¿La Eurozona salió de la recesión?

ANALYST: The Eurozone Recession Is Over

JOE WEISENTHAL

Business Insider

Back in late July we declared that the European recession was coming to an end.

It was clear from manufacturing data, as well as bank lending data that the corner had turned or would soon turn, and that although things would remain a holy mess, things would no longer get worse economically and that there would be a modicum of growth.

Since then, this view has grown in popularity.

In a note out last night, SocGen economic Brian Hilliard says this is the week we find that out for sure.

IS THE EURO AREA FINALLY EMERGING FROM RECESSION?

In recent weeks, a number of better than expected economic data have lifted the mood for the euro area growth outlook. This week we expect preliminary Q2 GDP data for France, Germany and the euro area to indeed point to a small improvement in growth, the first in nearly two years and better than we expected in our latest Global Economic Outlook in June.

While this may provide some welcome relief, we think it is too early to call an end to the euro area debt crisis. Firstly, looking more closely at the driving factors in Q2, we expect temporary factors to have been at play in both Germany and France. In Germany, the rebound from poor weather conditions in Q1 exaggerates the likely strength of growth in Q2 (we predict 0.7% qoq – euro area economist, Anatoli Annenkov, analyses this in A roaring rebound in German Q2 GDP expected) while for France, even with the help of strong energy consumption (unlikely to help in Q3) and net trade growth, only 0.2% qoq is likely.

Bear in mind, though, that this will signal the exit from recession. Diverging trends are still apparent, with strong German data contrasting with still lack-lustre data elsewhere. Secondly, we expect headwinds from financial fragmentation and additional fiscal austerity to weigh on growth in H2, with risks stemming from policy uncertainty remaining high. Progress with the Banking Union and the financial sector regulatory framework will in this regard be crucial.

Anytime anyone makes this call, people feel the need (understandably) to point out all of the looming pitfals for the Euro, including the ongoing austerity, the political uncertainty, and as SocGen does, the issues with the banking union. People point this out in part because it's true, but also because they don't want to seem glib about how bad things are in the real world there.

That being said, turns start somewhere, and if you wait until things are good until you start talking about them, then you miss the boat.

Una discusión sobre la redistribución del ingreso en USA

Redistributing Wealth Is the Wrong Way to Fix a Rigged Game

Elites shouldn't be forced to share ill-gotten gains -- they should be prevented from ever getting them.

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF

Quinn Anya/Flickr

In my review of Twilight of the Elites, Chris Hayes's thoughtful critique of American meritocracy, I largely agreed with his contention that the current system is frequently rigged by those at the top.

How should that be fixed? I'd prefer a polity constantly attuned to abuses of power and committed to tweaking the rules of the game in a constant effort to make them as neutral, fair, and equitable as possible. With apologies for the violence a one-sentence summary necessarily does to a subtle, book-length argument, Hayes emphasized the need for affirmative action and redistribution of wealth. Discouraged about the prospects of remedying unfairness, he wanted to address its consequences, causing me to worry that alleviating the symptoms would make the disease easier to ignore.

As I put it at the time:

If rich Americans are gaming the system to illegitimately increase their wealth, if they are pulling up the ladder so that they can never be replaced as elites, if they are too socially distant from the people over whose lives they wield great influence, and if they aren't even punished like regular people when they break the rules, surely there are urgent policy changes needed that are a lot more targeted to reforming the elite than 'raise their taxes and spread the wealth.'
Better to eliminate ill-gotten gains than to redistribute them.

To be clear, there is a lot about which Hayes and I can and do agree. I favor enough redistribution to fund a safety net for the least well-off, and he favors eliminating ill-gotten gains. Where do we disagree? He is more comfortable than I am with redistribution of wealth to the non-poor; more confident that a more redistributive government would advance the common good, rather than ending in abuse; and less confident that direct remedies of injustice would succeed.

Our varying approaches were brought to mind by an exchange betweenJonathan Chait, a redistributionist, and Will Wilkinson, a proponent of focusing on ill-gotten gains.

Both are exceptional writers and forceful proponents of their very different perspectives. I recommend reading their full posts, as the discussion that follows won't capture everything about them. Chait writes:

... You could eliminate every business subsidy in Washington, and you'd still have in place a massive income gulf and a wealthy elite able to pass its advantages on to the next generation (through proximity to jobs, social connections, acculturation, spending money on education) that have nothing to do with government. The egalitarian laissez-faire economy is a fantasy ...

Republican populists are obsessed with the role of elites using the government to reinforce their privilege. Certainly examples of this exist. But the main driver of inequality today is the marketplace, and the main bulwark against that inequality is the federal government. The federal government disproportionately taxes the rich, and it disproportionately spends on the poor.

Wilkinson responds:

Mr Chait has set up a false alternative. To say that the "main driver of inequality today is the marketplace" is a fairly empty observation. The marketplace is a complex system of institutions itself created by legal rules, and these rules are mostly established by government.
The law constitutes and codifies the corporate form.
The law defines the scope of property rights, including intellectual property rights. These political artifacts specify the contours of the marketplace and have vast, systemic distributive consequences. These facts are usually trotted out to correct free-market enthusiasts in the grip of the fallacious idea that "the market" somehow exists outside politics, and that the pattern of income and wealth emerging from the operation of market exchange is therefore "natural" and not already thoroughly political. I'm sure Mr Chait has made these points himself, so it should be be easy for him to see that to say that the marketplace drives inequality is just to say that government does, because the marketplace is a creature of politics.

I don't expect that people like Chait and people like Wilkinson are ever going to resolve all their disagreements. But what most struck me in the above exchange was Chait's dismissal of non-redistributive attempts to improve outcomes. Wilkinson goes on to write, "I deny that rooting out all corporate welfare would do so little and that progressive transfers would do so much," adding later that "egalitarian anti-corporatism is a genuinely excellent, genuinely egalitarian idea."

I'd like to broaden the discussion a bit more.

Say we want "a really solid scheme of social insurance," since everyone mentioned, myself included, favors it; and set aside the argument about the wisdom of progressive redistribution on top of that. There are numerous, significant injustices and suboptimal policies that could be remedied, in part or in full, through means other than additional progressive redistribution. And those remedies would make life in America significantly better for the poor, the working class, and the lower middle class, largely at the expense of rent-seekers and incumbents enjoying unfair gains.

Some of the remedies fit more comfortably than others into what's recently been called "libertarian populism." What every suggestion has in common is addressing unfair gains that accrue to elites, who have arranged or manipulated the rules of the game in order to inflate their status. 

The financial sector: As Kevin Drum once put it, "The mammoth profits of the financial industry are bad for the economy because they suck money away from other activities with actual value. They're doubly bad because they were built on, and encouraged, vast amounts of fraud and corruption."

As well, financial-industry profits are increasingly disconnected from the success of the economy. And if there was ever any doubt that Wall Street banks have grown too big to regulate, in part through the implicit subsidy they receive as so-called "too big to fail" institutions, it vanished during the recent cycle of financial crisis and bailouts (both acknowledged and hidden). The rules of the game are broken, and the amount of lobbying done by the big banks, the revolving door between the public and private sector, and the serial failure of the state to prosecute wrongdoing are further signs that successful reform will requirebreaking up the big banks.

Housing policy: Tax law ought to treat renters and owners equitably, rather than permitting mortgage interest but not rent to be deducted. In high-rent cities, permitting more construction at a lower cost would be a huge boon to most renters. Matt Yglesias has made this point over and over again with respect to the building-height limit in Washington, D.C. In suburbs, there is a much higher demand among working-class families for apartments than there is supply, because incumbent homeowners, fearing crime and traffic, almost never want multifamily units built near their neighborhoods. Eliminating all zoning laws isn't the right fit for every community, but moderate free-market reforms that reduce incumbent veto power would benefit poor and working class households.

Corporate welfare: The Export-Import Bank, ethanol subsidies, sugar subsidies, the part of the Pentagon budget that is protecting the interests of American-run multinationals more than taxpayers: End it all, along with the countless other examples of corporate welfare coursing through our system. There is so much of it that one could go on for pages about this problem alone.

Teacher incentives: One of several factors that prevents public education from performing as well as it might is a system of incentives for teachers, defended by powerful teachers' unions, that makes it (a) very difficult to fire the worst teachers and (b) very difficult to incentivize better teaching with pay, because so much of compensation is based upon seniority (along with masters degrees in education that don't seem to do much to improve teacher quality).Merit based pay need not be tied to test scores. In fact, I'd much prefer a system that empowered principals to reward the best teachers in their schools from a larger total pool of salary money.

The payroll tax: As Tim Carney puts it, "It's a tax on employment. It's a tax on someone's first dollar. And it's specious to say that it funds Social Security and Medicare -- both entitlements are funded on the margin by general revenues. So give up the charade and abolish a regressive federal tax."

Occupational licensing: One nonprofit that gets less attention than it deserves is the Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm that fights on behalf of the rights of small food-truck entrepreneurs to compete against established restaurants, monks to sell simple wooden caskets without jumping through hoops favored by the funeral industry, eyebrow threaders to service clients without attending expensive beauty schools that don't even teach the technique, and interior designers to practice their art without obtaining permission from a professional cartel. Throughout the economy, entrenched interests and politicians with college degrees are passing laws that have the effect of disadvantaging would be entrepreneurs who lack the start-up capital of wealthier analogs, or else have more trouble navigating the bureaucracy, whether because they are immigrants with a language barrier or unable to afford attorneys or consultants.

The tax code: The complexity of the current system effectively rewards tax attorneys, accountants, and the people rich enough to pay the best of them, at a huge deadweight cost to the economy.

The patent system: There is reason to believe that it is doing as much to stifle innovation as to encourage it. Additionally, as Tim Lee writes, "a 'property' system that makes it impossible to figure out who owns what is economically inefficient, and should be reformed for that reason alone. But a property system that exposes anyone who enters a particular industry to unavoidable and potentially crippling legal liability should also offend our sense of justice. People should have a reasonable shot at following the law, and at a minimum the penalties for failing to do the impossible shouldn't be too harsh. A legal regime that's practically impossible to comply with, and which imposes potentially crippling liability on infringers, is incompatible with the rule of law."

Drug policy and the criminal-justice system: Take a poor kid from a rough neighborhood and a rich kid from a wealthy suburb. Each is pulled over with an eighth of marijuana in their car. What's likely to happen to them next, on average, illustrates one of the most profound inequalities in how rich and poor people are treated in the criminal-justice system, and that the effects touch everything from incarceration rates to job prospects to the likelihood of having an absent father. It seems to me that, along with all its other unintended consequences, drug prohibition and the black market it spawns imposes far higher costs on the worst off Americans -- and higher costs still on even poorer people who live in countries with cartels empowered by black markets. 

(There is, as well, something deeply pernicious about a private prison industry and public-employee unions composed of prison guards who lobby for policies that would incarcerate more people.)

Foreign policy: Working-class Americans, who disproportionately serve in the military, would benefit from fewer wars of choice, like the conflict in Iraq, that kill thousands of them, maim tens of thousands, and damage many others with terrible consequences ranging from PTSD to suicide. But there are powerful lobbies that will benefit financially from more wars of choice, and that benefit in any case from often wasteful spending on various weapons systems of choice. At the very least, defense contractors that perpetrate fraud ought to be pursued mercilessly.

* * *

That isn't an exhaustive account of policy areas where there is room to significantly improve fairness and outcomes for non-elites. But it is enough to show that tremendous good could be done for regular Americans even if you take redistribution beyond the safety net off the table. Why do I prefer to focus on those sorts of efforts, as opposed to open-ended progressive redistribution? 

Several reasons.

For one, Americans should have strong, though not absolute, claims on what they earn -- not absolute, because everyone has an obligation to fund certain common enterprises (common defense and a safety net among them). But I'd much rather use public policy to redistribute ill-gotten wealth away from rich rent-seekers who make their money gaming the system at everyone's expense than by taking earned wealth from people who accrued it by creating value for others.

Progressives seem to have no aversion to redistributing, without any principled limit, even the most legitimately earned wealth. If that characterization is correct, why? If not, what is the principled limit?

I also think activist government and redistribution are extremely vulnerable to rent-seeking elites -- more vulnerable, in fact, than a system that focused on establishing fair general rules. Libertarian populists accuse President Obama of crony capitalism when they tout their remedies. To me, the response that Chait offers is extremely unconvincing, but not for the reason he might think. 

Here's the part of his piece I'm talking about:

The most important premise of Republican populism is the belief, accepted as self-evidently true after four and a half years of relentless repetition, that Obama's governing style is corrupt, or at least close to corrupt. Obama's agenda, writes Carney, amounts to "taxpayer transfers to the big companies with the best lobbyists, with some crumbs hopefully falling to the working class."
Douthat calls it "cronyist liberalism."

But this is almost completely wrong. There's a speck of truth here: Obama has fallen short of the soaring idealistic vision of governance campaigned on in 2008 -- negotiations conducted on-camera, lobbyists treated in his administration like lepers -- but he's still easily surpassed the normal presidential standard of good governance. The Bush administration devolved into a massive K Street patronage operation; Reagan's administration featured five distinct genres of corruption scandal (sixteen Reagan HUD staffers were convicted of bid-rigging, high-level staffers Michael Deaver and Lyn Nofziger were convicted of illegal influence peddling, Reagan's EPA was a sewer, etc.).

Chait would have us believe that the Obama Administration hasn't had a whiff of cronyism, especially compared to the rampant cronyism of Republican presidents. Wilkinson says this gives Obama too much credit, and I agree, but why contest Chait's point? Assume Obama is as good as Chait says. Guess what? He leaves office in 2017, when another person will enter the White House. Whether then or soon after, a Republican will enter the White House. He or she can inherit a system where redistribution is discouraged and the focus is on establishing fair "rules of the game," or one where the president has tremendous discretion to redistribute wealth. 

The system more generally prone to corruption is obvious. Even by Chait's logic -- Obama is unusually honest, and GOP presidencies devolve into patronage operations -- we're likely to see more patronage than honesty in the near future, when the machinery of redistribution so carefully built by Democrats falls into the ideological descendants of the people who executed the K Street Project. By Chait's own logic, his preferred system will only work when Democrats are in power.

The actual nature of our two-party system, where Republicans and Democrats both regularly end up in charge, is that some unfair elite gains accrue to Republican interest groups and others to Democratic interest groups. (Some groups have bought off both parties.) If it were true that only redistribution can improve the lot of regular Americans, it would make sense for Democrats to ignore the illegitimate gains won by the people who help to keep their party in power.

But it isn't true. Regular Americans would be a lot better off if the worst rent-seeking were reined in, including rent-seeking by Democratic interest groups. As a matter of public policy, there are a lot of reforms that two smart guys like Wilkinson and Chait could agree on as discrete improvements. The obstacle is the contours of coalition politics in America even more than substance. Luckily, some people are trying to change the contours of coalition politics in America.

They should be encouraged.

The Atlantic

Costos persiguen a los pasajeros en los hoteles neoyorkinos

Aluvión de costos está empezando a seguir a los pasajeros hasta el hotel

By JOE SHARKEY

New York Times

Mientras que una gran cantidad de atención se ha centrado en las tarifas de las líneas aéreas que se acumulan a las tarifas básicas, la actividad hotelera también ha ido ganando ingresos de la adición de los cargos de la tarifa básica.

Este año, los hoteles en los Estados Unidos van a recoger un estimado de $ 2,1 mil millones en comisiones y recargos, frente a US $ 2 mil millones en 2012, según un nuevo análisis del Preston Robert Tisch del Center for Hospitality, Tourism and Sports de la Universidad de Nueva York.

Por supuesto, eso es poca cosa en comparación con los ingresos de la industria de las aerolíneas de honorarios, que ascendieron a $ 6000 millones el año pasado sólo en los cargos por equipaje facturado y por cambiar un itinerario. Aún así, "la industria aérea ha creado una gran cubierta que ha envalentonado a la industria hotelera", dijo Bjorn Hanson, el decano de la división en el centro.

Los ingresos por tarifas (fee revenues) se han más que duplicado en los últimos 10 años, ya que muchos hoteles, en especial de convenciones, centro turístico y los de lujo, añaden cargos a la factura de los servicios, como el uso de un centro de negocios y conexión a Internet, y en algunos casos solicitan las así llamado tarifas del resort que, básicamente, son los recargos por el uso de las instalaciones del hotel.

Honorarios también se añaden en algunos hoteles por la salida temprana, recepción de faxes y paquetes durante la noche, gratificaciones automáticas e incluso cosas como el relleno del minibar, disponibilidad de caja fuerte y estacionamiento con asistencia obligatoria.

Oye, no me hagas hablar. Mientras asistía a una conferencia en un hotel resort en Phoenix hace dos años, me sorprendió encontrar un cargo de $ 12 por el transporte de cargas - servicio de botones, a pesar de que, como muchos de ustedes saben, uno siempre lleva sus propias valijas. Y los cargos por servicio de limpieza - es decir, hacer su cama y la limpieza de su habitación - también aparecen aquí y allá.

Algunos lectores incluso me dicen que han encontrado los cargos por una donación a una organización benéfica local clavada en una factura de hotel.

Y como ya dije la semana pasada, cuando me registré en el Bayfront Hotel Hilton en San Diego, el recepcionista me preguntó si quería que pagar un extra de $ 20 por una habitación con una vista mejor. Por no pagar me dieron una habitación de la planta 19 con los ascensores con vistas a los muelles marítimos donde los camiones descargaban un barco de bananas. (Esto, en realidad, resultó ser interesante de ver, y evitó el recargo de $ 20.)

Además, el hotel le cobrará $ 13.95 por el servicio básico de Internet y $ 19.95 por el servicio de más rápida velocidad, lo que no es raro que los hoteles de más alto precio. En el centro de negocios, el cargo por el uso de un ordenador era de $ 6.95 por cada 15 minutos, unos impresionantes 27,80 dólares por hora.

En mi factura a la salida, además de la tarifa de la habitación básica de 260 dólares y 27,50 dólares en impuestos, había un cargo diario de $ 5,20 que aparecía como SD TMD Assessment  La oficina del tesorero de la ciudad lo describe como una tasa "para promover eventos y turismo en San Diego" que grava específicamente en los hoteles, que tienen la opción de pasarlo.

Por cierto, cuando me fui un día antes de lo previsto, me dijeron que la "tasa de salida anticipada" era de $ 75. Protesté, y el empleado de recepción nos llevó con el gerente y me dejó caer ese cargo "por esta única vez por cortesía."

Es importante señalar, por cierto, que muchas marcas de hoteles favoritos de los viajeros de negocios no están en el juego de añadir pagos extras. En toda la industria, los hoteles de nivel medio con fuertes bases en los viajes de negocios ofrecen una gama de servicios sin ningún coste adicional - desde Internet gratuito y acceso al centro de negocios, desayunos gratuitos y en algunos casos incluso una tarde hora de cóctel con aperitivos gratis. Con entusiasmo me quedaré cuando sea factible en una de estas marcas, ya sea un Hampton Inn o Garden Inn, un Country Inns and Suites es un Marriott Residence - por nombrar sólo unos pocos en ese nicho de mercado.

La convención y la industria de las reuniones se cuenta para una buena 117 mil millones dólares del total estimado de 273,3 mil millones dólares que se gasta este año en viajes de negocios en los Estados Unidos, según la Asociación Empresarial Global Travel. Las reuniones se planifican con años de anticipación, y los organizadores de eventos corporativos están negociando futuros acuerdos con los hoteles que han ganado mucho más poder de negociación que los resucita la industria hotelera.

Eso significa que los planificadores de las empresas necesitan mejores datos para negociar en cosas como las tarifas de grupos, Wi-Fi y la capacidad de banda ancha en las habitaciones y espacios para reuniones y otros cargos. "Los hoteles ya están en el asiento del conductor, porque hay más demanda que oferta" para algunos eventos de grupo, dijo Kevin Iwamoto, vicepresidente de soluciones empresariales estratégicos de la industria en Active Network, una empresa que ofrece gestión de datos y la tecnología de control de costes para las empresas en la industria de reuniones.

Las reuniones de negocios y convenciones también está creciendo a nivel internacional, como parte de los aproximadamente $ 1120 mil millones que se gasta en el mundo en viajes de negocios este año, un aumento del 5,4 por ciento en 2012, según el grupo comercial.

Mientras que algunos viajeros internacionales que ya se encuentran con los recargos de energía y otros gastos en algunos hoteles pequeños, las cadenas hoteleras central eléctrica con sede en América del Norte y en rápida expansión en el extranjero están exportando la mentalidad cargo, dijo Hanson del Centro Tisch. "Algunas tarifas del resort están volviendo comunes en todo el mundo, a menudo debido a que las marcas norteamericanas toman esas prácticas a nivel mundial", dijo.

Adición de honorarios es "todavía más de un fenómeno EE.UU. de lo que es el mundo, pero es más popular en las principales ciudades de entrada donde las marcas norteamericanas han estado transmitiendo estas prácticas", agregó

Efecto Moreno: El desastre alimentario argentino de la década

"Efecto Moreno": crónica de cómo la Argentina se bajó de los ranking del mundo en alimentos
Las políticas erráticas del funcionario no sólo impactan en el plano local. Se perdieron mercados que costaron años construir y hay sectores que han quedado relegados de la competencia. El "granero del mundo" se aleja de las góndolas y los vecinos ocupan "agradecidos" esos espacios



Durante los momentos más álgidos que se vivieron en el marco de la reciente crisis que desató la escasez de trigo, desde el Gobierno optaron por emparchar el problema con "creatividad".

Así, la Subsecretaría de Defensa al Consumidor publicó dos recetas con tipspara obtener, en el hogar, desde milonguitashasta pan con harina integral y semillas. 

Paralelamente, comenzó a funcionar la "maquinaria Moreno", esa que pone primera y avanza para lograr su objetivo, cualquiera sea el precio y las consecuencias.

En cuestión de horas, el secretario de Comercio Interior logró que las cerealeras, que ya tenían 2 millones de toneladas de trigo listas para ser embarcadas, frenaran todos sus envíos. No sólo eso. En pocos días también logró que estas empresas, en general multinacionales, se comprometieran a volcar esos granos al mercado interno, para evitar que se desate lo que era una inminente crisis porescasez de algunos alimentos clave.

Desde sectores oficiales se llegó a sugerir que la actitud de Moreno era una suerte de "gesta heroica", dado que había desafiado a estas empresas, obligándolas a devolver parte del trigoque éstas estaban por "llevarse" al exterior, desabasteciendo el mercado interno.

Así, el discurso oficial volvió a hacer hincapié en la necesidad de salir en "defensa de la mesa de los argentinos", es decir, potenciar su política de garantizar que en las góndolas hayaalimentos en abundancia y a bajos precios. 

Pero lo cierto es que estos inconvenientes que se fueron sucediendo en el negocio del trigo están lejos de ser un caso aislado: son apenas la punta del iceberg de un escenario mucho más preocupante. 

Para los expertos, cada vez que Moreno buscó garantizar excedentes de alimentos en elmercado interno, la Argentina no paró de perder negocios en el exterior, con el agravante de que, pese a este "sacrificio", los precios domésticos no sólo no bajaron sino que fueron escalando junto con la inflación. 

Para Marcelo Elizondo, ex director ejecutivo de Fundación ExportAr -que durante años recorrió decenas de países para fomentar productos con sello argentino-, el "efecto Moreno", se está convirtiendo en una gran hipoteca a futuro, dado que en los últimos años se fuerondestruyendo cadenas de valor y se han frenado proyectos de inversión, al tiempo que sedesplomó la reputación de las empresas nacionales como proveedoras a nivel internacional.

En tanto, Miguel Schiariti, presidente de la Cámara de la Industria de la Carne (CICCRA), aseguró a este medio que "por Moreno, todos terminaron perdiendo: los empresarios hoy tienen menos rentabilidad que cuando el Gobierno empezó a intervenir los mercados y los consumidoresactualmente tienen que pagar los alimentos mucho más caros que antes. Lo suyo fue desacierto tras desacierto".

Por su parte, Ernesto Ambrosetti, economista jefe de la Sociedad Rural Argentina (SRA) destacó el hecho de que lo que hoy sucede con el trigo, es lo que se está viviendo, con mayor o menor intensidad, en otros sectores estratégicos: "El ambiente no es propicio para que las empresas inviertan en la producción de alimentos como carne, lácteos, yerba mate, arroz, azúcar oaceite de oliva".

Carne: auge, gloria y crisis del "bife argentino"Elizondo recuerda con amargura los momentos en que, años atrás, promocionaba en las tiendas más exclusivas de Londres, las bondades de la carne argentina.

"Todo eso se perdió. Hoy los frigoríficos locales no llegan a cubrir ni siquiera la Cuota Hilton", disparó el experto, en referencia al cupo sin aranceles que otorga como beneficio la Unión Europea para los cortes ultra Premium, un negocio altamente rentable pero que el Gobiernotambién viene retacéandoselo a las empresas locales.

Según Schiariti, "el problema de la carne empezó cuando Moreno comenzó a aplicarrestricciones a las exportaciones, que llevaron a que los envíos se desplomaran y se desincentive la producción".

Desde CICCRA brindaron una radiografía que sirve para ilustrar la decadencia en la cual entró elnegocio de la carne: 

• En 2008 la Argentina llegó a contar con 60 millones de cabezas de ganado. En la actualidad, hay 50 millones de animales, es decir, un 17% menos.

• En lo que va del año cerraron siete nuevos frigoríficos, elevando la cifra total a 128 plantasdesde que se intervino el mercado. La cámara estima que se perdieron 15.000 puestos de trabajo, bastante más que los empleos que generó la "bendecida" industria electrónica de Tierra del Fuego. 

• Uruguay, con un 80% menos de cabezas de ganado, ya superó al país en cuanto aexportaciones de carne, tanto en valor como en volumen.

Así las cosas, la Argentina se despidió de las "grandes ligas" y pasó a ubicarse en el pelotón de fondo en cuanto al abastecimiento mundial. 

En la siguiente infografía se puede observar cómo, tras estar ubicada en el tercer puesto, ha ido quedando relegada del top 10 del ranking de países exportadores de carne, un hecho inédito en décadas: 

"Los mercados que estamos perdiendo serán muy difíciles de recuperar. Para volver a entrar a algunas plazas va a haber que pelear con aquellos competidores que ya ocuparon nuestro lugar, como son los frigoríficos de Brasil, Uruguay e incluso Paraguay", disparó Elizondo. 

Schariti, en tanto, no sólo aseguró que "el problema de la carne no se solucionó", sino que anticipa que "el año próximo los consumidores van a enfrentar un nuevo marco de escasez y con un mayor ritmo de suba de precios". 

Lácteos: 3.500 tambos menos 
La producción lechera, clave para la dieta de los argentinos, tampoco se vio exenta de lasintervenciones de Moreno. 

Expertos señalan que el problema para el sector se inició en 2005, cuando el Gobierno elevó las retenciones a las exportaciones. Luego le siguieron más medidas controvertidas, como elcierre de las ventas al mundo y el congelamiento de precios que afectó a los tamberos.

El objetivo oficial era que el encarecimiento de la leche, afectada por la suba de costos que enfrentó durante años esta industria, no se viera reflejado en el índice de inflación. 

El problema es que, por estos precios congelados, muchos productores no pudieron resistir y seguir adelante con la actividad. Esto llevó a que, en el granero del mundo, hayan desaparecidono menos de 3.500 tambos en estos últimos años. 

La Argentina este año estará produciendo unos 11.000 millones de litros de leche, apenas 11% más respecto de los niveles de 2005, cuando comenzó la intervención, pero dos puntos por debajo de la variación mundial.

Si bien en esta industria el panorama no es tan devastador como en el sector frigorífico, los expertos señalan que se perdió una gran oportunidad de generar exportaciones de más valor agregado y ganar nuevos mercados.

A contramano de la Argentina, Brasil pasó de producir 24.000 millones de litros en 2005 a unos 32.300 millones, es decir, un 34% más. 

Así las cosas, la Argentina hoy explica apenas el 2,4% de la producción mundial de leche, prácticamente lo mismo que hace ocho años. En tanto, la nación vecina pasó de un share del 5%a un nivel cercano al 7%. 

Trigo: a punto de caer del "top 10"En la campaña iniciada en 2006, justo antes de que irrumpiera la política de intervención oficial, la Argentina ocupaba el cuarto puesto como mayor exportador de trigo y derivados, sólo superada por Estados Unidos, Canadá y la Unión Europea, de la mano de 12 millones de toneladas y un share del 10% en el comercio global de este cereal.

En cambio, para esta última campaña, la crisis de abastecimiento no dio tregua: tras el "telefonazo" de Moreno para que las cerealeras frenen embarques, solamente se pudieron volcar 3 millones de toneladas a la exportación.

Con este nivel de ventas al mundo, la Argentina este año estará sufriendo un dramático derrumbe en el ranking global de proveedores de trigo. Y, por primera vez en décadas, está a un paso de caer del top 10, siendo además superada por otros países con poca tradición en el comercio de este cereal, como Turquía. 

Desde Confederaciones Rurales Argentinas (CRA) recalcaron que estos últimos siete años han sido "destructivos" para la producción triguera, con intervenciones, cuotas de exportación y "otras creaciones lamentables que sepultaron un mercado competitivo y una producción pujante hasta llevarla a los resultados de hoy: la menor superficie sembrada de los últimos 111 años, pérdida de mercados externos y problemas graves para abastecer el consumo doméstico".

Frente a este escenario, Gustavo López, director de la consultora Agritrend, aseguró aiProfesional que "contrariamente a lo que se viene pregonando a nivel oficial, sobre diversificar y agregar valor a las exportaciones, la Argentina se sigue sojizando".

"Esta tendencia llevó a que hoy casi el 70% de la producción sean oleaginosas y apenas un 30% cereales estratégicos, uno de los niveles más bajos de la historia, algo muy nocivo desde el punto de vista de la sustentabilidad de la actividad agrícola".

Ambrosetti, de la SRA, lamentó el hecho de que "en todos estos últimos años, la Argentinaretrocediera varios puestos como proveedor de alimentos. Esto generó que perdamos mercados internacionales que serán muy difíciles de recuperar".

¿Hay "vida" detrás de la soja? 
Para los expertos, el comienzo de la decadencia de la Argentina como proveedora competitiva y diversificada de alimentos, comenzó cuando se combinó el "efecto Moreno" a la alta inflación.  

"Hace unos ocho años, el Gobierno empezó a querer evitar que las subas de cotizaciones se reflejaran en los principales productos de la canasta básica", relató Schiariti, quien recalcó que, automáticamente, se comenzó a aplicar la política de "vivir con lo nuestro" y a considerar a las exportaciones como un negocio que competía con el mercado interno y afectaba su normal abastecimiento.

"La política oficial fue y sigue siendo la de cerrarser al mundo. Es decir, la visión es que los consumidores del exterior no compitan con los argentinos por los alimentos nacionales", agregó el presidente de CICCRA.

Sin embargo, advirtió que "esto es una acción totalmente de corto plazo. Ya pasó con la carne y ahora con el trigo: cuando intervenís y quitás incentivos para producir, se entra en un círculo vicioso que lleva a que cada vez tengas menos oferta y precios más elevados, que terminan afectando a los mismos argentinos que el Gobierno paradójicamente quiere beneficiar".

"Por controlar los precios en los mostradores de algunos productos, terminó destruyendo grandes cadenas de valor de numerosos sectores. Se pierden empleos, se gasta menos en transporte y se cierran empresas. Este fue el resultado de esta estrategia de cerrar las exportaciones", acotó Ambrosetti.

Lo paradójico es que, pese a que desde el inicio de su pelea con el campo, allá por 2008, el Gobierno viene insistiendo con la necesidad de diversificar la matriz productiva y evitar el avance de la soja por sobre otros sectores, lo cierto es que el "yuyito" no paró de acaparar hectáreas y desplazar a otros negocios.

Así, el trigo, la carne y la leche, entre otros alimentos, vienen siendo víctimas del "efecto Moreno", que no sólo no logra bajar la inflación, sino que además aleja cada vez más a losproductos "insignia" de la Argentina de las góndolas del mundo. 

iProfesional

Un legado olvidado de Ford: el salario alto

On Henry Ford's 150th Birthday, His Greatest Insight Has Been Tragically Forgotten

GUS LUBIN

Henry Ford, who was born 150 years ago today, is remembered as the guy who unleashed the full potential of the assembly line, beginning in 1913 when the Ford Motor Company cranked out Model T's much faster and cheaper than anyone could imagine.

But his business philosophy, known as Fordism, went beyond the implementation of mass production.

Ford argued that high wages were essential for economic and moral reasons. As he wrote in his autobiography:

What good is industry if it be so unskillfully managed as not to return a living to everyone concerned? No question is more important than that of wages — most of the people of the country live on wages. The scale of their living — the rate of their wages — determines the prosperity of the country.

Ford set a powerful precedent in 1914 when he doubled wages for workers on his assembly line in Detroit, Mich. The move was in part a reaction to high turnover among his workers, who found the work too hard and unrewarding. At the same time, he argued that it was good for his business. 

High wages support a good market:

If we can distribute high wages, then that money is going to be spent and it will serve to make storekeepers and distributors and manufacturers and workers in other lines more prosperous and their prosperity will be reflected in our sales. Country-wide high wages spell country-wide prosperity, provided, however, the higher wages are paid for higher production.

High wages lead to good products:

The kind of workman who gives the business the best that is in him is the best kind of workman a business can have. ...[I]f a man feels that his day's work is not only supplying his basic need, but is also giving him a margin of comfort and enabling him to give his boys and girls their opportunity and his wife some pleasure in life, then his job looks good to him and he is free to give it of his best. This is a good thing for him and a good thing for the business.

Whatever the reason, Ford's higher wages were successful. Applications to work at the Dearborn, Mich. factory soared and turnover plummeted.

Ford's advanced production methods were so effective that other automakers and companies in every industry followed suit. Fordism, "the eponymous manufacturing system designed to spew out standardized, low-cost goods and afford its workers decent enough wages to buy them," spread rapidly around the world.

It was good for the workers too. The average Ford worker in 1914 had savings of $207.10; workers who stayed at the factory for the next five years would amass $2,171.14 in savings on average, according to author Richard Snow. Sure enough, they were entering the middle class.

Ford imagined a bright future in which wages would keep on rising:

What do we mean by high wages, anyway? We mean a higher wage than was paid ten months or ten years ago. We do not mean a higher wage than ought to be paid. Our high wages of to-day may be low wages ten years from now. If it is right for the manager of a business to try to make it pay larger dividends, it is quite as right that he should try to make it pay higher wages.

So what happened?

As smart as Ford was, his vision of capitalism would become dated by the 1970s. As described by Walter Russell Mead in "The Decline of Fordism and the Challenge to American Power":

The trouble is that capitalism did not stop with Henry Ford and the system named for him. The era of regulation, income equality, state planning and stability has gradually been yielding to a new form of capitalism over the last generation.

Many writers have worked to describe the difference between Fordism and what we might as well call “millennial capitalism,” the new system we seem to be inventing and exploring. For some, the shift from Fordism to millennialism is a rake’s progress: the end of a system that produced peace, justice, mass prosperity and social security and the rise of a grotesque new system of inequality, instability and bare-knuckled competition in a hideous, neoliberal dog-eat-dog world. For others, the shift represents the glorious triumph of technology and entrepreneurial spirit over a decadent and stagnant era, and the new and more dynamic capitalism offers opportunities to eliminate poverty and transform the human condition.

No aspect of Fordism became more passé than his ideas about high wages. While liberal economists like Robert Reich still argue about the economic benefits of greater income equality, corporations have realized that they can get away with paying relatively less and less.

For a visualization of what has happened on this front in the past half century, check out a graph of corporate profits relative to GDP versus employee compensation relative to GDP:

research.stlouisfed.org

While corporate profits relative to GDP are soaring, employee compensation relative to GDP has steadily decline.

And it's not just a case of rising tides: median U.S. income in 2012 fell to levels not seen since 1995. 

This chart doesn't even include the vastly lower wages received by a growing population of foreign laborers who work indirectly for U.S. corporations. Just look at how bad conditions are for garment workers in Bangladesh or tech workers in China.

Business Insider 

Fracking: The F Word

Gag Order Bars Two American Children From Talking About Fracking
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE


File picture shows a gas drilling rig for hydraulic fracturing on the Marcellus shale basin outside the town of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania on April 13, 2012.
Under an oil company settlement reached in the US state of Pennsylvania, two children, aged seven and 10, were told that any talk of fracking is a no-no.

Under the 2011 settlement, unsealed last week, plaintiffs Chris and Stephanie Hallowich were explicitly told that an attendant lifetime gag order -- under which they were never to discuss the Marcellus shale basin or fracking -- also applied to their children.

The Marcellus formation is a vast basin of shale containing untapped natural gas resources in the eastern United States, close to key energy markets.

However, the fracking process needed to exploit it -- in which water and chemicals are blasted into the ground -- has led to complaints by environmentalists and some local residents.

The couple had claimed that a shale gas drilling operation near their home had damaged their health, causing burning eyes, sore throats, headaches and earaches, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, which convinced a judge to unseal documents related to the case.

In a court transcript, Stephanie Hallowich says the couple agreed to the $750,000 settlement "because we needed to get the children out of there for their health and safety."

"We know we're signing for silence forever, but how is this taking away our children's rights, being minors now?" she asks, referring to her then seven-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son.

The family's attorney, Peter Villari, appears equally baffled, saying that in his 30-year career he's never seen such an order apply to minors.

Chris Hallowich argues that the two children will be growing up in the heart of the major US fracking region, with other children whose parents work in the industry.

"We can inform them. We can tell them they cannot say this, they cannot say that, but if on the playground --."

James Swetz, the lawyer for Range Resources Corporation, one of the two defendants, insists it is part of the deal.

"I guess our position is that it does apply to the whole family. We would certainly enforce it," he said.

However, a Range Resources spokesman interviewed by the Post-Gazette said the company did not agree with its attorney's comments.

"We don't believe the settlement applies to children," the spokesman told the newspaper.

Villari told the Post-Gazette he was not aware the children had been released from the agreement.

"I'd appreciate it if they'd put that in writing," he said. "It would be very nice to do that."

Copyright (2013) AFP. All rights reserved.

Business Insider