Richard Feynman was once asked what he would pass on if the whole edifice of modern scientific knowledge had been lost, and all he could give to posterity was a single sentence. What axiom would convey the maximum amount of scientific information in the fewest possible words? His candidate was ‘all things are made of atoms.’ In a similar spirit, if the whole ramshackle structure of contemporary macroeconomics vanished into thin air and the field had to be reconstructed from scratch, the sentence which packs as much of the discipline into the fewest possible words might be ‘governments are not households.’ The principles of running an economy are in many crucial respects different from those of keeping your own finances in order.
E depois:
The fact that the people in charge of recommending huge cuts in public spending don’t, at this basic level, fully understand the economic effect of those cuts, is surprising only if you’re unfamiliar with just how little certainty there is in the world of macroeconomics. (An alternative single-sentence summary of the entire field would be ‘nobody knows anything.’)
Sem pensar muito, acho que minha frase seria "pessoas respondem a incentivos". Qual seria a sua?
A sagacidade de Keynes no debate público é melhor lembrada por sua observação de que "no longo prazo todos estaremos mortos", mas Keynes não se reconheceria nessa indiferença contemporânea pelos riscos de longo prazo. Recentemente, ouvi a história de que, ao sair de uma reunião de economistas keynesianos no Canadá, após o acordo de Bretton Woods, Keynes observou que provavelmente era o único economista não keynesiano na sala.
- Keynes: “How long will it be found necessary to pay City men so entirely out of proportion to what other servants of society commonly receive for performing social services not less useful or difficult?”
In its distance from any existing or realistically imaginable condition of society, “the communist idea” that has been resurrected by thinkers such as Alain Badiou and Slavoj Žižek is on a par with fantasies of the free market that have been revived on the right. The ideology promoted by the Austrian economist F.A. Hayek and his followers, in which capitalism is the winner in a competition for survival among economic systems, has much in common with the ersatz version of evolution propagated by Herbert Spencer more than a century ago. Reciting long-exploded fallacies, these neo-Marxian and neoliberal theories serve only to illustrate the persisting power of ideas that promise a magical deliverance from human conflict.
Da brilhante resenha de John Gray para uma nova biografia de Karl Marx, do historiador Jonathan Sperber.
Morreu ontem Paulo Vanzolini, poucos dias depois de completar 90 anos. Era um doutor por Harvard que fazia samba. Ou melhor, não era qualquer doutor por Harvard, nem qualquer sambista. Como pesquisador, foi um grande herpetologista, responsável por coletar mais de 200 mil exemplares para a coleção de répteis do Museu de Zoologia da USP e homenageado com mais de 10 novas espécies que têm o descritor vanzolinii no nome científico. Como compositor, não tenho nenhuma dúvida em colocá-lo entre os maiores da história da música brasileira, não devendo nada a outro gigantes mais reconhecidos.
Enfiava-se no interior do Brasil e anunciava que estava "comprando bicho", para levar ao museu. Numa dessas viagens, trouxe também Cuitelinho, de autoria desconhecida e das mais belas canções da nossa língua.
Parou de fazer samba porque, segundo ele, "às vezes ficava uma semana pra resolver uma rima". Com a zoologia, porém, continuou mesmo depois de se aposentar da USP. Quem conviveu com ele no museu dizia que era casca grossa no primeiro contato, mas de uma generosidade imensa depois de quebrada essa barreira.
Cantava mal pra burro (era o primeiro a reconhecer que não sabia a diferença entre tom maior e tom menor), mas tinha grande intuição da sonoridade das palavras e da métrica que um bom samba requer, e sempre soube se cercar de bons músicos.
Um pecado que tenha ficado conhecido só por Ronda e Volta por Cima. Menos pecado que a gravadora Biscoito Fino tenha, em 2002, reunido grande parte de suas composições, interpretadas por cantores famosos (Paulinho da Viola, Chico Buarque, Martinho da Vila...) e colaboradores habituais (sua mulher Ana Bernardo, Carlinhos Vergueiro, Márcia), em Acerto de Contas de Paulo Vanzolini, caixa impecável de 4 CDs e melhor homenagem que ele poderia ter recebido em vida. Aliás, pessoal que vai editar essas homenagens póstumas da TV: ele detestava a versão de Maria Bethânia para Ronda. Gostava mesmo é de Inezita Barroso ("aquele vozeirão, aquele senso de samba") e Cristina Buarque ("afinada que só ela").
No ano passado fui ver uma homenagem a Vanzolini no SESC Pompéia, com presença do próprio. Entrou no palco com dificuldade para andar, sentou-se numa mesa e tomou uma cerveja atrás da outra, ouvindo suas composições, contando "causos" entre elas e brindando com o público. No final, ovacionado, levantou-se chorando, como se depois de tanto tempo ainda não tivesse se acostumado com o reconhecimento da grandeza de sua obra. Um colosso.
"Sou um homem em paz. Feliz? Não sei qual foi o filósofo, se Sólon ou Thales, que disse só ser possível julgar se uma pessoa foi feliz ou não, depois de sua morte, porque é imprescindível ter uma morte feliz também."
And if you bundled together the middle-aged schoolteachers and strictly private dentists with the unemployed single parents and moonlighting plasterers, then sliced the bundles into high-, medium- and low-risk tranches, you could persuade the credit rating agencies like Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poor's to award the top tranches a triple A. After all, even though the risk is pretty high that there'll be one or two defaults on those NINJA mortgages (No Income No Job No Assets - what the hell did they expect?) they're not all going to default, are they?
He smiles. It's at times like this that you need a sense of irony.
People are so stupid. They don't understand about risk. They let themselves be dazzled by returns of 7 per cent, 8 per cent, 9 per cent. Whoever is going to pay you that kind of money unless there's a reason? Then the Government started laying down the law, saying it wasn't their job to bail out reckless gamblers. Too right. But they bailed them out anyway, because they realised they had no choice. As Chicken so brilliantly put it, 'If I owe the bank £10,000, I've got problems. But if I owe it £10 million, the bank's got problems. Ha ha.'
The Maastricht Treaty stipulated that no member government could run a deficit of more than 3 percent in any one year. The French, in order to abide by the contract, were the first to institute phony bookkeeping. We will not pay our pension obligations this year, we will pay them next year, they decided. This year things will look good, next year things will look worse, but next year is next year and we are not going to worry about that. It is the Scarlett O'Hara theory of finance: "After all ... tomorrow is another day." The move was seen as pretty outrageous. Even the Italians, who had been using phony bookkeeping for decades - for centuries, in fact - were shocked. After pulling themselves up off the floor, they proceeded to emulate the French, going with their own time-honored recipe for cooking the books.
A versão de Jim Rogers para a adequação de alguns países às regras do Tratado de Maastricht. Está na biografia dele, que já citei aqui.
Court and tax records show that over a 15-year period Shakespeare purchased grain, malt and barley to store and resell for inflated prices, according to a paper by Aberystwyth University academics Dr Jayne Archer, Professor Richard Marggraf Turley and Professor Howard Thomas.
The study notes: "By combining both illegal and legal activities, Shakespeare was able to retire in 1613 as the largest property owner in his home town, Stratford-upon-Avon. His profits - minus a few fines for illegal hoarding and tax evasion - meant he had a working life of just 24 years."
The black market is indispensable to one's insight into a country. Right away you know if there is a black market, and if so, whether the currency carries a big premium. The black market is like taking somebody's temperature. If I give you a thermometer and we take your temperature, we know whether something is wrong. We do not know what is wrong, but we do know that something is wrong. If you have a high temperature, we know that something is really wrong. The black market operates the same way. You do not know what is wrong if there is a black market, but it gives you the frist hint. And if there is a big premium in the market - a large discrepancy between the official rate and the black market rate - you know something is seriously wrong. If you want to know something about a country, you can learn more from talking to a black marketer than from speaking to a government minister.
Da nova biografia de Jim Rogers, Street Smarts. A economia da Argentina vai bem, obrigado.
P.S. Não sei se já linkei aqui, mas há uns dois anos a Glória Maria fez uma matéria divertida com ele em Cingapura. Figuraça.
Terminei no fim de semana The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality, do economista do Banco Mundial Branko Milanovic. O livro é uma ótima introdução não-técnica (quer dizer, até onde consegue ser para adentrar o tema) sobre os vários jeitos de medir desigualdade, temperado com pequenas vinhetas sobre casos específicos.
Uma delas (3.2) pergunta e se propõe-se a responder se há uma classe média global. Nos cálculos do autor, a classe média global (por um critério que considera como classe média famílias que têm renda a até 25% da renda mediana) abrange 850 milhões de pessoas, com renda média diária entre $2,5 e $4 por dia (já ajustados por poder de compra). A reflexão final desse ensaio merece ser compartilhada, sobretudo num país que tem celebrado uma "nova classe média" com renda per capita entre R$291 e R$1.019 por mês (o critério brasileiro é diferente e mais opaco):
Due to the technological revolution (there were no cell phones ten years ago) and the decline in relative prices, consumer goods are now available to a lot of people. Far be it from me to deny their value and importance, but a cell phone does not a middle class make. If one lives in a shack, in insalubrious conditions, with a volatile income that is barely above subsistence, and is unable to send his kids to school or offer to his family decent health care, it makes no sense to classify him as part of some imaginary "global middle class" because he can dial a cell phone.
The decree requiring land purchases and sales... had the opposite effect since when the capitalists received payments they hoarded it, to by land at their convenience. These extensive transactions reduced prices. But large-scale debtors found it difficult to sell; so many of them were ejected from their properties, and lost not only their estates but their rank and reputation. Then Tiberius came to the rescue. He distributed a hundred million sesterces among especially established banks, for interest-free three-year state loans, against the security of double the value in landed property. Credit was thus restored; and gradually private lenders reappeared.
Dos Anais de Públio Tácito, do ano 33, citado por Branko Milanovic em The Haves and Have-Nots. Naquele ano, o imperador Tibério liberou cerca de 0,5% do PIB do Império Romano (US$75 bilhões em dinheiro americano de hoje) para resolver uma crise de liquidez bancária.
Alan Blinder foi vice-presidente do Fed entre 1994 e 1996. A curta permanência é atribuída a uma tentativa de debater ideias e premissas em uma instituição que, na época, orbitava em torno da aura de "maestro" de Alan Greenspan (não sei dizer se Bernanke é mais ou menos autoritário). Como citado pela Wikipedia, de um artigo do Huffington Post:
[Economist] Rob Johnson, who watched the Blinder ordeal, says Blinder made the mistake of behaving as if the Fed was a place where competing ideas and assumptions were debated. "Sociologically, what was happening was the Fed staff was really afraid of Blinder. At some level, as an applied empirical economist, Alan Blinder is really brilliant," says Johnson. In closed-door meetings, Blinder did what so few do: he challenged assumptions. "The Fed staff would come out and their ritual is: Greenspan has kind of told them what to conclude and they produce studies in which they conclude this. And Blinder treated it more like an open academic debate when he first got there and he'd come out and say, 'Well, that's not true. If you change this assumption and change this assumption and use this kind of assumption you get a completely different result.' And it just created a stir inside--it was sort of like the whole pipeline of Greenspan-arriving-at-decisions was disrupted." This put him in conflict with Greenspan and his staff. "A lot of senior staff... were pissed off about Blinder--how should we say?--not playing by the customs that they were accustomed to," Johnson says.
Say this for Alan S. Blinder: the man has not been jaded. His new book on the Wall Street meltdown, After the Music Stopped: The Financial Crisis, the Response, and the Work Ahead, is animated by a lay person’s sense of wonder and—at times—horror at the country’s financial mess.
Pois bem, eis que, no finalzinho do livro mais recente de Nassim Taleb, Antifragile, encontro a seguinte história:
At Davos, during a private coffee conversation that I thought aimed at saving the world from, among other things, moral hazard and agency problems, I was interrupted by Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, who tried to sell me a peculiar investment product that aims at legally hoodwinking taxpayers. It allowed the hight net worth investor to get around the regulations limiting deposit insurance (at the time, $100,000) and benefit from coverage for near-unlimited amounts. The investor would deposit funds in any amount and Prof. Blinder's company would break it up into smaller accounts and invest in banks, thus escaping the limit; it would look like a single account but would be insured in full. In other words, it would allow the super-rich to scam taxpayers by getting free goverment-sponsored insurance. Yes, scam taxpayers. Legally. With the help of former civil servants who have an insider edge.
I blurted out: "Isn't this unethical?" I was then told in response "It is perfectly legal," adding the even more incriminating "we have plenty of former regulators on the staff," (a) implying that what was legal was ethical and (b) asserting that former regulators have an edge over citizens.
(...)
Now stage two - things get worse. Blinder and the dean of Columbia University Business School wrote an op-ed opposing the government's raising the insurance limit on individuals. The article argued that the public should not have the unlimited insurance that Blinder's clients benefit from.
Não descobri se houve uma réplica de Blinder, mas, se a história é verdadeira, "horror at the country's financial mess" só pode ser uma forma aguda de dissonância cognitiva - ou pura canalhice.
... he also gave me some of the best advice I've ever received. Trying to decide whether to major in psychology or art history, I had gone to his office to see what he thought. He squinted and lowered his head. "Is this a hard choice for you?" he demanded. Yes! I cried. "Oh," he said, springing back cheerfully. "In that case, it doesn't matter. If it's a hard decision, then there's always lots to be said on both sides, so either choice is likely to be good on its way. Hard choices are always unimportant."
Adam Gopnik falando sobre Albert Bregman, professor emérito de psicologia na McGill University, em uma boa matéria sobre música tridimensional (?!?) e o que nos faz gostar dessa arte.
"...our language is one of the most ugly and limited around. You can't seduce anyone in Danish; it sounds like you are throwing up."
Sidse Babett Knudsen, a primeira-ministra Birgitte Nyborg da extraordinária série dinamarquesa Borgen, em entrevista para o Guardian. Está numa matéria da New Yorker sobre o sucesso recente da TV escandinava.
"There is always a disposition in people's minds to think the existing conditions will be permanent. When the market is down and dull, it is hard to make people believe that this is the prelude to a period of activity and advance. When the prices are up and the country is prosperous, it is always said that while preceding booms have not lasted, there are circumstances connected with this one, which make it unlike its predecessors and give assurance of permanency. The fact pertaining to all conditions is that they will change."
Opiniões que envolvem dinheiro, diz a teoria, valem mais - daí eu achar preferível ler sobre mercados nas palavras de gestores de fundos do que de economistas e estrategistas de bancos e corretoras. As cartas aos investidores do passado são grandes documentos históricos e potenciais fontes de aprendizado: lá estão as decisões sob incerteza, os vieses, as desculpas, a sorte, o azar... Abaixo alguns exemplos que eu coletei ao longo dos últimos anos:
- 2000, perto do topo da bolha de tecnologia (a máxima do índice Nasdaq foi em 10 de março). Dois gestores lendários entregam os pontos, a poucos meses de se provarem corretos:
Em 30 de março, Julian Robertson, da Tiger Funds:
The current technology, Internet and telecom craze, fueled by the performance desires of investors, money managers and even financial buyers, is unwittingly creating a Ponzi pyramid destined for collapse. The tragedy is, however, that the only way to generate short-term performance in the current environment is to buy these stocks. That makes the process self-perpetuating until the pyramid eventually collapses under its own excess. (...) Consequently, after thorough consideration, I have decided to return all capital to our investors, effectively bringing down the curtain on the Tiger funds. We have already largely liquefied the portfolio and plan to return assets as outlined in the attached plan.
Em 28 de abril, George Soros:
We have come to realize that a large hedge fund like Quantum Fund is no longer the best way to manage money. Markets have become extremely unstable and historical measures of value at risk no longer apply. Quantum Fund is far too big and its activities too closely watched by the market to be able to operate successfully in this environment.
- John Paulson, em fevereiro de 2008, quando o "greatest trade ever" acelerou os ganhos que fariam dele um multibilionário:
Given the current trends in the industry, we believe it is highly likely that the losses in RMBS will severely impair or extinguish the BBB and BBB- tranches we are short. Therefore, while the bonds declined significantly in February, subject to mark to market volatility, we think the bonds will move much lower in the upcoming months. If the subprime origination market ultimately shuts down, which recent events indicate it likely will, then these tranches may collapse as defaults will rise to unprecedented levels as subprime Adjustable Rate Mortgages reset at usurious interest rates (Libor plus 600 bps) with limited sources to refinance.
- Outubro de 2008, Andrew Lahde, outro que lucrou com o furo da bolha imobiliária nos EUA, encerra as atividades:
Recently, on the front page of Section C of the Wall Street Journal, a hedge fund manager who was also closing up shop (a $300 million fund), was quoted as saying, “What I have learned about the hedge fund business is that I hate it.” I could not agree more with that statement. I was in this game for the money. (...) I will no longer manage money for other people or institutions. I have enough of my own wealth to manage. Some people, who think they have arrived at a reasonable estimate of my net worth, might be surprised that I would call it quits with such a small war chest. That is fine; I am content with my rewards. Moreover, I will let others try to amass nine, ten or eleven figure net worths.Meanwhile, their lives suck. Appointments back to back, booked solid for the next three months, they look forward to their two week vacation in January during which they will likely be glued to their Blackberries or other such devices. What is the point? They will all be forgotten in fifty years anyway. Steve Balmer, Steven Cohen, and Larry Ellison will all be forgotten. I do not understand the legacy thing. Nearly everyone will be forgotten. Give up on leaving your mark. Throw the Blackberry away and enjoy life. (...) I now have time to repair my health, which was destroyed by the stress I layered onto myself over the past two years, as well as my entire life – where I had to compete for spaces in universities and graduate schools, jobs and assets under management – with those who had all the advantages (rich parents) that I did not. (...) At a time when rhetoric is flying about becoming more self-sufficient in terms of energy, why is it illegal to grow this plant in this country? Ah, the female. The evil female plant – marijuana. It gets you high, it makes you laugh, it does not produce a hangover. Unlike alcohol, it does not result in bar fights or wifebeating. So, why is this innocuous plant illegal? Is it a gateway drug? No, that would be alcohol, which is so heavily advertised in this country. My only conclusion as to why it is illegal, is that Corporate America, which owns Congress, would rather sell you Paxil, Zoloft, Xanax and other additive drugs, than allow you to grow a plant in your home without some of the profits going into their coffers. This policy is ludicrous.
- Fevereiro de 2010, os mercados de metais básicos espirram e o Ebulio Commodity Fund pega ebola:
February 2010 was the worst month in the history of the Ebulio Commodity Fund and we regret to report a return of -86.25 pct for the month, which brings our total return for the year to -95.83 pct and to -89.63 pct since inception. (...) Ebulio Capital Management LLP is also strong and has, as a token of confidence in the future, waived its 2 pct management fee for 2010.
O gran finale é a citação do personagem de Jeff Bridges em Crazy Heart:
- Agosto de 2010, Stanley Druckenmiller anuncia sua aposentadoria:
After much self reflection, I have decided to retire from managing client funds and I wanted to give you prompt notice of my intentions and explain the reasons for this. I have had to recognize that competing in the markets over such a long timeframe imposes heavy personal costs. While the joy of winning for clients is immense, for me the disappointment of each interim drawdown over the years has taken a cumulative toll that I cannot continue to sustain.
- Setembro de 2011, Bruce Kovner também se aposenta:
I write you this letter to announce that on December 31st of this year, I will retire as Chairman and CEO of Caxton Associates After 34 years in the trading business and rnore than 28 years leading Caxton, the time has corne to hand the leadership of the company to a new generation.
"An industrial system which uses forty per cent of the world's resources to supply less than six per cent of the world's population could be called efficient only if it obtained strikingly successful results in terms of human happiness, well-being, culture, peace, and harmony. I do not need to dwell on the fact that the American system fails to do this, or that there are not the slightest prospects that it could do so if only it achieved a higher rate of growth of production."
E.F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful, 1973. Citado no Economix, que terminei há pouco. Quanto a este: a primeira metade é excelente, uma introdução à história do pensamento econômico clara, acessível e honesta (o autor realmente leu os livros de que trata). Na segunda, ele assume que o pensamento econômico morreu com o Milton Friedman e começa a contar uma história econômica dos EUA do ponto de vista de luta de classes. Consegue alguns bons insights, mas não escapa do tom panfletário e às vezes descolado da realidade (ou do que é possível ser feito). No saldo, vale muito a leitura.
Albert Einstein wrote an article in 1949 called "Why Socialism?" His answer: the market economy brings crisis, instability, and impoverishment. "The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of the evil." The only way to eliminate this evil, he concluded, was by establishing socialism, with the means of production "owned by society itself." He advocated a planned economy, which "adjusts production to the needs of the community, would distribute the work to be done among all those able to work and would guarantee a livelihood to very man, woman, and child."
John McMillan em Reinventing the Bazaar (que sigo lendo e gostando mais a cada página), mostrando como o famoso físico cedeu às tentações do planejamento centralizado. O texto original de Einstein pode ser lido aqui. Para evitar confundir Einstein com um stalinista de primeira ordem, vale também reproduzir o parágrafo seguinte:
Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?
Respostas para essas simples questões podem ser dadas na caixa de comentários abaixo.
Eu tenho uma opinião relativamente pouco informada e ambígua sobre o Robert Lucas: por um lado, acho a hipótese de expectativas racionais extremamente elegante e útil quando não abusada; por outro, acho que ele é uma personificação de "economista autista" que quase ofende meu lado mais prático (a crítica de Lucas, porém, é uma ideia epistemológica ultrapertinente, ainda que não muito original: vejo com uma derivação do "efeito observador" dos físicos). De qualquer maneira, a influência dele ainda é enorme, de forma que sempre vale a pena prestar atenção no que se fala dele e no que ele fala. Esta semana o nome dele apareceu bastante no meu Google Reader:
- Delfim cutucou, na CartaCapital:
"Os economistas já deveriam ter perdido a inocência revelada pelo Prêmio Nobel Robert Lucas, que sonhou ter destruído Keynes quando decretou, em artigo na American Economic Review, que "a macroeconomia foi bem-sucedida: seu problema principal, a prevenção da depressão, está, para todos os fins práticos, resolvido e, de fato, resolvido por muitas décadas."
"...the models I criticized then have long since been replaced by others that build on their work. I am pleased that my work contributed to this.
But the term "Lucas critique" has survived, long after that original context has disappeared. It has a life of its own and means different things to different people. Sometimes it is used like a cross you are supposed to use to hold off vampires: Just waving it it an opponent defeats him. Too much of this, no matter what side you are on, becomes just name calling."
- Noah Smith comenta, do ponto de vista de um macroeconomista acadêmico com formação em física.
Sou economista, em pausa numa carreira no mercado financeiro para um mestrado. Vivo entre Cambridge, MA e São Paulo.
Moto do blog: "If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid." - John Maynard Keynes
ou
"It is generally admitted that most grown up people, however regrettably, will try to have a good time." - Bertrand Russell
