Arquivo para a ‘Politics’ Categoria
The gap between rich and poor
23
Sep
The most varied studies, we commented on some in this week’s
posts, point to a practically stable separation between rich and poor when not growing in some countries, this model can never guarantee sustainable social human development, wars and pandemics increase this gap even more.
The most serious problem that is extreme poverty, we have already analyzed and published in February this year an analysis of global poverty, and also, in another post, the social problem after covid 19.
The sustainability of human economic and social development depends not only on increasing wealth and social production, it is necessary to find a balance where both social mobility of classes and ethnic mobility provide sustainability and overcome inequalities.
The problem of sustainability is not secondary, many models distribute wealth but impoverish the country as a whole, this is because the investment aspects and safer strategies of economic models are only thought of around income distribution, the opposite where there is only an increase without distribution is less sustainable.
For this model, the biblical parable of Lazarus and the Rich man, the poor man who lived on the margins and when the rich see himself condemned, here the parable is valid both personally and socially, asks that he be allowed to warn his relatives of this risk, but says the biblical prophets already said and you didn’t listen, how many people and political actions have already denounced the serious social gap.
For those who don’t know, the biblical parable says (Lk 16:19-24): “At that time, Jesus said to the Pharisees: 19 “There was a rich man, who dressed in fine and elegant clothes and held splendid parties every day. A poor man named Lazarus, full of wounds, was on the ground, at the rich man’s door. He wanted to satisfy his hunger with the leftovers that fell from the rich man’s table. And besides, the dogs came to lick their wounds. When the poor man died, the angels took him to Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. In the region of the dead, in the midst of torments, the rich man lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham from afar, with Lazarus by his side. Then he cried out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me! Tell Lazarus to wet the tip of his finger to cool my tongue, because I suffer a lot in these flames”.
The rich man also asked to warn the living relatives, and he was reminded that they had (and have) the prophets.
For a sustainable social democracy
22
Sep
The Brazilian magazine Exame brought an interesting interview
with Argentine Pablo Acosta, Human Development leader at the World Bank in Brazil and Brazilian Ildo Lautharte Junior Economist of Global Education Practice, although the focus is on “human capital”, the data presented and the discussion around income growth and distribution is important.
The analysis is optimistic about the country, but looking at the data on unshared prosperity, and the data must be validated and checked for an analysis, it shows what is on the agenda in the social discussion, the social inclusion of blacks and indigenous people.
Acosta did not fail to point out regional disparities and stated that “in particular, I would say that the differences by racial groups are quite noticeable, not only at current levels, but in progress over the last decade”, as shown in the chart above.
The graph indicates the HCI (Human Capital Index) and the interviews see the underutilization of human social development potential, seen only from the economic perspective, which only values the aspect of this “human capital”, with the only economic focus being notorious.
In terms of democratic sustainability, not only economic and social development is important, but also the overcoming of inequalities and prejudices, they are vectors that prevent greater mobility and concentrate wealth and, consequently, power in the hands of a few.
The aspect of social vulnerability of layers below the poverty line is not touched either, these indices not only prevent these layers from any social progress, but also compromise future generations in terms of human development, or as economists want, the “human capital”. ”.
The report also brings the strong impact of the Pandemic on the economy, called by the Brazilian Lautharte the lost decade, he highlights: “The main objective of the report is to put people at the center of the debate. Bringing the child to the center of the development process, in an idea of recomposing the impacts of the pandemic”.
Affirmative post-pandemic policies that point to a little or nothing resumption are being discussed, on the eve of an election in the country, it is necessary to understand these lost years.
Reference:
Democracy and the poor
21
Sep
The serious democratic crisis that affects almost all Western and
some Eastern countries has a clear and decisive aspect: the forgetfulness of the most unprotected sections of the population.
Governments were not able to effectively solve the problem of income distribution and where hopes were greater, economic errors and misguided allies among the powerful contributed to a greater distrust of the population.
Politics is driven by money, even spending limits find ways to be circumvented and for this, allies are needed among the rich, most of the time the most dishonest and according to corruption and the use of public money, one enters in a vicious circle.
With the wider dissemination in social media (“networks”), ideologically directed information does not work and amidst fake news, there are those news that everyone knows: the allies among the powerful that feed corruption and misuse of public resources.
The gigantism of the state helps this, it controls capital flows, of course when well managed and when it doesn’t, it throws nations into pits of misery and lack of investment, many countries are on this path.
What is left for politics is not to do well-crafted social justice, without demagoguery and with sustainable long-term planning, on a social populism that the people themselves distrust, and often leads to the option of authoritarian governments and even worse, or else leads to social populism: it promises what it doesn’t deliver.
It is necessary to reflect for a conscious vote, without a fair and balanced society, a sustainable and healthy democracy is not possible, we are taken to dangerous extremes and an uncertain future.
It is necessary to rethink the democratic society in social parameters sustainable.
The winter and the war
20
Sep
Ukraine has announced a counter-offensive in the Oskil region where they
have won important points and begins a counter-offensive in Kherson promising to reach even the occupied region of Crimea.
How will Russia react and what is the importance of this resumption of Ukraine? Before any analysis, it is necessary to recognize that the collapse of Russian forces on the Kharkiv front is a serious defeat and it is unlikely that Putin will not react, the problem is what the reaction is.
News from various sources is that Ukrainian troops have made major incursions on the Kharkiv front, for example the US-based Institute for War, where around 2,500 square kilometers have been recovered from Russian forces.
Ukrainian forces pushed the front line from Kharkiv some 70 km east to the Oskil River, capturing several key strategic points, particularly in the Izyum region, where bodies were in common speech with marks of torture and on the west bank. from Kupyansk.
Winter is coming, and Russia in addition to controlling energy sources, also the nuclear plants that are under its control, can cut off the gas and suffocate not only Ukraine, but much of Europe.
But what is more worrying is Russia’s reaction if the defeats are prolonged, the use of strategic nuclear weapons could trigger a NATO chain reaction and a difficult scenario could be drawn.
We will enter the autumn of Europe, which corresponds to our winter in the southern hemisphere, and tensions tend to escalate.
It is necessary for peacekeeping forces to mobilize and prevent a crisis that could lead to drastic actions and even greater horror.
End of the pandemic in sight
19
Sep
This was the statement of WHO´s Director General Tedros Adhanom
on September 14, last Wednesday, but then he asked that the pandemic continue to be monitored.
Consultant Sylvia Lemos from the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases also told CNN: “It is something that encourages the prospect that something may be ending the end of the pandemic, but it does not mean that the world is free of surprises”, and she also asks for caution. stating that “more sustainable data is still needed”.
The protocols are that in general the use of masks is optional, but hygiene and ventilation care are not expendable, also environments where the use of mask is imperative, as there are still sanitary environments such as hospitals and places of greater danger. .
According to the infectologist, in addition to the fact that every viral infection is cyclic, the last strain must also have lost strength and not have new stronger variants, and it is obvious that vaccination helped.
The country has the lowest rates since 2020, and the downward trend in deaths and cases remains.
It is necessary to understand how the infectious disease specialist reminds us that the action of the virus “does not end” and that science will dictate the new measures to be taken from now on, such as whether there will be annual vaccinations and the prevention of risk groups.
Unless new facts occur, our weekly monitoring of the pandemic will be more sporadic.
Be fair in the little things
16
Sep
Money is in history and in life just a symbol of exchanges and
goods that must circulate socially so that everyone has a dignified and fair life, dealing with it is something that should be treated with the same respect that people socially deserve.
A fair person is also fair in small things, social injustice does not start with big robberies, they are an indication that those people do or will one day do greater social injustices.
The public sphere is corrupted when those who determine social justice: rulers, judges and legislators have lost the notion and values that small thefts and injustices can lead to big ones and make the whole society corrupt, then everyone will say this is normal.
When these values start to become dubious, it means that morally society as a whole is shrouded in corruption, immorality and a great lack of ethics, everything that is public begins to fall apart and there appear profiteers and opportunists who will make use of public corruption.
The biblical reading (Lk 16,1-13) which speaks of a manager who, seeing that he was going to be fired, starts to negotiate with the debtors of a rich man, and calls the debtors and begins to reduce the debts, so it is not a smart but dishonest administrator.
The parable seems strange if it has not been read to the end, because when he begins to relieve his debts to save himself, he reveals his true character, which was to squander the master’s goods, says the reading in verses Lk 16, 10-11: “Whoever is not faithful in small things will not be faithful in great things either, and if you are not faithful in the use of unjust money, who will entrust you with true good?”.
The true good is nothing other than a full life, not only eternal life for those who believe, but also an earthly life, difficult perhaps, but serene for those who have not included in their daily life, in the “little things”, deviation, the theft and corruption of other people’s things or public goods.
Small vices lead to big ones, and they cannot lead to a full life, but increasingly troubled, more greed and lack of control of consumption and of life itself, it is the bad administrator who squandered the rich man’s goods, that is, we throw the real riches of life outside because of greed and consumerism.
Money, morals and ethics
15
Sep
As we established in the previous post, whatever the form of 
exchanges, in our current context bank cards, although bitcoin digital money has appeared in this scenario, which is controversial, at the basis of every relationship is the exchange of goods in markets.
So it is not money, but markets that can be corrupted by the practices of setting prices for products, and this is what can be ethical and moral or not, including practices that lead to corruption, favoring exchanges and market positions with some illegal rewards that are paid to people in decision-making positions.
Thus, markets are not limited to distributing goods, they also express and promote certain attitudes in relation to exchanged products: favoring reading in children, auctioning vacancies in educational institutions that are key to high positions and even hiring foreign mercenaries in wars.
Also the payment of professionals for fair values and consistent with the minimum standard of living and what is already a practically global issue: the levels of social security that guarantee everyone a minimum level of income for a healthy and dignified life.
As for moral values, countless examples can also be given, perhaps the clearest is a friend for whom you pay is not the same as a friend for whom you have a free friendship.
The relations of friendship and respect that we maintain towards all other people, whether in our circle or not, whether our political, religious or ethnic preference or not, signify a higher moral value than those values, that money “pays for”. and for which one has “respect”.
Byung Chul Han explains that where respect is gone, the public sphere goes into decline, and this is the root of the deep civilizational crisis they are experiencing, the social, economic and political effects are just a consequence, when laws must prevent disrespect is sign of decadence and serious crisis in the public sphere.
What is money
14
Sep
Until arriving at the form we know today, money went through
several changes, at the beginning, historians say that around the 7th century BC. coins in gold and silver appeared, which had an equivalent value to the goods that were purchased, thus avoiding the difficult direct exchange of goods, a rudimentary economy called barter.
In the Medical Age, the custom of keeping coins with goldsmiths arose and, as a guarantee, a receipt was given, this is the origin of “paper money” or paper money as we know it today, to avoid counterfeiting the type of paper and printing. It got more sophisticated.
Gold keepers are the origin of modern banks, so they had the “ballast”, the gold equivalent of the value of the commodity, and indebted people could deliver their goods in jewelry, other and silver for pledge, a kind of guarantee they would pay. debt in the future.
The equivalent in commodities was called ballast, and the value that each commodity had depends on its price. Initially, trades were carried out in ports or in places where commodity buyers went to trade, the modern form is the stock exchanges.
With the banks having the real values in gold and silver, they could offer credit to buyers and investors both to produce goods and to pay debts or make some type of investment in markets that they believe to be promising, with the electronic and digital universe credit cards emerged, modern version of borrowers’ letters of credit in banks.
The financial market has become more sophisticated and today it is itself a type of “commodity”, stronger nations start to have a stronger “currency”, in practice however this does not have an equivalent or an exactly corresponding value in goods and this leads to a financialization from the market.
Currency itself, or its equivalent, takes on a value that is often artificial and this comes into play in trade wars around the world, so, for example, Russia wants to receive for the sale of its gas and oil the equivalent in rubles (Russian currency) and not in dollars or euros (US and European currencies, respectively) and this is commoditization.
It would be a return to the initial values of barter equivalents, a reorganization of the entire world economy into equivalent commodity values, and this would remain free trade.
The freedom of the market against the market
13
Sep
One of the main drivers of the current crisis whose war is a consequence
rather than a cause is the so-called market crisis, several products face barriers of price control attempts against the high demand of commodities: gas, oil, iron and even silicon ( not the sand of course, but the manufactured producers).
So while the European Union discusses controlling the price of gas, it tries to increase the stock due to the war in Ukraine, since Russia is the main supplier, which is contradictory because more is bought to keep the stock with the winter in sight. (November), the cost must increase and so it is not possible to control prices.
Also the total shutdown of the largest nuclear plant in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia, which is being shut down, could further exacerbate the energy crisis, Russia continues to point out the dangers of weapons and bombings from Kiev to the region, which could lead to catastrophic consequences,
China’s crisis with Taiwan also hides a market crisis, on the one hand the power of the rebel island in the production of silicon chips, and on the other an internal crisis aggravated by the bankruptcy of Evergrande, the country’s largest construction company, which was private and now it will be nationalized in an attempt to contain the crisis.
Thus communist China also knows the perverse effect of the market.
The Chinese real estate giant failed to deliver the debt restructuring plan as promised until July 31 and since then the Chinese government, in addition to discovering the evils of capitalism, also resorts to nationalization to avoid a more serious failure, those of the banks that financed the default.
The company stopped paying the bonds in dollars in December last year, according to estimates released by CNN, the amounts will reach 300 billion dollars in liabilities, which generates a wave of lack of credit in companies that operate in the Chinese real estate market.
The sector is responsible for almost ¼ of the Chinese GDP, and the activity that most contributed to the recent growth of the economy there, is now facing a strong slowdown that also worries the western market, which has made many new investments in this market.
Dependence on Russian gas (graphic) can seriously affect the world economy, for example, even the UK being independent is already affected.
Energy crisis and tension in the east
06
Sep
Moscow’s retaliation to the sanctions imposed after the invasion
of Ukraine, begin to have an impact on the European economy and in the United Kingdom caused the resignation of Prime Minister Boris Johnson, although the problem is wider than inflation, which in 2023 could go even above 20. %, the main impulse is the rise of natural gas throughout Europe, Russia blames Germany for the crisis.
European Union countries are looking to stock up on natural gas for the coming winter period.
Prime Minister Liz (Elizabeth) Truss was sworn in, in an internal election of the Conservative party against former Treasury Minister Rishi Sunak, she is known for being a chameleon, adopting speech according to the context, in fact similar to many leaders today.
It was against, for example, Brexit and after it was adopted it became in favor.
The people of Taiwan watching the Ukrainian war always quoted in local news, are aware of a possible war with China, and prepare for possible crises with exercises, first aid training and logistics to avoid bombings.
Last week a drone was shot down traveling in Taiwanese territory, according to news from Deustche Welle, reproduced on the G1 portal, since March an NGO called the Forward Alliance, in addition to offering civil defense training, seeks to improve national resilience.
According to Enoch Wu, founder of the Forward Alliance: “The objective is to keep communities functioning, and the trainings help prepare citizens against natural or man-made crises”, but the backdrop is a possible war with China.
Tensions rise between China and the US due to the announcement of the sale of 1.3 billion dollars of weapons to Taiwan, China promises to respond to what it considers “destruction of peace”.
It may be a deception, but the main trainings that the Taiwanese prime minister participates in are on the island of Penghu (Fishers), it is small and although it has a defense structure, it is isolated and far from Formosa Island, which is in fact the territory of Taiwan.
