CONTRA EL PINGALISMO CASTRISTA/
"Se que no existe el consuelo
que no existe
la anhelada tierrra de mis suenos
ni la desgarrada vision de nuestros heroes.
Pero
te seguimos buscando, patria,..." - Reinaldo Arenas
The world faces a chocolate ‘drought’ over the next few years, an expert warned yesterday.
Political unrest in the Ivory Coast, where 40 per cent of the world’s cocoa beans are grown, has ‘significantly’ depleted the number of certified fair trade cocoa farmers.
Many have fled the West African country, while fair trade training programmes have also come to a halt.
Fairtrade training programmes have ground to a halt because of the danger farmers face in rural areas.
The situation is already affecting chocolate manufacturers, who are facing the highest cocoa prices for over 30 years.
Prices jumped by 10 per cent this month alone. Analysts are predicting they could soon hit $3,720 per metric tonne - a level last seen in January 1979.
It follows a curb on international cocoa exports initiated earlier this week by the country's new president, Alassane Ouattara.
Angus Kennedy, the editor of Kennedy's Confection and a leading British chocolatier, said chocolate producers are facing 'one of the biggest challenges to hit the industry in recent history'.
'Supplies of sustainable cocoa are set to run out, it's that simple,' he said.
'The Ivory Coast is a complete no-go area for cocoa traders as it's too dangerous, so training new farmers and trying to cut problems in the region is now, mostly impossible.
'So in effect, its sustainability is not sustainable. Prices can't go up as it's reported because there basically isn't enough certified cocoa left to sell.'
Of the world's 5.5 million cocoa farmers, only 10 per cent have been trained and certified as sustainable fair-trade producers.
The certification is granted by specially-trained teachers, and the course runs for up to three years.
But the political turmoil in Ivory Coast means both the farmers and trainers are fleeing the country, leaving a severe shortage of certified cocoa beans.
Even if the political situation improves, it could take three years or more for the number of certified fair-trade farmers to reach its former level.
According to Mr Kennedy, manufacturers are now fighting for the rest of the world's sustainable cocoa bean stock.
'Things could get nasty now as producers start to fight over the last stocks,' he added.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - – The United States and China have agreed export deals worth $45 billion dollars on the margins of President Hu Jintao's US state visit, a senior Washington official said Wednesday.
"We will be announcing that $45 billion of US export deals have been concluded, supporting 235,000 US jobs," the official said.
The total includes deals worth $25 billion spread over 70 contracts and 12 US states and a massive contract for Boeing.
"The Chinese government will announce that it will approve the purchase of 200 Boeing aircraft, with an estimated value of $19 billion dollars," the official said.
Chinese businesses have descended on the United States to coincide with Hu's four-day visit, inking agreements with US titans Alcoa, General Electric, Honeywell, Westinghouse and Caterpillar.
The deals span sectors as diverse as agriculture, gasification, railways and hybrid buses.
An additional three billion dollars' worth of Chinese investment in the United States has also been announced.
Trade spats have complicated relations in recent years, with US officials and lawmakers appearing increasingly exasperated about cheap Chinese products flooding the US market.
Washington has complained that Beijing has kept the value of its currency artificially low to boost its exports, risking dangerous imbalances in the global economy.
But US officials on Wednesday tried to shift the focus onto the benefits of trade with China, namely Chinese investment in the United States and US exports to China.
Both presidents and expected to meet with US and Chinese chief executives later in the day to underscore that message.
"(The) US firms are some of the major firms that have been exporting products to China, and the Chinese firms that have invested in the United States and created jobs in the United States," the US official said.
Dave Altig at the Atlanta Fed weighs in on Martin Feldstein’s much-quoted paper arguing that the United States and China will soon reduce or eliminate their current account imbalances. I think it’s worth saying a bit more about this, because there’s a common fallacy here — not one Feldstein has fallen into, but which many others do. And talking about that fallacy is also a way to see why current yuan policy is a problem for the world.
So, start with the basic accounting rule, which says that a trade deficit means that a country is spending more than it earns. What Feldstein is saying is that with US consumers starting to save more, and possibly with Chinese consumers starting to save less, these underlying imbalances may be en route to dwindling or even disappearing. Not so sure about Chinese saving, but given that premise, OK.
The fallacy comes in when you say, “Well, given that it’s all about spending imbalances, exchange rate policy has nothing to do with it.” This is what John Williamson of the Institute for International Economics once dubbed the Doctrine of Immaculate Transfer. (Uh-oh, Erick Erickson’s gonna come after me …) It’s a popular fallacy, especially at the WSJ, although I’m not sure if it rises to zombie status.
Anyway, imagine for simplicity that America and China are the only two countries in the world. And imagine that as consumer habits change, American spending falls by $400 billion while Chinese spending rises by $400 billion. Trade imbalance gone, right?
No, it’s not that easy. If US residents cut spending by $400 billion, most of that reduction — say 75 percent — will come in reduced spending on US-produced goods and services (even that Chinese pair of pajamas you buy at WalMart has a lot of US value-added in distribution and retailing.) So that’s $300 billion in reduced demand for US output. Meanwhile, a much smaller fraction — say 15 percent — of that extra Chinese spending will fall on US goods. So we’re talking about, say, a $240 billion net fall in spending on US goods and services; correspondingly, we’re talking about a $240 billion rise in demand for Chinese goods and services.
If that’s the end of the story, then the spending shift produces a depressed economy in America and major inflationary pressures in China. What’s needed to make it come out right is something to make both American and Chinese consumers switch some of their spending toward American goods — something like a rise in the dollar value of the yuan, which makes Chinese goods relatively more expensive. So the redistribution of world spending and exchange rate adjustment are complements, not substitutes.
Now, what matters is the relative price of Chinese and American goods, so there’s another way to get there — a combination of inflation in China and deflation in America. But that’s unpleasant on both sides.
Worse, what if China tries to head off inflation by raising interest rates while America can’t reduce rates, since it’s already at the zero lower bound? Then the result is contractionary for the world as a whole.
Any resemblance between this story and actual characters is, of course, entirely intentional.
The point is that Feldstein’s argument, if correct — I’m not entirely sure about that — is actually an argument for yuan revaluation, not an argument that it won’t be necessary.
¨Saturno jugando con sus hijos¨/ Pedro Pablo Oliva
Seguidores
Carta desde la carcel de Fidel Castro Ruz
“…después de todo, para mí la cárcel es un buen descanso, que sólo tiene de malo el que es obligatorio. Leo mucho y estudio mucho. Parece increíble, las horas pasan como si fuesen minutos y yo, que soy de temperamento intranquilo, me paso el día leyendo, apenas sin moverme para nada. La correspondencia llega normalmente…”
“…Como soy cocinero, de vez en cuando me entretengo preparando algún pisto. Hace poco me mandó mi hermana desde Oriente un pequeño jamón y preparé un bisté con jalea de guayaba. También preparo spaghettis de vez en cuando, de distintas formas, inventadas todas por mí; o bien tortilla de queso. ¡Ah! ¡Qué bien me quedan! por supuesto, que el repertorio no se queda ahí. Cuelo también café que me queda muy sabroso”. “…En cuanto a fumar, en estos días pasados he estado rico: una caja de tabacos H. Upman del doctor Miró Cardona, dos cajas muy buenas de mi hermano Ramón….”. “Me voy a cenar: spaghettis con calamares, bombones italianos de postre, café acabadito de colar y después un H. Upman #4. ¿No me envidias?”. “…Me cuidan, me cuidan un poquito entre todos. No le hacen caso a uno, siempre estoy peleando para que no me manden nada. Cuando cojo el sol por la mañana en shorts y siento el aire de mar, me parece que estoy en una playa… ¡Me van a hacer creer que estoy de vacaciones! ¿Qué diría Carlos Marx de semejantes revolucionarios?”.
Quotes
¨La patria es dicha de todos, y dolor de todos, y cielo para todos, y no feudo ni capellanía de nadie¨ - Marti
"No temas ni a la prision, ni a la pobreza, ni a la muerte. Teme al miedo" - Giacomo Leopardi
¨Por eso es muy importante, Vicky, hijo mío, que recuerdes siempre para qué sirve la cabeza: para atravesar paredes¨– Halvar de Flake[El vikingo]
"Como no me he preocupado de nacer, no me preocupo de morir"- Lorca
"Al final, no os preguntarán qué habéis sabido, sino qué habéis hecho" - Jean de Gerson
"Si queremos que todo siga como está, es necesario que todo cambie" - Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
"Todo hombre paga su grandeza con muchas pequeñeces, su victoria con muchas derrotas, su riqueza con múltiples quiebras" - Giovanni Papini
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans" - John Lennon
"Habla bajo, lleva siempre un gran palo y llegarás lejos" - Proverbio Africano
"No hay medicina para el miedo"-Proverbio escoces "El supremo arte de la guerra es doblegar al enemigo sin luchar" -Sun Tzu
"You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother" - Albert Einstein
"It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office" - H. L. Menken
"I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented" -Elie Wiesel
"Stay hungry, stay foolish" - Steve Jobs
"If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert , in five years ther'ed be a shortage of sand" - Milton Friedman
"The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meaning of his own life, but that it bothers him less and less" - Vaclav Havel
"No se puede controlar el resultado, pero si lo que uno haga para alcanzarlo" - Vitor Belfort [MMA Fighter]
Liborio
A la puerta de la gloria está San Pedro sentado y ve llegar a su lado a un hombre de cierta historia. No consigue hacer memoria y le pregunta con celo: ¿Quién eras allá en el suelo? Era Liborio mi nombre. Has sufrido mucho, hombre, entra, te has ganado el cielo.
Para Raul Castro
Cuba ocupa el penultimo lugar en el mundo en libertad economica solo superada por Corea del Norte.
Cuba ocupa el lugar 147 entre 153 paises evaluados en "Democracia, Mercado y Transparencia 2007"
Cuando vinieron a buscar a los comunistas, Callé: yo no soy comunista. Cuando vinieron a buscar a los sindicalistas, Callé: yo no soy sindicalista. Cuando vinieron a buscar a los judíos, Callé: yo no soy judío. Cuando vinieron a buscar a los católicos, Callé: yo no soy “tan católico”. Cuando vinieron a buscarme a mí, Callé: no había quien me escuchara.
Un sitio donde los hechos y sus huellas nos conmueven o cautivan
CUBA LLORA Y EL MUNDO Y NOSOTROS NO ESCUCHAMOS
Donde esta el Mundo, donde los Democratas, donde los Liberales? El pueblo de Cuba llora y nadie escucha. Donde estan los Green, los Socialdemocratas, los Ricos y los Pobres, los Con Voz y Sin Voz? Cuba llora y nadie escucha. Donde estan el Jet Set, los Reyes y Principes, Patricios y Plebeyos? Cuba desesperada clama por solidaridad. Donde Bob Dylan, donde Martin Luther King, donde Hollywood y sus estrellas? Donde la Middle Class democrata y conservadora, o acaso tambien liberal a ratos? Y Gandhi? Y el Dios de Todos? Donde los Santos y Virgenes; los Dioses de Cristianos, Protestantes, Musulmanes, Budistas, Testigos de Jehova y Adventistas del Septimo Dia. Donde estan Ochun y todas las deidades del Panteon Yoruba que no acuden a nuestro llanto? Donde Juan Pablo II que no exige mas que Cuba se abra al Mundo y que el Mundo se abra a Cuba? Que hacen ahora mismo Alberto de Monaco y el Principe Felipe que no los escuchamos? Donde Madonna, donde Angelina Jolie y sus adoptados around de world; o nos hara falta un Brando erguido en un Oscar por Cuba? Donde Sean Penn? Donde esta la Aristocracia Obrera y los Obreros menos Aristocraticos, donde los Working Class que no estan junto a un pueblo que lanquidece, sufre y llora por la ignominia? Que hacen ahora mismo Zapatero y Rajoy que no los escuchamos, y Harper y Dion, e Hillary y Obama; donde McCain que no los escuchamos? Y los muertos? Y los que estan muriendo? Y los que van a morir? Y los que se lanzan desesperados al mar? Donde estan el minero cantabrico o el pescador de percebes gijonese? Los Canarios donde estan? A los africanos no los oimos, y a los australianos con su acento de hombres duros tampoco. Y aquellos chinos milenarios de Canton que fundaron raices eternas en la Isla? Y que de la Queen Elizabeth y los Lords y Gentlemen? Que hace ahora mismo el combativo Principe Harry que no lo escuchamos? Donde los Rockefellers? Donde los Duponts? Donde Kate Moss? Donde el Presidente de la ONU? Y Solana donde esta? Y los Generales y Doctores? Y los Lam y los Fabelo, y los Sivio y los Fito Paez? Y que de Canseco y Miñoso? Y de los veteranos de Bahia de Cochinos y de los balseros y de los recien llegados? Y Carlos Otero y Susana Perez? Y el Bola, y Pancho Cespedes? Y YO y TU? Y todos nosotros que estamos aqui y alla rumiando frustaciones y resquemores, envidias y sinsabores; autoelogios y nostalgias, en tanto Louis Michel comulga con Perez Roque mientras Biscet y una NACION lanquidecen? Donde Maceo, donde Marti; donde aquel Villena con su carga para matar bribones? Cuba llora y clama y el Mundo NO ESCUCHA!!!