INFLAÇÃO, NÃO

Robert J. Samuelsen escreve hoje no Washington Post que a inflação não é solução para o relançamento da economia. R J Samuelsen, autor de "The Great Inflation and its Aftermath", opõe-se às posições  de Kenneth Rogoff e Paul Krugman, entre outros, favoráveis à adopção de mais injecção de liquidez monitorando os seus efeitos de modo a controlar o crescimento inevitável dos preços dentro de limites aceitáveis.

Para RJS, o problema básico da situação económica actual é a falta de confiança gerada pelas muitas incertezas circundantes. A Fed não deveria tornar ainda mais problemática esta situação adoptando medidas que, sendo teoricamente atractivas, aumentarão o nível de incerteza. Na próxima sexta-feira, em Jackson Hole, durante a anual conferência dos principais bancos centrais mundiais, o presidente da Fed  deveria tornar muito claro no seu discurso que não seria dado qualquer passo naquele sentido.

Dará, não dará, é segredo que será guardado até à última hora.

O editorial de hoje do mesmo jornal "Bang for the buck" afina pelo mesmo diapasão: Não há escassez de  liquidez - os bancos e as grandes empresas estão repletos - o que há é falta de oportuniddes para aplicações rentáveis, ainda que o governo federal tenha acabado de anunciar o primeiro crescimento trimestral nos últimos três anos dos empréstimos bancários - um aumento de 1 por cento no segundo trimestre deste ano. Resumindo, o sector privado ainda não descobriu onde conseguir mais lucros  e criar empregos. E, tendo em conta a retração no consumo público e privado  nos EUA, os problemas na União Europeia, a continuação da instabilidade do Médio Oriente, a recuperação económica ainda está longe. Oxalá Bern Bernanke pudesse provocar uma recuperação económica sustentada brandindo a varinha mágica  monetária. Mas, não pode.

Quem tem razão? Os economistas ou os jornalistas?

Não sei.

Mas sou levado a pensar que, com tanta dispersão de opiniões, os políticos não podem deixar de andar baralhados.
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Act. Correl: Paul Krugman voltou a não ser convidado para Jackson Hole. Aqui, diz porquê, e envia um recado a Bern Bernanke recomendando-lhe a leitura de um documento dele, Bern, de 2000, sobre a politica monetária japonesa para reactivar a economia. Não escapa nada a PK.  

RESERVAS

China´s exchange reserves at issue

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A VIA INEVITÁVEL

As desvalorizações competitivas já começaram.
A inflação segue dentro de algum tempo.

Beggar, then sneakily enrich, thy neighbour

AMONG today's big news items is the word that Japan is now actively selling yen in order to improve its exchange rate against other major currencies. The yen has risen sharply in recent months, dealing a blow to Japanese exporters and slowing Japanese recovery. The move has led to some fretting that a period of competitive devaluation is nigh. Here's Tim Duy, for instance:

What it all boils down to is this: There apparently is no motivation for global central banks to stop directing capital inflows at the US in an effort to support mercantilist objectives. If it isn’t China, it will be some other economy. And equally apparent, there is no motivation among US policymakers to address such government directed capital flows. Which will leave politicians falling back on ultimately harmful trade barriers. The absolute inability of US policymakers to seriously address a global financial architecture where a rule of the game is "when in doubt, by Dollars" will ultimately have serious consequences via disruptive adjustment when the system can no longer be maintained, via either external or internal forces.

Doom and gloom, but I feel more positive about this development. Consider Buttonwood's take:

As David Bloom of HSBC points out in a note responding to the move, the costs of intervention to the Japanese are not great. Selling yen and buying dollars results in more yen being created, which might be inflationary, but a bit of Japanese inflation wouild be a good thing.

My thought concerns the general tendency of countries to want their currencies to depreciate. Everyone would like to boost their growth by letting their currencies slide and increasing exports. Of course, not all can succeed. Someone must increase net imports and let their currency appreciate. The obvious candidate is the Chinese, but they are unwilling to let it happen (at least at a pace desired by the rest of the world).

The result is like a game of deflationary pass the parcel in which the countries with appreciating currencies eventually feel the pressure, and try to reverse the trend.

A bit of inflation in Japan wouldn't just be a good thing. It would be a really, really great thing. And if other countries react to Japan's intervention by attempting to print and sell their own currencies in order to toss the deflationary potato to someone else, well then so much the better. As the chart at right indicates, its a rare rich economy that couldn't use a bit more inflation.

Not every country can simultaneously depreciate its currency. But everyone can nonetheless benefit from the attempt, if currency interventions lead to expanded money supplies and rising inflation expectations.

It's worth looking again at this important chart:

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POR OUTRO LADO, A CHINA

Um interessantíssimo artigo de Robert Reich, aqui.

Why China's Currency Annoucement is Hokum

A EUROPA CONTADA AOS AMERICANOS

clicar para aumentar

A challenge to unity

Central bank faces threats to the euro and Europe 
by Neil Irwin

For an entire generation of European leaders, the euro coins jangling in their pockets are more than just a currency. They are a powerful driver of political unity on a continent where people speak more than two dozen languages and spent much of the 20th century fighting each other.

Now, as the euro faces a challenge like none before, the question is whether it will last.

The debt crisis that began in Greece and menaces half a dozen other European nations has caused the euro to lose 15 percent of its value relative to the dollar since January. Some economists consider it obvious that the currency union will not survive in its present form, that one or more southern European nations will end up reverting to liras, pesetas and drachmas.

That leaves the future of European unity to be decided not merely by politicians in Paris, Berlin and other capitals, but in a glass skyscraper in this banking hub, by a French banker named Jean-Claude Trichet and his 1,600 employees. Less than a decade after cash machines across the continent started spitting out the same currency -- and less than a month after it laid the cornerstone for a new permanent headquarters -- the European Central Bank is facing extraordinary pressure to keep the euro, and Europe, together.

The bank has crossed into virgin territory in response to the crisis, buying billions of euros' worth of government bonds to try to stabilize markets. But those actions have unleashed new tensions at the heart of the ECB as its largest member, Germany, recoils from what it sees as a violation of the most deeply held principles of central banking.

The challenge

The ECB's challenge is to craft one policy that will work for in 16 member countries from Finland to Portugal, which have different economic conditions -- and views about inflation and employment.

Trichet testified Monday that a broad new strategy of cooperation -- perhaps involving stronger restrictions on government deficits and new means of helping troubled states -- is the key to Europe's economic future. He told the European Parliament that he envisions "the equivalent of a fiscal federation," which would "require a quantum leap in terms of progress" toward a stronger economic union.

In their effort to hold Europe together, Trichet and his colleagues have upended the traditional rules under which they operate, taking a page from the playbook that Chairman Ben S. Bernanke used at the U.S. Federal Reserve during the financial crisis. But these efforts have exposed new strains within the organization, complicating their efforts.

Early last month, the European debt crisis spiked and markets turned hard against Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland, significantly increasing their cost for financing government spending. One solution would be for the ECB to intervene in the market, buy some of those countries' bonds and thus force down the price of borrowing money.

But the ECB has no authority to buy government debt, a power that other central banks, such as the Federal Reserve and Bank of England, have. That restriction reflects deep German opposition to any policies that carry a risk of fueling inflation, borne of the hyperinflation in that country in the 1920s. The rules are meant to prevent the ECB, which is modeled after the German national bank, from essentially printing money to lend to national governments. German politicians and economists were aghast at the idea of compromising that core principle because of, in their view, the fiscal profligacy of a few euro member states.

As the situation grew dire, however, Trichet and his colleagues decided that the goal of European unity was more important.

The compromise: They would buy bonds on the open market, not directly from governments, getting around the prohibition on funding government debt. At the same time, they would take other steps to avoid increasing the money supply, thus easing any inflationary pressures.

Announced in conjunction with a $1 trillion European Union program to backstop governments' debts, the actions worked to stop the free fall in debt markets, and European financial markets have been more stable since the announcement.

 

But speculation remained rampant, especially in Germany, that the program was a backdoor way to print money for free-spending Greek, Portuguese and Spanish governments. The blowback from Germany has been immense.

German blowback

Axel Weber, the head of the German national bank and a member of the ECB governing council, said in a newspaper interview that he sees the decision "in a critical way" because of the risks that it could undermine long-term economic stability.

After fighting back one threat to the euro, Trichet and his eventual successor now must deal with another: German frustration.

"Euro area governments have effectively thrown away the rulebook," said Volker Wieland, an economist at Goethe University Frankfurtand a leading ECB-watcher. "It's a complete regime change. No-bailouts and individual fiscal responsibility have been replaced with mutual guarantees" for government debt.

These tensions, in part, reflect decisions made by European leaders almost two decades ago. Instead of waiting to adopt the euro until European countries had grown more integrated with each other, making a currency zone easier to administer, the leaders decided to move ahead. They calculated that having a single currency would bring the countries closer together, leading to better collaboration on everything from the environment to defense policy.

This mission gives the ECB a political importance that is in some ways greater than that of its counterparts overseas, such as the Fed. The ECB is designed from the ground up to achieve that unity. The bank keeps minutes of policy meetings secret for 30 years, in contrast with the Fed, which releases minutes three weeks later. The ECB's aim is to allow policymakers to advocate what they think is best for the euro area as a whole, freeing them from public pressure to represent their nations' interests.

With Trichet's eight-year term expiring late next year, followers of the ECB see Weber as the most likely successor because he is the most powerful central banker in the largest eurozone country. Other European leaders might worry, though, whether he will be flexible enough to keep the euro together.

But even as the debt crisis has cast Europe's fissures into high relief, it has reminded European leaders of how much they stand to lose if these divisions are left unaddressed.

"The stakes are so high, I think the incentives are high to sort it out," said Michael Dicks, chief economist of Barclays Wealth. "That's the biggest silver lining. That's why you are seeing huge pressure to do what Europe has never done before, which is work together."

O TRABALHO A QUEM QUER TRABALHAR

Chinese promise currency changes but by how much or when is not revealed

Facing growing pressure from around the world, China's central bank announced Saturday that it is prepared to allow the country's currency to float more freely against the dollar and other foreign currencies, potentially raising the cost of Chinese goods.

The statement, from a spokesman for the People's Bank of China, gave no details on when China would allow its currency -- known as the yuan or the renminbi -- to appreciate or by how much. But the timing of its release, just before the leaders of the world's largest economies gather for a G-20 meeting in Toronto, was clearly aimed at taking pressure off Beijing.

Many countries, including the United States, have criticized China's fixed exchange rate, which critics say was keeping the country's exports too cheap and hurting manufacturers and traders worldwide. A group of U.S. senators had even threatened to slap tariffs of as much as 25 percent on all Chinese goods coming into the United States if China did not allow the yuan to appreciate against the dollar.

Whether Saturday's announcement will help the U.S. economy depends on how much Beijing lets its currency rise. A jump of 20 percent, for example, could cut as much as $150 billion off the U.S. trade deficit with China and create as many as 1 million U.S. jobs by making American exports more competitive, according to estimates by C. Fred Bergsten of the Peterson Institute of International Economics. From 2005 to 2008, China let the yuan appreciate 20 percent against the dollar before it stopped the process while it confronted the global financial crisis.

Few economists think China will let the yuan rise by that much, at least not yet. "This is a step in the right direction," said Bergsten, who has advised the Chinese government on the currency issue, "but the question is how far they will let the yuan rise -- and how fast."

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actualização (06/21)
O ouro atingiu hoje um novo recorde. Foi negociado a 1.265 dólares, a onça, impulsionado pelo facto do banco central chinês ter permitido, pela primeira vez desde meados de 2008, que a moeda chinesa, o "yuan", apreciasse. (aqui)

QUANTO VALE A CHINA?

China’s exchange rates are a common concern

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A country’s exchange rate cannot be a concern for it alone, since it must also affect its trading partners. But this is particularly true for big economies. So, whether China likes it or not, its heavily managed exchange rate regime is a legitimate concern of its trading partners. Its exports are now larger than those of any other country. The liberty of insignificance has vanished.
Naturally, the Chinese resent the pressure. At the conclusion of a European Union-China summit in Nanjing last week, Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, complained about demands for Beijing to allow its currency to appreciate. He protested that “some countries on the one hand want the renminbi to appreciate, but on the other hand engage in brazen trade protectionism against China. This is unfair. Their measures are a restriction on China’s development.” The premier also repeated the traditional mantra: “We will maintain the stability of the renminbi at a reasonable and balanced level.”
We can make four obvious replies to Mr Wen. First, whatever the Chinese may feel, the degree of protectionism directed at their exports has been astonishingly small, given the depth of the recession. Second, the policy of keeping the exchange rate down is equivalent to an export subsidy and tariff, at a uniform rate – in other words, to protectionism. Third, having accumulated $2,273bn in foreign currency reserves by September, China has kept its exchange rate down, to a degree unmatched in world economic history. Finally, China has, as a result, distorted its own economy and that of the rest of the world. Its real exchange rate is, for example, no higher than in early 1998 and has depreciated by 12 per cent over the past seven months, even though China has the world’s fastest-growing economy and largest current account surplus.

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A GUERRA DAS MOEDAS

Competitive devaluations threaten a trade war
Michael Pettis fears a repeat of the 1930s

Vietnam’s decision to devalue its currency by 5 per cent last week to protect itself from undervaluation of the Chinese renminbi, and the worried response from Thailand and other Asian countries, suggests the move towards global trade conflict may already be unstoppable. As one group of countries seeks to gain or maintain trade advantage by manipulating their currencies, the historical precedent suggests that countries that are not able to devalue will respond with trade protection, especially tariffs and other barriers, and global trade will suffer.
In the 1930s many, but not all, major economies imposed draconian constraints on trade which sharply contracted international commerce and almost certainly slowed the global recovery. It was widely understood then that the collapse in international trade would only worsen the crisis, and yet countries, seeking to protect their own positions, collectively engaged in behaviour that left them worse off.
American economists Barry Eichengreen and Douglas Irwin recently published a paper examining the roots of the post-1930 surge in protection. They argue that during the 1920s and shortly after the onset of the 1929 crisis, several countries abandoned the gold standard and engaged in beggar-thy-neighbour competitive devaluations. These countries subsequently experienced rapid improvements in their trade balances and suffered much less from the ravages of the global contraction of the 1930s.

But others, most obviously the US and European “gold bloc” countries, were sharply constrained in their ability to adjust their currencies. These countries suffered much of the brunt of the adjustment as imports became more competitive against their domestic industries, especially in relation to countries that were less constrained. These were also the countries that were most likely to resort to what the authors call the “second-best” adjustment mechanisms – tariffs, import quotas, exchange controls, and so on.

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PAPÃO, OU NÃO?

P'ra a mentira ser segura e atingir profundidade, tem de trazer à mistura qualquer coisa de verdade. (A. Aleixo)

TURBULÊNCIAS

Currencies Trading All Over the Map: Wild Swings Confuse Investors, Hamper Trade

By Anthony Faiola

Currencies including the dollar and the euro have entered a period of extreme volatility that is hindering global commerce and adding further uncertainty to a world economy facing its worst downturn in decades.
Over the past several months, global exchange rates have taken some of their wildest swings in years, with a fresh bout of zigzags hitting an array of currencies in both rich and poor countries in the past few weeks. That has humbled some of the strongest and most time-honored of coins, like the British pound, while fortifying others, like the Japanese yen.
Many currencies are shifting directions like a sailboat in a storm, causing unpredictable shifts in exchange rates that are further worsening the outlook for global trade as they confront buyers and sellers of internationally traded goods with another ill besides slumping demand: rapidly changing prices.
Over the past seven days alone, for instance, the Australian dollar shed nearly 10 percent against the Swiss franc. That means an Australian steel company with a contract to sell beams to, say, a Swiss construction company would be forced to take a significant haircut on those sales. As a result of the swings, exporters from Brazil to Baltimore say they are pushing for shorter-term contracts and boosting their purchases of foreign exchange hedges.
"Honestly, we just don't know how to analyze these currency markets properly right now," confessed David Bloom, head of currency markets for HSBC in London. "We're now in an unconventional world where you're getting huge movements that are no longer grounded in the conventional models. So currencies are lurching this way and that, and it's creating a huge uncertainty."

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O EURO E A CRISE

A não-crise do Euro
Barry Eichengreen

A crise financeira global deu vida nova a velhos argumentos sobre o iminente desaparecimento do euro. Esses argumentos invocam frequentemente Milton Friedman que, em 1998, avisou que o compromisso da Europa com o euro seria posto à prova com a primeira crise económica séria. Uma tal crise está agora a ocorrer, mas os resultados têm sido exactamente o oposto do que Friedman previu. O desemprego está a aumentar - e com ele a atitude populista. Em países como a Itália, a sofrer já com a concorrência chinesa, e a Espanha, que experimenta um rebentamento maciço do sector imobiliário, a aflição vai ser tremenda. Todavia nenhum destes países dá qualquer mostra de pretender abandonar o euro. Eles compreendem que o mais leve rumor sobre essa possibilidade pode criar pânico nos investidores. Vêem como países como a Dinamarca que mantiveram a sua moeda própria se viram obrigados a aumentar as taxas de juro para defender as suas taxas de câmbio quando a Reserva Federal norte-americana e o Banco Central Europeu (BCE) estão a baixar as taxas de juro. Vêem como, se continuassem a existir liras ou pesetas, se estaria a verificar fuga de capital. Compreendem que teriam de enfrentar uma crise de uma moeda desactualizada na pior altura possível. Agrada-lhes que exista segurança e estabilidade nos números. Do mesmo modo, o cenário de colapso do euro, no qual esses países pressionam, com êxito, o BCE a inflacionar, obrigando a Alemanha a abandonar o euro, não tem mostrado sinais de desenvolvimento. O BCE, protegido por independência legal e com poderes para manter os preços estáveis, não revelou qualquer tendência para ceder às pressões do Presidente francês Nicolas Sarkozy nem de qualquer outro. Poderá dizer-se que o pior ainda está para vir - que vai haver mais inflação e mais desemprego no futuro - e que, quando isso acontecer, a zona euro vai sucumbir. É um argumento com que os cépticos do euro sempre avançam. Mas, dados os acontecimentos recentes, são neste momento eles quem possui o ónus da prova. O que nem Friedman nem ninguém previa em 1998 era que a primeira crise grave a seguir ao advento do euro coincidisse com a mãe de todas as crises financeiras. A agitação de investidores em pânico exigiu que os bancos centrais efectuassem operações sem precedentes de empréstimo de último recurso. Vastos prejuízos nos créditos exigiram dispendiosas operações de recapitalização da banca. Houve quem previsse que os governos levados até ao limite pela crise financeira talvez respondessem abandonando o euro. Podiam recorrer a uma inflação fiscal e injectar a moeda nacional para repor a liquidez dos seus sistemas bancários e dos seus mercados financeiros. Na verdade, foi precisamente a contrário. O BCE proveu de quantias quase ilimitadas de liquidez os sistemas financeiros da zona euro. Tornou-se menos rígido o Pacto de Estabilidade e Crescimento para aumentar a capacidade dos governos pedirem empréstimos para recapitalizar os seus bancos. E foram precisamente os países europeus fora da zona euro, que continuam a manter a sua moeda própria, que sofreram os maiores revezes. Como as suas moedas não são largamente usadas a nível internacional, muitos dos seus passivos são em euros. Isso torna-os dependentes dos aumentos das taxas de juro para atrair - via mercado e operações de "swap" do BCE - a liquidez em euros de que os seus bancos precisam desesperadamente. Até ao momento, esses "swap" têm-se verificado, mas com atraso e carga política. As implicações são claras. Os sistemas bancários nacionais precisam de emprestador de último recurso. Em países pequenos, onde uma parte significativa dos passivos é na moeda de outro país qualquer, o banco central nacional não tem essa capacidade. As suas únicas opções são aplicar formas draconianas de controlo ao sistema bancário ou juntar-se à zona euro. Dada a dificuldade de fazer andar para trás o relógio financeiro e as restrições do Mercado Único, é óbvia a direcção que os países europeus vão tomar. Já se está a verificar uma mudança na opinião pública em relação à adopção do euro na Dinamarca e na Suécia. A Polónia reiterou o seu compromisso em adoptar o euro. A Hungria, devido ao trauma provocado por um programa do FMI, fará certamente o mesmo. É evidente que a crise vai, em termos económicos e financeiros, ser um desafio para a Europa de Leste. Vai aumentar a dificuldade em satisfazer os critérios de convergência para adopção do euro. Mas vai também aumentar a vontade de ser bem sucedido. Então, a consequência vai ser uma zona euro mais alargada, não mais apertada, há medida que cada vez mais países estão conscientes disso. Na realidade, já se detectam sinais de países que nem sequer estão na União Europeia, nomeadamente a Islândia e a Suíça, a considerarem a hipótese de acesso como um passo no sentido de adoptar o euro e resolverem o seu dilema financeiro. A excepção é provavelmente a Inglaterra, cuja moeda é utilizada internacionalmente como legado histórico. Em todo o caso, a Inglaterra sempre teve um pé dentro da Europa e outro fora. É pois possível que a Europa, a longo prazo, venha a ter duas moedas: o euro e a libra esterlina. Mas três, e muito menos três dúzias, está fora de questão.

* Barry Eichengreen é professor de Economia na Universidade de Berkeley, Califórnia. Project Syndicate/PÚBLICO

NEM TUDO CAI

No meio da queda geral, continua a ascenção do dólar: neste momento está já em 1,257 e continua a subir a uma cadência impressionante. Até onde? Até onde o puxarem aqueles que, subitamente, se voltaram para a moeda norte-americana abandonando outros refúgios, incluindo o ouro. O barril de petróleo já caiu para cerca de 65 dólares.

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Quando se receava pelo colapso do dólar, em consequência do imparável crescimento do défice comercial dos EUA, eis que o apetite dos investidores pelos activos norte-americanos desvalorizados em termos das outras moedas, nomeadamente o euro, recuperou o dólar.

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Não é crível que este vigor no meio da turbulência global se mantenha por muito tempo. Mais tarde ou mais cedo, os rombos que este movimento infligirá na competitividade das exportações dos EUA obrigarão a uma travagem tão brusca quanto o ritmo desta viragem ascencional. Se no pico da sua desvalorização face ao euro (rondou 1,60) o dólar se encontrava subvalorizado, neste momento a situação inverteu-se claramente.

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Entretanto, continua o jogo nos Casinos.

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Bolsas europeias acentuam quedas contagiadas pela Ásia
A Bolsa de Tóquio terminou a sessão de hoje a perder 9,6 por cento e os mercados europeus seguem-lhe o rasto na primeira meia hora de negociação, com a média das quedas a situar-se entre os quatro e os seis por cento. Este comportamento recessivo ignora o ganho de 2,1 por cento da véspera do índice Dow Jones.

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A maior diferença entre estes casinos e os outros é que todos jogam a roleta; não há slot-machines para curiosos e viciados sem grandes recursos. E, já se sabe, a roleta tem os seus truques que não estão ao alcance dos iniciados. No momento próprio, aparecerão os falcões a arrematar os salvados dos depenados.

5 PONTOS DE VISTA DE UM AMERICANO

U5 Myths About the Death Of the American Factory

By Gilbert B. Kaplan
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/27/AR2008062702865.html

Sure, U.S. banking is in trouble, but the longer-term and possibly more damaging threat to the nation's prosperity is the decline of the manufacturing sector. Late last year, the number of U.S. manufacturing jobs dropped below 14 million for the first time since 1950. It's hard to find anything else that takes us back to a time before most baby boomers (remember them?) were even born. On top of that, the United States lost another 49,000 manufacturing jobs in April alone. Hard to believe, but the last factory built in this country may be something we'll see in our lifetime, or certainly that of our children.
No wonder this is an issue in the presidential campaign, especially in big manufacturing states. To get to the bottom of the problem, though, we have to cut through the many myths that have been fabricated about the industry over the years.

1. It's all about cheap wages. American workers are just paid too much.
For most manufacturing sectors, that's just wrong. Labor costs are already less than 10 percent of the cost of making many products, including steel and semiconductors. Many of the real cost disadvantages the United States confronts are self-imposed. Our government doesn't rebate taxes to corporations when they export manufactured products, the way other countries do: A Brazilian steel company, for example, can get a 17 percent tax credit for every ton of steel it sends abroad. In addition, many foreign countries keep their currencies valued extremely low against the dollar. Most economists believe that China undervalues its currency by as much as 40 percent. That makes Chinese goods very cheap here and U.S. exports very expensive in China. This is a key driver of the $260 billion trade deficit with Beijing. We should deal with these issues in our international trade negotiations, but we haven't.

2. U.S. manufacturers can save themselves by investing in innovation.
Okay, but how much are you going to invest? U.S. private-sector companies can't put as much money into technology and research and development as foreign governments do to build up their sectors. As the chief executive of a technology firm with whom I've worked for many years says, "We're the best company in the world, but we can't compete with foreign governments." Consider

Airbus. The European Union has put more than $15 billion into building this aircraft company from the ground up. Whatever you may think about the recent U.S. Air Force decision to buy tankers from Airbus rather than Boeing, one thing is clear: Through its subsidies, the E.U. has managed to build a highly competitive aircraft industry. South Korea has put more than $12 billion into its semiconductor industry to similar effect, severely harming the U.S. semiconductor manufacturing base.

3. Trade laws and trade agreements level the playing field for U.S. manufacturers.
If only this were so. This should be the main goal of our trade negotiations. The manufacturing sector is hurting more than any other, but we're using our political capital -- in the Doha round, for example, the latest

World Trade Organization negotiating round -- to help the service and agricultural sectors. Little is being done for basic manufacturing. There are international trade laws under which U.S. companies can file cases to offset unfair practices in China, Japan and other countries, but they're difficult to use, expensive and haven't solved the problem. In 2006, despite a manufacturing trade deficit of more than $600 billion, U.S. manufacturers filed only eight new trade cases. If these statutes were really working, we would see hundreds of new cases each year, instead of watching U.S. companies decide that it's better to give up and just move manufacturing plants abroad -- something I've recently heard executives in both the textile and electronics sectors say they're thinking about doing.

4. Good management can make U.S. manufacturers lean enough to fight in the international economy.
I wish it were that easy. Even the best management can't overcome some of the structural disadvantages we face. Take health-care costs. In Europe, these costs are absorbed by the government. In the United States, manufacturers have to pay for them.

General Motors, for example, has estimated that the cost of health care adds about $1,600 to the price of each of its vehicles. How can you compete when you have to add that cost to all the other challenges a U.S. manufacturer faces? Then there are environmental-compliance costs. One recent study shows that these costs are about $77 billion a year for U.S. manufacturers. China, Taiwan and many other foreign jurisdictions have no environmental costs of any significance, because they either have no environmental laws or don't comply with them. The United States also has laws and regulations to keep our products and workplaces safe that we don't require our trading partners to comply with.

5. We make high-tech goods here, so we're okay. It's only schlock items that come from abroad.
Really? The truth is, very few high-tech companies are building new plants in the United States. The name on the box of the computer you just ordered may be Dell or HP, but the computer itself was probably made in Asia. The fancy light-up screens on your cellphone and iPod -- liquid crystal display screens, or LCDs -- are all made in China, South Korea, Singapore and Japan. Even our greatest semiconductor companies, such as Intel, are building new state-of-the-art facilities in China. And what about the most sophisticated high-tech product in the world -- microlithography machines used to make semiconductors? These machines are a true enabling technology -- a technology from which everything else follows. It's too bad that not a single one is made in the United States. We depend on Europe and Japan for them.

Despite all the bad news, the United States still has a manufacturing sector and still produces about $4.5 trillion worth of goods a year. But we're also consuming fewer and fewer of our own products each year, and factory workers' slice of the pie is getting smaller by the month. If we don't address this problem soon, the last thing we'll be producing in America may be paper. After all, we have abundant forests, clean water and a dedicated work force with generations of experience in the art of paper-making.
And yet, given all the downsides -- foreign companies raking in tax benefits and government subsidies, currency differentials that provide foreign exporters with a 40 percent break on their sales, complex trade laws -- why make anything in this country at all? It'd be easier to disassemble the paper mills, pack the equipment in enormous wooden crates and send it off to China -- probably on the same cargo ships that, in time, will carry massive rolls of paper back to our shores.

gkaplan@kslaw.com
Gilbert B. Kaplan is a partner in the international trade practice of King & Spalding in Washington.

ESCORREGAR & CAIR

António, um atento comentador que não sei se conheço, transcreveu em complemento de comentário ao meu "post" "Watt a difference" uma notícia da Reuters que a seguir transcrevo:

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Irán deja de vender petróleo en dólares.
La debilidad del dólar en el mercado reduce el poder adquisitivo de los países exportadores REUTERS - Teherán - 08/12/2007
Irán, el cuarto mayor productor de petróleo ha dejado de vender el crudo en dólares, según informan medios de comunicación iraníes. La decisión se corresponde a las advertencias de la Organización de Países Exportadores de Petróleo (OPEP) que durante casi dos años venía advirtiendo de que la debilidad del dólar está erosionando el poder adquisitivo de los países exportadores.La OPEP rechaza elevar la oferta de petróleo a pesar de los altos precios OPEP(Organización de Países Exportadores de Petróleo)
A FONDO
Sede: Viena (Austria) Directivo: Jaber Al Ahmad Al Sabah. Emir de Kuwait(Presidente)
A FONDO Capital: Teherán. Gobierno: República Teocrática. Población: 69.018.924 (2004)
La noticia en otros webswebs en español en otros idiomas El Ministro encargado de las transacciones petrolíferas, Gholamhossein Nozari, en declaraciones a la agencia de comunicación ISNA ha confirmado que Irán dejará de vender petróleo en dólares:"En consonancia con la política de venta de petróleo venderemos el crudo en otras divisas, en la actualidad la venta en dólares queda eliminada".Nozari considera que la decisión se debe a la "pérdida de valor" que ha tenido el dólar, para el Ministro la moneda estadounidense "ya no es fiable". La decisión que toma Irán no es una sorpresa, el pasado mes de noviembre la OPEP volvió a alertar sobre la debilidad del dólar como moneda para realizar las transacciones económicas de los países exportadores. De hecho, Irán ha presentado un mayor número de ingresos de exportación en euros durante el último periodo.Las relaciones institucionales con EE UU tampoco ayudan a mantener un clima apacible entre ambos países. "Menos valioso que un trozo de papel", el presidente iraní Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calificó de esta manera a la moneda estadounidense. El desencuentro con Washington no es ninguna novedad, desde 1979, año de la revolución islámica de Teherán ambos gobiernos han mantenido disputas. Uno de los mayores desencuentros fue el programa nuclear e incluso la política exterior desplegada por EE UU en Irak ha causado diferencias entre ambos.

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A questão da facturação do petróleo em dólares ou em outra moeda, nomeadamente euros, não irá alterar significativamente, do meu ponto de vista, os dados que influenciam o mercado neste momento e, sobretudo, a evolução dos preços.
E não vai alterar porque, mais importante do que a moeda de facturação na evolução dos preços, é, primeiro que tudo, a expectativa resultante em cada momento das expectativas dos maiores intervenientes no mercado acerca da relação oferta/procura a médio e longo prazo. Incidentalmente, podem factores conjunturais introduzir alterações bruscas mais ou menos acentuadas, mas a tendência decorre das expectativas a prazo. Neste sentido, e voltando à apreciação do efeito moeda na evolução dos preços, que sempre existirá, é mais importante o papel desempenhado pela moeda de referência (ainda o dólar) do que a moeda de facturação.

Sendo o mercado do petróleo, sobretudo nas actuais circunstâncias, um mercado fortemente vendedor, quem vende pode sempre impor uma moeda de facturação diferente da moeda de transacção (de referência) cabendo ao comprador segurar o risco de câmbio. De um modo ou outro, a evolução dos preços na moeda de referência (de negociação) ajustar-se-á sempre à desvalorização ou valorização desta.

Facturando em euros (ou outra moeda que não o dólar) o Irão evita ter de segurar o risco de câmbio do dólar.

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Se esta opção vai generalizar-se ou não, se o dólar vai também deixar de ser moeda de referência, é outra questão. Mas sendo os EUA o principal importador de petróleo dificilmente o dólar deixará de continuar a ser a moeda de transacção no mercado. Se esta função da moeda norte-americana é favorável à economia dos EUA, certamente que sim. Mas nem tudo são vantagens, e o mar de petrodólares já demonstrou, no passado relativamente recente, que não é um mar de rosas.