O Intermitente
(So long, farewell, auf weidersehen, good-bye)

sexta-feira, junho 25, 2004

Off

O responsável deste blogue anuncia que vai entrar em retiro espiritual até meados da próxima semana. Até lá fiquem bem e não adiram ao Bloco de Esquerda.

posted by Miguel Noronha 7:57 da tarde

A Presidência da Comissão e Portugal

No momento em que escrevo anuncia-se para breve a decisão de Durão Barroso. Tudo estará dependente da aceitação, pelo PS, da continuidade do Governo PSD/PP até ao fim da legislatura.

Neste último ponto concordo em absluto. Eleições antecipadas significariam a vitória do PS. Viver num país em que Ferro Rodrigues seja Primeiro-Ministro é algo que não desejo nem aos meus inimigos Bem, talvez a alguns...

Por outro lado as alternativas que, no PSD, se perfilam para o suceder como Primeiro-Ministro (fala-se em Santana Lopes!!) também são de bradar aos céus. Consigo imaginar duas outras (pelos menos) bem mais acertadas.

Por outro lado uma Comissão presidida por Durão Barroso não oferece (pelo menos para mim) qualquer garantia de indepência face ao eixo Paris-Berlim. Com a honrosa excepção da questão iraquiana (e de toda a diatribe anti-americana que se gerou em seu torno) Barroso não consegue marcar uma posição divergente perante o entusiasmo federalista de Schroeder e Chirac.

Alea jacta est...
posted by Miguel Noronha 7:54 da tarde

O Euro e a UE

Artigo na Reason.

As Europe more formally unifies, soccer has remained a splendid bastion of differentiation, although the regulations governing the sport and its transactions are increasingly falling under the purview of Brussels. Discounting the thugs who use stadium terraces as battlegrounds, the sport has mostly thrown up a laudable wall of contrarian divisiveness against EU-induced uniformity. Why is this important? Because it helps overcome the tyranny of consensus that in many respects Europe threatens to succumb to, as its bureaucrats legislate the continent's idiosyncrasies out of existence.

So, what is actually going on at the Euro 2004? More of the ancient rivalries that the barkers of European harmony would never quite be able to explain. Ask EU functionaries to enlighten you on the true meaning of the England-France rivalry, and they will mention Jacques Chirac's dislike for Tony Blair, or some quibble over agricultural subsidies. However, they will forget Agincourt or Waterloo, or other markers of mutual antipathy, leaving you unable to truly gauge the ecstasy felt by French fans when they defeated England in the last minute of their game on June 13.

Ask a Brussels denizen to deconstruct Italian suspicions before the match last Tuesday between Sweden and Denmark. The Italians feared that a high-scoring tie between the two teams would precipitate Italy's elimination from the competition, allowing the Scandinavians to march together to the quarterfinals. Warning against potential Nordic collusion, Italy's captain, Fabio Cannavaro was tart: "From all those people from the north who gave us lectures on civilized behavior after [Italian player Francesco] Totti's spitting [at a Danish opponent], I am anticipating a great lesson in fair play."

In the end, Italy lost, though the Swedes and the Danes visibly did not doctor their result. But the true loser was the EU, which has no vocabulary to portray so evidently inane a concept as "Scandinavian perfidy" and must have squirmed upon hearing Cannavaro mention "those from the north", as if describing space invaders. How, the EU suits surely muttered, could a mere central defender so boorishly miss the purpose of a united Europe by presuming antagonistic geographical blocs?

posted by Miguel Noronha 11:53 da manhã

Política Agricola Comum

No seguimento da recente decisão da OMC no processo dos subsídios dos EUA à indústria do algodão e de queixas apresentadas pela Austrália, Brasil e Tailândia o comissário Franz Fischler irá apresentar uma proposta para reduzir os subsídios à produção de açucar na UE.

Segundo a Oxfam por cada Euro de açucar exportado a UE atribui um subsídio de 3.30 Euros.

No entanto a UE irá apenas reduzir o montante dos subídios a atribuir. Consta que a Fischler vai apenas propor a redução do preço garantido em um terço e redução das quotas de produção. Para além disso os produtores afectados por esta medida irão receber compensações financeiras.

Em vez de apostar numa completa liberalização dos mercados agrícolas a UE procura salvar a todo o custo a ruinosa PAC. Continuamos a pagar mais caro os produtos agrícolas e a desviar metade do orçamento comunitário para um programa cujos beneficiários são apenas 3 a 4% da população da UE. Preferimos, para cumulo, apostar em ajudas financeiras aos países do Terceiro Mundo (que normalmente vão parar aos bolsos de políticos corruptos) em vez de permitirmos o desenvolvimento económico nos produtos onde estes possuem vantagens comparativas.

Delenda PAC!

posted by Miguel Noronha 10:19 da manhã

posted by Miguel Noronha 8:30 da manhã

quinta-feira, junho 24, 2004

posted by Miguel Noronha 11:38 da tarde

Impostos: O Exemplo Islândes

Na Tech Central Station

According to the Iceland sagas and chronicles, Iceland was the world's first tax haven. When King Harold unified Norway in the 870s, his first ruling was to impose a new tax on its people. The Vikings refused to pay the new tax and took off. According to the Saga, they set sail to Iceland because "there men are free from assaults of kings and criminals."

Prime Minister of Iceland David Oddsson is the direct descendant of these Vikings. And, since he became the head of the Icelandic government in 1991 he has also proven to be a very wise ruler. He learned the lesson that King Harold never understood and that is: "Overtax your people and they will fly away. Implement low tax rates and your country will become rich and prosperous."

The results were astonishing. Unemployment dropped, the deficit disappeared, as did inflation, and Iceland is now one of the fastest growing countries in Europe -- 5% a year on average for the last 10 years. According to Mr. Oddsson, "This success has been achieved not in spite of extensive tax cuts but, to a great degree, because of them."

posted by Miguel Noronha 3:57 da tarde

Contra a Harmonização Fiscal e a Sobretaxação

O Economica Research Institute é uma organização transnacional que se propõe lutar contra as sobretaxação que impera na maior parte dos países-membros da UE e a tentativas de harmonização fiscal.

The Institut de Recherches Economiques et Fiscales, an independent research organisation pooling the experience of fifteen economists from several European nations, clearly demonstrated that the same taxation imposed on all increased the total, already excessive, tax pressure is a hampering burden on Europe.

During the ten years in which this burden was heaviest, the human resources of Europe have emigrated : entrepreneurs, investors, young graduates are living far from their countries of origin, in their quest for a more favourable cultural and economic environment.

In a false search for equality, tax harmonisation is a brake applied to economic growth. Europe's survival depends, on the contrary, on more competitive taxation .

This debate is not merely technical. It is a central to the kind of society and the Europe we want to build.

Sign up for the fight!.

posted by Miguel Noronha 2:21 da tarde

França - Os Custos da Redução do Horário de Trabalho

O Ministro da Finanças francês revelou que a redução obrigatória do horário de trabalho para 35 horas semanais está a custar ao Estado francês 16 mil milhões de euros por ano.

Um recente relatório parlamentar imputa a esta medida a diminuição do crescimento economico e acusa-a de estar a prejudicar, especialmente as pequenas empresas.

posted by Miguel Noronha 10:45 da manhã

Constituição Europeia

O Presidente do Governo espanhol anunciou que a Espanha irá realizar o referendo à Constituição Europeia "no mais curto espaço de tempo".

posted by Miguel Noronha 8:37 da manhã

quarta-feira, junho 23, 2004

Saddam e o Terrorismo (e Michael Moore)

Na Salon.com, Christopher Hitchens realiza destroi (completamente) a credibilidade do filme "Farenheit 911" de Michael Moore. Vale a pena ler o artigo na integra mas, para já ,foco a questão da ligação de Saddam ao terrorismo.

Moore asserts that Iraq under Saddam had never attacked or killed or even threatened (his words) any American. I never quite know whether Moore is as ignorant as he looks, or even if that would be humanly possible. Baghdad was for years the official, undisguised home address of Abu Nidal, then the most-wanted gangster in the world, who had been sentenced to death even by the PLO and had blown up airports in Vienna* and Rome. Baghdad was the safe house for the man whose "operation" murdered Leon Klinghoffer. Saddam boasted publicly of his financial sponsorship of suicide bombers in Israel. (Quite a few Americans of all denominations walk the streets of Jerusalem.) In 1991, a large number of Western hostages were taken by the hideous Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and held in terrible conditions for a long time. After that same invasion was repelled?Saddam having killed quite a few Americans and Egyptians and Syrians and Brits in the meantime and having threatened to kill many more?the Iraqi secret police were caught trying to murder former President Bush during his visit to Kuwait. Never mind whether his son should take that personally. (Though why should he not?) Should you and I not resent any foreign dictatorship that attempts to kill one of our retired chief executives? (President Clinton certainly took it that way: He ordered the destruction by cruise missiles of the Baathist "security" headquarters.) Iraqi forces fired, every day, for 10 years, on the aircraft that patrolled the no-fly zones and staved off further genocide in the north and south of the country. In 1993, a certain Mr. Yasin helped mix the chemicals for the bomb at the World Trade Center and then skipped to Iraq, where he remained a guest of the state until the overthrow of Saddam. In 2001, Saddam's regime was the only one in the region that openly celebrated the attacks on New York and Washington and described them as just the beginning of a larger revenge. Its official media regularly spewed out a stream of anti-Semitic incitement. I think one might describe that as "threatening," even if one was narrow enough to think that anti-Semitism only menaces Jews. And it was after, and not before, the 9/11 attacks that Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi moved from Afghanistan to Baghdad and began to plan his now very open and lethal design for a holy and ethnic civil war. On Dec. 1, 2003, the New York Times reported?and the David Kay report had established?that Saddam had been secretly negotiating with the "Dear Leader" Kim Jong-il in a series of secret meetings in Syria, as late as the spring of 2003, to buy a North Korean missile system, and missile-production system, right off the shelf. (This attempt was not uncovered until after the fall of Baghdad, the coalition's presence having meanwhile put an end to the negotiations.)

posted by Miguel Noronha 3:55 da tarde

Saddam e Osama

O Instapundit refere dois artigos de 1999 que apontavam para ligações entre Saddam Hussein e Osama Bin Laden. Recordo que, na altura, Bill Clinton era o Presidente dos EUA.

Na CNN:

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has offered asylum to bin Laden, who openly supports Iraq against the Western powers.

No Guardian:

The key meeting took place in the Afghan mountains near Kandahar in late December. The Iraqi delegation was led by Farouk Hijazi, Baghdad's ambassador in Turkey and one of Saddam's most powerful secret policemen, who is thought to have offered Bin Laden asylum in Iraq. . . .

Analysts believe that Mr Hijazi offered Mr bin Laden asylum in Iraq, most likely in return for co-operation in launching attacks on US and Saudi targets. Iraqi agents are believed to have made a similar offer to the Saudi maverick leader in the early 1990s when he was based in Sudan.

posted by Miguel Noronha 2:40 da tarde

Os (Outros) Custos do Nacionalismo Económico

Tribunal de Justiça Condena Vetos de Portugal à Venda de Empresas

Portugal cometeu uma ilegalidade com o seu duplo veto à entrada de capitais estrangeiros na Mundial Confiança, em 1998, e na Cimpor, dois anos depois: o Tribunal de Justiça da União Europeia (UE) decretou ontem que a competência para aprovar as duas operações competia à Comissão Europeia e não aos ministros das Finanças dos governos de António Guterres, respectivamente Sousa Franco e Pina Moura.

Este acórdão permite agora às empresas que se sintam lesadas pelo veto português intentar acções por perdas e danos contra o Estado nos tribunais nacionais.

posted by Miguel Noronha 12:20 da tarde

Hayek Links

Pequena actualização do Hayek Links.
posted by Miguel Noronha 10:38 da manhã

O Directório

O Ministro da Finanças francês, Nicolas Sarzoky, afirmou que a UE deve ser dirigida pelos seis maiores países (França, Alemanha, Reino Unido, Espanha, Itália e Polónia).

posted by Miguel Noronha 9:49 da manhã

Governo quer referendar Constituição europeia em 2005

O Governo vai apresentar uma proposta de resolução em Setembro, no Parlamento, para a realização de um referendo à Constituição Europeia em 2005. De acordo com o gabinete do primeiro-ministro, o anúncio será feito esta quarta-feira pela ministra dos Negócios Estrangeiros, Teresa Gouveia, durante o debate de urgência na Assembleia da República, que decorre por iniciativa do BE.

posted by Miguel Noronha 8:28 da manhã

terça-feira, junho 22, 2004

Protocolo de Kyoto

Há medida que se aproxima a data da sua implementação os governos começam a tomar consciência da implicações do Protocolo de Kyoto.

A Ministra de Ambiente espanhola vêm agora lembrar que os preços da electricidade para os consumidores domésticos (e não apenas para os industriais) vai aumentar embora pretenda limitar ao máximo este efeito.

O que a Ministra não disse mas que convém ter igualmente presente é que, mesmo circuscrevêndo o aumento de preços aos consumidores industriais, os consumidores domésticos serão sempre afectados indirectamente.

Na medida em que as empresas vão enfrentar um acréscimo dos custos de produção a sua tendência natural será aumentar os preços de venda e/ou diminuir os restantes custos de produção. O resultado será uma diminuição do poder de compra (passamos a comprar menos com o mesmo dinheiro) e o aumento do desemprego. Tudo por uma boa causa como dirão o Ministro e os ambientalistas aos orgãos de informação.

posted by Miguel Noronha 5:14 da tarde

Orçamento Comunitário

As negociações para o próximo orçamento comunitário revelam-se difíceis. Enquanto a Comissão pretende um aumento das contribuições nacionais os países pretendem uma redução. O Embaixador alemão na UE explica:

"It cannot be explained to your own voters if your own budget has to go down but the EU budget has to go up at 4.5 percent per year"

posted by Miguel Noronha 3:33 da tarde

Vote 'No' for a Federal Europe

Artigo de Mark Steyn no Daily Telegraph.

Business as usual among the Europhiles. "The flurry of weekend opinion polling," quoth the Guardian, "has revealed a British nation that is strongly opposed to the European Union constitution and also deeply ignorant about it."

Alas, the stupidity of the people is an abiding problem of democracy. Fortunately, the EU has come up with a set of institutions all but entirely insulated from it. At least for the moment.

posted by Miguel Noronha 12:16 da tarde

Constituição Europeia

Valéry Giscard d'Estaing indicou que a França poderá relizar um refendo sobre a CE na Primavera de 2005.

posted by Miguel Noronha 11:15 da manhã

Fantasma do Passado

O ex-padre franciscano Leonardo Boff um dos ideólogos da chamada "Teologia da Libertação" - bastantea cara à nossa esquerda - afirmou, em 1987, que na União Soviética se "realiza[vam] os ideais éticos do ensino social da Igreja".

Excertos do artigo na Folha de São Paulo.

O teólogo franciscano Leonardo Boff disse ontem em Nova Iguaçu (RJ), na abertura das atividades práticas do 7° Encontro Internacional de Solidariedade Oscar Romero, que as sociedades socialistas são "altamente éticas, limpas física e moralmente", e que nelas, "não fosse a doutrina materialista dos partidos, poder-se-ia afirmar que se realizam os ideais éticos do ensino social da Igreja". (...) [D]isse ainda que, "apesar das críticas que podem e devem ser feitas aos países socialistas, a maioria deles conseguiu chegar a uma sociedade onde não há pessoas pedindo esmolas nas ruas, não há menores abandonados, não há uma maioria empobrecida, como nos países capitalistas", mas pessoas que vivem "honestamente de seu trabalho".

(...)

O religioso fez referências a um debate do qual participou recentemente na Academia de Ciências de Moscou, onde, segundo ele, ideólogos máximos do Partido Comunista reconheceram que a grande luta, do momento atual vivido pela humanidade, não é entre o cristianismo e o marxismo, ou entre o socialismo e o capitalismo, mas sim, a luta pela vida, contra a morte, representada pela corrida armamentista, que pode levar a uma hecatombe mundial.

(...)

Em entrevista publicada na última sexta-feira pela Folha, Boff afirmou que não considera a União Soviética uma sociedade militarizada [!!!], e que durante o período em que a visitou não viu restrições à liberdade de expressão [!!!].

Ele ainda a qualificou como "uma sociedade altamente limpa e saudável", onde, "em nenhum momento, você se sente perseguido ou vigiado".

posted by Miguel Noronha 9:58 da manhã

Como Terminam as Democracias

Artigo de Jorge Pereira da Silva sobre o livro homónimo de Jean-Fraçois Revel no Democracia Liberal. "Uma crítica actual aos órfãos da Praça Vermelha".

Seria salutar nestes tempos de cinismo socialista, lembrar os defensores do estatismo colectivista que foram eles os responsáveis pelas desgraças que se abateram sobre a Humanidade no século XX.

posted by Miguel Noronha 8:38 da manhã

segunda-feira, junho 21, 2004

Iraque e Al-Qaeda

No Washigton Times.

A senior officer in Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's security services was a member of the terrorist group that committed the September 11 attacks, a member of the commission investigating the suicide hijackings said yesterday.

"There is at least one officer of Saddam's Fedayeen, a lieutenant colonel, who was a very prominent member of al Qaeda," said September 11 commission member and former Navy Secretary John Lehman.

Realço que esta não é a primeira indicação de ligações entre os serviços secretos do ex-ditador iraquiano e a Al Qaeda. Nenhuma delas foi referida pela TSF. Outras prioridades informativas, presumo.

Já agora aproveito para pedir a um certo blog que me indique onde vem referido que ligação de Saddam Hussein aos atentados 11/09 tinha sido uma das motivações da invasão do Iraque. Excusam de referir o Monde Diplomatique.

posted by Miguel Noronha 5:43 da tarde

O Colapso do "Modelo Social Europeu"

Na Tech Central Station

The European Social Model is not sustainable. And now is about time to start talking openly about this, and about what kind of society will come after big government. Between 1950 and 1980, the average tax pressure in Western Europe more than doubled. Government became an ever larger part of society. High taxes are now financing large public monopolies in the fields of welfare services and social security. Now that model has reached its final days.

The model was harmful from the start. High taxes are always a burden on production and are thereby eroding the basis of all prosperity and welfare. Moreover, public monopolies have no incentives to increase efficiency and adapt services to people's demands. So you get harmfully high taxes and bad welfare services. Why was this model chosen? Mainly because the choice was made at a time when many politicians and economists were impressed by the idea of a centrally planned economy.

Today, the planned economy has collapsed. And the cracks in our planned part of the economy -- big government -- get more obvious every day. Basically for the same reason: the system doesn't work. Despite the high taxes, the public systems are unable to deliver the welfare that people want. That difference between supply and demand of welfare services will grow, since services get more expensive every year. And since taxes cannot increase more, the resources for welfare services are actually decreasing.

(...)

High taxes pay for an unsustainable system which cannot deliver. Hence, European politicians have made reforms for lower taxes, increasing growth and cutting public expenses. But they are scratching the surface and voters are largely unaware of the purpose of this and the aim of it all. European leaders should tell people where we are heading. Taxes will be lowered, the public welfare services and social security will mostly be for those who cannot pay for themselves and for the rest of us there will be private welfare companies and private insurance.

It is a positive vision. Today, we have low growth and insufficient welfare. Tomorrow, we will have high growth and everyone will have the welfare services and social security they demand. With lower taxes, most people could afford to buy their own private welfare. The public sector will help those in need instead of aiming to do everything for everyone. A large sector of health care, education and insurance will be opened to private companies and develop through competition.

posted by Miguel Noronha 4:36 da tarde

Biased BBC

Na National Review Online Tom Gross comenta a duplicidade de critérios da BBC.

In (...) [a] report last week, a BBC correspondent casually referred to "a fanatical rebel group" in Uganda. This contrasts with the term "Palestinian resistance group" that BBC reporters often use to describe Hamas, a group the BBC clearly doesn't find fanatical at all.

But then Hamas (along with Yasser Arafat, one of the most vicious murderers of Jews since Hitler) appear to enjoy a certain degree of sympathy at the BBC, which throughout the past four years of Israeli-Palestinian violence has constantly tried to obscure the true nature of the group by using misleading language.

There are innumerable examples of this; they occur almost daily.

"Over the years, Hamas has been blamed for scores of suicide attacks on Israel," says the BBC, thereby trying to suggest to listeners and viewers that Hamas has perhaps been wrongly accused of such attacks (even though Hamas itself has proudly and repeatedly claimed responsibility for them in mass celebratory rallies in Gaza, Jenin, and elsewhere.)

Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire indiscriminately in the heart of the northern Israeli town of Afula, killing two young Israeli civilians and wounding over 50 others. They themselves were then shot dead by Israeli policemen. The headline on the BBC website read: "Four Die in Israel Shooting Rampage," suggesting that four innocent people had died, possibly at the hands of the Israelis.

Again, when suicide bombers killed 26 Israeli civilians in attacks on Jerusalem and Haifa, the word "terror" was used by the BBC only when describing Israel's retaliatory (and largely non-lethal) attacks on Palestinian military targets. (By contrast, the BBC didn't hesitate to use the word "terrorism" last week, when one of its own correspondents, Frank Gardner, was shot and badly wounded by an al Qaeda gunman in Saudi Arabia.)

Nota: Para quando um artigo sobre a duplicidade de critérios da TSF?
posted by Miguel Noronha 3:06 da tarde

Comércio Livre

A OMC deu provimento à queixa apresentada pelo Brasil (entre outros países) contra os EUA acerca dos subsísios ao algodão. Esperam-se interessantes desenvolvimentos.

The decision could eventually lead the United States to reduce subsidies for its entire farm sector and encourage other countries to challenge such aid in wealthy nations, analysts said.

The W.T.O. report, which was not made public, upheld a preliminary ruling in April that supported Brazil's claim that the more than $3 billion in subsidies the United States pays its cotton farmers distorts global prices and violates international trade rules.

posted by Miguel Noronha 2:13 da tarde

A Saúde Estatal

Johan Norberg conta três episódios exemplares (1, 2 e 3) ocorridos nos serviços de saúde estatais suecos. Ssupostamente a Suécia é paradigma do welfare state para os nossos estatistas...

posted by Miguel Noronha 1:11 da tarde

Constituição Europeia

O projecto constituicional foi finalmente (e infelizmente) aprovado pelos lideres europeus. Esperemos agora pelos referendos nacionais. (Se me deixarem) Eu votarei pelo "Não".

posted by Miguel Noronha 11:20 da manhã

Dumping

A discussão continua no Blasfémias e no Jaquinzinhos.

posted by Miguel Noronha 8:25 da manhã