Arquivo para a ‘Economia’ Categoria
The law of the weakest
17
Sep
All the logic, including part of the scientific logic, is in defense
of the law of the strongest, the pandemic shows that also the weakest should be thought of, people who have comorbidities, the elderly, diabetics, obese, in short, those who are weakened by some disease or living conditions (age, for example, and life on the outskirts).
It was the name of a film by Hector Babenco, Pixote: the law of the weakest, which is based on a true story, and which was starring by actor Fernando Ramos da Silva, the real Pixote of real life, that the director of the film knew, came dying shortly after the film, killed by police in city Diadema, in the neighborhood of São Paulo, Brazil.
The film tells the story of a boy who, without having met his parents, goes to live on the street, and after the theft of a wallet by a judge, he goes to a juvenile recovery institution in Brazil, FEBEM, which should be a re-education house, but in fact it is where they suffer abuse, violence, humiliation and may even lose their lives.
Thinking about the weakest means looking at a society and wishing for greater balance, in addition to income distribution, the treatment of dignity for all, respect and protection for those who for some reason become fragile in a social context of competition, consumption and inhumanity , where they will inevitably suffer even more if there is no protection.
The situation of the pandemic, in addition to exposing the medical fragility of many people, aggravates the situation of income distribution, which puts millions of people in a situation of despair and anguish, only a major turn of love and fraternity can prevent social and social chaos. even a civilizing crisis already in process.
Of course, each one can do their little part, but the policies developed by governments at different levels of public administration must be thought about those who work in the informal sector, in addition to the unemployment rate that was already high before the pandemic, those who need immediate help. and the way out of the crisis.
If you think only of the central engines of the economy, the result takes time to reach formal employment, then other emergency solutions can be thought of, such as: work fronts, micro-enterprises and assistance to small businesses that can employ a lot of people in the short term.
It is time for solidarity, unfortunately it is not what is seen anywhere, not even in those who say they are really concerned and who seek more denunciation than initiative and support for good initiatives, it is time for solidarity.
Because the issue of poverty is not resolved
16
Sep
It is not only due to the factors of inequality, the flow of wealth that
always runs in one direction depends on the imbalance of areas such as education, infrastructures not only for health, but also for transport and sources of regional and national wealth, and for this external assistance is essential.
The relationship between foreign aid and combating global poverty is positive and effective, say reports from many forums.
Perhaps some of the strongest examples of the effectiveness of foreign aid are the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, but the goals have not been achieved, domestic corruption and inefficient foreign aid.
These goals, proposed by the United Nations and ratified by all countries in the world, aimed at: reducing poverty, hunger and child mortality, but local and regional development plans were timidly attacked.
The so-called Borgen Project was actually aimed at the actions of local capitalists and outside interests,
The objectives proposed and ratified by all were:
– reduce poverty, hunger and child mortality;
– achieving universal primary education, gender equality and environmental sustainability;
– improving general health, fighting treatable diseases; and
– act as a global partnership for development.
They seem praiseworthy and hardly anyone would fail to support these plans, but the local application was to reduce birth rates, environmental sustainability without development, and treatable diseases are not really attacked, still childhood diseases persist, malaria is common in many regions of the country. Africa and there is a risk now of the pandemic.
There remains the fundamental problem of the global partnership for development, where one must look at interests, culture and what is socially valued locally, and unfortunately the colonialist mentality still prevails, the so-called decolonization comes to face this issue.
A process that contemplates this new process must be considered, observing authors and local cultures.
Effective aid to poverty
15
Sep
If, on the one hand, emergency aid is necessary, mainly because the
pandemic prevents informal work and many families have saved with domestic workers, a medium and long-term recovery plan is needed to avoid even worse degradation and income distribution than the one that already exists.
Economist Muhammad Yunus is known throughout the world as “the banker of the poor”, but he is not really a banker in the conventional sense, as he assists people who have never had access to any banking system, what he fosters is an entrepreneurship, especially among women, and their results are surprising. It is true, however, that he founded a bank, the Grameen Bank in 1983 in Bangladesh, but today what he does most are lectures, he is one of the most requested speakers on the planet, and received among other awards, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006.
In his lectures, he censors and criticizes bankers who aim only at easy profits, exorbitant interest and little or nothing look at the social reality in which they live, one of his well-known phrases says: “Dealing with economic theories in the face of people dying ], for me it was a joke ”, this is even more true in a pandemic.
Utilitarian productivism, production is necessary mainly in essential goods, is one that targets only the most attractive sectors where profit is high and the social impact is not always so high, with regard to the poor, and in the case of education and health, it is necessary even if profit is not considered, as it is an investment.
The idea that invaded several sectors, and unfortunately also in education and public health, that these sectors need to be productive is nothing but a reproduction of a savage capitalism incapable of managing the current crisis, and is only on the rise because of disinformation of the population, in dark times authoritarian theories gain a voice.
What Yunus says about jobs is very interesting: “An essential issue is the idea of employment. Who said we were born to look for a job? The school? The teachers? The books? Your religion? Your parents? Someone put this on people’s heads.
The educational system repeats: ‘You have to work hard’. Human beings were not born for this. The human being is full of creative power, but the system reduces him to a mere worker, capable of doing repetitive work. This is shameful, it is wrong ”, here we must also overcome left´s-wing economism.
The digital world in which anyone can have an online system and work in it, where “informal” jobs can make people from any location, including the periphery entrepreneurs, goes against Yunus’ proposal, to make “services” closer to the population periphery is made possible by the ubiquity of digital.
Entrepreneurs exist in all social strata, I even venture to say that they are concentrated in the periphery, the problem is who risks putting capital there, who could finance these “microentrepreneurs” from the periphery, there is a solution, the number of jobs can grow quickly and circulation of goods and income in fragile environments
Number of covid grows in Brazil and vaccines
14
Sep
The number of data has returned to grow, if we look at the valley
of September 7, national holiday in Brazil, we see the valley of decrease with 10 thousand cases, in this short-term evaluation is better the number of infected, because the number of deaths will only be affected from 7 to 14 days, which in this period also returned to grow.
It was a scandal and commented throughout the country the descent of São Paulo to the coastal beaches, coincidence or not, is a real and scientific data, the number of cases has returned to grow and the number of deaths has returned to close to a thousand daily.
While the vaccine does not come, we will have to live with this reality, the period of a possible lockdown passed the virus is in every country and the only isolation that works is the social to prevent infection among people close, starting precisely from the idea that everyone can be carriers of the virus now and all care is necessary.
Now we are waiting for the vaccine, and the case of a side effect of a woman in London of the Oxford vaccine, which uses the viral vector principle, the effect was a transverse myelitis that causes a neurological problem and high blood pressure, being possible that the cause was an external factor the formula, the woman passes well, there is evaluation of the case by a committee that is independent (see how complex and serious the tests should be) , and the resumption of testing has already been authorised, there are 6 more in testing phase.
It is important to note that the problem was the side effect and not the infection, the vaccine from Oxford and the Laboratory Astrazeneca, which has participation of the laboratory of Brazilian Fiocruz, has no possibility of infection, it does not replicate the virus, so it is considered safe, but side effect exist in any medicines and vaccines and should prescribe cases, such as those we found in the leaflets , of type, children or adults cannot take, etc.
The case was important for all of us to be aware of the seriousness and slowness of the tests, which are necessary.
Other vaccines go up in the “quote”, the Pfizer vaccine. which follows the nucleic acid (RNA) principle, and with good quotation in the medical area, but this is also subject to testing and without the evaluation of “contraindications” should not be rushed its use, therefore, the delay is necessary and this phase cannot be dispensed with.
Socially what we expect, after a period of help (it should go until the end of the year, but that is already there), we must already start thinking about the economic, social and educational consequences, they will be strong and will require the effort of all and one should think not as a weight, but as a social need that certain groups have protection.
This is the case of the elderly, children and socially marginalized groups, if society and public policies do not embrace these people, the social consequences that are already serious, could go to the field of out of control and it would be a tragedy.
Mystery is not ignorance
25
Aug
Stories of cultures, of cultural traditions that involve the imaginary
, and the imaginary itself are shrouded in mysteries, but they should not be confused with ignorance or superstitions, this is what can be read in the book of the almost centenary Edgar Morin “Knowledge, Ignorance and Mystery ”. there is a lot about knowledge, something about ignorance and the essentials about mystery, Morin’s dosage is perfect and a good remedy for the pandemic.
He is preparing a book for the pandemic, but as he always anticipates the story I hope to read and I believe he is one of the few who can talk about the new name or the post-pandemic precisely because he emphasized in one of his conferences that the health crisis caught us by surprise and put us on our knees.
In addition to planetary books like “Terra Pátria”, about epistemology “The Method” in six volumes, it is one of the rare ones that ventured to tread new paths in our global dilemmas through “To Exit the 20th century” and “Before the Abyss” However, in this 2018 book, your leap is over the mystery without slipping through the easy paths of belief and ignorance, questions both the fetish of reason and materialistic determinism, among its various works are the Transdisciplinary Studies done in a Center of these studies in Paris with the philosopher, important for the digital world Michel Serres, recently deceased, and proclaims that with discipline and excessive specialization we can move towards a new “obscurantism”.
He clearly separates ignorance from mystery, for him “ We can only apprehend the real through representations and interpretations. The reality of the outside world is a humanized reality: we do not know it directly, but through our human spirit, translated / reconstructed not only by our perceptions, but also by our language, our theories or philosophies, our cultures and societies ”, and for him, the mystery is equated by transdisciplinarity as “the contradiction to which all in-depth knowledge arrives is not an error, but the last conceivable truth”.
He values mystery as a path of discovery and knowledge: “Complex knowledge is the necessary path to reach the unknowable. Otherwise, we remain ignorant of our ignorance. The mystery in no way detracts from the knowledge that leads to it. ”
He calls our current environment as having a “culture of cancellation”, a more resentful half-sole in the old ideological patrols, and they now seem to intensify with the return of ideological polarization, which in the post-war created a constant tension in all of humanity. Which reminds you when children cover their ears and emit mimetic chants (he calls gutturals) so as not to hear interlocutors who contradict them (if you never know that you may be wrong, you will be right forever), so the polarization and radicalization seems to come from nursery education. It is not only the natural environment that needs biodiversity, the cultural environment and democracy also needs it, as Morin says, in fact “they depend on biodiversity”, we are willing to live with what is different or we want to eliminate it, the answer given in global scale is frightening, it is no mystery to ignorance and contempt for the Other.
Morin, Edgar (2020). Conhecimento, Ignorância, Mistério (Knowledge, Ignorance, Mystery). 1st. edition. BR: Bertrand do Brasil.
A vaccine is difficult this year
24
Aug
There are three phases for a vaccine to be released, in Brazil the 
body responsible for evaluating and approving requests for conducting clinical research for the purpose of registration and requests for registration of immunobiological products developed in the pharmaceutical industry is made by Anvisa (Agência Nacional de Health Surveillance), there are ethics committees that monitor the stages of the studies, the Research Ethics Committees (CEPs) and / or the National Research Ethics Commission (CONEP), so there are criteria and care.
In phase 1, small groups of volunteers are selected, normally healthy adults, are evaluated to verify the safety and determine the type of immune response caused by the vaccine, in phase 2, a greater number of individuals are included and the product is administered to individuals representative of the population with lower immunological protections (children, adolescents, the elderly and people with compromised immunology), already in the third phase it is necessary to apply to a large number of individuals and ensure the minimum possible adverse reactions and contraindications, in this stage the number of volunteers must be large.
The company will only request the registration of products with studies in phase 3 in progress, so the data from steps 1 and 2 must be consolidated and their efficiency demonstrated with high therapeutic and / or preventive efficiency, and there is no alternative therapy comparable to that stage of disease, here comes the play of economic interests that can be taken to the political field and even to dispute markets, however it is to be expected that in the case of Covid-19 there is some ethics in this process.
There are 26 vaccines in an advanced stage, but the four vaccines with potential use in Brazil are based on four different techniques: the viral vector is the technique of Oxford and AstraZeneca, which has the collaboration of FioCruz Brazilian Lab, the one from the Chinese laboratory Sinovac has participation from the Butantan Institute USP-Brazilian, BioNTech – Wytech / Pfizer has private laboratories in Brazil and announced that it could be ready in October, and Janssen Pharmaceuticals (Johnson & Johnson) adopts the adenovirus vector technique (see techniques and collaborations in the figure).
Sinovac with the virus inactivated technique may be ready for next year, Janssen has not made big announcements yet, but it is known that it will go to the third phase, and the most promising one is that of Oxford is in phase 3, but it should not be available until at best in December.
According to Anvisa, the deadline for the manifestation on the vaccine is up to 60 days, although Anvisa has accelerated the ordering process for medicines and vaccines in the case of Covid-19, it instituted a Committee for the Evaluation of Clinical Studies, Registration and Post-registration of Medicines, which includes vaccines.
Thus, even if the request is sent in October, the probable approval is for December, until production begins and the health agencies must make it available, they should be ready to start the vaccination in mid-January, before this care, prevention and maintaining hopes.
Meanwhile, in Brazil, we are paralyzed at a level of a thousand daily deaths.
Ame Agaru and pandemic
19
Aug
The film by an assistant to Akira Kurosawa, Tadashi Koizumi, has this
name “After the rain” (Ame Agaru, 1999) was a script by Kurosawa that Tadashi inherited, the first point that can be highlighted in this film is the relationship between man / nature that limits human action and they are stuck in the middle of a path waiting for the rain to pass, like many others also have a samurai.
But he will have to perform a task that is not very worthy of a samurai, to get money for people who stay there can eat, this is my analogy with the pandemic, from the time when everyone is trapped in the house, an analogy I make with social isolation.
The protagonist of the film is a character of the type “jidai-geki” (the films that are inspired by the history of Japan), it could also be a film about the “autumn of a samurai”, there is another script film made by Kurosawa’s heirs called “Rhapsody in August” (1991), in this the director was Kiyoko Mura.
This worldview of not conceiving man apart from nature, in times when ecology was still a marginal topic, now with the rediscovery of nature we have an interesting analogy to be made, nature limited us behind a virus, and yesterday we saw temperature spikes low in the south of the American continent, temperatures have been 20ºC below zero in Rio Grande (Tierra del Fuego), according to data from the National Meteorological Service (SMN) of Argentina.
In the USA where it is summer, the high temperature record was in the “death valley”, 54.4ºC a record very close to the highest temperature ever recorded in the region, which was 56.9ºC in 1913, according to the National Meteorological Service ( American NWS), nature shows its signs of reaction to the pandemic ecological action of centuries.
Returning the rain in the middle of a forest where poor people pass, at a certain moment the samurai finds himself in the condition of helping those people due to the long period they are isolated, and when he leaves he is faced with a murderer that the samurai will prevent a a duel that could end in death, and for this reason the feudal lord who owns those lands decides to employ him as a swordsman, there remains a qualm that is to accept money, which is dishonorable for the samurai.
The Samurai decides to do it for a noble purpose, which is to have food for those people who are retired there, almost all of them poor because they were making that way through the forest, when they were prevented from proceeding by the rain.
If the message at that time was little appreciated, today with the economic situation that we will have after the pandemic, the message is noble and social.
Below a link to see the film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?reload=9&v=1mR0KV-c9EY
The pandemic and Areté
17
Aug
Areté was for the Greeks a set of virtues that should be exercised
to avoid an even greater crisis in Greek democracy.
Although it is linked to moral virtue, in the Greek sense, of course, two characteristics of areté are necessary at this time of the pandemic: prudence and perfect adaptation.
The conditions of the pandemic will require everyone to adapt, the numbers of infected and dead evolve in a stable curve, but in absolute numbers it means a daily increase in the thousands of deaths, and millions of infected, care must be taken and it means an adaptation the current situation, a new uncertain uncertainty will come, what we are experiencing now is an adaptation to an exceptional situation.
Prudence must be in our mind, it is a situation of limitations, but if taken seriously it makes everyday life less tense, health and political authorities must also take care when adopting vaccines, in addition to health there are political issues and economic interests involved, and again health should take priority, every precaution in adopting the vaccine will be necessary.
The great reason that we have difficulties in complying with rules, and also having sensitivity and respect when complying with them, is that virtues are not in fashion, fashion is full freedom, and it is never possible because of social laws and rules of good coexistence, in a period of a completely exceptional state requires from everyone even more disciplined attitudes, hygiene, social distance and delicacies.
Solidarity is another value that must return to fashion because many people needed our understanding in order to have their survival guaranteed, there is no lack of campaigns and attitudes it is true, but it will be necessary an even greater effort so that everyone really has the minimum dignity to live .
The Greeks who built the first model of polis, can help us to correct values that contemporary culture has corrupted, that is why, throughout the past week we have dealt with this topic, prudence and adaptation require effort so that the drama of the pandemic is not a scourge even
Waiting for a vaccine
10
Aug
Two vaccines are close to Brazilians due to the participation of local
research institutes, the Oxford vaccine, where the Brazilian Pedro M. Folegatti is on the development team (author of the article in The Lancet magazine), in which the laboratory also participates Fio Cruz with government incentive, and the Chinese vaccine in which the USP Butantã Institute participates in the testing stage, with an agreement from the São Paulo government for development.
The fact that the British laboratory AstraZeneca, which is in the development of the Oxford vaccine, closed an agreement to produce the vaccine in China through the company Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products, announced last Thursday, August 6, can cause confusion of interpretation. .
Vaccines also have different developments, while the Chinese vaccine follows the traditional development of vaccines for flu and some common diseases such as measles, cachumba and others, which is the development of a weaker dose of the virus itself thus producing immunity in the body, after some minor annoyances, in the case of the corona virus, a question remains, is there no possibility of reinfection, there are already cases all over the world, which are being studied.
The Oxford vaccine, which has the participation of FioCruz Brazilian Laboratory and encouragement from the Brazilian government, has already been explained in a post that is producing a non-replicating viral vector, it is modified and non-infectious, a protein hidden in the vector takes a protein that produces antibodies and immunizes the vaccinee, the Oxford laboratory says that with two doses it is 100% effective.
There are many other projects under development in the world, Chinese companies participate in addition to these two, in more than 8 of the 26 projects that lead the development of the vaccine because they are already in the stage of testing the vaccines in humans around the globe.
The race for the vaccine has two aspects, the positive is that there is a race that can bring the vaccine earlier, the other fearful is that safety steps are passed, Russia says it has a vaccine soon, but there are doubts about compliance with the protocols before mass vaccination, caution is needed.
#LockDown didn’t happen, brazilians didn’t do our homework
25
May
The social isolation rate rose to 51% in the State of São Paulo and 53% in
the Capital, which is very close to the advance of Covid 19, although the numbers indicate they are stabilized at a level around a thousand deaths, the fall may be very slow if there are no ways to increase the level of social isolation, today is also an anticipation´s holiday in São Paulo.
Little by little we are drawing harsh lessons from the pandemic in Brazil, even with the government meeting with governors the already planned day after happened and in the worst possible way, the video of the ministerial meeting caused perplexity across the country and increased the distance between powers and the government. with governors and mayors. The cold also came, although it is still autumn in the southern hemisphere, and Latin America is already the new epicenter of the pandemic
While Europe is slowly returning to its new normality (Spain have any problems), and with hopes of eliminating the infection rates from falling further.
Health´s deds in the capital are running out, they reached 91% occupancy on Sunday, so either a tough measure is taken or a new breakthrough in the death curve will be inevitable.
The hope of the vaccine advances in the pharmaceutical AstraZeneca of England, its CEO Pascal Soriot affirmed this Sunday (24) that the United Kingdom will be able to have access to the vaccine in September of this year if the tests are successful, now with 10 thousand volunteers that begin to be vaccinated.
Although social isolation is below what is necessary, its effectiveness is proven, the curve that is exponential for deaths and infections, must be analyzed on a logarithmic scale (see figure), where it can be observed, decreasing inclinations that may remain on a horizontal inclination when this number stops at a level, which would be desirable to not exceed the limit of the Health system, depending on the #LockDown measure we can vary from 30 to 100 thousand deaths.
About São Paulo, the scientists evaluate, the analysis was made by researchers from USP according to the G1 portal, which instead of having a peak may have a plateau where the maximum peak remains for several days before retreating, this would also exhaust the system already at a high rate.
Some states already show an attenuation of the curve, as is the case of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catariana, but Amazonas remains serious, while Ceará and Maranhão State due to #LockDown had improvements while Pará still not even with radical isolation, and Amazonia has many problems.
