos quais, independentemente dos problemas de que padecem, há uma ampla margem de liberdade para a crítica, e a imprensa, os partidos, as instituições e os indivíduos costumam protestar de maneira íntegra e com estardalhaço quando ocorrem episódios ultrajantes e desprezíveis, principalmente no campo político.

Entretanto, na América Latina, onde costumo passar de três a quatro meses ao ano, esta capacidade de indignação volta sempre, com a fúria da minha juventude, e me faz viver sempre temeroso, alerta, desassossegado, esperando (e perguntando-me de onde virá desta vez) o fato execrável que, provavelmente, passará despercebido para a maioria, ou merecerá o beneplácito ou a indiferença geral.

Na semana passada, experimentei mais uma vez esta sensação de asco e de ira, ao ver o risonho presidente Lula do Brasil abraçando carinhosamente Fidel e Raúl Castro, no mesmo momento em que os esbirros da ditadura cubana perseguiam os dissidentes e os sepultavam nos calabouços para impedir que assistissem ao enterro de Orlando Zapata Tamayo, o pedreiro pacifista da oposição, de 42 anos, pertencente ao Grupo dos 75, que os algozes castristas deixaram morrer de inanição - depois de submetê-lo em vida a confinamento, torturas e condená-lo com pretextos a mais de 30 anos de cárcere - depois de 85 dias de greve de fome.

Qualquer pessoa que não tenha perdido a decência e tenha um mínimo de informação sobre o que acontece em Cuba espera do regime castrista que aja como sempre fez. Há uma absoluta coerência entre a condição de ditadura totalitária de Cuba e uma política terrorista de perseguição a toda forma de dissidência e de crítica, a violação sistemática dos mais elementares direitos humanos, de falsos processos para sepultar os opositores em prisões imundas e submetê-los a vexames até enlouquecê-los, matá-los ou impeli-los ao suicídio. Os irmãos Castro exercem há 51 anos esta política, e somente os idiotas poderiam esperar deles um comportamento diferente.

DESCARAMENTO

Mas de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, governante eleito em eleições legítimas, presidente constitucional de um país democrático como o Brasil, seria de esperar, pelo menos, uma atitude um pouco mais digna e coerente com a cultura democrática que teoricamente ele representa, e não o descaramento indecente de exibir-se, risonho e cúmplice, com os assassinos virtuais de um dissidente democrático, legitimando com sua presença e seu proceder a caçada de opositores desencadeada pelo regime no mesmo instante em que ele era fotografado abraçando os algozes de Zapata.

O presidente Lula sabia perfeitamente o que estava fazendo. Antes de viajar para Cuba, 50 dissidentes lhe haviam pedido uma audiência durante sua estadia em Havana para que intercedesse perante as autoridades da ilha pela libertação dos presos políticos martirizados, como Zapata, nos calabouços cubanos. Ele se negou a ambas as coisas.

Não os recebeu nem defendeu sua causa em suas duas visitas anteriores à ilha, cujo regime liberticida sempre elogiou sem o menor eufemismo.

Além disso, este comportamento do presidente brasileiro caracterizou todo o seu mandato. Há anos que, em sua política exterior, ele desmente de maneira sistemática sua política interna, na qual respeita as regras do estado de direito, e, em matéria econômica, em vez das receitas marxistas que propunha quando era sindicalista e candidato - dirigismo econômico, estatizações, repúdio dos investimentos estrangeiros, etc. -, promove uma economia de mercado e da livre iniciativa como qualquer estadista social-democrata europeu.

Mas, quando se trata do exterior, o presidente Lula se despe de suas vestimentas democráticas e abraça o comandante Chávez, Evo Morales, o comandante Ortega, ou seja, com a escória da América Latina, e não tem o menor escrúpulo em abrir as portas diplomáticas e econômicas do Brasil aos sátrapas teocráticos integristas do Irã.

O que significa esta duplicidade? Que Lula nunca mudou de verdade? Que é um simples mascarado, capaz de todas as piruetas ideológicas, um político medíocre sem espinha dorsal cívica e moral? Segundo alguns, os desígnios geopolíticos para o Brasil do presidente Lula estão acima de questiúnculas como Cuba, ou a Coreia do Norte, uma das ditaduras onde se cometem as piores violações dos direitos humanos e onde há mais presos políticos.

O importante para ele são coisas mais transcendentes como o Porto de Mariel, que o Brasil está financiando com US$ 300 milhões, ou a próxima construção pela Petrobrás de uma fábrica de lubrificantes em Havana. Diante de realizações deste porte, o que poderia importar ao "estadista" brasileiro que um pedreiro cubano qualquer, e ainda por cima negro e pobre, morresse de fome clamando por ninharias como a liberdade? Na verdade, tudo isto significa, infelizmente, que Lula é um típico mandatário "democrático" latino-americano.

Quase todos eles são do mesmo feitio, e quase todos, uns mais, outros menos, embora - quando não têm mais remédio - praticam a democracia no seio dos seus próprios países, mas, no exterior, não têm nenhuma vergonha, como Lula, em cortejar ditadores e demagogos, porque acham, coitados, que desta maneira os tapinhas amistosos lhes proporcionarão uma credencial de "progressistas" que os livrará de greves, revoluções e de campanhas internacionais acusando-os de violar os direitos humanos.

Como lembra o analista peruano Fernando Rospigliosi, em um artigo admirável: "Enquanto Zapata morria lentamente, os presidentes da América Latina - entre eles o algoz cubano - reuniam-se no México para criar uma organização (mais uma!) regional. Nem uma palavra saiu dali para exigir a liberdade ou um melhor tratamento para os mais de 200 presos políticos cubanos." O único que se atreveu a protestar - um justo entre os fariseus - foi o presidente eleito do Chile, Sebastián Piñera.

De modo que a cara de qualquer um destes chefes de Estado poderia substituir a de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, abraçando os irmãos Castro, na foto que me revoltou o estômago ao ver os jornais da manhã.

Estas caras não representam a liberdade, a limpeza moral, o civismo, a legalidade e a coerência na América Latina. Estes valores estão encarnados em pessoas como Orlando Zapata Tamayo, nas Damas de Branco, Oswaldo Payá, Elizardo Sánchez, a blogueira Yoani Sánchez, e em outros cubanos e cubanas que, sem se deixarem intimidar pelas pressões, as agressões e humilhações cotidianas de que são vítimas, continuam enfrentando a tirania castrista. E se encarnam ainda, em primeiro lugar, nas centenas de prisioneiros políticos e, sobretudo, no jornalista independente Guillermo Fariñas, que, enquanto escrevo este artigo, há oito dias está em greve de fome em Cuba para protestar pela morte de Zapata e exigir a libertação dos presos políticos.

O curioso e terrível paradoxo é que no interior de um dos mais desumanos e cruéis regimes que o continente conheceu se encontrem hoje os mais dignos e respeitáveis políticos da América Latina

Justice and Property Rights: The Failure of Utilitarianism

2010-01-25T05:56:00.001-08:00

Justice and Property Rights: The Failure of Utilitarianism

Mises Daily: Monday, January 25, 2010 by Murray N. Rothbard

[From Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature and Other Essays]

Until very recently, free-market economists paid little attention to the entities actually being exchanged on the very market they have advocated so strongly.

Wrapped up in the workings and advantages of freedom of trade, enterprise, investment, and the price system, economists tended to lose sight of the things being exchanged on that market.

Namely, they lost sight of the fact that when $10,000 is being exchanged for a machine, or $1 for a hula hoop, what is actually being exchanged is the title of ownership to each of these goods.

In short, when I buy a hula hoop for $1, what I am actually doing is exchanging my title of ownership to the dollar in exchange for the ownership title to the hula hoop; the retailer is doing the exact opposite.[1] But this means that economists' habitual attempts to be wertfrei, or at the least to confine their advocacy to the processes of trade and exchange, cannot be maintained. For if I and the retailer are indeed to be free to trade the dollar for the hula hoop without coercive interference by third parties, then this can only be done if these economists will proclaim the justice and the propriety of my original ownership of the dollar and the retailer's ownership of the hula hoop.

In short, for an economist to say that X and Y should be free to trade Good A for Good B unmolested by third parties, he must also say that X legitimately and properly owns Good A and that Y legitimately owns Good B. But this means that the free-market economist must have some sort of theory of justice in property rights; he can scarcely say that X properly owns Good A without asserting some sort of theory of justice on behalf of such ownership.

Suppose, for example, that as I am about to purchase the hula hoop, the information arrives that the retailer had really stolen the hoop from Z. Surely not even the supposedly wertfrei economist can continue to blithely endorse the proposed exchange of ownership titles between me and the retailer. For now we find that the retailer's, Y's, title of ownership is improper and unjust, and that he must be forced to return the hoop to Z, the original owner. The economist can then only endorse the proposed exchange between me and Z, rather than Y, for the hula hoop, since he has to acknowledge Z as the proper owner of title to the hoop.

In short, we have two mutually exclusive claimants to the ownership of the hoop. If the economist agrees to endorse only Z's sale of the hoop, then he is implicitly agreeing that Z has the just, and Y the unjust, claim to the hoop. And even if he continues to endorse the sale by Y, then he is implicitly maintaining another theory of property titles: namely, that theft is justified. Whichever way he decides, the economist cannot escape a judgment, a theory of justice in the ownership of property. Furthermore, the economist is not really finished when he proclaims the injustice or theft and endorses Z's proper title. For what is the justification for Z's title to the hoop? Is it only because he is a nonthief?

In recent years, free-market economists Ronald Coase and Harold Demsetz have begun to redress the balance and to focus on the importance of a clear and precise demarcation of property rights for the market economy. They have demonstrated the importance of such demarcation in the allocation of resources and in preventing or compensating for unwanted imposition of "external costs" from the actions of individuals. But Coase and Demsetz have failed to develop any theory of justice in these property rights; or, rather, they have advanced two theories: one, that it "doesn't matter" how the property titles are allocated, so long as they are allocated precisely; and, two, that the titles should be allocated to minimize "total social transaction costs," since a minimization of costs is supposed to be a wertfrei way of benefitting all of society.

There is no space here for a detailed critique of the Coase-Demsetz criteria. Suffice it to say that in a conflict over property titles between a rancher and a farmer for the same piece of land, even if the allocation of title "doesn't matter" for the allocation of resources (a point which itself could be challenged), it certainly matters from the point of view of the rancher and the farmer. And second, that it is impossible to weigh "total social costs" if we fully realize that all costs are subjective to the individual and, therefore, cannot be compared interpersonally.[2] Here the important point is that Coase and Demsetz, along with all other utilitarian free-market economists, implicitly or explicitly leave it to the hands of government to define and allocate the titles to private property.
"Coase and Demsetz, along with all other utilitarian free-market economists, implicitly or explicitly leave it to the hands of government to define and allocate the titles to private property."

It is a curious fact that utilitarian economists, generally so skeptical of the virtues of government intervention, are so content to leave the fundamental underpinning of the market process — the definition of property rights and the allocation of property titles — wholly in the hands of government. Presumably they do so because they themselves have no theory of justice in property rights; and, therefore, place the burden of allocating property titles into the hands of government.

Thus, if Smith, Jones, and Doe each own property and are about to exchange their titles, utilitarians simply assert that if these titles are legal (that is, if the government puts the stamp of approval upon them), then they consider those titles to be justified. It is only if someone violates the government's definition of legality (for example, in the case of Y, the thieving retailer) that utilitarians are willing to agree with the general and the governmental view of the injustice of such action. But this means, of course, that, once again, the utilitarians have failed in their wish to escape having a theory of justice in property. Actually they do have such a theory, and it is the surely simplistic one that whatever government defines as legal is right.

As in so many other areas of social philosophy, then, we see that utilitarians, in pursuing their vain goal of being wertfrei, of "scientifically" abjuring any theory of justice, actually have such a theory: namely, putting their stamp of approval on whatever the process by which the government arrives at its allocation of property titles. Furthermore, we find that, as on many similar occasions, utilitarians in their vain quest for the wertfrei really conclude by endorsing as right and just whatever the government happens to decide; that is, by blindly apologizing for the status quo.[3]

Let us consider the utilitarian stamp of approval on government allocation of property titles. Can this stamp of approval possibly achieve even the limited utilitarian goal of certain and precise allocation of property titles? Suppose that the government endorses the existing titles to their property held by Smith, Jones, and Doe. Suppose, then, that a faction of government calls for the confiscation of these titles and redistribution of that property to Roe, Brown, and Robinson. The reasons for this program may stem from any number of social theories or even from the brute fact that Roe, Brown, and Robinson have greater political power than the original trio of owners. The reaction to this proposal by free-market economists and other utilitarians is predictable: they will oppose this proposal on the ground that definite and certain property rights, so socially beneficial, are being endangered. But suppose that the government, ignoring the protests of our utilitarians, proceeds anyway and redistributes these titles to property. Roe, Brown, and Robinson are now defined by the government as the proper and legal owners, while any claims to that property by the original trio of Smith, Jones, and Doe are considered improper and illegitimate, if not subversive. What now will be the reaction of our utilitarians?

It should be clear that, since the utilitarians only base their theory of justice in property on whatever the government defines as legal, they can have no groundwork whatever for any call for restoring the property in question to its original owners. They can only, willy-nilly, and, despite any emotional reluctance on their part, simply endorse the new allocation of property titles as defined and endorsed by government. Not only must utilitarians endorse the status quo of property titles but also they must endorse whatever status quo exists and however rapidly the government decides to shift and redistribute such titles. Furthermore, considering the historical record, we may indeed say that relying upon government to be the guardian of property rights is like placing the proverbial fox on guard over the chicken coop.
"It is a curious fact that utilitarian economists, generally so skeptical of the virtues of government intervention, are so content to leave the fundamental underpinning of the market process wholly in the hands of government."

We see, therefore, that the supposed defense of the free market and of property rights by utilitarians and free-market economists is a very weak reed indeed. Lacking a theory of justice that goes beyond the existing imprimatur of government, utilitarians can only go along with every change and shift of government allocation after they occur, no matter how arbitrary, rapid, or politically motivated such shifts might be. And, since they provide no firm roadblock to governmental reallocations of property, the utilitarians, in the final analysis, can offer no real defense of property rights themselves. Since governmental redefinitions can and will be rapid and arbitrary, they cannot provide long-run certainty for property rights; and, therefore, they cannot even ensure the very social and economic efficiency which they themselves seek.[4] All this is implied in the pronouncements of utilitarians that any future free society must confine itself to whatever definitions of property titles the government may happen to be endorsing at that moment.

Let us consider a hypothetical example of the failure of the utilitarian defense of private property. Suppose that somehow government becomes persuaded of the necessity to yield to a clamor for a free-market, laissez-faire society. Before dissolving itself, however, it redistributes property titles, granting the ownership of the entire territory of New York to the Rockefeller family, of Massachusetts to the Kennedy family, etc. It then dissolves, ending taxation and all other forms of government intervention in the economy. However, while taxation has been abolished, the Rockefeller, Kennedy, etc., families proceed to dictate to all the residents in what is now "their" territory, exacting what are now called "rents" over all the inhabitants.[5]

It seems clear that our utilitarians could have no intellectual armor with which to challenge this new dispensation; indeed, they would have to endorse the Rockefeller, Kennedy, etc., holdings as "private property" equally deserving of support as the ordinary property titles which they had endorsed only a few months previously. All this because the utilitarians have no theory of justice in property beyond endorsement of whatever status quo happens to exist.

Consider, furthermore, the grotesque box in which the utilitarian proponent of freedom places himself in relation to the institution of human slavery. Contemplating the institution of slavery, and the "free" market that once existed in buying, selling, and renting slaves, the utilitarian who must rely on the legal definition of property can only endorse slavery on the ground that the slave masters had purchased their slave titles legally and in good faith. Surely, any endorsement of a "free" market in slaves indicates the inadequacy of utilitarian concepts of property and the need for a theory of justice to provide a groundwork for property rights and a critique of existing official titles to property.
Toward a Theory of Justice in Property

Utilitarianism cannot be supported as a groundwork for property rights or, a fortiori, for the free-market economy. A theory of justice must be arrived at which goes beyond government allocations of property titles, and which can, therefore, serve as a basis for criticizing such allocations. Obviously, in this space I can only outline what I consider to be the correct theory of justice in property rights. This theory has two fundamental premises:

1. the absolute property right of each individual in his own person, his own body; this may be called the right of self-ownership; and
2. the absolute right in material property of the person who first finds an unused material resource and then in some way occupies or transforms that resource by the use of his personal energy.

This might be called the homestead principle — the case in which someone, in the phrase of John Locke, has "mixed his labour" with an unused resource. Let Locke summarize these principles:

[E]very man has a property in his own person. This nobody has any right to but himself. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are properly his. Whatsoever, then, he removes out of the state that nature hath provided and left it in, he hath mixed his labour with it, and joined to it something that is his own, and thereby makes it his property. It being by him removed from the common state nature placed it in, it hath by this labour something annexed to it that excludes the common right of other men.[6]

Let us consider the first principle: the right to self-ownership. This principle asserts the absolute right of each man, by virtue of his (or her) being a human being, to "own" his own body; that is, to control that body free of coercive interference. Since the nature of man is such that each individual must use his mind to learn about himself and the world, to select values, and to choose ends and means in order to survive and flourish, the right to self-ownership gives each man the right to perform these vital activities without being hampered and restricted by coercive molestation.

Consider, then, the alternatives — the consequences of denying each man the right to own his own person. There are only two alternatives: either

1. a certain class of people, A, have the right to own another class, B; or
2. everyone has the right to own his equal quotal share of everyone else.

The first alternative implies that, while class A deserves the rights of being human, class B is in reality subhuman and, therefore, deserves no such rights. But since they are indeed human beings, the first alternative contradicts itself in denying natural human rights to one set of humans. Moreover, allowing class A to own class B means that the former is allowed to exploit and, therefore, to live parasitically at the expense of the latter; but, as economics can tell us, this parasitism itself violates the basic economic requirement for human survival: production and exchange.

The second alternative, which we might call "participatory communalism" or "communism," holds that every man should have the right to own his equal quotal share of everyone else. If there are three billion people in the world, then everyone has the right to own one-three-billionth of every other person. In the first place, this ideal itself rests upon an absurdity — proclaiming that every man is entitled to own a part of everyone else and yet is not entitled to own himself. Second, we can picture the viability of such a world — a world in which no man is free to take any action whatever without prior approval or indeed command by everyone else in society. It should be clear that in that sort of "communist" world, no one would be able to do anything, and the human race would quickly perish. But if a world of zero self-ownership and one-hundred-percent other-ownership spells death for the human race, then any steps in that direction also contravene the natural law of what is best for man and his life on earth.

Finally, however, the participatory communist world cannot be put into practice. It is physically impossible for everyone to keep continual tabs on everyone else and, thereby, to exercise his equal quotal share of partial ownership over every other man. In practice, then, any attempt to institute universal and equal other-ownership is utopian and impossible, and supervision and, therefore, control and ownership of others would necessarily devolve upon a specialized group of people who would thereby become a "ruling class." Hence, in practice, any attempt at communist society will automatically become class rule, and we would be back at our rejected first alternative.
"Considering the historical record, we may indeed say that relying upon government to be the guardian of property rights is like placing the proverbial fox on guard over the chicken coop."

We conclude, then, with the premise of absolute universal right of self-ownership as our first principle of justice in property. This principle, of course, automatically rejects slavery as totally incompatible with our primary right.[7]

Let us now turn to the more complex case of property in material objects. For even if every man has the right to self-ownership, people are not floating wraiths; they are not self-subsistent entities; they can only survive and flourish by grappling with the earth around them. They must, for example, stand on land areas; they must also, in order to survive, transform the resources given by nature into "consumer goods," into objects more suitable for their use and consumption. Food must be grown and eaten, minerals must be mined and then transformed into capital, and finally into useful consumer goods, etc. Man, in other words, must own not only his own person, but also material objects for his control and use. How, then, should property titles in these objects be allocated?

Let us consider, as our first example, the case of a sculptor fashioning a work of art out of clay and other materials, and let us simply assume for the moment that he owns these materials while waiving the question of the justification for their ownership. Let us examine the question: who should own the work of art as it emerges from the sculptor's fashioning? The sculpture is, in fact, the sculptor's "creation," not in the sense that he has created matter de novo, but in the sense that he has transformed nature-given matter — the clay — into another form dictated by his own ideas and fashioned by his own hands and energy. Surely, it is a rare person who, with the case put thus, would say that the sculptor does not have the property right in his own product. For if every man has the right to own his own body, and if he must grapple with the material objects of the world in order to survive, then the sculptor has the right to own the product which he has made, by his energy and effort, a veritable extension of his own personality. He has placed the stamp of his person upon the raw material by "mixing his labour" with the clay.

As in the case of the ownership of people's bodies, we again have three logical alternatives:

1. either the transformer, the "creator," has the property right in his creation; or
2. another man or set of men have the right to appropriate it by force without the sculptor's consent; or
3. the "communal" solution — every individual in the world has an equal, quotal share in the ownership of the sculpture.

Again, put baldly, there are very few who would not concede the monstrous injustice of confiscating the sculptor's property, either by one or more others, or by the world as a whole. For by what right do they do so? By what right do they appropriate to themselves the product of the creator's mind and energy? (Again, as in the case of bodies, any confiscation in the supposed name of the world as a whole would, in practice, devolve into an oligarchy of confiscators.)

But the case of the sculptor is not qualitatively different from all cases of "production." The man or men who extracted the clay from the ground and sold it to the sculptor were also "producers"; they, too, mixed their ideas and their energy and their technological know-how with the nature-given material to emerge with a useful product. As producers, the sellers of the clay and of the sculptor's tools also mixed their labor with natural materials to transform them into more useful goods and services. All the producers are, therefore, entitled to the ownership of their product.

The chain of material production logically reduces back, then, from consumer goods and works of art to the first producers who gathered or mined the nature-given soil and resources to use and transform them by means of their personal energy. And use of the soil logically reduces back to the legitimate ownership by first users of previously unowned, unused, virginal, nature-given resources. Let us again quote Locke:

He that is nourished by the acorns he picked up under an oak, or the apples he gathered from the trees in the wood, has certainly appropriated them to himself. Nobody can deny but the nourishment is his. I ask then, when did they begin to be his? When he digested? or when he ate? or when he boiled? or when he brought them home? or when he picked them up? And 'tis plain, if the first gathering made them not his, nothing else could. That labour put the distinction between them and common. That added something to them more than Nature, the common mother of all, had done, and so they became his private right. And will anyone say he had no right to those acorns or apples he thus appropriated because he had not the consent of all mankind to make them his? Was it a robbery thus to assume to himself what belonged to all in common? If such a consent as that was necessary, man had starved, notwithstanding the plenty God had given him…. Thus, the grass my horse has bit, the turfs my servant has cut, and the ore I have digged in my place, where I have a right to them in common with others, become my property without the assignation or consent of any body. The labour that was mine, removing them out of that common state they were in, hath fixed my property in them.[8]

Henry George

If every man owns his own person and therefore his own labor, and if by extension he owns whatever material property he has "created" or gathered out of the previously unused, unowned "state of nature," then what of the logically final question: who has the right to own or control the earth itself? In short, if the gatherer has the right to own the acorns or berries he picks, or the farmer the right to own his crop of wheat or peaches, who has the right to own the land on which these things have grown? It is at this point that Henry George and his followers, who would have gone all the way so far with our analysis, leave the track and deny the individual's right to own the piece of land itself, the ground on which these activities have taken place. The Georgists argue that, while every man should own the goods he produces or creates, since Nature or God created the land itself, no individual has the right to assume ownership of that land.

Yet, again, we are faced with our three logical alternatives: either the land itself belongs to the pioneer, the first user, the man who first brings it into production; or it belongs to a group of others, or it belongs to the world as a whole, with every individual owning an equal quotal part of every acre of land. George's option for the last solution hardly solves his moral problem: for if the land itself should belong to God or Nature, then why is it more moral for every acre in the world to be owned by the world as a whole, than to concede individual ownership? In practice, again, it is obviously impossible for every person in the world to exercise his ownership of his three-billionth portion of every acre of the world's surface; in practice, a small oligarchy would do the controlling and owning, rather than the world as a whole.

But apart from these difficulties in the Georgist position, our proposed justification for the ownership of ground land is the same as the justification for the original ownership of all other property. For as we have indicated, no producer really "creates" matter; he takes nature-given matter and transforms it by his personal energy in accordance with his ideas and his vision. But this is precisely what the pioneer — the "homesteader" — does, when he brings previously unused land into his private ownership. Just as the man who makes steel out of iron ore transforms that ore out of his know-how and with his energy, and just as the man who takes the iron out of the ground does the same, so too does the homesteader who clears, fences, cultivates, or builds upon the land. The homesteader, too, has transformed the character and usefulness of the nature-given soil by his labor and his personality. The homesteader is just as legitimately the owner of the property as the sculptor or the manufacturer; he is just as much a "producer" as the others.

Moreover, if a producer is not entitled to the fruits of his labor, who is? It is difficult to see why a newborn Pakistani baby should have a moral claim to a quotal share of ownership of a piece of Iowa land that someone has just transformed into a wheat field and vice versa, of course, for an Iowan baby and a Pakistani farm. Land in its original state is unused and unowned. Georgists and other land communalists may claim that the entire world population "really" owns it, but if no one has yet used it, it is in the real sense owned and controlled by no one. The pioneer, the homesteader, the first user and transformer of this land, is the man who first brings this simple valueless thing into production and use. It is difficult to see the justice of depriving him of ownership in favor of people who have never gotten within a thousand miles of the land and who may not even know of the existence of the property over which they are supposed to have a claim. It is even more difficult to see the justice of a group of outside oligarchs owning the property, and at the expense of expropriating the creator or the homesteader who had originally brought the product into existence.
"Since they provide no firm roadblock to governmental reallocations of property, the utilitarians, in the final analysis, can offer no real defense of property rights themselves."

Finally, no one can produce anything without the cooperation of ground land, if only as standing room. No man can produce or create anything by his labor alone; he must have the cooperation of land and other natural raw materials. Man comes into the world with just himself and the world around him — the land and natural resources given him by nature. He takes these resources and transforms them by his labor and mind and energy into goods more useful to man. Therefore, if an individual cannot own original ground land, neither can he in the full sense own any of the fruits of his labor. Now that his labor has been inextricably mixed with the land, he cannot be deprived of one without being deprived of the other.

The moral issue involved here is even clearer if we consider the case of animals. Animals are "economic land," since they are original nature-given resources. Yet, will anyone deny full title to a horse to the man who finds and domesticates it? This is no different from the acorns and berries which are generally conceded to the gatherer. Yet in land, too, the homesteader takes the previously "wild," undomesticated land, and "tames" it by putting it to productive use. Mixing his labor with land sites should give him just as clear a title as in the case of animals.

From our two basic axioms, the right of every man to self-ownership and the right of every man to own previously unused natural resources that he first appropriates or transforms by his labor — the entire system of justification for property rights can be deduced. For if anyone justly owns the land himself and the property that he finds and creates, then he, of course, has the right to exchange that property for the similarly acquired just property of someone else. This establishes the right of free exchange of property, as well as the right to give one's property away to someone who agrees to receive it. Thus, X may own his person and labor and the farm he clears on which he grows wheat; Y owns the fish he catches; Z owns the cabbages he grows and the land under it. But then X has the right to exchange some of his wheat for some of Y's fish (if Y agrees) or Z's cabbages; and when X and Y make a voluntary agreement to exchange wheat for fish, then that fish becomes X's justly acquired property to do with what he wishes, and the wheat becomes Y's just property in precisely the same way. Further, a man may, of course, exchange not only the tangible objects he owns, but also his own labor, which of course he owns as well. Thus, Z may sell his labor services of teaching farmer X's children in return for some of the farmer's produce.

We have thus established the property-right justification for the free-market process. For the free-market economy, as complex as the system appears to be on the surface, is yet nothing more than a vast network of voluntary and mutually agreed upon two-person or two-party exchanges of property titles such as we have seen occurs between wheat and cabbage farmers, or between the farmer and the teacher. In the developed free-market economy, the farmer exchanges his wheat for money. The wheat is bought by the miller who processes and transforms the wheat into flour. The miller sells the bread to the wholesaler, who in turn sells it to the retailer, who finally sells it to the consumer. In the case of the sculptor, he buys the clay and the tools from the producers who dug the clay out of the ground or those who bought the clay from the original miners, and he bought his tools from the manufacturers who, in turn, purchased the raw material from the miners of iron ore.

How "money" enters the equation is a complex process, but it should be clear here that, conceptually, the use of money is equivalent to any useful commodity that is exchanged for wheat, flour, etc. Instead of money, the commodity exchanged could be cloth, iron, or whatever. At each step of the way, mutually beneficial exchanges of property titles — to goods, services, or money — are agreed upon and transacted.
"Surely, any endorsement of a 'free' market in slaves indicates the inadequacy of utilitarian concepts of property and the need for a theory of justice."

And what of the capital-labor relationship? Here, too, as in the case of the teacher selling his services to the farmer, the laborer sells his services to the manufacturer who has purchased the iron ore or to the shipper who has bought logs from the loggers. The capitalist performs the function of saving money to buy the raw material, and then pays the laborers in advance of sale of the product to the eventual customers.

Many people, including such utilitarian free-market advocates as John Stuart Mill, have been willing to concede the propriety and the justice (if they are not utilitarians) of the producer owning and earning the fruits of his labor. But they balk at one point: inheritance. If Roberto Clemente is ten times as good and "productive" a ball player as Joe Smith, they are willing to concede the justice of Clemente's earning ten times the amount; but what, they ask, is the justification for someone whose only merit is being born a Rockefeller inheriting far more wealth than someone born a Rothbard?

There are several answers that could be given to this question. For example, the natural fact is that every individual must, of necessity, be born into a different condition, at a different time or place, and to different parents. Equality of birth or rearing, therefore, is an impossible chimera. But in the context of our theory of justice in property rights, the answer is to focus not on the recipient — not on the child Rockefeller or the child Rothbard — but to concentrate on the giver, the man who bestows the inheritance. For if Smith and Jones and Clemente have the right to their labor and their property and to exchange the titles to this property for the similarly obtained property of others, then they also have the right to give their property to whomever they wish. The point is not the right of "inheritance" but the right of bequest, a right which derives from the title to property itself. If Roberto Clemente owns his labor and the money he earns from it, then he has the right to give that money to the baby Clemente.

Armed with a theory of justice in property rights, let us now apply it to the often-vexed question of how we should regard existing titles to property.
Toward a Critique of Existing Property Titles

Among those who call for the adoption of a free market and a free society, the utilitarians, as might be expected, wish to validate all existing property titles, as so defined by the government. But we have seen the inadequacy of this position, most clearly in the case of slavery, but similarly in the validation that it gives to any acts of governmental confiscation or redistribution, including our hypothetical Kennedy and Rockefeller "private" ownership of the territorial area of a State. But how much of a redistribution from existing titles would be implied by the adoption of our theory of justice in property, or of any attempt to put that theory into practice? Isn't it true, as some people charge, that all existing property titles, or at least all land titles, were the result of government grants and coercive redistribution? Would all property titles, therefore, be confiscated in the name of justice? And who would be granted these titles?

Let us first take the easiest case: where existing property has been stolen, as acknowledged by the government (and, therefore, by utilitarians) as well as by our theory of justice. In short, suppose that Smith has stolen a watch from Jones. In that case, there is no difficulty in calling upon Smith to relinquish the watch and to give it back to the true owner, Jones. But what of more difficult cases — in short, where existing property titles are ratified by State confiscation of a previous victim? This could apply either to money, or especially to land titles, since land is a constant, identifiable, fixed quotal share of the earth's surface.

Suppose, first, for example, that the government has either taken land or money from Jones by coercion (either by taxation or its imposed redefinition of property) and has granted the land to Smith or, alternatively, has ratified Smith's direct act of confiscation. What would our policy of justice say then? We would say, along with the general view of crime, that the aggressor and unjust owner, Smith, must be made to disgorge the property title (either land or money) and give it over to its true owner, Jones. Thus, in the case of an identifiable unjust owner and the identifiable victim or just owner, the case is clear: a restoration to the victim of his rightful property. Smith, of course, must not be compensated for this restitution, since compensation would either be enforced unjustly on the victim himself or on the general body of taxpayers. Indeed, there is a far better case for the additional punishment of Smith, but there is no space here to develop the theory of punishment for crime or aggression.

Suppose, next, a second case, in which Smith has stolen a piece of land from Jones but that Jones has died; he leaves, however, an heir, Jones II. In that case, we proceed as before; there is still the identifiable aggressor, Smith, and the identifiable heir of the victim, Jones II, who now is the inherited just owner of the title. Again, Smith must be made to disgorge the land and turn it over to Jones II.

But suppose a third, more difficult case. Smith is still the thief, but Jones and his entire family and heirs have been wiped out, either by Smith himself or in the natural course of events. Jones is intestate; what then should happen to the property? The first principle is that Smith, being the thief, cannot keep the fruits of his aggression; but, in that case, the property becomes unowned and becomes "up for grabs" in the same way as any piece of unowned property. The "homestead principle" becomes applicable in the sense that the first user or occupier of the newly declared unowned property becomes the just and proper owner. The only stipulation is that Smith himself, being the thief, is not eligible for this homesteading.[9]
"It is difficult to see why a newborn Pakistani baby should have a moral claim to a quotal share of ownership of a piece of Iowa land that someone has just transformed into a wheat field and vice versa, of course, for an Iowan baby and a Pakistani farm."

Suppose now a fourth case, and one generally more relevant to problems of land title in the modern world. Smith is not a thief, nor has he directly received the land by government grant; but his title is derived from his ancestor who did so unjustly appropriate title to the property; the ancestor, Smith I, let us say, stole the property from Jones I, the rightful owner. What should be the disposition of the property now? The answer, in our view, completely depends on whether or not Jones's heirs, the surrogates of the identifiable victims, still exist. Suppose, for example, that Smith VI legally "owns" the land, but that Jones VI is still extant and identifiable. Then we would have to say that, while Smith VI himself is not a thief and not punishable as such, his title to the land, being solely derived from inheritance passed down from Smith I, does not give him true ownership, and that he, too, must disgorge the land — without compensation — and yield it into the hands of Jones VI.

But, it might be protested, what of the improvements that Smiths II–VI may have added to the land? Doesn't Smith VI deserve compensation for these legitimately owned additions to the original land received from Jones I? The answer depends on the movability or separability of these improvements. Suppose, for example, that Smith steals a car from Jones and sells it to Robinson. When the car is apprehended, then Robinson, though he purchased it in good faith from Smith, has no title better than Smith's which was nil and, therefore, he must yield up the car to Jones without compensation. (He has been defrauded by Smith and must try to extract compensation out of Smith, not out of the victim Jones.) But suppose that Robinson, in the meantime, has improved the car? The answer depends on whether these improvements are separable from the car itself. If, for example, Robinson has installed a new radio which did not exist before, then he should certainly have the right to take it out before handing the car back to Jones. Similarly, in the case of land, to the extent that Smith VI has simply improved the land itself and mixed his resources inextricably with it, there is nothing he can do; but if, for example, Smith VI or his ancestors built new buildings upon the land, then he should have the right to demolish or cart away these buildings before handing the land over to Jones VI.

But what if Smith I did indeed steal the land from Jones I, but that all of Jones's descendants or heirs are lost in antiquity and cannot be found? What should be the status of the land then? In that case, since Smith VI is not himself a thief, he becomes the legitimate owner of the land on the basis of our homestead principle. For if the land is "unowned" and up for grabs, then Smith VI himself has been occupying and using it, and, therefore, he becomes the just and rightful owner on the homestead basis. Furthermore, all of his descendants have clear and proper title on the basis of being his heirs.

It is clear, then, that even if we can show that the origin of most existing land titles are in coercion and theft, the existing owners are still just and legitimate owners if

1. they themselves did not engage in aggression, and
2. no identifiable heirs of the original victims can be found.

In most cases of current land title this will probably be the case. A fortiori, of course, if we simply don't know whether the original land titles were acquired by coercion, then our homestead principle gives the current property owners the benefit of the doubt and establishes them as just and proper owners as well. Thus, the establishment of our theory of justice in property titles will not usually lead to a wholesale turnover of landed property.

In the United States, we have been fortunate enough to largely escape continuing aggression in land titles. It is true that originally the English Crown gave land titles unjustly to favored persons (for example, the territory roughly of New York State to the ownership of the Duke of York), but fortunately these grantees were interested enough in quick returns to subdivide and sell their lands to the actual settlers. As soon as the settlers purchased their land, their titles were legitimate, and so were the titles of all those who inherited or purchased them. Later on, the United States government unfortunately laid claim to all virgin land as the "public domain," and then unjustly sold the land to speculators who had not earned a homestead title. But eventually these speculators sold the land to the actual settlers, and from then on, the land title was proper and legitimate.[10]
"From simply a utilitarian consideration of consequences, the utilitarian free-marketeers have done very badly in the undeveloped world."

In South America and much of the undeveloped world, however, matters are considerably different. For here, in many areas, an invading State conquered the lands of peasants, and then parcelled out such lands to various warlords as their "private" fiefs, from then on to extract "rent" from the hapless peasantry. The descendants of the conquistadores still presume to own the land tilled by the descendants of the original peasants, people with a clearly just claim to ownership of the land. In this situation justice requires the vacating of the land titles by these "feudal" or "coercive" landholders (who are in a position equivalent to our hypothetical Rockefellers and Kennedys) and the turning over of the property titles, without compensation, to the individual peasants who are the "true" owners of their land.

Much of the drive for "land reform" by the peasantry of the undeveloped world is precisely motivated by an instinctive application of our theory of justice: by the apprehension of the peasants that the land they have tilled for generations is "their" land and that the landlord's claim is coercive and unjust. It is ironic that, in these numerous cases, the only response of utilitarian free-market advocates is to defend existing land titles, regardless of their injustice, and to tell the peasants to keep quiet and "respect private property." Since the peasants are convinced that the property is their private title, it is no wonder that they fail to be impressed; but since they find the supposed champions of property rights and free-market capitalism to be their staunch enemies, they generally are forced to turn to the only organized groups that, at least rhetorically, champion their claims and are willing to carry out the required rectification of property titles: the socialists and communists.

In short, from simply a utilitarian consideration of consequences, the utilitarian free-marketeers have done very badly in the undeveloped world, the result of their ignoring the fact that others than themselves, however inconveniently, do have a passion for justice. Of course, after socialists or communists take power, they do their best to collectivize peasant land, and one of the prime struggles of socialist society is that of the State versus the peasantry. But even those peasants who are aware of socialist duplicity on the land question may still feel that with the socialists and communists they at least have a fighting chance. And sometimes, of course, the peasants have been able to win and to force communist regimes to keep hands off their newly gained private property: notably in the case of Poland and Yugoslavia.

$20 $15

The utilitarian defense of the status quo will then be least viable — and, therefore, the least utilitarian — in those situations where the status quo is the most glaringly unjust. As often happens, far more than utilitarians will admit, justice and genuine utility are here linked together.

To sum up, all existing property titles may be considered just under the homestead principle, provided

1. that there may never be any property in people;
2. that the existing property owner did not himself steal the property; and particularly
3. that any identifiable just owner (the original victim of theft or his heir) must be accorded his property.

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) was dean of the Austrian School. He was an economist, economic historian, and libertarian political philosopher. See Murray N. Rothbard's article archives.

Quotes of the day

2010-01-18T14:42:00.000-08:00

"We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in."
-- Thomas Paine, 1777