Benito Medero

la tierra en Iowa vale 16568 dolares por hectarea

2012-01-29T09:54:00.000-08:00

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/content/6708-land-value-average-iowa-record-high

arancel cero a autopartes y autos usados brasileros

2012-01-18T07:48:00.000-08:00

La nueva ley de patentes penaliza a los autos y camionetas nuevos

Con este dato de la realidad eliminar los aranceles a las autopartes y autos y camionetas usadas brasileros tendria un fuerte impacto positivo en la economia Uruguaya

baja el costo de mantenimiento de los autos usados
baja el costo pais de todas las empresas chicas y los servicios
produce un boom economico y de empleo en todos los talleres chicos del pais
da una fuerte senal al gobierno brasilero de apertura uruguaya y por lo tanto la posibilidad de recipocidad en por ejemplo autos chinos armados en uruguay

En teoria el camino chileno es el mejor pero la realidad uruguaya es que estamos jugados a Brasil , Por lo tanto lo que nos combiene es abrirnos lo mas posible al comercio libre con Brasil

integridad

2012-01-13T06:28:00.000-08:00

íntegro, gra.

(Del lat. intĕger, -gra).

1. adj. Que no carece de ninguna de sus partes.

2. adj. Dicho de una persona: Recta, proba, intachable.

integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulnessor accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy,^[1] in that it regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.

la lucha por dignidad - FRANCIS FUKUYAMA

2012-01-13T06:19:00.000-08:00

The Drive for Dignity

It's hard power that often makes the headlines. But never underestimate the strength of the simple desire for respect.

BY FRANCIS FUKUYAMA | JANUARY 12, 2012

The legend now has it that the Arab Spring was kicked off in early 2011 when a Tunisian vegetable seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, had his fruit cart confiscated by the police. Slapped and insulted by a policewoman, he went to complain but was repeatedly ignored. His despairing response -- to set himself on fire -- struck anenormous chord across the Arab world.

What was it about this act that provoked such a response? The basic issue was one of dignity, or the lack thereof, the feeling of worth or self-esteem that all of us seek. But dignity is not felt unless it is recognized by other people; it is an inherently social and, indeed, political phenomenon. The Tunisian police were treating Bouazizi as a nonperson, someone not worthy of the basic courtesy of a reply or explanation when the government took away his modest means of livelihood. It was what Ralph Ellison described as the situation of a black man in early 20th-century America, an Invisible Man not seen as a full human being by white people.

Authoritarian regimes have many failings. Like those in the Arab world now under siege, they can be corrupt, manipulative, and economically stagnant. All of these are causes for popular complaint. But their greatest weakness is moral: They do not recognize the basic dignity of their citizens and therefore can and do treat ordinary people with at best indifference and at worst with contempt. The Chinese government has been successful in giving its people jobs and security, but officials there no less than in the Arab world fail to respect people's basic dignity. Every passing week sees land confiscated from villages by a corrupt developer in cahoots with a local party official, and no one can do anything but lash out through violent protest.

In the Anglo-Saxon world, there is a tendency to see politics as a contest of economic interests and to define rights in utilitarian terms. But dignity is the basis for politics everywhere: Equal pay for equal work, one of the great banners of feminism, is less about incomes and more about income as a marker for the respect that society pays for one's labor. There are no interests that gays could not protect through civil unions, but same-sex marriage has become an issue in American politics because it signifies recognition of the equal dignity of gay and heterosexual unions.

One can understand the rights enumerated in the U.S. Constitution, as well as those in the basic laws of other liberal democracies, as mechanisms for formally recognizing the rights, and therefore the dignity, of the citizens to whom they are granted. Whatever one might ultimately think of the sexual-assault charges brought against Dominique Strauss-Kahn by Nafissatou Diallo, the New York City police were not free to ignore them just because he was a high-status IMF director and French presidential candidate, and she a humble hotel maid from Guinea. Many of the big political fights in American history have centered on dignity issues, i.e., who lives outside that charmed circle of human beings deserving to have their rights recognized, whether propertyless males, women, or racial minorities.

German philosopher Georg W.F. Hegel argued that the whole of human history can be seen as a prolonged "struggle for recognition" and that the modern liberal democratic order represents the triumph of the principle of equal recognition over the relationship of lordship and bondage. The problem of contemporary politics is that people often do not seek recognition simply for their dignity as abstract and equal human beings; they also seek recognition for the groups of which they are members, as Ukrainians or Kurds or gays or Native Americans. Identity politics is the politics of recognition, whether rooted in religion, gender, race, or ethnicity.

So too with the Arab Spring. It was not just abstract human dignity that authoritarian Arab regimes insulted; they also denigrated the rights of Muslims to have their religious identity recognized by the political system. Many Egyptian Islamists bear great resentments against liberal elites in their own societies who look down on them as uneducated and superstitious. The desire for recognition does not simply work to overthrow tyranny in the name of universal liberal rights; it can power assertions of a dominant identity, something I once labeledmegalothymia.

The desire for recognition is thus a two-edged sword. It underlies the anger that powers social mobilization and revolt against abusive government, but it often becomes attached to ascriptive identities that undermine the universality of rights. Now that three dictatorships have fallen in the Arab world, with a fourth and fifth possibly on their way, this is the struggle that will play itself out.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/12/the_drive_for_dignity

Midlife Crisis Economics

2011-12-27T21:55:00.000-08:00

OP-ED COLUMNIST

Midlife Crisis Economics

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: December 26, 2011

REPRINTS

The members of the Obama administration have many fine talents, but making adept historical analogies may not be among them.

Josh Haner/The New York Times

David Brooks

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When the administration came to office in the depths of the financial crisis, many of its leading figures concluded that the moment was analogous to the Great Depression. They read books about the New Deal and sought to learn from F.D.R.

But, in the 1930s, people genuinely looked to government to ease their fears and restore their confidence. Today, Americans are more likely to fear government than be reassured by it.

According to a Gallup survey, 64 percent of Americans polled said they believed that big government is the biggest threat to the country. Only 26 percent believed that big business is the biggest threat. As a result, the public has reacted to Obama’s activism with fear and anxiety. The Democrats lost 63 House seats in the 2010 elections.

Members of the administration have now dropped the New Deal parallels. But they have started making analogies between this era and the progressive era around the turn of the 20th century.

Again, there are superficial similarities. Then, as now, we are seeing great concentrations of wealth, especially at the top. Then, as now, the professional class of lawyers, teachers and journalists seems to feel as if it has the upper hand in its status war against the business class of executives and financiers.

But these superficial similarities are outweighed by vast differences.

First, the underlying economic situations are very different. A century ago, the American economy was a vibrant jobs machine. Industrialization was volatile and cruel, but it produced millions of new jobs, sucking labor in from the countryside and from overseas.

Today’s economy is not a jobs machine and lacks that bursting vibrancy. The rate of new business start-ups was declining even before the 2008 financial crisis. Companies are finding that they can get by with fewer workers. As President Obama has observed, factories that used to employ 1,000 workers can now be even more productive with less than 100.

Moreover, the information economy widens inequality for deep and varied reasons that were unknown a century ago. Inequality is growing in nearly every developed country. According to a report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, over the past 30 years, inequality in Sweden, Germany, Israel, Finland and New Zealand has grown as fast or faster than inequality in the United States, even though these countries have very different welfare systems.

In the progressive era, the economy was in its adolescence and the task was to control it. Today the economy is middle-aged; the task is to rejuvenate it.

Second, the governmental challenge is very different today than it was in the progressive era. Back then, government was small and there were few worker safety regulations. The problem was a lack of institutions. Today, government is large, and there is a thicket of regulations, torts and legal encumbrances. The problem is not a lack of institutions; it’s a lack of institutional effectiveness.

The United States spends far more on education than any other nation, with paltry results. It spends far more on health care, again, with paltry results. It spends so much on poverty programs that if we just took that money and handed poor people checks, we would virtually eliminate poverty overnight. In the progressive era, the task was to build programs; today the task is to reform existing ones.

Third, the moral culture of the nation is very different. The progressive era still had a Victorian culture, with its rectitude and restrictions. Back then, there was a moral horror at the thought of debt. No matter how bad the economic problems became, progressive-era politicians did not impose huge debt burdens on their children. That ethos is clearly gone.

In the progressive era, there was an understanding that men who impregnated women should marry them. It didn’t always work in practice, but that was the strong social norm. Today, that norm has dissolved. Forty percent of American children are born out of wedlock. This sentences the U.S. to another generation of widening inequality and slower human capital development.

One hundred years ago, we had libertarian economics but conservative values. Today we have oligarchic economics and libertarian moral values — a bad combination.

In sum, in the progressive era, the country was young and vibrant. The job was to impose economic order. Today, the country is middle-aged but self-indulgent. Bad habits have accumulated. Interest groups have emerged to protect the status quo. The job is to restore old disciplines, strip away decaying structures and reform the welfare state. The country needs a productive midlife crisis.

The progressive era is not a model; it is a foil. It provides a contrast and shows us what we really need to do.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/27/opinion/brooks-midlife-crisis-economics.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Vaclav Havel - un gigante moral entre pigmeos

2011-12-23T14:52:00.000-08:00

Remembering Vaclav Havel

A Moral Giant among Pygmies

By Erich Follath

AFP

Since last Sunday, the world has been mourning the death of Vaclav Havel. The Czech leader led a rollercoaster life that saw him go from prison cells to palaces, from poetry to politics. In this personal remembrance from a SPIEGEL editor, Havel is remembered as a man who unflaggingly labored to "live within the truth."

A look at his friends is enough to show that Vaclav Havel was not your typical politician. A man who discusses God and the world with playwright Tom Stoppard and the Dalai Lama and can talk shop with cult musicians like Frank Zappa and rock idol Mick Jagger is anything but a run-of-the-mill career politician straight out of the political machine, someone who thinks merely in terms of power constellations and coalitions.

Havel's image of res publica was probably closest to Plato's concept of the philosopher-king. After all, as a writer, moralist and his country's president, Havel was precisely that. However, the Greek idea of the perfect state assumed that all citizens had the same understanding of what is good -- and it left no place for dissidents.
And herein lies the root of the minor dilemma this great man found himself in: Havel was never easily pigeonholed. Perhaps this explains why he had such a pleasant and yet thoroughly difficult character. Havel was a creature of light who dazzled many, especially those who didn't even cast a shadow themselves.

PHOTO GALLERY

8 Photos

Photo Gallery: Mourning Vaclav Havel

I recall visiting Vaclav Havel at his humble vacation home in the village of Vlčice, in eastern Bohemia, in July 1989. His mustache was an icy gray, his ruggedly masculine Belmondo-esque face was folded by wrinkles, and his hand trembled, forever holding a cigarette. I wondered whether he had just spent another night in a cell for one of those 12-hour interrogations that the authorities picked him up for with alarming regularity.
No, he replied. He had been up until the early hours talking with his friends from Solidarnosc, the Polish trade union. "The Poles are further along than we are," he grumbled, hungover but wide awake. An envelope lying on the kitchen table amid vodka bottles was labeled "To be given to Z. if I'm locked up again." The envelope contained a rough draft of the speech Havel planned to give in Frankfurt, where he was to be presented with the Peace Prize of the German Publishers and Booksellers Association. As he rightly suspected, the regime of then-Czechoslovakian President Gustav Husak would refuse to let him out of the country to attend the award ceremony.
Five months later, on Dec. 29, 1989, the "Velvet Revolution" had swept the communists from power in Czechoslovakia, and Havel, the leader of the dissident Civic Forum, found himself on a balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square in Prague, having been named head of state by the newly elected parliament. And the entire nation was celebrating. The poet-president drew red hearts on hundreds of outstretched hands. Later, he pedaled impetuously through the corridors of Prague Castle, the venerable seat of government, on a child's scooter.
The Path to Dissident Writer
In contrast to many other Eastern European dissidents, the man who helped bury communism in Czechoslovakia never flirted with the powerbrokers of the former regime, partly because of his upper middle-class background. Havel's bourgeois upbringing was both a burden and a privilege. It shaped his development significantly, honing his senses and judgment.
Vaclav Havel was born in 1936, the son of a wealthy architect and landowner. His uncle was one of the most important producers of Czech movies. In 1948, when the communists confiscated the family's property, those carefree days were over. To make ends meet, his father had to get a job as an office assistant, and his mother worked as a tour guide. Barred from entering higher education, Vaclav began an apprenticeship in a chemistry lab, but he also secretly attended evening classes, where he attained his high school diploma and was able to enroll in a transport engineering program at the Czech Technical University in Prague, for which only one place was available. His application to study at the Academy of Musical Arts was turned down because of his alleged political untrustworthiness. Havel was also a passionate theatergoer, so he worked as a stage-lighter and scene-shifter and began a correspondence course in directing.

PHOTO GALLERY

13 Photos

Photo Gallery: Vaclav Havel's Career as a Freedom Fighter

Havel started writing in his spare time. Inspired by Romanian-French playwright Eugene Ionesco, and especially by the surreal reality of the socialist system around him, Havel penned satirical comedies such as "The Garden Party," which earned him acclaim abroad and ostracism at home. Havel also became famous for his essays in defense of the individual in the face of totalitarianism, and he eventually joined the editorial board of Tvár (The Face), a cultural political monthly. A speech he gave against censorship at a writer's conference in 1967 played a significant role in paving the way for the Prague Spring a year later. But when Soviet tanks brutally suppressed the reform movement, Havel was banned from publishing his work.
Bringing Down the Regime
Vaclav Havel spent a total of 50 months in prison. During his incarceration in a cold, damp cell, he wrote his moving "Letters to Olga," the fellow student who became his first wife in 1964 (after her death in 1996, he married actress Dagmar Veskrnova).
When the civil-rights activist wasn't in prison, secret policemen monitored his movements around the clock, even while he worked in a brewery. Sometimes he took pity on his minders, provocatively inviting them to join him for a drink at a local bar. When it was foggy and he was annoyed at being followed in his car, he would try to lose his pursuers with daring maneuvers on country roads. Havel drew on these bizarre situations, writing absurd plays and clever mental experiments as well as various other takes on the theme of finding oneself within a depressing police state.
Charter 77, a civic initiative he co-founded, catapulted Havel to the forefront of the civil rights movement. A relentless opponent of both moral cowardice and the form of extreme passivity the Czechs call "svejkism" (a term derived from the classic World War I Czech novel "The Good Soldier Svejk"), Havel repeatedly tried to convince his friends in the West that "freedom" meant nothing unless it was imbued with life. And he pitied those who avoided him out of fear that "the inevitable nature of our contact" would irritate the government in Prague unnecessarily and therefore "threaten the fragile foundations of a budding easing of tension." After all, he argued, "It was they, not I, who voluntarily sacrificed their freedom."
Havel was never a committed Catholic, but he always had ties to people with firm religious beliefs, people like Vaclav Maly, a dissident priest and fellow Charter 77 signatory. Harassment by President Gustav Husak's Communist Party fused Havel and Maly together, lending them a resolve Havel would later call "a direction, a purpose," a sense that good could come of bad.
In 1989, Maly was one of the organizers of the rallies that eventually toppled the communist regime, and he would later stand alongside his friend on the balcony overlooking Wenceslas Square.
The Tribulations of the Poet-President
Havel made phenomenal achievements in his first years in office. He negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet troops with Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, gained rapturous applause for his pro-European views in the European Parliament, signed a peace treaty with Germany and apologized for what he termed the "morally reprehensible" expulsion of ethnic Germans from the Sudetenland after World War II -- a generous gesture that wasn't exactly popular in his native country.
But even the poet-president was not immune from setbacks in everyday political matters. He made mistakes precisely because he focused too little on the details. A series of errors suggested he was growing tired and felt trapped by his position, blunders including an amateurish comment about the constitutional system of communist Czechoslovakia and the fact that the otherwise modest Havel signed into law (albeit reluctantly) an amendment outlawing "slandering the head of state." Over time, the schizoid nature of the twin roles of president and artist, political realist and moralist, became painfully clear.
Although he was unable to prevent the breakup of Czechoslovakia, Havel remained the president of the Czech Republic for another 10 years, even leading his former Warsaw Pact country into NATO. But his decision-making powers were gradually eroded, and, as he complained in an interview with SPIEGEL in 1999, it became "difficult to live within the truth when nearly everyone else has settled into their house of lies."
Havel also shared a heartfelt animosity with Vaclav Klaus, his successor in Prague Castle. A diehard admirer of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Klaus derided Havel as an unworldly "clown," even though Havel had been farsighted in his condemnation of what he called "mafia capitalism."

Havel left the political stage in 2003, a chastened rather than bitter president. "They turned me into a mythical creature," he said, "and people enjoy shattering myths." After his departure, Havel's unquestionable moral authority continued to secure him much attention, even though he was seen as more of a prophet abroad than back at home.
At our last meeting, a year ago, the clearly gaunt former president told me that "the Angel of Death has crept around (his) bed" time and time again. And, time and again, he was able to chase it away.
In early December, Havel wanted to see the Dalai Lama one last time. But it was a meeting that wasn't to be. Vaclav Havel died in his sleep last Sunday at the age of 75, a political and moral giant in an era of pygmies.

Translated from the German by Jan Liebelt

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,805536,00.html

FORESTACION el pepe mujica esta matando la gallina de los huevos de oro

2011-12-23T07:05:00.000-08:00

Forestadores afirman que no soportan más impuestos

Un estudio explica que el sector tributa US$ 152 millones al año

+ Juan Samuelle - 23.12.2011, 06:00 hs - ACTUALIZADO 07:13Texto: -A / A+

La Sociedad de Productores Forestales (SPF) encargó un estudio de la estructura impositiva que afecta al sector, análisis que, para determinadas circunstancias, estimó un aporte anual de US$ 152 millones (US$ 172/ha) que –dado un momento muy adverso en los mercados– motivó al secretario ejecutivo de la sociedad, Edgardo Cardozo, a enfatizar que “el sector no soporta un impuesto más”.

Así las cosas, si el Impuesto a la Concentración de Inmuebles Rurales (ICIR) se aplica como se perfila desde el Parlamento, las empresas de este sector de la agroindustria se verán perjudicadas, según se reflexiona a nivel de la SPF, por lo cual se decidió encargar el citado trabajo a los profesionales Gustavo Michelin y Horacio Bafico.

Cardozo dijo que “el objetivo fue exponer en forma objetiva, mediante un trabajo serio y profesional, cuál es la estructura impositiva que el sector soporta”.

“El trabajo demuestra que en una situación de equilibrio –en base a 884 mil ha plantadas, a una cosecha anual potencial de 18 millones de m3 sólidos y a la estructura industrial existente– el sector estaría pagando anualmente US$ 152 millones considerando toda la estructura impositiva, o sea US$ 172/ha por año”, señaló.

Eso, indicó, es una expresión clara, en términos absolutos, “pero en términos relativos hay que considerar que no podemos exportar nada, desde hace tres o cuatro años fue cayendo la colocación de madera sólida y ahora hay una caída muy significativa de los indicadores para fibra de celulosa, desde el 1° de enero al 30 de noviembre de 2011 el precio cayó 25% en el mercado internacional”.

Eso está indicando que “no podemos soportar un impuesto más”, afirmó, y destacó que un ejemplo de la adversidad es la declaración en concordato de la empresa Urupanel (fábrica de tableros contrachapados) o el cierre desde el 1° de octubre de la planta industrial de Weyerhaeuser.

Tras 20 años de esfuerzo

El estudio de Michelin y Bafico se tituló “Después de 20 años de esfuerzo: ¿Dónde está el sector forestal uruguayo y cuáles son sus problemas?”.

En las conclusiones se afirma, entre otras reflexiones, que “las modificaciones graduales del marco legal, tributario y regulatorio que conforma las reglas de juego con las que se invitó a invertir en el sector se suman a un encarecimiento en dólares de los costos y a precios internacionales sumamente deprimidos. Es por eso que al momento de pensar a dónde va el sector a futuro es que surgen interrogantes”.

Se destaca que “el esfuerzo hasta ahora es un buen ejemplo de política de desarrollo productivo donde el Estado sacrificó recursos tributarios, generó reglas de juego duraderas en el largo plazo y aportó un subsidio a la plantación. Estas medidas hicieron creíble el objetivo de desarrollo del sector y atrajeron la inversión local e internacional. El subsidio otorgado fue de US$ 94 millones distribuido en el tiempo”.

También se manifiesta que “el estímulo fiscal se condice con los objetivos generales para promover inversiones y que aplican para todos los sectores de actividad de la economía que son declarados promovidos o de interés nacional. De ser una actividad marginal en la matriz productiva pasó a ocupar un lugar destacado”.

Se concluye que “se crearon 13.000 puestos de trabajo al 2010, lo que crecerá con la maduración de la producción debido a la intensidad de mano de obra en la etapa de cosecha”, que “se elevó el estándar de calidad de la mano de obra promedio para las actividades primarias” y que hubo exportaciones “por US$ 1.080 millones en 2010 y aumentando anualmente con la maduración de la producción”.

Se aludió a ventajas como “desentralización y escala para el desarrollo efectivo de proyectos fuera de la cercanía del puerto de Montevideo”, a la “utilización de tecnologías limpias e inversiones en investigación, desarrollo e innovación”, y a la “diversificación de la matriz energética incrementando la capacidad de generación de energía sobre la base de biomasa a través de inversiones del sector privado que van en línea con el objetivo del gobierno de reducir la dependencia de la generación de energía eléctrica sobre la base de recursos no renovables”.

Por otro lado, se menciona que el “desafío para el desarrollo del sector pasa por actualizar la infraestructura de transporte que está en mal estado por falta de mantenimiento oportuno y por un uso que se va intensificando”.

El total de peajes pagado por la carga del sector en 2010 fue US$ 7,7 millones y cuando se alcance la producción de tendencia (13,7 millones de toneladas) el monto que se pagará por dicho concepto ascenderá a US$ 14,5 millones.

El estudio manifiesta que “a los US$ 80,5 millones anuales que aportará el sector entre peajes y sobrecosto de los combustibles hay que sumar el esfuerzo por mantener una infraestructura de caminos internos del orden de 25.000 kms y los convenios con gobiernos departamentales para mantener la caminería rural”.

“El concepto común de que el sector está promovido y por ende no paga impuestos es equivocado. Los cambios de la Reforma Tributaria de 2007 y otras modificaciones sobre la forma de las sociedades y la carga tributaria han ido cambiando la realidad y gravando paulatinamente al sector. El ICIR propuesto es un caso más de los desvíos en el tratamiento impositivo”, concluye el informe.

Análisis de una coyuntura muy difícil

lGustavo Michelin y Horacio Bafico sostienen que “en la coyuntura actual, la inversión hundida a riesgo de los inversores se encuentra con una coyuntura muy difícil donde los costos en dólares evolucionan mucho más rápido que los ingresos en dólares. Los mercados internacionales no muestran una recuperación sostenida para los productos finales. En este contexto el tipo de cambio real se muestra atrasado en relación a niveles de equilibrio, situación que se agrava al pensar que la producción tiene como destino el mundo desarrollado, donde el atraso es mayor. Estimamos que este desvío se ubica en el primer semestre del 2011 en el orden del 23%”.

También citan que “la coyuntura de costos es testigo de este problema ya que los componentes más sensibles han registrado aumentos de precios en dólares que los multiplicaron por tres en la mano de obra y el gasoil y por cinco en el caso de la tierra. Este último fenómeno hace que el sector padezca doblemente el ingreso de capitales ya que deprime la cotización del dólar y encarece la renta potencial de la tierra que, al estar destinada a la producción forestal por décadas, no se puede cubrir”.

Finalmente, los economistas expresan que “el sector tiene el potencial para concretar el deseo de la política de desarrollo, armar un cluster con proyección internacional que fortifique la marca país y permita incorporar cada vez más valor agregado a lo que produce el suelo uruguayo. Más allá de la pésima coyuntura internacional y de precios, hacia dónde va el sector depende fuertemente de que se restituyan las señales de apoyo claras desde el gobierno”.

Resumen de carga sobre producción anual de tendencia

Fuente: economistas Gustavo Michelin y Horacio Bafico / a precios de 2010/11 / datos en millones de US$ anuales

Aportes patronales seguridad social (*): 26,0
Tributos al Gasoil (incluido el fideicomiso) (*): 37,0
Sobrecosto monopolio Ancap: 29,0
IRAE: 12,5
Impuesto Patrimonio: 8,3
Contribución Inmobiliaria Rural: 2,0
Carga financiera IVA servicios contratados (**): 14,6
Peajes: 14,5
Propuesta ICIR: 8,5
Total para tendencia de 18 millones de mcs: 152
Impuestos a pagar por hectárea: 172
Impuestos a pagar por mcs producido: 8,5

mcs = metro cúbico sólido / (*) incluye la carga financiera del aporte realizado a lo largo del ciclo de producción / (**) 70% de la plantación y 50% de mantenimiento generan IVA que se recupera al final del ciclo y por lo tanto crea carga tributaria al 10% anual.

Es una carga

En el cuadro adjunto, según Michelin y Bafico, “se resume la carga que representan los diferentes impuestos, tributos y otras obligaciones del Estado sobre la producción que alcanzarán las plantaciones cuando la producción llegue a su madurez (…) se trata de una carga no menor, que en los últimos ocho años se ha ido incrementando gradualmente con la introducción de cambios en las reglas de juego en relación a lo que el país presentó desde un inicio como política de desarrollo de una actividad inexistente”.

http://www.elobservador.com.uy/noticia/215514/forestadores-afirman-que-no-soportan-mas-impuestos/

Argentina especialista en crisis da lecciones a Europa

2011-12-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

The Crash Specialists

Argentina's Lessons for a Crisis-Ridden Europe

By Jens Glüsing

Ten years ago, Argentina's economy was in a shambles, the victim of vast sovereign debt, a peso that was pegged to the US dollar and rigid IMF austerity measures. A decade later, Europe is facing many of the same problems. Argentina's recovery has plenty of lessons for the euro zone -- if only it would listen.

For a retired politician, Roberto Lavagna, 69, is a busy man. The telephone in his office in downtown Buenos Aires rings constantly, as he fields calls from worried bankers in Spain or Portuguese investors seeking advice. The World Bank even flew Lavagna to Madrid for a recent seminar on the euro crisis.

The elegant Argentine is considered a specialist in handling national bankruptcy. It was he who negotiated the restructuring of Argentina's foreign debt during his term as economics minister from 2002 to 2005.

Precisely 10 years ago, South America's second largest economy was on the verge of collapse. The government restricted its citizens' access to their bank accounts and announced a cessation of debt payments. Hundreds of thousands took to the streets in protest, and 30 people died in the unrest. President Fernando de la Rúa resigned in December 2001, ultimately fleeing the government building by helicopter to escape the angry crowds.

Roberto Lavagna was one of those who helped get the nation back on its feet. The price Argentina paid was high: Private creditors had to write off about 70 percent of their investments. Furious foreign investors attempted to have the president's airplane seized during state visits and Argentina was the pariah of the global financial markets. It took currency devaluation and debt restructuring to get the economy back on firm footing.

'Haven't Learned Anything from Our Crash'

But today, this emerging market stands as a shining beacon when compared to crisis-ridden countries in Europe. In the past, European and American politicians were only too happy to lecture Latin American countries on good budget management and debt control. Now, the question when European diplomats visit Buenos Aires is quite the opposite: Can Europe learn from Argentina?

Two American economists, Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and crisis prophet Nouriel Roubini, have advised Europe to take a close look at the Argentine debt crisis. "It seems as if they still haven't learned anything from our crash," Lavagna says, pointing out that Europe has prescribed its debt-ridden member countries the same austerity measures that brought down Argentina. "That creates a long-lasting recession," he says, "and the region spirals further and further into decline."

Few countries have the kind of extensive experience with financial crises that Argentina does, a country which underwent three collapses in the space of 20 years. Hyperinflation, chaos at the banks, debt moratoriums, debt restructuring -- the same scenes simply repeated themselves. Argentines saw three different currencies come and go within 10 years and the country was a regular customer at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"We're crisis specialists," confirms José Luis Machinea. As economics minister under President Fernando de la Rúa, he had a front row seat as the crash unfolded. Machinea draws parallels to the crisis in Greece: Argentina too was caught in a currency trap, he says, with its peso tied by law to the US dollar.

As a result, Argentina's government had to pay higher and higher interest rates on loans issued in dollars. By the mid-1990s, it was clear the country was headed for a financial crisis. The IMF tied a bailout to a tough austerity program, and Argentina cut pensions and government employees' pay. Instead of stimulating the economy, leaders focused on battling the country's deficit.

Greece Calling

By the time the IMF finally approved the first capital infusion after months of negotiations, it was too late. "If they'd stepped in two years earlier, we could have avoided the 2001 crash," Machinea says. He believes Europe could stand to learn a lesson from that experience: "The longer they hold off on saving Greece, the higher the cost will be."

The political consequences of those events can still be felt in Argentina today. After de la Rúa's downfall, the country cycled through five presidents in the space of two weeks. Not until the election of Néstor Kirchner, a Peronist, did the situation settle down.

De la Rúa's party, for decades the political home of Argentina's middle class, atrophied into a mere splinter group, and ex-president de la Rúa became a tragic figure, insulted by passersby when he dared show his face in public. These days, he lives a reclusive life in an apartment in Recoleta, Buenos Aires' upper class neighborhood. Security guards keep watch over the building's entrance and the door to the elevator is locked.

The former president answers the door himself, his face marked by bitterness. De la Rúa considers himself a victim of the IMF and of neoliberal financial gurus in Washington. "The IMF wanted to make an example of Argentina," he says. In particular, he blames Horst Köhler, head of the IMF at the time, for the crash, saying Köhler conjured up "a perfect storm" with his hard-line conditions. "He left us alone in our hour of need," the former president says. Köhler, who went on to serve as Germany's president until his resignation in May of last year, has remained a despised figure in Argentina; to this day, diplomats advise him against visiting Buenos Aires.

De la Rúa, on the other hand, has gradually been able to make forays back into public life. Former IMF Deputy Managing Director Stanley Fischer wrote him an encouraging letter and people in restaurants suddenly want their picture taken with him again, while European friends call to ask his tips on overcoming the euro crisis. "Most of the calls I get," de la Rúa adds, "are from Greece."

Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein

ARTICLE...

Claeh - los primeros medicos formados en Punta del Este Uruguay

2011-12-19T10:12:00.000-08:00

Egresan en Punta del Este los primeros médicos formados en una universidad privada

16.12.2011 | 17.37

Por primera vez en Uruguay, estudiantes de medicina egresarán de una universidad privada. Se trata de 29 doctores en Medicina de la Facultad de Medicina del Centro Latinoamericano de Economía Humana (Claeh), ubicada en Punta del Este, que este viernes tendrán su ceremonia de graduación. Estos profesionales de la salud se suman a los más de 14.000 titulados que se han recibido en la Universidad de la República. Para repasar el proceso, que comenzó en 2006, En Perspectiva se trasladó hasta Punta del Este para conversar con el doctor Humberto Correa y con una de las integrantes de esta primera generación de doctores del Claeh, Carolina Sosa. El 50% de los alumnos de la institución proviene de Maldonado, Rocha y Minas, y el resto de otros departamentos del interior, Montevideo y el extranjero. Correa contó cómo fue el inicio y el desarrollo de la propuesta: "Comenzamos con un proyecto, con programas, con una especie de utopía de formar médicos diferentes en un tiempo de seis años, y eso lentamente fue tomando vida propia y fue transformándose en un proceso en el que intervinieron múltiples personas e instituciones". Destacó además que la diversidad del alumnado (allí estudian alemanes, brasileños, israelíes, argentinos, chilenos, españoles) es una visión que "enriquece", y puntualizó que si el Claeh no brindara "un programa distinto en temas y en modos educativos, no se justificaría". Por su parte, Sosa dijo que la impronta humanista de algunas asignaturas de la carrera se refleja "en el sanatorio y en los centros" a los que asistieron. "Tenemos herramientas diferentes", añadió.

http://www.espectador.com/1v4_contenido.php?id=228809&sts=1

Newt Gingrich

2011-12-19T07:09:00.000-08:00

“One of the great problems we have had in the Republican Party is that we . . . encourage you to be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful, and all those Boy Scout words which would be great around the campfire but are lousy in politics. ... You’re fighting a war. It is a war for power. ... Don’t try to educate. That is not your job. What is the primary purpose of a political leader? To build a majority.”

Václav Havel, from his 1985 essay "An Anatomy of Reticence":

2011-12-18T19:52:00.000-08:00

Václav Havel, from his 1985 essay "An Anatomy of Reticence":

A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit. . . . A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.

Francisco Faig - el mayor obstáculo a la prosperidad nacional está en la izquierda anquilosada

2011-12-17T02:02:00.000-08:00

Es Vázquez

Francisco Faig

La mayoría de los intelectuales y líderes de opinión nada dirán porque su identidad de izquierda silencia su espíritu crítico. Pero es cada día más evidente para todos: el rey está desnudo.

No solamente porque es incapaz de conducir políticas públicas de forma eficiente en educación, salud, medioambiente, seguridad, vivienda, relaciones exteriores y defensa, en tiempos en que vivimos el mayor crecimiento que registre la historia. Sino también y sobre todo, porque no hay semana en la que no nos sorprenda con alguna tontería, cada vez más angustiosa, entre sus habituales copas de vino rosado de todos los mediodías, y el común malhumor de su cansancio acumulado de todas las tardecitas.

Sobran razones para insistir en criticar a Mujica. Parecería ser que cuanto más pasa el tiempo, más queda claro lo necesario que era el papel de tutor gubernativo de Vázquez: desde que se llamó a silencio, ensordece el ruido de los objetos rotos por las ideas elefante en el bazar del gobierno.

La inteligencia de la izquierda moderada pasa por responsabilizar a los tupamaros, desordenados, de origen no frenteamplista y de talante populista, por el caos del gobierno actual. Se preserva así una izquierda distinta encarnada por Vázquez: suerte de natural estadista-protector capaz de gobernar bien, y no como esta administración mujiquista.

Sin embargo, no es posible explicar los desatinos actuales del gobierno sin percibir su génesis real en la primera administración frenteamplista.

El horror de la educación fue multiplicado por la ley de educación de Vázquez; el caos de salud pública es consecuencia de su reforma en tiempos de la administración Vázquez; el desborde sindical tiene sus claras raíces en la época de Vázquez; la incapacidad de tomar un rumbo internacional favorable a los intereses nacionales se arrastra desde el ejecutivo de Vázquez; nada se hizo en vivienda, desde el quinquenio de Vázquez; la inoperancia en seguridad pública se agravó con los ministros del interior de Vázquez; la invención de un relato de historia reciente oficial proclive a la izquierda toma cuerpo con Vázquez.

En realidad, lo que ocurre es que estamos ante el mismo perro con diferente collar. Porque detrás de Vázquez y de Mujica está la misma fuerza política de siempre.

Es el mismo Frente Amplio clientelista, conservador, seguro de su superioridad moral, obsecuente con sus bases sindicales, gangrenado por su militancia leninista, y gobernado por una mayoría de gerontes totalmente autistas de la realidad internacional posterior al derrumbe del muro de Berlín. Es el mismo Frente Amplio que Tabaré Vázquez se preocupaba por seducir a través de su discurso de unidad, lleno de contemplaciones internas y enamorado de su estima militante, antes del desliz de su confesión proestadounidense.

Es un profundo error creer que el gran responsable es Mujica. El presidente caerá en el tobogán de su descrédito creciente e inevitable. En realidad, el mayor obstáculo a la prosperidad nacional está en la izquierda anquilosada incapaz de modernizarse. La de Vázquez.

Bulgheroni hace un tambo de 8000 vacas

2011-12-15T03:56:00.000-08:00

BID: préstamo a empresa agroindustrial en Durazno

15.12.2011 | 9.26

El Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID) aprobó este miércoles un préstamo de hasta 65 millones de dólares a Estancias del Lago, una empresa agroindustrial ubicada en Durazno liderada por el empresario argentino Alejandro Bulgheroni.

El crédito apoyará la implementación de un sistema de tambos estabulados para 8.000 vacas y la instalación de corrales para 2.000 vacas, así como una planta industrial de leche en polvo con una capacidad de producción anual de 16.500 toneladas, equivalente a 12% de las actuales exportaciones de leche en polvo de Uruguay, señaló el BID en un comunicado.

La inversión total del proyecto es de 226 millones de dólares, se espera que genere hasta 400 empleos durante su fase de construcción y 314 cuando el nuevo sistema funcione a pleno.

La iniciativa “generará un 'efecto demostración' considerable en la industria láctea local, ya que adopta un modelo de producción de tambo estabulado a gran escala para promover un uso más eficiente de la tierra, la energía y el agua si se lo compara con el pastoreo intensivo tradicional”, señaló Martín Duhart, líder del equipo de proyecto del Departamento de Financiamiento Estructurado y Corporativo del BID.

Chile vuelve a crecer con Sebastián Piñera

2011-12-12T09:04:00.000-08:00

Chile lidera la reacción de América Latina a la crisis de la deuda europea

Los ministros de Hacienda de la región se reúnen en la capital chilena

ROCÍO MONTES Santiago de Chile 11 DIC 2011 - 21:35 CET14

Archivado en:

Los ministros de Hacienda de Uruguay, México, Chile, Perú, Colombia y el jefe del FMI para Latinoamérica, en Santiago. / Felipe Trueba (EFE)

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“Latinoamérica fue en el pasado parte de los problemas de la economía internacional. Hoy, en cambio, es parte de la solución”. Lo dijo el viernes el jefe de las arcas fiscales chilenas, Felipe Larraín, al inaugurar en Santiago el Segundo Encuentro de Ministros de Hacienda de la región. El objetivo central de la cita fue analizar en conjunto los planes de contingencia para mitigar los efectos de la crisis europea. “El mundo emergente se prepara para enfrentar de la mejor manera posible lo que puede ocurrir fuera de Latinoamérica”, explicó.

Hasta la capital chilena llegaron los ministros Juan Carlos Echeverry (Colombia), José Antonio Meade (México), Luis Miguel Castilla (Perú) y Fernando Lorenzo (Uruguay). Y, tras dos días de trabajo, determinaron la actuación conjunta en temas de política fiscal y monetaria. Debido a las diferentes prioridades de cada uno de los países, sin embargo, se descartó un plan de contingencia unificado en América Latina.

Si bien los líderes regionales observan con preocupación la crisis económica, y advierten de que ningún lugar del mundo estará al margen de sus efectos, se mostraron optimistas sobre el crecimiento latinoamericano en 2012. “No obstante alguna desaceleración prudente, de no empeorar la situación en Europa, la región estará preparada para un crecimiento”, señaló el director para el Hemisferio Occidental del Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI), Nicolás Eyzaguirre, que también participó en el encuentro.

En Perú esperan que su economía se expanda entre el 5% y el 6% en 2012. En Colombia, en el peor de los escenarios, en torno al 2% (y un 5% si la crisis de Europa no golpea tan fuertemente al país). En Chile, en tanto, se prevé un crecimiento entre el 4,5% y el 5%.

Gran parte del intercambio de Chile con el resto del mundo, un 90%, se produce con países con los que existe un acuerdo comercial vigente.

No es casual que el encuentro de los ministros de Hacienda, por segundo año consecutivo, se haya realizado en Chile. El país sudamericano sigue creciendo y se ha transformado en una de las economías más sanas y estables de la región. Es lo que ha sucedido en los últimos 21 años. En el primer Gobierno democrático de Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), la economía se expandió un 7,7%. En la Administración de Eduardo Frei (1994-2000), un 5,5%. Durante el Gobierno de Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010), que enfrentó la crisis internacional de 2008 y 2009, el crecimiento alcanzó un promedio del 2,8%. El Gobierno del actual presidente, Sebastián Piñera, retomó la senda histórica: el año pasado la economía se expandió un 5,2% y este año lo hará en torno a un 6,3%.

El repunte del crecimiento es uno de los mayores éxitos de la actual Administración. Era, de hecho, uno de los ejes centrales de la propuesta programática de Piñera: expandir la economía en un 6% entre 2010 y 2013. Hoy no está claro si se alcanzará la meta, ya que la desaceleración de los países desarrollados ya han comenzado a tener ciertos efectos en el país. El Índice de Crecimiento Económico (IMACEC) del mes de octubre fue del 3,4%, por debajo de las expectativas del Gobierno y del mercado. El país sudamericano, sin embargo, está en buen pie para enfrentar las turbulencias. “Chile parece estar mejor preparado para enfrentarse a una recesión mundial”, señaló el ministro de Economía, Pablo Longueira, en una reciente entrevista concedida a este periódico para el suplemento Invertir en Chile.

Un espacio de visión global

R. M.

El próximo miércoles se realizará en Santiago el evento Chile, puerta de América, organizado por EL PAÍS en colaboración con BBVA. El objetivo es analizar las oportunidades de negocio que representa el país sudamericano para las empresas globales, y cómo se ha transformado en la gran plataforma inversora hacia EE UU, la UE y Asia.

La inauguración del encuentro estará a cargo del director de EL PAÍS, Javier Moreno, y el gerente general de BBVA Chile, Ignacio Lacasta. El ministro de Hacienda chileno, Felipe Larraín, realizará la conferencia de apertura. Además, el profesor de la UCLA Sebastián Edwards, el exministro de Hacienda Andrés Velasco y el economista jefe del grupo BBVA, Jorge Sicilia, participarán en la mesa redonda Perspectivas globales y regionales: ¿hacia dónde va la economía?.

El redactor jefe de la sección de Economía de EL PAÍS, Miguel Jiménez, y el director del diario chileno Pulso, Guillermo Turner, conversarán con Vicente Rodero, director general de BBVA América del Sur, en un espacio denominado Visión global de un líder empresarial. La actividad continuará con una conferencia magistral de Juan Luis Cebrián. Chile, puerta de América contará con la presencia del Presidente de la República chilena, Sebastián Piñera, quien ofrecerá el discurso de cierre.

Chile tiene actualmente una inflación inferior al 4% y el desempleo en la franja del 7%. Y, justamente, otro de los éxitos que exhibe el Gobierno de Sebastián Piñera es la creación de nuevos puestos de trabajo. De hecho, una de las promesas de la campaña electoral fue generar un millón de cupos laborales entre marzo de 2010 y marzo de 2014, cuando finalizará el mandato. El desafío se está cumpliendo: entre marzo de 2010 y noviembre de 2011 se han creado 563.000. La inversión como porcentaje del PIB alcanzó el record de 23,1% el tercer trimestre de este año.

Los buenos resultados de Chile se explican, en parte, por su estabilidad política y la certeza jurídica que entrega a los inversionistas. Pero el pilar de la estrategia económica ha sido la apertura comercial que ha mantenido desde los años ochenta. Chile, hoy por hoy, al tratarse de un país abierto, es la gran plataforma inversora hacia Asia, EE UU y la UE. El país sudamericano actualmente cuenta con tratados de libre comercio con 58 países, que suman el 63% de la población y el 86% del PIB mundial. Y gran parte del intercambio de Chile con el resto del mundo, un 90%, se produce con países con los que existe un acuerdo comercial vigente.

España, en la actualidad, es el segundo inversor en Chile después de EE UU. Sus inversiones se concentran en el sector energético (un 54%), comunicaciones (16%), y el sector bancario (12%). Uno de los objetivos del Gobierno de Sebastián Piñera es que España ocupe el primer lugar. Y de paso, que Chile se convierta en una plataforma para el mercado español en el resto de América Latina y Asia. China, de hecho, reemplazó a Estados Unidos como el principal consumidor de los productos chilenos y concentra el 25% de las exportaciones de Chile.

“La relación con España es muy especial, y cuando digo muy especial es que creemos firmemente que Iberoamérica, y particularmente la relación bilateral Chile-España, es una alianza estratégica que tiene que ir tomando fuerza en todos los campos”, indicó el embajador chileno en España, Sergio Romero, en una entrevista publicada en el suplemento de EL PAÍS Invertir en Chile.

El principal desafío del país sudamericano en el plano económico es mejorar su distribución del ingreso. De acuerdo a un reciente informe de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico (OCDE), el 10% más rico de los chilenos gana 27 veces más que el 10% más pobre.

Y las inequidades sociales, que han hecho explotar el conflicto estudiantil durante 2011, tiene directa relación con la falta de capital humano para enfrentar los retos productivos y las limitaciones del mercado laboral. Otra de las tareas pendientes es el alza de la productividad para elevar el PIB de largo plazo.

Actualmente, tanto el Gobierno como los partidos de la oposición debaten los ejes de una eventual reforma tributaria para hacer frente a los nuevos desafíos.

http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/12/11/actualidad/1323635144_142067.html

India, Still the Brightest Jewel

2011-12-08T02:35:00.001-08:00

India, Still the Brightest Jewel

A century after the Delhi Durbar, India is shining, continuing the best ideals of the British Empire.

By ANDREW ROBERTS

On Dec. 12, 1911, a century ago, the British Empire reached its apogee at the Delhi Durbar (Hindi for "court"). Half a million Indians, including all the ruling princes and nobility of the subcontinent, came to Delhi to celebrate the coronation of their new King-Emperor, George V. More than 100,000 of them assembled in the vast Coronation Park outside the city. The King-Emperor made the surprise announcement that the capital was to be transferred from Calcutta to Delhi.

"The ceremony at its culminating point exactly typified the oriental conception of the ultimate repositories of imperial power," recorded The Times of London. "The monarch sat alone, remote but beneficent, raised far above the multitude, but visible to all, clad in rich vestments, flanked by radiant emblems of authority, guarded by a glittering array of troops, the cynosure of the proudest princes of India, the central figures in what was surely the most majestic assemblage ever seen in the East." Kenneth Rose, in his biography of George V, called it "the most splendid spectacle in Indian history." In some ways, the splendid ideals of the Empire continue today in India's vibrant democracy.

The 1911 spectacle was the most magnificent of the three Delhi Durbars, but also the last. The tradition began once Queen Victoria became Empress of India.

But it stopped when King George VI accessed to the throne in 1937, when the Indian National Congress—busy fighting against imperialism—threatened a boycott.

Questions were also raised then in Westminster about the spectacle's cost. Although none could know it at the time, the Indian Empire only had a decade left, for the two world wars between the 1911 Durbar and Indian independence in 1947 would leave Britain exhausted and near-bankrupt.

King George V and Queen Mary preside over the Durbar.

But before the Empire quit, it gave India a great gift in the spring of 1944—it repelled the Japanese at India's gates at the battles of Kohima and Imphal. The victory was a tribute to the grit and determination of the Indian fighting men, who were officered in great part by Britons and led by General Sir William Slim. Had the Japanese broken through into the Indian plains between March and July 1944, the ravages they were then committing across the rest of their so-called "Greater Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere" would undoubtedly have been the fate of India too.

So what remains a century on from the Delhi Durbar, besides an obelisk in Coronation Park where the King-Emperor's dais used to be, and the fabulous 6,170-diamond Imperial Crown of India that can be seen in the Tower of London?

The first and most obvious survivor is that which lured the Elizabethan merchant adventurers of the Honourable East India Company to India in the early 17th century: trade. In the 2010-11 fiscal year, the United Kingdom was India's sixth largest trading partner, accounting for $7.14 billion of India's exports and $5.39 billion of its imports, which is set to rise.

Meanwhile, India's forefront presence in the Commonwealth and the success of David Cameron's visit in July show how the intense hostility of the India's independence movement from the 1920s to the 1940s was only ever directed against the British imperial administration, and not against the British nation itself. Today, Indian students spend $465 million in tuition fees at British colleges and universities each year, while British high-street retailers such as Marks and Spencer and Debenhams have done very well in India.

The legacies of Empire go far deeper than this, of course. The architectural splendors of Sir Edwin Lutyens's Delhi—where the Indian president lives in what was formerly the Viceregal Palace—are the expressions in stone of a confidence in the strength and potential of India.

The Oxford economist Deepak Lal, the nephew of a former mayor of Delhi and Nehru cabinet minister who was imprisoned by the British, has another answer. He argues that what he calls the Liberal Internationalist Economic Order, first provided by the British Empire, "has been essential for the working of the benign processes of globalization, which promote prosperity."

The major attributes were free trade, free mobility of capital, sound money due to the gold standard, property rights guaranteed by law, piracy-free transportation thanks to the Royal Navy, political stability, low domestic taxation and spending and "gentlemanly" capitalism run from the City of London. "Despite Marxist and nationalist cant," Mr. Lal writes, the British Empire delivered astonishing growth rates to India, which were not seen elsewhere in the world, and would not have been seen in India had it remained under the Mughals.

The Empire required a corruption-free administration to service it, which is what Britain delivered in the shape of the Indian Civil Service. The Service's highest ideals are still held sacred by some, though too few bureaucrats and politicians in Delhi today.

Britain's other great legacy to India is the English tongue, which is spoken by around 18% of Indians and serves as the global language of business, the Internet and advanced technology. Presently there are more Chinese learning English as a second language than there are people who speak it as their first, an indication of the head start that Britain gave India, albeit one which China is rapidly closing. The same can be said of the Empire's construction of railways and other massive infrastructure projects in India.

In the great race to prosperity—and thus global hegemony—presently taking place between India and China, anyone interested in the survival of a liberal-minded and tolerant civilization must be rooting for the victory of India, infused with the best traditions of Westminster-style representative institutions, over a sabre-rattling, resentful and totalitarian China. The shade of the King-Emperor is cheering India on.

Mr. Roberts, a historian, is author most recently of "The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War" (Harper, 2011).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203501304577083833823548086.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopBucket

el pepe - humor inteligencia y ridiculo

2011-12-06T14:18:00.001-08:00

Evolutionary psychologist, Geoffrey Miller contends that, from an evolutionary perspective, humor would have had no survival value to early humans living in the savannas of Africa. He proposes, that cultural aspects like humor, evolved by sexual selection. He argues that humor emerged as an indicator of other traits that were of survival value, such as human intelligence.^[15]

In 2011, three researchers published a book that reviews previous theories of humor and many specific jokes. They propose the theory that humor evolved because it strengthens the ability of the brain to find mistakes in active belief structures, that is, to detect mistaken reasoning.^[16] This is somewhat consistent with the sexual selection theory, because, as stated above, humor would be a reliable indicator of an important survival trait: the ability to detect mistaken reasoning. However, the three researchers argue that humor is fundamentally important because it is the very mechanism that allows the human brain to excel at practical problem solving. Thus, according to them, humor did have survival value even for early humans, because it enhanced the neural circuitry needed to survive.

Socrates was reported by Plato as saying that the ridiculous was characterized by a display of self-ignorance.^[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_humor

Socrates (as a semihistorical dialogue character) in the Philebus (p. 49b) the view that the essence of the ridiculous is an ignorance in the weak, who are thus unable to retaliate when ridiculed.

ridículo², la.

(Del lat. ridicŭlus).

1. adj. Que por su rareza o extravagancia mueve o puede mover a risa.

2. adj. Escaso, corto, de poca estimación.

3. adj. Extraño, irregular y de poco aprecio y consideración.

4. adj. De genio irregular, excesivamente delicado o reparón.

5. m. Situación ridícula en que cae una persona.

http://buscon.rae.es/draeI/SrvltConsulta?TIPO_BUS=3&LEMA=ridiculo

Orlando Dovat - Uruguay esta a la deriva

2011-12-06T12:03:00.001-08:00

Orlando Dovat, fundador de Zonamerica “Unos teorizan y otros somos prácticos”
05/12/2011 Semanario Voces

Orlando Dovat

ZONAMERICA
Trescientas empresas y ocho mil empleados. todo es logística y servicio Citibank, Bank of America, Merril Lynch, Scotiabank. Tata, Larrobla y Asociados, y Artech. Finning ( Caterpillar) Merck..., ocho mil currículos.una empresa netamente uruguaya

Nuestro elemento de medición son los metros. Entonces, metros multiplicado por alquileres, servicios por metro cuadrado, cuántos servicios se vendieron, todo es por metro.El alquiler es el colchón, los servicios es la parte superior que genera la diferencia, este es el negocio. treinta mil metros cuadrados hoy, pero se está construyendo 16 mil metros cuadrados más.somos exportadores, con costos en pesos e ingresos en dólares

¿Cómo ve al gobierno?
Desordenado, sin ningún objetivo, donde se pelea por cosas que luego no tienen una práctica, no están ordenados, ni orientados. A Economía le va muy bien, pero manejan equilibrios, manejar un Estado es otra cosa. Hay que manejar el crecimiento, la visión sobre a dónde quiero llevar el país, nadie sabe.

Somos del MERCOSUR?
no somos del MERCOSUR, somos del mundo, estamos a la deriva. El otro día veo que se hace una integración de Chile con Japón, Colombia, un nuevo grupo de integración internacional sobre Asia, ¿Uruguay está enterado? ¿Golpeó la puerta? ¿No sabe que tiene que hacer integración, que si no le anda con Brasil y Argentina tiene que abrir otros lugares? Uruguay es un país internacional por naturaleza, no tenemos mercado interno, es una pequeña empresa que tiene que navegar en el mundo, y no sé cómo no hay un mensaje. Los partidos opositores están perdidos. El Partido Nacional, es partido pero no tiene candidato. El Partido Colorado tiene candidato pero no tiene partido, y el FA no es un partido, es cualquier cosa, un “canyengue”. Entonces, no hay quien mande y quien ordene, no hay filosofías, no hay líneas de pensamiento ordenados. No digo que Pedro Bordaberry no tenga su idea, pero ¿existe atrás de él una línea ordenada de pensamiento de todo el partido Colorado? ¿Cuál es el pensamiento de Larrañaga respecto a lo que digo, qué país considera, cómo ve el país? Tenemos que mejorar la educación, de acuerdo, pero ¿para qué y hacia dónde? Ese es el gran problema y va más allá del gobierno, es un problema de Uruguay. ¿Hay proyecto país? Falta proyecto pais, cada vez nos falta más, estamos más perdidos. Chile ha hecho acuerdos con todo el mundo y va desarrollando su propio destino, piensan con un poco de visión a 15, 20, 30 años, eso es lo que quiero. Un país en competencia y moderno, que haya tecnología, mejora en la educación, que haya familia.

Y la corporación de funcionarios pesa.?
la corporación de funcionarios pesa. Esa corporación solo piensa en su propia defensa El objetivo lo tienen claro, sin fisuras, no le toques algo porque te cortan la mano, no se puede tocar nada y es sagrado para la sociedad uruguaya. No sé cuanto va a durar eso, porque sigue creciendo el Estado y todo el mundo quiere ser funcionario público.

¿Se siente orgulloso de Zonamerica?
La preocupación surge cuando ya las cosas no son de uno, esto tiene vida propia, ya es una ciudad. Es una creación pero ya anda sola. Ahora los gerentes toman las decisiones yo ya no puedo estar en los detalles, es muy grande. Yo me metía hasta en el riego, estaba metido en todo, era controlable como una chacra, ahora es imposible. Son todos equipos profesionales en todas la áreas y se va perdiendo lo cercano, de volcar lo que es uno en la propia empresa. Pero creo que le dimos nuestra impronta.
http://www.voces.com.uy/entrevistas-1/orlandodovatfundadordezonamerica%E2%80%9Cunosteorizanyotrossomospracticos%E2%80%9D

Vladimir Lenin cubierto de musgo y olvidado

2011-12-02T07:09:00.001-08:00

Pedro Buonomo - el Harvard boy del pepe mujica

2011-11-28T12:01:00.001-08:00

aleluya el pepe se puso una prótesis mental
Pedro Buonomo

(51 años) realizó una maestría en Administración Pública con especialización en Macroeconomía y Finanzas en la Universidad de Harvard en EE.UU. el único integrante del Ministerio de Economía con maestría en Harvard, era Buonomo, que además era el único integrante del sector de Mujica (el MPP) en el edificio de Colonia y Paraguay por aquel entonces.

Lorenzo era el jefe de la Asesoría Macroeconómica cuando Buonomo integraba ésta en el gobierno pasado. A fines de 2007 Buonomo se fue a México a trabajar en la oficina del Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo (BID).Buonomo integró los llamados Núcleos de Base Líber Seregni, un grupo originalmente formado, entre otros, por Danilo Astori en los `80 que luego se escindió y formó parte de la Izquierda Democrática Independiente (IDI). Ya en 1985 se empezó a relacionar con integrantes del Movimiento de Liberación Nacional-Tupamaros que salían de la cárcel, como su líder Raúl Sendic.

El “equipo económico en las sombras” que alumbra a Mujica

Los choques entre los jerarcas de Economía y el presidente se hacen cada vez más habituales

+ - 28.11.2011, 12:08 hs - ACTUALIZADO 15:17Texto: -A / A+

Son, de alguna forma, el sujeto omitido de las ideas y políticas que el presidente José Mujica ha venido anunciando en materia económica y que tomaron por sorpresa a los miembros del equipo económico que formalmente conduce el ministro Fernando Lorenzo pero que políticamente lidera el vicepresidente de la República, Danilo Astori.

Algunos le llaman “el equipo económico en las sombras”, otros simplemente “los hombres de Mujica”, y parece un hecho que el mandatario los consultó antes de tirar la idea de postergar o suspender la promesa electoral de eliminar dos puntos de IVA, y en su lugar bajar cinco puntos pero solo para los sectores más pobres.

Entre estos asesores se destacan Gabriel Frugoni, director de la Oficina de Planeamiento y Prespuesto, oficina que adquirió gran poder y en cuyas manos está buena parte de la aplicación de los acuerdos con privados para ejecutar obra pública. Otro es el sub director de esa oficina, Jerónimo Roca, experto tributarista. También juega un papel central Pedro Buonomo, que renunció a la subsecretaría de Economía, donde estaba a la sombra de Lorenzo, para pasar a desempeñarse como principal asesor del presidente.

Fuentes de la Presidencia dijeron a El Observador que la idea en torno al IVA es del propio Mujica, pero es un hecho que tuvo que consultarla técnicamente con sus hombres más cercanos.

“El presidente ha traído sus propias ideas y ha marcado la agenda. Lo que hace la OPP es tratar de asesorar en lo que el presidente cree conveniente”, dijo a fines de agosto Frugoni en declaraciones a El Observador cuando lo que estaba sobre la mesa eran las diferencias con el llamado impuesto a la tierra.

Así como tuvo que hacerlo con aquel impuesto, que no pudo evitar, Astori peregrinará hoy hasta la oficina de Mujica para escucharle una idea sobre el IVA que no solo no estaba en el libreto del equipo económico, sino que choca con lo que piensan sus conductores.

Astori dijo que se enteró por la edición de El Observador del sábado 26 que Mujica pretendía pedirle al Frente Amplio autorización para incumplir el programa de gobierno y suspender la rebaja generalizada del IVA.

Más allá de si Astori logra torcer la opinión del mandatario, o incluso matizarla, para los analistas el episodio implica un nuevo golpe sobre el equipo económico, y una mácula al consenso entre el presidente y los integrantes de este equipo que conduce la economía.

Técnicos del entorno de Astori se preguntan a esta altura del gobierno cuánto le importa a Mujica concederle al equipo económico liderado por el vicepresidente la supremacía en este asunto que ha tenido desde el 1 de marzo de 2005 con el primer gobierno frenteamplista.

http://www.elobservador.com.uy/noticia/214057/el-equipo-economico-en-las-sombras-que-alumbra-a-mujica/

la muerte del euro -"no hay que defender una idea estupida hasta su amargo final"

2011-11-28T10:19:00.001-08:00

Euro Zone on the Brink

A Continent Stares into the Abyss

REUTERS

Part 3: Are Euro Bonds the Lesser Evil?

Many politicians in the euro zone believe that a different and less harmful miracle weapon could bring calm to the financial markets: jointly issued euro bonds. Speculators could no longer take aim at individual euro-zone countries, argue the proponents of euro bonds, and interest rates would be tolerable, because the strong countries would also guarantee the bonds. Supporters also argue that this would create a large, liquid market that would offer investors a true alternative to US treasury bonds.

Last week, European Commission President Barroso presented three possible options, much to the irritation of German Chancellor Merkel. Under the first proposal, there would only be common bonds with a uniform interest rate and joint guarantees. Under option two, a country could only borrow up to a limit equivalent to 60 percent of its GDP using euro bonds. With the third option, countries would only be liable for the common debt securities according to their relative size and economic strength. Germany would be responsible for the biggest share of liability, 27 percent, with the smallest share, 0.1 percent, going to Malta.

The third model could be introduced relatively quickly, but it's also the least effective. The other options would require amendments to the so-called Lisbon Treaty among European countries, because Article 125 of the treaty prohibits a member state from guaranteeing the debts of another member state.

Stopping Budget Offenders

The Germans also want an amendment to the EU treaties -- not to introduce euro bonds, but to make them unnecessary.

Berlin proposes amending the Lisbon Treaty in such a way that budget offenders could be stopped in time. This is intended to harmonize budgetary policies in the euro countries over time.

European Council President Van Rompuy is expected to submit proposals by the next Council summit on Dec. 9. However, ideas about these proposals diverge widely between Berlin and other capitals.

For this reason, Van Rompuy has already suggested postponing the discussion. But the German Chancellery is standing its ground. The Germans are concerned that if the discussion is postponed, they will be forced to make further financial concessions without having achieved any progress in achieving a so-called "stability union."

A possible compromise does exist, but it would put Merkel under considerable political pressure at home: The Germans get their amendment to the Lisbon Treaty in return for agreeing to the introduction of common bonds -- which the German government has vehemently rejected so far.

The Temptation of Cheap Money

German Finance Minister Schäuble believes that common bonds could only function if the member states of the monetary union were to relinquish a significant share of their sovereignty in terms of fiscal policy to a central European body. Otherwise, the Germans fear, euro bonds would provide the wrong incentives. They would benefit only those countries that are currently forced to pay high interest rates. Euro bonds would enable them to raise funds under significantly better terms.

The concern is that the cheap money could tempt the countries that are now ailing to let their reform efforts slide. Merkel and Schäuble also fear that Germany would end up bearing a greater financial burden with euro bonds and be held liable for countries with poor credit ratings. Germany is currently able to borrow money at lower rates than any other country in the euro zone. The yield on a 10-year German treasury bond is now at 2 percent. If the risk is distributed among all euro-zone countries, the German finance minister will find himself paying higher interest rates.

The costs can be substantial. Assuming a refinancing need of €300 billion, it would cost the government an additional €3 billion a year if rates went up by only one percentage point. And the amount would increase every year.

Proponents of common bonds consider these calculations to be too pessimistic. In fact, they anticipate the trend moving in the opposite direction. Because the market for euro bonds would be of a similar size to the market for American treasury bonds, euro bonds would become more attractive. Common bonds would thus promote the role of the euro as a reserve currency. Both effects would increase demand for the new bonds, which in turn would bring down yields. It remains unclear whether this effect could offset the increase in interest rates.

Increasingly Isolated

Either way, Merkel and Schäuble aren't even interested in taking the plunge, at least not voluntarily.

They have now become relatively isolated with their position. Most other countries openly advocate euro bonds, and large segments of both the European Parliament and the European Commission are in favor of the bonds.

Nevertheless, government insiders believe that it is inconceivable that Merkel will relent. But should the crisis continue to escalate, possibly spreading to core nations of the euro zone, she will hardly be able to resist the pressure.

From the standpoint of domestic policy, Chancellor Merkel could hardly risk accommodating outside demands at this point. She is anxious to avoid anything that could provide the euroskeptics in the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), the coalition partner to her center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), with new arguments. But proponents of euro bonds expect that, given that the FDP leadership managed to convince the party base to support the permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), it would ultimately also accept jointly issued bonds.

Alarm Signals

The only question is whether it will be too late by then. The credibility of the instrument depends primarily on Germany's solvency, especially now that other important countries with top credit ratings, like France and Finland, have come under fire from the markets in recent weeks.

Euro bonds would only appeal to investors if they were guaranteed by the German government. But there are growing doubts as to whether Germany could in fact shoulder the burden alone.

The first alarm signals became evident in the last few weeks. On Wednesday, the German government's financial agency failed to fully place a bond offering. Optimists attribute the weak response from investors to insufficient yields. Others see the development as the first indication that markets are beginning to lose confidence even in traditionally robust Germany -- and that investors are now not only pulling their money out of the peripheral countries, but out of the monetary union as a whole.

Time for a Messy Breakup?

There is growing skepticism in the financial markets over whether the euro can even be saved in the end. Last week, Britain's Financial Services Authority already called upon British banks to prepare themselves for the end of the monetary union.

But what would happen if the euro-zone countries returned to their old currencies? And how could it even be accomplished? Until recently, hardly any reputable economist had even considered such questions. The notion that the euro zone could break apart was regarded as an absurd idea.

That has now changed. Some experts even consider it advisable that highly indebted countries like Greece, Portugal and possibly even Italy withdraw from the common currency. Others are even looking at a plan B for Germany to withdraw from the euro and reintroduce the deutsche mark. Would having a breakup of the euro zone now, however messy, be preferable to letting things drag on?

Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research, is convinced that it would be the best thing for everyone involved if Greece were to return to the drachma. Greek banks would have to be closed for a week, all accounts, balance sheets and the government debt would be converted, and the drachma would then be devalued.

Are the Euro's Days Numbered?

Sinn argues that this would enable Greece to regain its competitiveness. Greek products would be marketable once again, and the tourists would return. Former ECB chief economist Otmar Issing also believes that this would justify the economic damage caused by such an operation.

Economists believe that the withdrawal of Greece, and possibly also Portugal, from the euro zone would have an important disciplinary effect. The euro zone would have demonstrated that it could not be blackmailed, which in turn would accelerate reforms in a country like Italy. The experts are also convinced that the monetary union would find it very difficult to cope with an Italian default.

In contrast, Hans-Joachim Voth, an economic historian who teaches in Barcelona, feels that the euro's days are numbered. He considers it advisable for economically strong countries like Germany to withdraw from the euro, because, so he argues, "not every stupid economic idea has to be defended to the bitter end." In theory, says Voth, the upcoming Christmas holidays could be a good time to take this step, because, as he argues, it's important to take the markets by surprise.

Dirk Meyer, a professor at the Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg, also argues that the Germans should take the initiative and leave the euro zone as quickly as possible. He has even come up with a concrete time frame. Under his scenario, it begins on a Monday, or "Day X." On the preceding weekend, the government will have issued the surprise order that banks remain closed on this Day X. The bank holiday is needed to incorporate all savings and checking accounts into the changeover.

On Tuesday, banks and savings banks begin to stamp their customers' banknotes with forgery-proof magnetic ink. Inspectors would monitor Germany's borders and international capital transactions to ensure that foreigners do not bring any money into Germany to have it stamped there. As a result of the expected devaluation, euros that have been stamped in this manner would lose value. The government would have to provide aid to banks that have substantial receivables and assets abroad.

Time to Convert

After about two months, Germany would leave the euro zone and, through an amendment to its constitution, reintroduce its own currency, which could also be a new common currency with other former euro-zone members who had left the monetary union. A second bank holiday would be used to convert all accounts and bank balances to the new currency. All individuals and companies residing in or headquartered in Germany would be entitled to convert their euros into the new currency. However, at least another year would pass before the new banknotes were printed and distributed. Until then, the stamped euro banknotes would serve as the valid currency.

In his scenario, Meyer expects the new currency to gain up to 25 percent in value against the euro, which would adversely affect companies that are dependent on exports. The foreign assets of German investors denominated in euros would also lose value. According to Meyer, the losses would amount to upwards of €225 billion, with major investors like banks and insurance companies being especially hard hit.

Meyer estimates the total economic costs of the operation would be between €250 billion and €340 billion, or 10 to 14 percent of Germany's gross domestic product -- a high price indeed.

But, he argues, the damage would be even greater if Germany remained in the euro zone. Meyer believes that German taxpayers would face an additional annual burden of about €80 billion should a European "transfer union" come into existence.

Last Principles

But a government can hardly base its policies on projections and models, even if it feels that they are plausible. The consequences of a breakup of the monetary union would affect everyone immediately, whereas the impact of all other strategies, as dangerous and costly as they might be, would only be felt in the future.

Merkel's credo is that, "if the euro fails, Europe fails." And if she is serious about this sentence, a case can be made that she will do everything possible to save the common currency -- even something that she has ruled out until now.

Then, even the last principles Merkel has staunchly defended until now will fall by the wayside, namely that the monetary union is not a debt- and liability union -- and that the euro cannot be defended with the money presses.

REPORTED BY MARTIN HESSE, DIRK KURBJUWEIT, ARMIN MAHLER, ALEXANDER NEUBACHER, RALF NEUKIRCH, CHRISTIAN REIERMANN, MATHIEU VON ROHR, MICHAEL SAUGA AND CHRISTOPH SCHULT

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Back
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Part 1: A Continent Stares into the Abyss
Part 2: A Buyers' Strike on Euro-Zone Debt
Part 3: Are Euro Bonds the Lesser Evil?

Ai Weiwei el artista que desafia a la dictadura comunista

2011-11-24T10:37:00.001-08:00

Ai Weiwei

'Shame on Me'

DER SPIEGEL

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei speaks about the changes in his life since the end of his detention in June and shows himself moved and surprised by a new culture of protest in his country.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,799302,00.html

Liao Yiwu - "China es un pais de criminales"

2011-11-21T06:19:00.001-08:00

Testimony of Torture

Chinese Dissident Exposes Prison Brutality

By Susanne Beyer

dapd

Chinese poet Liao Yiwu recently moved to Germany, where his books are best-sellers. His self-imposed exile has allowed him to finally publish his memoir, which reveals the abuses and torture he suffered during his years in prison. The book is a shocking indictment of the Chinese justice system.

The old man seemed unflappable as he spoke. Sitting in a wheelchair, his wooden cane always close at hand and his thick, silvery gray shock of hair as neatly parted as ever, he talked about China, presenting himself as someone who knew the place well, having been there 12 or 15 times. "I admire what China has accomplished since Mao Zedong's death in 1976," he said.

But he didn't stop there. He continued on to say that, while it's true China isn't a democracy, the country has nonetheless managed to create an economic boom for itself, with the result that "hardly anyone living in China today could say they aren't doing better now than at any other point in their lives." This is "an enormous accomplishment," he added, and Chinese communism has been "successful." Then he raised his index finger, and, stabbing it in the air, said, in a reference to a famous quote by the Prussian king Frederick the Great: "They have the right to find their salvation in their own way."

This 92-year-old man wasn't just chatting by a fireplace somewhere, nor was he just anyone. The man in question was former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, celebrated as the grandfather of the nation. And Schmidt said all this as a guest on Germany's most important talk show, sitting across from Günther Jauch, the country's most respected talk-show host. At his side was the man who has set his sights on becoming the next chancellor, Peer Steinbrück. The talk-show host said nothing at all in response to Schmidt's theories, but quickly changed the subject. Steinbrück, for his part, suggested the theories were "in need of some fleshing out," then praised Western-style democratic rule of law in a roundabout way.

Schmidt got away with his statements without criticism, in front of more than 5 million viewers, and with applause from the studio audience.

An Interesting Conversation Partner

The former chancellor certainly appeared sprightly on that talk show three weeks ago, and considering the fact that he seems to be constantly out and about and meeting people, perhaps he could -- though it's just a suggestion -- spare a little time for someone who might make an interesting conversation partner: the friendly 53-year-old Chinese man who has written the year's most brutal and shocking book, and insists every word in it is true.

The man is Liao Yiwu and the book lays out his recollections from nearly four years spent in Chinese prisons, following his arrest and conviction for writing a poem called "Massacre" in response to the bloody suppression of the 1989 demonstrations at Beijing's Tiananmen Square. His latest book, published in German as "Für ein Lied und hundert Lieder" ("For a Song and a Hundred Songs"), is an eyewitness report from the epicenter of human rights abuse, a volume that overflows with blood, urine and excrement.

"Admiration" for China? "The right to find their salvation in their own way?" Liao Yiwu was astonished when told about the former chancellor's statements. He asked whether Schmidt really uttered those precise words, then shook his head.

On Thursday of last week, Liao had just arrived in Munich after a book tour in the United States, in order to accept the Geschwister Scholl literary prize for his prison memoir on Nov. 14. He found his way, exhausted and shivering in the cold, to a restaurant in Munich's English Garden for this interview, but when he heard Schmidt's words quoted, he was suddenly wide awake.

Anyone who talks that way is afraid of jeopardizing trade with China, he said, but such people bring "bad thoughts into the world." If trade is more important than human rights and dignity, "then the end of the world has arrived." And no one should deceive themselves about the Communist Party, he said. "It has a golden body and two faces. It shows the Chinese people its fierce face, and the West its pleasant one."

Multiple Versions

Liao Yiwu described that fierce side in his book. He was forbidden to publish it in China or abroad, but S. Fischer Verlag, a German publishing house, was interested in releasing it this summer. Another of Liao's books, published in English as "The Corpse Walker: Real Life Stories, China from the Bottom Up," had been well received in Germany two years before. In that book, Liao records his conversations with China's poor and disenfranchised, the toilet cleaners and migrant workers, and those persecuted for their political views.

Liao was forced to write multiple versions of his prison memoir. The first version, hand-written and his only copy of the work, was confiscated by the police. So was the second. For the third version, he was able to write on a computer and save back-up copies. After investing so many years in the work, Liao was determined to see it published in Germany. He fled China for Berlin in early July, and the book was released later the same month.

His escape saved not only the book, but himself as well, Liao said. If he had stayed in China, the book couldn't have been published. And if it had been published, he would have been put on trial. And then it would have started all over again.

'Open Fire'

Liao writes in his book that he was a "romantic" before he went to prison, a successful young poet in China during the 1980s, talented, but naïve and apolitical.

The turning point for him came on June 4, 1989, with the massacre at Tiananmen Square. The words poured out of him, and "Massacre" was the result.

Open fire, open fire, open fire
Shoot women, students and children
Shoot workers, teachers and vendors
Riddle them with bullets
[…]
Wipe out the flowers, forest, school campuses, love, and the pure air
Shoot, shoot and shoot…
I feel good and I feel high

Liao's taped recording of the poem circulated among dissidents. In 1990, he was arrested and taken to an interrogation prison. "They exposed my head, then my body. The (prisoners appointed as guards) examined the clothing they'd torn from my body, centimeter by centimeter, then piled it up nearby. Only then did they examine my mouth, my armpits and the soles of my feet. I clutched both my empty fists at my sides, then moved instinctively to pull up the pants that weren't there, when their leader ordered me to stick out my bottom -- and, with the utmost care, inserted a bamboo stick into my anus."

"I hadn't been exposed to the gaze of others this way, without a stitch of clothing on my body, since I was a baby. The exhibition lasted about seven minutes, but it was longer than an entire lifetime … God damn it, I hadn't thought the first blow would already bring me to my knees."

Beaten with Batons

He was kept in a cell near the latrines, and from there taken to his interrogations. The guards beat him with electric batons, one time delivering 100 blows in a single interrogation, another time for 20 minutes without pause. They cuffed his hands behind his back, once for 23 days straight. The handcuffs were often too tight, causing his hands to swell and the metal to dig into his skin.

There was a clear hierarchy among the prisoners, about 20 of them were held in "a bit more than 20 square meters" (215 square feet). The higher-ranking prisoners were waited on by the lower-ranking ones. There were the "pleasure servants," feminine young men with pretty faces who sang and danced for the higher-ranking prisoners, slept naked beside them and performed sexual favors. Then there were the torturers, merciless with their defenseless victims.

A so-called "menu" circulated among the prisoners, offering 45 "dishes," each a description of a different method of torture. "Twice-roasted meat, served on a steel plate: First, the victim's naked back is pricked at random with bamboo needles, causing thousands of punctures. These are strewn with salt, then the entire thing taped up in bandages. Once the blood has clotted, the bandages are torn off."

Liao Yiwu left prison a broken man, and China's enemy. In one poem, he describes his "fatherland" as a "country of criminals" and exclaims, "I want to see you in prison. I want you, too, to see how it feels to have your hands bound at your back." He asks whether the country wants "for your people to love you like a prostitute loves her client."

No More Potatoes

Writing gives him dignity. He's no longer afraid. And life is about survival.

He feels lost even during the days in Munich leading up to the acceptance of his award, although he has friends here with him. But how can he feel joyful, given his history? How can he, when a friend he has felt closely connected to for 30 years is in prison? Author and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo, one of the individuals who signed the Charter 08 human rights manifesto, was sentenced in 2009 to 11 years' imprisonment for "inciting subversion of state power." Liao Yiwu thinks of his friend every day. Is he being tortured with electric batons this very minute?

At the restaurant in Munich, Liao orders a fish stew, but leaves half of it uneaten. "It's the potatoes," says the friend sitting next to him. "There were always potatoes in prison. Now he can't force them down."

Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,797833,00.html

Uruguay tiene una democracia superior a la de Argentina y Brasil

2011-11-15T15:01:00.001-08:00

English: A map of the world showing the results of The Economist's Democracy Index survey for 2010. Each country's democracy is rated on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 the least democratic. Hong Kong (score 5.85) was also included in the survey but is not visible on this map.

Key:
Full democracies:

9-10

8-8.9

Flawed democracies:

7-7.9

6-6.9

Hybrid regimes:

5-5.9

4-4.9

Authoritarian regimes

3-3.9

2-2.9

0-1.9

Insufficient information, no rating

aceite de oliva “Bidondo”, con sello de Andresito - Flores

2011-11-14T04:32:00.001-08:00

La presentación del aceite de oliva “Bidondo”, con sello de Andresito Una de las particularidades salientes de los festejos de Andresito estará señalada por la presentación del producto de la segunda cosecha de aceite de oliva realizada en tierras de esta zona, en el establecimiento del Ing. Agrim. Pablo Bidondo ubicado a poca distancia de las orillas del lago del Arroyo Grande. Las dos variedades de aceite de oliva “Bidondo” será expuesto en la Expo y presentado en envases de distintos tamaños (medio litro, 400 gramos, 250 gramos, 100 gramos y 40 gramos). El emprendimiento familiar-artesanal dio comienzo en el año 2005 pero adquirió perfil propio en el 2006 con un total de 700 plantas, iniciándose un proceso de desarrollo que ha tenido ya cuatro períodos de plantación, alcanzándose los 1.600 olivos, cuyo laboreo es realizado en su totalidad por gente de la zona. La empresa tuvo el año pasado su primera producción y en el 2011 logra una mayor cosecha, lo que le ha permitido aumentar los volúmenes y proyectar a la esfera comercial a este aceite “extra virgen” con el sello de Andresito, del departamento de Flores. La cosecha de este año fue de más de mil quilos de aceitunas y se elaboraron 250 litros de aceite, con cuya cantidad se podría abastecer el mercado local. Publicado: 11/11/2011 00:11
http://www.ecosregionales.net/?edicion=1621&noticia=18013

smart and soft power - Joseph Nye

2011-11-12T14:54:00.001-08:00

“Success depends not only on whose army wins, but also on whose story wins,”
Nye 2005

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Nye

The 2008 TRIP survey of 1700 international relations scholars ranked him as the sixth most influential scholar of the past twenty years, and the most influential on American foreign policy.

Smart Power

Joseph Nye

Distinguished Service Professor at Harvard University and Author

Posted: November 29, 2007 06:43 PM

Read More: 9/11, CSIS, CSIS Smart Power Commission, Pentagon, Post-9/11, Richard Armitage, Robert Gates, Smart Power, Soft Power, War On Terror, Politics News
The United States needs to rediscover how to be a "smart power." That was the conclusion of a bipartisan commission that I recently co-chaired with Richard Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state in the Bush administration. A group of Republican and Democratic members of Congress, former ambassadors, retired military officers and heads of non-profit organizations was convened by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. We concluded that America's image and influence had declined in recent years, and that the United States had to change from exporting fear to inspiring optimism and hope. The CSIS Smart Power Commission is not alone in this conclusion. Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates called for the U.S. government to commit more money and effort to soft power tools including diplomacy, economic assistance and communications because the military alone cannot defend America's interests around the world. He pointed out that military spending totals nearly half a trillion dollars annually compared with a State Department budget of $36 billion. In his words, "I am here to make the case for strengthening our capacity to used soft power and for better integrating it with hard power." He acknowledged that for the head of the Pentagon to plead for more resources for the State Department was as odd as a man biting a dog, but these are not normal times. Smart power is the ability to combine hard and soft power into a successful strategy. By and large, the United States managed such a combination during the Cold War, but more recently U.S. foreign policy has tended to over-rely on hard power because it is the most direct and visible source of American strength. The Pentagon is the best trained and best resourced arm of the government, but there are limits to what hard power can achieve on its own. Promoting democracy, human rights and development of civil society are not best handled with the barrel of a gun. It is true that the American military has an impressive operational capacity, but the practice of turning to the Pentagon because it can get things done leads to an image of an over-militarized foreign policy. Diplomacy and foreign assistance are often under-funded and neglected, in part because of the difficulty of demonstrating their short term impact on critical challenges. In addition, wielding soft power is difficult because many of America's soft power resources lie outside of government in the private sector and civil society, in its bilateral alliances, multilateral institutions, and transnational contacts. Moreover, American foreign policy institutions and personnel are fractured and compartmentalized and there is not an adequate inter-agency process for developing and funding a smart power strategy.
The effects of the 9/11 terrorist attacks have thrown us off course. Since the shock of 9/11, the United States has been exporting fear and anger rather than our more traditional values of hope and optimism. Guantanamo has become a more powerful global icon than the Statue of Liberty. The CSIS Smart Power Commission acknowledged that terrorism is a real threat and likely to be with us for decades, but we pointed out that over-responding to the provocations of extremists does us more damage than the terrorists ever could. The commission argued that success in the struggle against terrorism means finding a new central premise for American foreign policy to replace the current theme of a "war on terror." A commitment to providing global public goods can provide that premise. For more details, see the report on the CSIS website.
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Socrates was reported by Plato as saying that the ridiculous was characterized by a display of self-ignorance.^[7]