Monday, April 30, 2012

Frase do Mes

Quem trabalha nao tem tempo para pensar

Destinos: Suomi/Finlandia

Apos ganhar uma viagem da importadora do meu amigo Zelao, aquele que tem uma rede de ferro-velho na ZL em SP, vi que essa viagem atras de vinhos na Finlandia seria uma roubada.

Por increible que os parezca ha vinhos de uva feitos na Finlandia. Poucas variedades de uva suportam o  clima aqui,  mas ha alguma coisa. A maioria dos vinhos he feita de maca, raspberry, morango, cereja e sei la mais o que. Mesmo os brut sao um pouco doce. Esquecam Suomi para tomar bons vinhos.

Ha um monopolio na distribuicao e compra e venda do tal liquido precioso. Alguma coisa half-mouth do Brasil se encontra aqui. Mas gostei da parte de espumosos. Alguma coisa interessante da NZ e da Australia. Corte de champagne com precos da Oceania.

O que fazer em Helsinki?

A primeira alternativa he se matar. As coisas aqui sao tao perfeitas e paradas que isso aqui se parece com o interior de Minas Gerais, so que ao inves de pegar o Del Rey e por varas de pescar em plena quarta-feira, eles trabalham. Nao vi motoboy, batedor de carteira, gente se ofendendo no transito, cortador de fila.

Pergunta: Qual foi o ultimo comediante finlandes que voce se lembra? Algum cantor? Algum escritor?

A vida parece tao facil que eles nao produzem nada cultural, de boa qualidade pelo menos. Nao ha necessidade de se expressar, nem para o mal ou bem.

Na rua qualquer um fala ingles muito bom. Sao ultra-gentis e cooperativos. Mas na deles. Nao espere que piadas sobre portugueses sejam imediatamente aceitas como muito engracadas. Nao seja brasileiro aqui.

A segunda alternativa he correr para os museus. Ha de todos os tipos. Todos pequenos, nada a ver com os grandes museus da Europa ou de NY, Chicago...

A comida he apresentada num shopping guide como simple and pure. Talvez essa seja a melhor definicao do pais e a gente que aqui vive. Simple and pure. Simple em ingles tem ma conotacao para pessoas, mas da para forcar um pouco.

Saindo de perto das regioes/areas/quadras mais turisticas ou comerciais qualquer ser vivente come muito bem. No almoco os custos sao bem mais em conta que de noite. Aproveite a chance para comer coisas que nao existem no Brasil, como Nepal, Russo, Kazak, Naponia.

Uma iguaria disponivel em varios lugares he a carne de urso. He cara, mas aparentemente tem consumidores para isso. A dica he comprar sempre o urso que foi abatido na primavera porque apos esse periodo a carne pega gosto ruim.

Eu ja havia ouvido falar em pata de urso na Korea, mas aqui vai o bicho todo mesmo. Depois que inventaram polvora e chumbo ate urso afina.

Aos desesperados por compras vai um aviso: Aqui nao he Orlando. Nao ha target, nao ha best buy. Ha tudo de roupas e eletronicos que os brasileiros tanto veneram, mas sao caros se comparados a America. O essencial nao custa muito aqui, mas o superficial sim. Um moccha legal custa € 4.00. Um litro de leite ou comida basica sai  bem barato.

Em cambio os amantes da natureza se dao muito bem aqui. Ha muita devocao as atividades outdoors. As loja especializadas em hunting, fishing and camping sao um show. Da para ficar namorando os equipamentos por horas. E o melhor, ao inves de ser violentado por algum maniaco drogado, o maximo que pode acontecer he ser atacado por um urso faminto.

Se voce gosta de dar umas pedaladas, fique no Brasil. O clima he hostil 9 meses por ano, ate para eles. As cidades sao totalmente preparadas para ciclistas e pedestres e somente um jumento do terceiro mundo para usar buzina aqui. Bicicletas sao parte do cotidiano ha decadas. Muitos pedalam simplesmente por consciencia ambiental. Seria melhor para o ambiente que nao jogassem fora tanta comida. Li no Helsinki Times que o que se joga (TAMBEM AQUI) de comida he equivalente ao estrago de 200 mil carros por ano.

Metro, bonde, onibus. Em qualquer quadra passa algum. Ter carro para que?

Deixo a Finlandia com o gosto de ter conhecido o mundo quase perfeito. E ja fui ao Canada, Alemanha varias vezes. O que pensava ser primeiro mundo nao era novidade, ate experimentar aqui.

Ao chegar na Russia me deparei com .... o Brasil!! Mas isso fica para mais para frente.





Sunday, April 29, 2012

Dica Facil P/ Viver Mais e Melhor

Ok, esse blog he para ser sobre vinhos principalmente, mas as vezes abro excecoes para bem viver e saude. Artigo curto que saiu no NYT ha poucos dias. Enjoy.


Don’t Just Sit There

ONE lesson I’ve learned while writing about fitness is that few things impinge on an active life as much as writing about fitness — all that time spent hunched before a computer or puzzling over scientific journals, the countless hours of feckless, seated procrastination. While writing about the benefits of exercise, my muscles slackened. Fat seeped insidiously into my blood, liver and ventricles. Stupor infiltrated my brain.
We all know by now that being inactive is unhealthy. But far too many of us think that being inactive is something that happens to other people.
Studies of daily movement patterns, though, show that your typical modern exerciser, even someone who runs, subsequently sits for hours afterward, often moving less over all than on days when he or she does not work out.
The health consequences are swift, pervasive and punishing. In a noteworthy recent experiment conducted by scientists at the University of Massachusetts and other institutions, a group of healthy young men donned a clunky platform shoe with a 4-inch heel on their right foot, leaving the left leg to dangle above the ground. For two days, the men hopped about using crutches (and presumably gained some respect for those people who regularly toddle about in platform heels). Each man’s left leg never touched the ground. Its muscles didn’t contract. It was fully sedentary.
After two days, the scientists biopsied muscles in both legs and found multiple genes now being expressed differently in each man’s two legs. Gene activity in the left leg suggested that DNA repair mechanisms had been disrupted, insulin response was dropping, oxidative stress was rising, and metabolic activity within individual muscle cells was slowing after only 48 hours of inactivity.
In similar experiments with lab animals, casts have been placed on their back legs, after which the animals rapidly developed noxious cellular changes throughout their bodies, and not merely in the immobilized muscles. In particular, they produced substantially less of an enzyme that dissolves fat in the bloodstream. As a result, in animals and humans, fat can accumulate and migrate to the heart or liver, potentially leading to cardiac disease and diabetes.
To see the results of such inactivity, scientists with the National Cancer Institute spent eight years following almost 250,000 American adults. The participants answered detailed questions about how much time they spent commuting, watching TV, sitting before a computer and exercising, as well as about their general health. At the start of the study, none suffered from heart disease, cancer or diabetes.
But after eight years, many were ill and quite a few had died. The sick and deceased were also in most cases sedentary. Those who watched TV for seven or more hours a day proved to have a much higher risk of premature death than those who sat in front of the television less often. (Television viewing is a widely used measure of sedentary time.)
Exercise only slightly lessened the health risks of sitting. People in the study who exercised for seven hours or more a week but spent at least seven hours a day in front of the television were more likely to die prematurely than the small group who worked out seven hours a week and watched less than an hour of TV a day.
If those numbers seem abstract, consider a blunt new Australian study. In it, researchers determined that watching an hour of television can snip 22 minutes from someone’s life. If an average man watched no TV in his adult life, the authors concluded, his life span might be 1.8 years longer, and a TV-less woman might live for a year and half longer than otherwise.
So I canceled our cable, leaving my 14-year-old son staggered. I’d deprived him of his favorite shows on The Food Network, a channel that, combined with sitting, explains much about the American waistline. (Thankfully, my son is blessed with his father’s lanky, string-bean physique.)
I also conduct more of my daily business upright. In an inspiring study being published next month in Diabetes Care, scientists at the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, had 19 adults sit completely still for seven hours or, on a separate day, rise every 20 minutes and walk leisurely on a treadmill (handily situated next to their chairs) for two minutes. On another day, they had the volunteers jog gently during their two-minute breaks.
When the volunteers remained stationary for the full seven hours, their blood sugar spiked and insulin levels were out of whack. But when they broke up the hours with movement, even that short two-minute stroll, their blood sugar levels remained stable. Interestingly, the jogging didn’t improve blood sugar regulation any more than standing and walking did. What was important, the scientists concluded, was simply breaking up the long, interminable hours of sitting.
Equally beguiling, at least for me, since I’m shallow, were results from experiments at the University of Massachusetts showing that when volunteers stood all day — nothing else; no walking or jogging; just standing — they burned hundreds more calories than when they sat for the same period of time.
So every 20 minutes or so, I now rise. I don’t have a desk treadmill; my office is too small, and my budget too slim. But I prop my papers on a music stand and read standing up. I prowl my office while I talk on the phone. (I also stand on one foot when I brush my teeth at night, which has little to do with reducing inactivity but may be one of the more transformative actions I’ve picked up from researching fitness. My balance and physical confidence have improved, and my husband is consistently amused, which is not a bad foundation for marital health.)
I run for three or four miles most days, too, and grunt through 20 push-ups most mornings. There are health and fitness benefits from endurance and weight training that standing up can’t match. In particular, aerobic workouts have been shown to improve brainpower, and I shudder to imagine the state of my memory if I didn’t run. But I’m not planning any marathons (been there, done that, walked down stairs backward for days). I want foundational health. I want my insulin levels in check and my fat-fighting enzymes robust. I have plans for those extra 18 months of life span that not sitting might provide.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Dica Cultural

Dica boa, barata e util: Museu da lingua portuguesa, em SP, capital. Aproveite o feriadao e va la.


Gostei e volto novamente la em breve. Bonus: Ha boa comida na regiao. Eu gosto do Acropole. Quem nunca foi deveria ir.



Friday, April 27, 2012

Salvaguardas Escandinavas? Only In Dreams

Enquanto leio os jornais locais (sim, a noticia he a mesma que chega no Brasil, mas ha um gosto diferente de ler aqui) que relatam que a Nokia, outrora orgulho nacional, derrete, perdendo mercado e receita para concorrentes me lembrei dos incompetentes grandes produtores de "vinho" da serra.

E boa parte da economia do pais gira em torno da Nokia.

Alguem sabe, ouviu,  escutou se a Nokia fez algum pedido junto ao governo para obter salvaguardas contra a Samsung, a Apple ou sei la mais quem?

Salvaguarda continua sendo a muleta dos incompetentes e populistas. Sejam de onde forem.

Vou ver como estao minhas acoes da Repsol na Argentina. Faz tempo que nao leio nada sobre la....




Thursday, April 26, 2012

Duty Free. Nao Custa Avisar

Comprås em Duty Free. Armadilhas famosas. A mais importante he achar que somente porque o produto seja livre de impostos ele esta com preco melhor. A outra coiså he realmente se perguntar se precisa de tudo que esta ali.

Pelo que tenho öbservadö por åi, os vendedores carregam sem piedade no preco e o trouxa-turistä acha que esta fazendo bom negocio.

De memoria recente os duty frees do mundo que mais inflam os precos sao os de Gårulhos (nossa, que surpresa), Päris e Löndön.



Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Temporada de Aspargos Brancos na Europa

Quando era crianca pequena em Barbacena me lembro de um restaurante frances em Campinas que tinha pratos com aspargos brancos. Deliciosos. Letroquet ou sei la o que era o nome do tal restaurante. Campinas naquela epoca tinha esse mais o Rosario. Ah, cantina Alema tambem, que ao que me consta ficou com o Luis, antigo garcom de la.

Aqui na Europa ha aspargos brancos ja ha um mes. Quem puder, coma-os. Experiencia unica.

Vinho recomendado para aspargos brancos? Depende do prato, claro. Mas eu fico com um mega espumante ou algum branco barricado. Os sapos franceses costumam prepara-los com manteiga (ah nao, jura?). Manteiga DOC... com algum gosto de hazelnut.

Se sobrar um tempo falarei de carne de urso e de rena.




Euronews

Por que insisto nesse assunto nesse espaco? Porque quando a coisa chegar ao ventilador sobrara para todos. O autor do artigo tem um livro recentemente publicado que he um show (ver final do post). Kiitos.

A euro parable: the couple with a joint account

Perhaps the following parable is not entirely fair to the euro, but nevertheless the parallels seem striking.
Consider a young couple who is contemplating marriage, but unsure whether to take the big step. So instead they decide to test things out by opening a joint bank account. At first things go remarkably smoothly. Heady with success, they get the inspiration of extending the arrangement to her brother and his sister. Not only do they hope to show their siblings how well they can cooperate, but with four people, the total size of the account reaches the critical threshold needed to receive exorbitant privileges normally accorded to the bank’s larger customers.

Thanks to a cleverly designed constraint to limit imbalances between each sibling’s contributions and withdrawals, the innovative experiment continues to flourish. There is no real enforcement mechanism, but the two sets of siblings are determined to make the arrangement succeed. Forced to interact routinely, the couple and their siblings start becoming closer. They even start having dinners together on a routine basis.
Eventually, the quartet decides that dinners will be even more fun, and the bank will give them an even better deal, if they expand the arrangement. So the siblings persuade a few cousins to join. Pretty soon, their phones are ringing off the hook with family members they have not seen in years. Cousin Kendra, a marginally employed chef with precarious finances, is nevertheless welcomed in hopes she will employ her culinary skills to enrich group meals.

Life is not without its problems. Everyone is irritated at first cousin Nigel, who lives just across the river yet insists on managing his own finances. He is still invited to meals, though his cooking skills are hardly up to Cousin Kendra’s. She, in turn, exhibits little enthusiasm for balancing her chequebook, and the bank sends ever more frequent warnings that her overdrafts would have to be covered by the others. Shortly after joining, a couple other cousins have taken advantage of their new prime customer bank status to buy extravagant apartments with jumbo loans at far lower interest rates than they were ever afforded in the past.

The whole complex scheme seems to survive against all odds until one day things suddenly start to collapse. Despite informal personal imbalance limits, several cousins significantly overdraw their accounts. Others fall behind on mortgage repayments. Panicked, the founding siblings ask themselves whether it might be best simply to kick out the group’s worst behaving members. Unfortunately, the bank informs them this will be very difficult to do without first closing the entire account, wreaking havoc with everyone's finances.

Desperate, the family brings in a well-regarded outside financial advisor. She comes up with the seemingly brilliant idea of a joint credit card, with payments guaranteed unconditionally by all, including the wealthiest cousins. This would allow the impecunious members to pay off bad cheques and mortgages, effectively borrowing against the resources of the others. And it wouldn’t be a gift, the advisor promised. Borrowers would pledge to skip meals. Any savings on ingredients would be used to make loan repayments. This works for a while until cousin Kendra starts to look pale from her diet. She begins missing work and the imbalance between her occasional deposits and frequent withdrawals gets worse. The richest cousins soon find they have to mortgage their houses in order to pledge enough cash to the bank to prevent an immediate collapse.

Of course, this grand experiment ends catastrophically. I will have to leave the reader in suspense as to whether the couple gets married. No doubt, in the film version of this parable, the studio would tape alternate endings and test which one sample audiences liked best.

Perhaps the parable overstates the risks fully independent countries face when sharing the same currency, but then again, maybe not by so much.
Economists have long understood that significant labour mobility is not nearly enough, A sustainable currency union requires other country-like features including a centralised fiscal authority that has as at least as much power to collect taxes as the constituent states. A central financial regulator is also essential, at least absent an adequate global regulator. And the centre cannot be endowed with so much power without the legitimacy that can only come from political union. Currency union without political union is an unstable halfway house.

This is not to say that a future United States of Europe, or part of Europe, needs to take any particular narrowly defined form. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for marriages or currency unions, although a loose bond that is easily broken is obviously not enough.

The real lesson of the euro’s grand experiment is that, given the weak state of global governance, the optimal single currency area is probably still a country, at least when two or more large countries are involved. A pre-nuptial joint bank account is a very unstable route to marriage.
The writer is professor of economics at Harvard University and co-author of “This Time is Different”

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Custo Brasil? Tinha Que Ser Isso Mesmo??

Enquanto dou varias caminhadas pela Finlandia para ver se consigo um status de refugiado politico, me deparo com restaurantes de fino trato, conceito pelo caminho.

Helsinki, mind you, he uma cidade considerada cara na Europa. Nao mais que Oslo, mas ainda assim acima dos padroes Ibericos ou Italicos (falei bonito). Mas, para o meu lindo desgosto, o custo de vida ainda fica abaixo dos de SP, RJ, DF e vizinhanca.

Num restaurante indicado pelo guia Michelin pode se comer bem por € 40,00. Pensa onde se come bem mesmo no Brasil por esse preco.

He sempre a mesma conversa.

A carga tributaria em bebida alcoolica aqui he uma tonelada. E nao he que vinhos que vem da Argentina, Australia e cia. tem precos decentes?

Tai, post numero 4,564,238,505 falando dos precos ridiculos do Brasil.
Que tal boicotar (faco isso ha tempos) esses picaretas que ganham um absurdo em cima do seu dinheiro?


Monday, April 23, 2012

Destinos: Estonia


Diario FORA de bordo.

Estimados: De tempos em tempos surgem umas viagens que nao esperavamos fazer jamais na vida. A ultra simpatica republica do Baltico Estonia possui muita historia. Aqui nao terei como escrever tudo, mas alguma coisa ja serve.

Pessoas: Todos falam no minimo russo, estonian e ingles (tambem aprendem deutsche na escola). Educacao escolar he um direito e dever de todos. Sao muito hospitaleiros e comunicativos. As mulheres dariam otimas atrizes porno. Aquela turma loira com curvas nos lugares certos. O alfabeto he romano e menos complicado que o finlandes. Pedestres e ciclistas tem preferencia.


Comida: Saudavel, colorida, gostosa e barata. Por meros 15.00 Eur qualquer um come feito louco em Tallinna (Tallinn em ingles). Ha otimos cafes de varias partes do mundo. Tomei um de El Salvador (altitude) que esta bem correto. Nao entrei no McDonalds e nao achei nenhum TGIs Friday. Lo siento.



Sopa de salmao com salsa, celery, tomate cereja, cebola. Com o pao local e quente ficou deliciosa.

Salmao grelhado com torta de massa folhada de couve-flor, aspargos, rabanete e tomate. Incrivel de bom. 
Porgu Restaurante. Lembitu Ou
Ruutli 4.

Uma coisa interessante que vi foi chocolate com alho, com propolis ou com polen. Segundo a menina ha muita preocupacao com a saude. O clima nao coopera muito. Por isso se cuidam. 



Cenario: Old Town he a parte em Tallinna que interessa ao turista. Pedacos medievais misturados com alguma coisa moderna. Tudo muito perto, bonito e interessante. As ruas sao bem limpas. Carros bem caros e modernos sao faceis de serem vistos. Todos respeitam pedestres e ciclistas. Jao sao civilizados ha tempos. Old Town he patrimonio historico da UNESCO.





Igreja que foi construida de lado. Nao sei porque.


Como chegar: So pegar um mega barco em Helsing ou Stockholm que chega rapidinho la. 2 horas para cruzar o mar Baltico. Por 40.00 EUR se faz um round-trip. Compre pela internet. Eu peguei a Silja line.


Clima horrivel de manha. Nada de sol e muito frio.
http://www.tallinksilja.com/

Na parte cultural ha varios pequenos museus na cidade. O mais legal se chama museu da ocupacao. O ressentimento contra a invasao sovietica jamais sera apagado. Foi no minimo de pessimo gosto o que os russos fizeram la. Deportacoes forcadas, bombardeios, violencia pura. URSS nao deixou nenhuma saudades. E ainda ha jumentos que defendem essas ditaduras expansionistas violentas e autoritarias.

Bebidas: Se voce gosta de vinho de morango, framboesa, cassis, ou cereja, o Baltico he a regiao perfeita para voce. Na secao de vinhos eu vi todos os "maravilhosos" vinhos que em qualquer boteco sao vistos no Brasil. Gato negro, tarapaca, concha y toro, simmonsig, robertson's, santa carolina, casillero, pio cesare, escudo rojo, marques daquilo, marques disso, os argentinos de sempre, os lambruscos da vida....


Garrafa de vinho em forma de gatinho. Vinho deve ser delicioso.
Tudo de bebidas para os desesperados de plantao. Bons precos, mas uma selecao bem fraquinha. Indicado para quem esta comecando, mesmo, nos vinhos.


Foi dificil achar vinho bom. Fui acha-los numa loja de um portugues do Douro que so vendia vinho portugues. Mas ainda assim nada sofisticado.

Tallinna tem precos MUUUUUUITO melhores que na Finlandia. Muitos pegam o "barco" para comprar alcool e tabaco. Para os desesperados em fazer compras, compensa pegar o barco  e ir ate a Estonia. Mas os outlets nao iguais aos da Florida. Sorry.

Resumo: Grande pequena cidade, moderna, com resquicios dos sovieticos em alguns predios. Muita cultura, muito primeiro mundo. Vale a pena passar um dia la.


Friday, April 20, 2012

Os Tatuados Bebem Mais. Que Perola Da Ciencia

Oh Gawd....

Published: 04/16/2012 04:22 PM EDT on MyHealthNewsDaily
People with tattoos drink more than their tattoo-less peers, a new study from France suggests.
The researchers asked nearly 3,000 young men and women as they were exiting bars on a Saturday night if they would take a breathalyzer test. Of those who agreed to take it, the researchers found that people with tattoos had consumed more alcohol than those without tattoos, the researchers said.
Previous studies have shown that tattooed individuals are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, such as unprotected sex, theft, violence and alcohol consumption, compared to people without tattoos.
The researchers suggest educators, parents and physicians consider tattoos and piercings as potential "markers" of drinking, using them to begin a conversation about alcohol consumption and other risky behaviors.
However, doctors should not stereotype individuals with tattoos as heavy drinkers, the researchers cautioned.
Clinicians should spend time "talking to them about safe tattooing, etc., and alcohol in general … not because they have tattoos or piercings but because they are in a high-risk age group," Myrna Armstrong, Professor Emerita at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, who was not involved in the study, said in a statement.
Previous studies have also shown those with only one tattoo have similar alcohol consumption habits as those with no tattoos, while those with seven or more tattoos are more likely to fall into the "high risk" group, Armstrong said.
The study is published in the July issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Pass it on:  People with tattoos drink more alcohol than people without tattoos, according to a study in France.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Pausa Para Ferias

Esse ano infelizmente nao terei a honra de ver gente bebada atacando vinhos na expovinis como se o mundo fosse acabar em 5 minutos. Perderei a chance de ver a maior concentracao de picaretas e gente que vive com "projetos quase prontos". Que pena.


Esse blog[ger] sai de ferias hoje. Consegui com que uma empresa patrocinasse minha viagem. A minha propria!


Esperem nada de Ipad e calcas jeans na mala. Ecate.













Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Blog JR Acompanha a Crise Europeia De Perto

Uma visao otimista que ja seria ruim normalmente. Ouch!
Um contraponto a visao do Krugman.



E acompanho de perto essa eca porque a hora que for para o ventilador eu quero estar longe dele....




April 17, 2012 7:57 pm

Why the eurozone may yet survive

Pinn illustration
“If the sovereignty of the Union were to engage in a struggle with that of the States at the present day, its defeat may be confidently predicted; and it is not probable that such a struggle would be seriously undertaken ... If one of the States chose to withdraw its name from the contract, it would be difficult to disprove its right of doing so; and the Federal Government would have no means of maintaining its claims directly, either by force or by right.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, author of these words on the prospects for the US, was the shrewdest foreign observer of that country. Yet he failed to foresee the outcome of a civil war. Similarly, over the 10 days that I have spent in the US, I have found that informed Americans believe the eurozone will not survive. That is because they view it as a marriage of economic convenience, as de Tocqueville viewed the US as a marriage of political convenience.

More

ON THIS STORY

MARTIN WOLF

The parallel is inexact, but illuminating. It is inexact, because the eurozone is no country. If it were, the economic stresses to which it is subject would be easy to handle. It is illuminating, because it shows that the survival of any political construct depends on the strength of the centrifugal and centripetal forces at work. In the case of the US, the former were sufficient to persuade the Confederacy to undertake secession, but the latter were sufficient to defeat that attempt.
What, then, can we say of the forces at work on the eurozone?
The centrifugal economic forces are all too painfully clear.
First, since the eurozone is a monetary union, without fiscal backups, the pressure of adjustment falls on notoriously inflexible labour markets. Since the agreed objective is low inflation, that means downward pressure on nominal wages. That entails soaring unemployment, collapsing economies and debt deflation (see charts).
Second, the birth of the euro coincided with a global credit boom. The convergence of interest rates consequent upon its creation was reinforced by the disappearance of risk spreads. The result was a surge in cross-border lending to both private and public sectors, reduced pressure for fiscal consolidation in high-debt countries (such as Italy), and the emergence of huge payments imbalances and divergences in competitiveness. Then came the financial shocks, which brought “sudden stops” in lending, a collapse in private borrowing and spending, and a wave of fiscal crises.
Third, in such a crisis, the eurozone had no effective way to sustain banking systems, finance countries in trouble or secure adjustment by creditor and debtor economies. We see improvisation instead: the eurozone’s aircraft is being redesigned while crashing.
Now consider the centrifugal political forces. I would list two.
First, solidarity remains largely national. Remember these are the most generous welfare states in the world. Yet the provision of relatively modest cross-border financing, to help economies in difficulty, has proved extremely difficult. This is why the European Central Bank has de facto emerged as the principal cross-border financier (see chart).
Second, power rests in member states. In the case of the euro, power is concentrated in the hands of Germany, the largest creditor country. This makes the eurozone function, politically, like a multi-country arrangement, not a country. Germans understood this problem at inception. The French often did not.
Last, consider the ideas. The most important centrifugal force is the wide disagreement on what has gone wrong and how to put it right. In particular, the dominant German view is that the crisis reflects fiscal indiscipline. Others insist (rightly) that the core problem was excessive lending, divergent competitiveness and external imbalances.
This disagreement matters because adjustments cannot merely be imposed. Given the exit option, they have to be negotiated. In such a negotiation, creditor nations must understand their role in the crisis. If they wish to preserve their surpluses, they must finance their borrowers. If they wish to be repaid, they must move towards deficit. The two sides – finance and trade – have to be brought into alignment.
Are these centrifugal forces powerful enough to break the system? To give an answer, one must also examine the centripetal forces.
The principal economic force now keeping the system together is fear of a break-up. An additional justification for the union, in crisis-hit countries, is the useful pressure for reform. Many believe the single currency offers a positive long-run economic pay-off, though that view has to be tempered by the costs of coping with crises and the reduction in cross-border financial integration.
The principal political force is the commitment to the ideal of an integrated Europe, along with the huge investment of the elite in that project. This enormously important motivation is often underestimated by outsiders. While the eurozone is not a country, it is much more than a currency union. For Germany, much the most important member, the eurozone is the capstone of a process of integration with its neighbours that has helped bring stability and prosperity after the disasters of the first half of the 20th century. The stakes for important member countries are huge.
Thus, the big idea that brings members together is that of their place within Europe and the world. The political elites of member states and much of their population continue to believe in the postwar agenda, if not as passionately as before. In more narrowly economic terms, few believe that currency flexibility would help. Many continue to believe that devaluations would merely generate higher inflation.
If this were a mere marriage of convenience, a messy divorce would seem probable. But it is far more than such a marriage, even if it will remain far less than a federal union. Outsiders should not underestimate the strength of the will behind it.
The most likely outcome – though far from a certainty – is compromise between Germanic ideas and a messy European reality. The support for countries in difficulty will grow. German inflation will rise and its external surpluses fall. Adjustment will occur. The marriage will be far too miserable. But it can endure.

Inacreditivel. Boa Noticia Vinda de Brasilia


Unificação do ICMS sobre importados vai com urgência para o Plenário
17/04/2012 - 15h07 Comissões - Assuntos Econômicos - Atualizado em 17/04/2012 - 15h22
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Da Redação
[quem importa via S.P. e ainda tem que mandar vinhos para outros estados onde ha S.T. sabe bem o quanto sofremos]
A Comissão de Assuntos Econômicos (CAE) aprovou às 15h desta terça-feira (17) projeto de resolução do Senado (PRS 72/2010) que unifica as alíquotas interestaduais do Imposto sobre Circulação de Mercadorias e Serviços (ICMS) de produtos importados. A proposta, que visa acabar com a chamada “guerra dos portos”, vai agora ao exame do Plenário em regime de urgência.
A decisão da CAE contrariou a posição de governadores de estados que se sentem prejudicados, como os de Santa Catarina, Raimundo Colombo, e do Espírito Santo, Renato Casagrande, que acompanharam a votação. Também presente, o vice-governador de Goiás, José Eliton Figueiredo, alertou para o impacto que será sofrido por seu estado e pela cidade de Anápolis (GO), que sedia um porto seco.
Os senadores de Espírito Santo, Santa Catarina e Goiás ainda tentaram adiar a votação. Com uma questão de ordem, Ricardo Ferraço (PMDB-ES) pediu a devolução da matéria para a CCJ, sob alegação de que o substitutivo em exame era diferente da proposta original examinada pela comissão encarregada da analisar a constitucionalidade das matérias.
Com a rejeição da questão de ordem, a CAE começou uma discussão prolongada da matéria, que só se encerrou às 15h. O debate foi marcado por manifestações de governadores e senadores favoráveis a uma transição na aplicação das regras. O relator da proposta, senador Eduardo Braga (PMDB-AM), explicou que a unificação das alíquotas só começará a ser aplicada em janeiro de 2013.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

A Situacao Na Europa

Como ja reparei que os leitores desse espaco se preocupam mais com o mundo do que com a proxima boca livre, coloco mais um artigo bem profundo e preocupante do Paul Krugman sobre a Europa. Deveriamos ignorar a verdade e viver a vida ou esperar pelo que esta se formando la?


Europe’s Economic Suicide

On Saturday The Times reported on an apparently growing phenomenon in Europe: “suicide by economic crisis,” people taking their own lives in despair over unemployment and business failure. It was a heartbreaking story. But I’m sure I wasn’t the only reader, especially among economists, wondering if the larger story isn’t so much about individuals as about the apparent determination of European leaders to commit economic suicide for the Continent as a whole.
Just a few months ago I was feeling some hope about Europe. You may recall that late last fall Europe appeared to be on the verge of financial meltdown; but the European Central Bank, Europe’s counterpart to the Fed, came to the Continent’s rescue. It offered Europe’s banks open-ended credit lines as long as they put up the bonds of European governments as collateral; this directly supported the banks and indirectly supported the governments, and put an end to the panic.
The question then was whether this brave and effective action would be the start of a broader rethink, whether European leaders would use the breathing space the bank had created to reconsider the policies that brought matters to a head in the first place.
But they didn’t. Instead, they doubled down on their failed policies and ideas. And it’s getting harder and harder to believe that anything will get them to change course.
Consider the state of affairs in Spain, which is now the epicenter of the crisis. Never mind talk of recession; Spain is in full-on depression, with the overall unemployment rate at 23.6 percent, comparable to America at the depths of the Great Depression, and the youth unemployment rate over 50 percent. This can’t go on — and the realization that it can’t go on is what is sending Spanish borrowing costs ever higher.
In a way, it doesn’t really matter how Spain got to this point — but for what it’s worth, the Spanish story bears no resemblance to the morality tales so popular among European officials, especially in Germany. Spain wasn’t fiscally profligate — on the eve of the crisis it had low debt and a budget surplus. Unfortunately, it also had an enormous housing bubble, a bubble made possible in large part by huge loans from German banks to their Spanish counterparts. When the bubble burst, the Spanish economy was left high and dry; Spain’s fiscal problems are a consequence of its depression, not its cause.
Nonetheless, the prescription coming from Berlin and Frankfurt is, you guessed it, even more fiscal austerity.
This is, not to mince words, just insane. Europe has had several years of experience with harsh austerity programs, and the results are exactly what students of history told you would happen: such programs push depressed economies even deeper into depression. And because investors look at the state of a nation’s economy when assessing its ability to repay debt, austerity programs haven’t even worked as a way to reduce borrowing costs.
What is the alternative? Well, in the 1930s — an era that modern Europe is starting to replicate in ever more faithful detail — the essential condition for recovery was exit from the gold standard. The equivalent move now would be exit from the euro, and restoration of national currencies. You may say that this is inconceivable, and it would indeed be a hugely disruptive event both economically and politically. But continuing on the present course, imposing ever-harsher austerity on countries that are already suffering Depression-era unemployment, is what’s truly inconceivable.
So if European leaders really wanted to save the euro they would be looking for an alternative course. And the shape of such an alternative is actually fairly clear. The Continent needs more expansionary monetary policies, in the form of a willingness — an announced willingness — on the part of the European Central Bank to accept somewhat higher inflation; it needs more expansionary fiscal policies, in the form of budgets in Germany that offset austerity in Spain and other troubled nations around the Continent’s periphery, rather than reinforcing it. Even with such policies, the peripheral nations would face years of hard times. But at least there would be some hope of recovery.
What we’re actually seeing, however, is complete inflexibility. In March, European leaders signed a fiscal pact that in effect locks in fiscal austerity as the response to any and all problems. Meanwhile, key officials at the central bank are making a point of emphasizing the bank’s willingness to raise rates at the slightest hint of higher inflation.
So it’s hard to avoid a sense of despair. Rather than admit that they’ve been wrong, European leaders seem determined to drive their economy — and their society — off a cliff. And the whole world will pay the price.

Quebra-Quebra De Importadoras Continua. Capitulo XXXV


Esqueça o que você sabe do mercado. Em poucos meses tudo estará mudado. Continua a quebradeira num ritmo forte de importadoras, vários representantes estão mudando de ramo e há um número grande de lojas sócias do IBAMA, do Bradesco, do Itau... criando papagaios.

O motivo? Same ol´, same ol´....excesso de rótulos, excesso de empresas para uma base de consumidores ainda pequena. 


Ano passado 90 importadoras foi para o beleleu. Esse ano umas 150. Voce duvida? Entao espera. Ha muita importadora de vinho por ai.

E com novas imposições burocráticas está mais e mais difícil (e caro) importar vinhos.

2012 será o melhor ano da historia para se comprar vinhos. Ao menos no atacado. Os consumidores vão continuar a pagar a mesma coisa. #trouxas. 


Monday, April 16, 2012

Produtores De Whisky Da Serra Gaucha Pedem Salvaguardas Contra o Importado

Numa surpreendente manobra, os produtores gauchos de whiskey prometem entrar com uma representacao na WTO contra os whiskeys escoceses e irlandeses. A noticia tem a ver com o artigo abaixo. 


16/04/2012 - 07h00

Uísque vira 'luxo acessível' para nova classe média

Maria Carolina Abe
Do UOL, em São Paulo
O aumento de renda dos brasileiros somado à disseminação de drinques feitos com uísque foi a receita certa para impulsionar o consumo do destilado no Brasil. As empresas responsáveis pela importação e distribuição de uísque comemoram os bons resultados e apostam em um potencial de crescer ainda mais, com a bebida virando um "luxo acessível". 
“Os fatores que estão influenciando esse cenário são o crescimento econômico do país, o crescimento da classe C e também a cultura de drinques com uísques, que vem se disseminando”, afirma Colin Kavanagh, diretor de marketing da Pernod Ricard Brasil. A multinacional francesa é responsável por marcas como Chivas, Teacher´s, Natu Nobilis e Ballantine’s.
Em 2011, a Pernod Ricard - registrou um crescimento de 40% no Brasil com suas principais marcas internacionais.

Fabricação do uísque escocês

Foto 4 de 29 - As exportações de uísque escocês bateram um novo recorde em 2011 e o mercado que mais cresceu, em termos de valor e de volume, foi o brasileiro. Na foto, especialista observa uma dose de uísque Divulgação/Scotch Whisky Association
O brasileiro está consumindo bebidas mais caras, segundo a Diageo, responsável pela marca Johnnie Walker, entre outras. A marca cresceu 30% no país no último ano fiscal e o Brasil foi o mercado que apresentou o maior crescimento para o uísque Johnnie Walker Red Label no mundo. 
A marca Ballatine’s registrou crescimento de 24%. Já a Chivas (entre R$ 100 e R$ 1.400) teve alta de 42% nas vendas por aqui.
A bebida “está na moda” e é um “símbolo de status”, diz a gerente de comunicação da  Scotch Whisky Association (Associação de Uísque Escocês), Rosemary Gallagher.