www.emcena.com

Para os amantes de cinema um novo espaço onde se discute cinema, se podem ver as introduções promocionais dos filmes - trailers - , se podem ler as críticas, etc, etc.

Maior portal lusófono de cinema, uma comunidade entusiasta que não para de crescer!

www.emcena.com

benfica-belenenses: 4-0

Simão Sabrosa, Katsouranis (2 vezes) e ainda Fonseca (até que enfim...) marcaram os golos da robusta vitória sobre o Belenenses, na quinta-feira dia 21.12.2006.

O local ideal. flme francês

Belo filme em exibição nas salas portuguesas.

Primeiro a estranheza de estar tão pouca gente a assistir...

A tradução do título frances para portugues foi pessima: de pano de cena passámos para Local Ideal...o resto da legendagem no mesmo genero...

Mas uma notável estória de amor, tipo rapariga pobre encontra rapaz rico; pai rico desavindo faz as pazes com o filho; artista resolve abandonar o estrelato para se dedicar a sua arte na forma mais pura...

Recomendado vivamente

The Queen_ o filme: o meu comentário

Sou a comentar o filme "A Rainha":

1) O filme é sobre a morte de Diana Spencer, ex-princesa, e a perda de confiança do público (britânico, decerto, mas também mundial) na família real britânica.

2) Só isto, o que não sendo óbvio, não é pouco...

3) Freas (o realizador) tenta mostrar a família real como uma família normal, de carne e osso. Recorre ao sarcasmo, ao humor e a uma velada crítica.

4) Só o príncipe Carlos (e este apenas aparentemente) e a Rainha saem airosamente bem do filme. O príncipe Filipe e a princesa Ana são alvo de uma destruição de carácter ( o primeiro como tonto, adepto do protocolo e de hábitos anacrónicos - caça, por exemplo; a segunda como sendo hedonista e odiando Diana).

5) Carlos é apresentado como adepto da modernidade mas também como filho infiel que não hesita em trair a mãe para se por do lado da modernidade (Blair).

6) O papel atribuído a Blair corresponde ao senso comum deste como salvador, improvável, da sorte da família real. Algo exagerado, panegírico, na hora da despedida...
Note-se que tal como agora recusa ceder o seu lugar a Brown, chanceler do Tesouro (ministro das finanças), também à época não lhe atendeu o telefone em plena crise (mas atende todos os secretários da rainha ou do príncipe, o lorde encarregue do protocolo,...).

7) A Rainha

"O mais valioso activo da monarquia e uma dos mais valiosos de sempre", nas palavras da rainha-mãe nos jardins de Balmoral (uma das cenas do filme, quando mãe e filha passeiam juntas).

Uma velha senhora muito teimosa.Ciosa dos seus valores e pelos quais foi educada. Sacrificada em nome do Bem Comum. Uma mártir pelo povo britânico (veja-se a reacção de Blair ao seu chefe de staff).

Quando o Land Rover Defender parte a transmissão (metáfora da sucessão dinástica?) na travessia do ribeiro, ela olha por debaixo do veículo e exclama: gaita! (bugger!).

Uma figura maior que a vida, que a personagem da actriz Mirren tenta trazer, por vezes com sucesso, ao nível do comum dos mortais.

A forma como desculpa o seu comportamento, aparentemente frio e distante, com a reserva própria da educação que recebera e com o propósito de salvaguardar os netos...
Brilhante...

8) O filme é tendencialmente republicano, num tom que retira o sagrado da Família Real; mas desta forma retirando grande parte da sua razão de ser...

Ao mesmo tempo mostrando a Rainha como a única verdadeiramente especial e desvalorizando todos os demais... apela a um novo tipo de "monarquia": da sucessão dinástica para o monarca vitalício (mas não hereditário).

Depois de Isabel, não há verdadeiramente esperança.

Colecção Manuel Brito no Palácio Policarpo Anjos em Algés

Estive ontem a apreciar a colecção de Manuel Brito no Palácio Policarpo Anjos em Algés.

Algumas notas dignas de realce:

- Manuel Brito, recentemente falecido, foi o pioneiro dos galeristas portugueses, com a sua Galeria 111 ao Campo Grande;
- um espólio de várias centenas de peças, algumas das quais (apenas algumas) estão expostas no Palácio Anjos;
- fabuloso acervo de quadros de Júlio Pomar, Resende, Paula Rego, Graça Morais, alguma coisa de Mário Cesariny;
- também alguns dos mais novos talentos, profusamente representados;
- o Palácio mandando erigir pelo milionário Policarpo Anjos, no final de século XIX, magnificamente recuperado, ampliado e adaptado, para receber uma das maiores e melhores (a melhor?) colecção privada portuguesa da segunda metade do século XX e início do XXI.

O pormenor e a classe no restauro, os jardins que se integram harmoniosamente, valem também a visita.

Mifid: artigo no jornal OJE - o texto integral

A MiFID e a internacionalização do sector financeiro português

“MiFID will have a major impact on the way business is conducted”

Ian Mullen, CEO, British Bankers Association

As instâncias comunitárias estão em vias de finalizar a regulamentação de uma das mais importantes peças legislativas recentes, cujo impacto sobre o sector financeiro português será tudo menos dispiciendo. Desde a moeda única que jamais uma peça legislativa e regulatória impactou com tamanha profundidade sobre o sector dos serviços financeiros. Chama-se MiFID (Market in Financial Instruments Directive – 2004/39/CE de 21 Abril de 2004) e propõe-se dar o impulso final para a criação de um verdadeiro mercado único de serviços e produtos financeiros no espaço europeu, qual vanguarda de uma nova vaga de sobre-regulação sobre o Sector Financeiro.

Surge na esteira do Financial Services Act Plan (1999) e da Cimeira de Lisboa (2000) que realçaram a importância do mercado único dos serviços financeiros para a construção europeia. Rever, então, a Directiva original (Investment Services Directive de 1993), tornou-se um imperativo político.

Para o efeito, a MiFID intenta harmonizar as regras aplicáveis às entidades financeiras operantes na União, oferecendo aos investidores um maior grau de protecção que o actual. Assegurando a qualidade de execução das transacções dos investidores e impondo uma obrigação de “Melhor Execução” às instituições financeiras, aumentando a transparência do mercado de capitais. Visando remover as barreiras artificiais à circulação livre de todas as classes de activos europeus (incluindo derivativos).

A MiFID vem mexer de forma profunda com algumas áreas e práticas de actuação dos intermediários e prestadores de serviços financeiros, alterando-lhes o respectivo paradigma.

Vale a pena atentar sumariamente em três:

- concentration rule e o reconhecimento das multi-lateral trading facilities (MTF´s);

Elimina a obrigação de as ordens de compra e venda de títulos terem que ser colocadas em uma Bolsa de Valores regulada, passando a ser possível a utilização de plataformas electrónicas de negociação ou a internalização sistemática de ordens dos clientes, através da utilização da carteira própria de títulos detidas pelas instituições financeiras. Obviamente, quer os internalizadores sistemáticos, quer as plataformas electrónicas, terão que ter escala e oferecer um nível de garantias e transparência similar aos ofertados pelas Bolsas de Valores.

- direito de passaporte e condução dos negócios;

Um dos propósitos da MiFID é o de permitir a comercialização e o marketing de serviços de investimentos ao longo dos vários países da União. As instituições continuarão, como até aqui, a terem a regulação “prudencial” (prudential regulation) no Estado de Origem.

Contudo, a regulação sobre as “regras de condução dos negócios” (conduct-of-business rules) deixará de ser feita pelo Estado de Acolhimento e serão as do Estado de Origem a vigorar.

Dito de outro modo, o Estado de Acolhimento, isto é, aquele onde está o cliente, perderá os seus poderes de impor “regras gerais de condução dos negócios” (excepto em casos muito excepcionais ainda alvo de definição). Ou seja, e à laia de exemplo, passa a ser possível a um banco de investimento/Corretora portuguesa comercializar produtos de investimento na Lituânia, a clientes locais, de acordo com as normas vigentes em Portugal!

- adequação de produtos e serviços aos clientes (suitability and appropriateness tests);

As empresas serão obrigadas a conduzir testes sempre que estiverem a prestar aconselhamento ou gestão de patrimónios:

- suitability test (tem o cliente perfil para estes serviços?): em relação ao fornecimento de aconselhamento e aos serviços de gestão de carteiras;

- appropriateness test (são estes produtos e serviços adequados para este cliente?): em relação a todos os outros serviços.

Torna-se, então, imperativo colectar informações sobre os clientes (KYC), respeitantes a conhecimento e experiência, à sua situação financeira e aos objectivos esperados pelo investimento.

A documentação a entregar aos clientes terá também que mudar para reflectir a redefinição das condições contratuais, mais claras e precisas.

À laia de corolário podemos dizer que a MiFID traz o potencial para mudanças drástica da estrutura do sector, da sua rendibilidade e de movimentos ao longo dos diversos grupos estratégicos operantes no mercado. Os custos (compliance costs) associados a funcionar neste mercado, segundo as regras prescritas – decorrentes de obrigações de conhecer o cliente, de poder provar que se agiu no melhor interesse dos clientes, de sistemas informáticos, de regras de auditoria, do estabelecimento ou revisão de políticas e procedimentos de actuação,...- , com estimativas de várias dezenas de milhões de euros para um banco de média dimensão, poderão fazer com que os bancos e sociedades de corretagem mais pequenos, ou de cariz regional, abandonem, simplesmente, o mercado ou, pelo menos, alguns dos seus segmentos e produtos. Ademais, terão uma nova dimensão de concorrência: transacções e serviços de investimento prestados não apenas com recurso a Bolsas regulamentadas mas também por Internalizadores Sistemáticos e por “Bolsas” e Mercados Electrónicos. Os operadores financeiros, actuantes nestas novas plataformas de negociação, poderão usufruir economias de custos consideráveis, susceptíveis de lhes concederem uma vantagem concorrencial significativa.

Por outro lado, a remoção de barreiras a uma plena circulação de produtos de poupança e de investimento, no espaço europeu, abre também novas oportunidades de internacionalização. Para os bancos portugueses, a MiFID vai confrontá-los com a concorrência acrescida das grandes casas e bancos de investimento, sitos em Londres ou Francoforte, mas abre excelentes perspectivas para uma actuação mais vibrante e a menor custo no espaço ibérico, com a consolidação de plataformas operativas, a partir do mercado português e com a oferta de produtos e serviços numa lógica “cross-border”.

Em Novembro de 2007 a MiFID torna-se realidade no espaço económico europeu. O curto período de transposição para o quadro legislativo português, por um lado, e a necessária adaptação que as instituições financeiras terão que fazer, por outro (compliance, sistemas de informação, contratos de outsourcing, cláusulas contratuais, etc) implicará um tremendo esforço em meios materiais e humanos que as supracitadas instituições se verão obrigadas.

Paulo Alexandre Gonçalves Marcos, 5 de Dezembro de 2006

Economista. Professor Universitário.

www.antonuco.blogspot.com

Negativity in the Evaluation of Political Candidates

Jill G. Klein & Rohini Ahluwalia

Executive Summary
Millions of dollars are spent on marketing political candidates during each election year. An increasing percentage of these dollars is spent on negative campaigning on the basis of the belief that negative information about political candidates is more influential than positive information in swaying voter preferences. It is because of this firm belief in the weight of negative information that political pundits continue to advocate its use despite recent data that demonstrate that negativity in political campaigning disenfranchises voters and could lead to low voter turnout and involvement.

Previous research based on the American National Election Studies (NES) database provides the strongest unchallenged source of "real" (as opposed to laboratory) data that demonstrates a clear negativity effect (i.e., greater weighting by voters of candidate weaknesses as compared to candidate strengths) in each of six elections analyzed in past research. In contrast, the current research takes a motivational view and questions the robustness of this finding. NES data from two elections (1992, 1996) and the Super Tuesday data (1988) are analyzed. The results converge in suggesting that the negativity effect is much less prevalent in the evaluation of political candidates than previously believed; it is significant only in judgments of candidates that the voter is motivated to dislike. This motivation may occur because the voter either has a preference for an opponent or simply dislikes the candidate. The analyses indicate this subset of the electorate drives the aggregate-level negativity effect obtained in past research.

The authors, therefore, argue that findings in previous negativity research were due to aggregation of data across voters varying in their motivations. These findings question the accepted wisdom that negative campaigning is an effective means of persuading critical voters—especially swing voters—because this research suggests that these target audiences are not motivated to dwell on negatives. The present research suggests that although negative information may have perceptual advantages, a focus on cognitions alone cannot explain its role in complex naturalistic environments in which people are driven by a variety of motivations.

Biography
Jill Klein is Associate Professor of Marketing, INSEAD. She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan in 1990. During the following seven years she was a member of faculty in the Marketing Department, Kellogg Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University, and she joined the INSEAD faculty in 1997. Her research interests are consumer boycotts, corporate social responsibility, and international marketing, including the effects of international hostility on consumer perceptions of foreign products. She has had articles published in Journal of Marketing, Harvard Business Review, Management Science, and Journal of International Business Studies.

Rohini Ahluwalia is, Associate Professor of Marketing, Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. Prior to joining the Carlson School, she was a faculty member at theUniversity of Kansas. Her doctoral dissertation, completed at the Ohio State University, was the winner of American Marketing Association's John A. Howard best dissertation award. Her area of expertise is consumer psychology and current work focuses on two major streams of research. One attempts to understand how people process, resist, and are influenced by counterattitudinal and negative information. A second stream of research focuses on branding issues, using an information processing perspective. Her research has been published in journals such as Journal of Marketing Research and Journal of Consumer Research.

Ethical Challenges of Social Marketing, by George Brenkert

Ethical Challenges of Social Marketing
George G. Brenkert

Executive Summary
Social marketing was developed more than three decades ago to combat social problems such as overpopulation, drug abuse, mistreatment of woman, use of tobacco products, and behaviors that increase the chances of heart disease. As a form of marketing, social marketing faces several recognized moral problems, including manipulation, dishonesty, fairness, and intrusiveness. However, in contrast to commercial marketing, social marketing faces another set of ethical problems quite different from these common ethical problems. It is the ethical problems that are specific to social marketing on which this article focuses.

First, the ends that social marketing promotes in resolving social problems cannot be justified in the same manner in which the ends of commercial marketing are justified. Instead of appealing to the fulfillment of the wants and needs of the people they target, social marketers must develop an objective theory of social welfare that justifies those ends. As such, social marketing focuses on welfare exchanges, in contrast to the market exchanges on which commercial marketing focuses. If social marketers are to respect the people they target, transparency should be a prime value for social marketers. In seeking to change the behavior of people with social problems, social marketers must be candid about the ends sought, the evidence that links those ends to the welfare of the people targeted, the means used to bring about those ends, and the sources of funding.

Second, social marketing’s analysis of social problems may unwittingly substitute a marketing rationale of self-centered benefits and the effectiveness of marketing appeals for relevant rationales involving other-regarding reasons and ethical reasoning. Furthermore, segmenting social problems may have the consequence that social marketers do not focus on the background and structural features that underlie the social problems they attack. Accordingly, social marketers must be wary that they can only offer temporary solutions, which may not significantly affect the underlying problems.

Third, using marketing techniques may have the consequence of not giving those whose behavior is to be changed a rights-based voice in matters of significant concern to them. Therefore, social marketers must address the effects of social marketing on self-determination and democracy. Social marketers must consider the implications for the loyalty, gratitude, and commitment of people whose problems are resolved through private, rather than public, undertakings. This may lead to a greater impoverishment of the public realm.

In drawing attention to these special ethical issues, the author does not question the integrity or goodwill of people engaged in social marketing. Instead, the author describes a special set of ethical challenges for social marketing and affirms the need for the ethical justification of social marketing actions with regard to them. Social marketing is to be viewed not as a neutral, technical enterprise but as a form of social activism. This is part of the recognition of the ethical nature of social marketing. Directly addressing the special ethical challenges identified in this article should be part of the further development of social marketing.

Biography
George G. Brenkert is Professor of Business Ethics, McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University, where he is also Director of the Georgetown Business Ethics Institute. He is Editor-in-Chief of Business Ethics Quarterly and a member of the Executive Committee of the Society for Business Ethics. He specializes in the areas of ethics, business ethics, and social and political philosophy. He has published a book titled Political Freedom, as well as several articles in such journals as Public Affairs Quarterly, Philosophy & Public Affairs, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing, Business Ethics Quarterly, Journal of Business Ethics, and Business & Professional Ethics Journal. Among his current research projects are a book on marketing ethics and an article on ethical issues related to corruption as faced by multinational businesses and developing countries. He earned a B.A. from Colgate University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from University of Michigan.

E-mail marketing: uma intodução

Introduction to E-mail Marketing

By Mischelle Davis Mischelle Davis is vice president of marketing communications at NewWorldIQ, a Saratoga, Calif.-based enterprise marketing automation solutions provider. She has over 10 years high-tech marketing experience with companies such as Qpass, Primus Knowledge Systems, and Wall Data.

1. Introduction

The phenomenon of emarketing is, of course, the age-old practice of direct marketing remade in modern dress. “Direct marketing” is often used interchangeably with “direct mail.” But it can range from the catalog that arrives along with your letters and the advertisement inside your billing statement to the flyer slipped under your windshield and even to the salesman knocking at your door. There was a time when marketing directly to customers and potential customers was considered the poor stepchild of more sophisticated forms of advertising, and upscale businesses did not regard it as a viable, elegant solution to their marketing problems. Savvy marketers soon realized, however, that mass direct marketing could provide immediate sales results, create a personal connection with customers, was more cost effective than billboard or display advertising when the object is to get immediate results, not just to create awareness. Perhaps most importantly, direct marketing lends itself to greater measurability and to testing variations in form and content to determine the best approach. Today it is universally regarded as one of the most effective forms of advertising. Direct marketing can be any marketing method that takes the initiative aims to establish or maintain an immediate, one-to-one relationship with customers and prospective customers, rather than waiting for them to discover you in more general, impersonal forms of advertising. Direct marketing is most powerful when it is used as part of a direct response strategy – that is, asks the recipient to take some immediate action – order a product, get a free gift, enter a contest, give a donation. Perhaps since the advent of the Sears catalog in 1893, the most popular and powerful form of direct response marketing has been via U.S. postal service. Advent of eMarketing But times have changed. Digital delivery is rewriting business rules and redefining direct marketing. The advent of electronic forms of communication such as e-mail and the Internet have given marketers new and even more cost effective ways to become more focused and granular in their marketing efforts. The rise of the Internet produced a gold rush not only in commerce, but in new expectations for online marketing. Many of those expectations were inflated: not all Internet marketing has proven to be created equal. Although successful while still a novelty, Internet advertising response rates are quickly eroding. Users are inundated with banner ads everywhere they go on the Internet. While it is true that advertising on vertically targeted portals can produce better than average click-through rates, banner ads can be a difficult medium to achieve marketing goals. Marketers looking for an effective way to reach customers online are turning to e-mail. E-mail has quickly become a communication standard and the Internet’s most popular application. Both the number of e-mail users and the usage rates are continuing to grow exponentially. According to eMarketer, by the end of 2000, there were 96.6 million e-mail users in the U.S. representing 43.8% of the total population of adults and teens. In an effort to realize the commercial potential of this powerful communication medium, U.S. companies spent $496 million on e-mail advertising in 2000, a 177% increase from 1999 E-mail is by far the dominant digital delivery application and is already used much more than traditional “snail mail”. Over 395 billion messages were delivered in the U.S. in 1999 as compared to 202 billion pieces of mail delivered by the U.S. Postal Service. Just one year later, in 2001, over 536 billion e-mail messages were delivered – an increase of 35 percent in a single year – versus a growth in postal deliveries of less than 3%. In 2000, some 22 percent of e-mail messages were commercial.

E-mail is proving itself to be one of more cost-effective marketing tools available – which is why some 68 percent of medium- to large-sized U.S. firms incorporated e-mail into their marketing strategies in 2000.

Several attributes account for the rise of e-mail as a marketing tool:

Faster Prep Time: Depending on the campaign creation tools that you use, e-mail marketing programs can be quick to create and may arrive in the customer’s inbox immediately.

More Flexibility: It is much easier and less expensive to create multiple offers and test various creative and copy schemes in e-mail than in traditional “snail mail."

Reduced CPM: E-mail messages cost only a few cents per recipient compared to traditional direct mail costs because e-mail campaigns don’t incur printing or postage costs. E-mail costs range from $.01 to $0.25 for per message, compared about $1.70 to $2.00 for each item mailed in traditional direct snail mail.

Greater Acceptance: Some 73 percent of U.S. consumers say they prefer e-mail as their method of contact with online merchants. (Virtually the same percentage also say they prefer rich-content media e-mail – with graphics and typography – versus plain-text e-mail.

Quick Response: Responses from recipients usually arrive within 48 hours rather than taking days or weeks via printed and posted mail.

Higher Response Rates: It is easier and more inviting for someone to respond to an e-mail message than to pick up the phone or mail a response card. And e-mail has a much higher average click-through rates (between 5-15%) than online banner ads.

Accurate Reporting: Electronic forms of delivery and response make tracking and reporting fast and easy. It is much easier than waiting weeks for responses and returns.

E-mail marketing can use a variety of tactics – including offers, coupons, contests, newsletters and other value-added links and information.

Those tactics can basically be divided into two types – permission-based marketing and spam.

Spam is the electronic equivalent of junk mail or that annoying telemarketing call during dinner. It is unsolicited and unwanted. Unfortunately for consumers, today spam represents 10% of all e-mail. In response to this invasion, e-mail users have created inbox filters and dummy e-mail addresses.

Permission e-mails are those messages that users have requested. This can take the form of newsletters, or a checkbox in the registration process on various Web sites giving the marketer permission to deliver product updates or other marketing information.

Forrester Research predicts that the number of solicited e-mails will grow to 250 billion in 2002. Permission e-mails have higher success rates than spam – both in terms of ROI and in preserving a company’s reputation.

Permission e-mail can take the form of acquisition or retention e-mail – that is, mailings whose primary objective is to prospect for customers or whose objective is to forge a relationship with an existing customer base. In 2000, some 57 percent of permission e-mail dollars were spent on retention and 43 percent on customer acquisition.

As with any other marketing campaign, careful planning and proven techniques are the best way to deploy the most effective campaigns and to realize the highest response rates. It’s a matter of putting the right offer in front of the right person at the right time.

Follow these common-sense and time-tested suggestions, and your campaign can produce tremendous results for new customer acquisition, customer loyalty and customer retention.

Segment Lists, Targeted Messages: Chop your database into smaller, segmented slices based on preferences and past behaviors, in order to make your messages as relevant as possible to each group. Prospects and customers will be more likely to respond to messages that match their interest sets. Use historical data to apply what you know about the likes and dislikes of your target market segments, and develop your messages and offers to fit.

Personalize to the Max: Don’t just segment when you can use the full power of the database to personalize e-mail content to individual name, history, likes and dislikes. In the world of direct emarketing everyone is unique and one size does not fit all, so use the tools available to be as personal and as relevant as possible.

Quality Over Quantity: Boost response rates by creating offers for unique products, useful information, compelling content, special pricing or gifts. Again, match the offer to the segment. Every message in a customer’s inbox requires time and attention. Your objective is to offer each customer something of value – be it information, entertainment, or monetary value. If you don’t deliver, your customers will opt out of your mailing list.

Call-To-Action: Your campaign’s primary objective should be to have prospects take action. Examples include: Click to….. link to more information, buy, join, communicate with a sales representative, participate in a survey, play in a contest or refer a friend.

Sales vs. Marketing: Many marketers think the Web is primarily a direct sales medium, rather than a multifaceted communications tool that can used to create sales activities in other channels. But many sales are not done on impulse or from afar Decide which sales channel your campaign is going to support.

Text vs. HTML: Give your customers the option of receiving messages in text or HTML format. Some people will always prefer text to graphics, and some e-mail readers only support basic text. Give your customers what they want, and be sure your e-mail has been tested for readability by all major e-mail readers.

Micro-Sites: Giving respondents a micro Web site to respond to rather than just an e-mail address creates more interaction and measurement opportunities. Plus, a picture paints a thousand words.

Online Off-line Integration: Use a micro Web site, too, as a response option for your off-line (direct mail, display ads) promotions. Again, you’ll not only create more opportunities to interact with your customers, you can keep ads and mailers less cluttered and entice readers online for the full story.

No Spam Ma’am: Don’t send unsolicited e-mails. As mentioned earlier, spam messages are unwelcome and counterproductive. You’ll only damage your company’s reputation by sending unwanted e-mails.

Respect The Customer: Messages and offers that go to unresponsive consumers week after week are no better than spam. Also make it easy for them to unsubscribe, access and change data.

Measure & Report: Tracking the actions of your customers and prospects is critical to your success. After deploying several campaigns you will have generated a mountain of response information. Analyze it and use it when creating new offers and new approaches.

Click Through Analytics: Analyze campaign response data in conjunction with Web site visitor behavior data to get a single, unified view of your customers and prospects behavior. Track what pages prospects visited; what information they viewed, and what products they bought. Again, use the data to customize your offers and Web site content. And remember that technology is a magical tool for marketing wizards to use—but it does not replace the wizard.

Deciding to include an e-mail marketing strategy is really only the first step. The next step is putting that strategy into practice. Running a successful e-mail marketing campaign actually requires a sophisticated combination of technology, strategy and marketing expertise.

The availability of content management, data analysis and business rules applications makes it hard for an ambitious IT department to resist the urge to create an in-house campaign management tool.

But creating, personalizing, delivering, and evaluating campaigns can be more complex and more costly than it first appears. For this reason, many companies choose to work with an outside vendor rather than try to develop the system in house. There are several advantages to working with an outside partner.

Minimize Complexity: Integrating multiple, complex content management, electronic marketing and database applications from multiple providers can be a frustrating and costly undertaking. Find a solution provider who has already made the development investment.

Exert Marketing Control: In many companies, the IT department still controls the Web site, reporting, etc. If your IT department already has a huge backlog, look for solution providers that offer tools that allow you to work independently from your IT department.

Maintain Scalability: A great deal of bandwidth is required to manage large quantities of outgoing messages, incoming responses and undeliverable bounce-backs. Additional database power is required to manage and analyze personalization information, response knowledge and unique campaign data. Seek out providers who will bear the burden of this responsibility on your behalf.

Data Analysis: Response data is just meaningless information unless it can be analyzed and turned into valuable customer knowledge. Database driven marketing requires sophisticated analysis tools that help to predict future actions based on past behavior. Search for a provider who has mature data analysis and reporting capabilities.

Leverage Marketing Expertise: Solutions that have been developed by software engineers without the aid of experienced, professional marketers will lack the critical understanding of the marketing objectives, principals and methods. Look for firms whose leaders are business and marketing professionals, not developers.

Mifid: FSA estimated Mifid could cost UK financial industry around 1b pounds

regulation Financial services face pounds 1bn charge for EU 'harmonisation'

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Nov 25, 2006 - Daily Telegraph London
Author(s): Katherine Griffiths City Correspondent

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BRITAIN'S financial services industry will have to pay about pounds 1bn to implement new rules intended to create a single Europe- wide market, according to the City's watchdog.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) estimated the European Union's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) could cost the UK industry between pounds 877m and pounds 1.17bn, based on a survey of how much firms expect to spend on implementation.

Hector Sants, the FSA's managing director of wholesale and institutional markets, said: "It is clear that implementation of MiFID represents a substantial cost to industry, particularly in the upfront years.''

While there will be substantial initial costs, the FSA has calculated in the long run MiFID should save the financial services industry about pounds 200m a year. There should also be a pounds 240m benefit to the general economy.

The new EU rules are due to come into effect in November 2007 and aim to create a pan-European market in financial services that will provide greater transparency and value for money for customers.

They also aim to sweep away monopolies held by some stock exchanges, which has already helped spur a group of seven investment banks to start work on their own stock trading platform that will rival the London Stock Exchange.

The seven, led by Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, will next year launch their own multi-trading facility (MTF). It will be a platform for investment banks and others to trade cash equities without using the LSE.

Under MiFID, domestic trades will not have to be reported on local exchanges.

The founding banks - the other five are Citigroup, Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley and UBS - have signed a memorandum of understanding.

The plan is to run European MTF as a not-for-profit utility with any savings passed on to users, who will potentially include private client brokers and other investment banks.

News of the banks' trading system prompted a serious slide in the LSE's shares. This spurred Nasdaq to table a new bid for the LSE on Monday.

Finance industry consultancy Atos Consulting said: "Although MiFID brings with it a significant one-off cost, it will also provide a stimulus that will prompt the European financial markets to examine their infrastructure and improve their overall efficiency.''

Drop in the value of the U.S. dollar

The recent drop in the value of the U.S. dollar might be viewed by some U.S. exporters as a sign that they might finally be able to improve their competitiveness in the international markets, but for the rest of the world it is a quite worrying sign. The situation would not have been so bad had the U.S. consumers not been so willing to buy imported goods. Had the trade deficit been a bit more under control, the drop in the price of the dollar might have meant increase in competitiveness and even perhaps a better economic future in the near-term.

Russia´s image

Location: New York
Author: Ken Silverstein, EnergyBiz Insider, Editor-in-Chief
Date: Thursday, December 7, 2006

Russia's image is that of a chameleon. A few weeks ago, key leaders there were meeting with the representatives of the Western world to finalize an agreement to enter the World Trade Organization. Now, many of the same folks are center stage again -- trying to ward off accusations that they poisoned a former spy in London.

O ouriço e a raposa: jornal Tribuna de Macau

o ouriço e a raposa

Back to the basics

Each man has a way to betray the revolution (Leonard Cohen)

Durante os últimos cinco anos o mundo ocidental foi liderado por uma coligação estreita de duas nações que prosseguiu uma estratégia internacional dirigida a conter, num primeiro tempo, a repetição dos atentados terroristas do 11 de Setembro; num segundo tempo, a promover a conversão democrática do Médio Oriente e dos países que albergam regimes ditatoriais.

Decorrido este período de tempo é necessário reconhecer que o eixo da liberdade falhou nos seus propósitos e na sua estratégia. As razões são múltiplas e têm sido sistematicamente escalpelizadas. A cadência e o acumular de erros impõe que se altere a estratégia, se mude de executores e se redefinam objectivos melhor ajustados aos interesses das potências democráticas.

Não se trata de - de forma mesquinha - constatar que o elevado número de baixas humanas no Iraque [2900] supõe, por força da derrota republicana nas recentes eleições intercalares americanas, que se recue, deixando o pasto aos coiotes e aos abutres. Mas há que admitir que a continuidade da presença americana, britânica e dos seus aliados no terreno não serve, mais, a causa da democracia no Iraque e no conjunto do Médio Oriente. Mais do que isso é absolutamente prejudicial aos interesses do Ocidente, no médio prazo.

Francis Fukuyama disse-o, de forma ímpar, num artigo que publicou no New York Times, em Janeiro deste ano (“After Neoconservatism”, NYT, 19.01.2006): a aposta neoconservadora na conversão democrática do Afeganistão, do Iraque e dos seus vizinhos entrou em colapso porque não percebeu o contexto social, cultural e geopolítico em que actuava e porque se esqueceu que o que determina a acção dos países é um tríplice: o interesse nacional nas suas várias componentes, a necessidade de impedir que outros o ponham em risco (ou debilitem) e a projecção do poder e da sua influência, no plano internacional e regional. Porque neste domínio como no vácuo quando os grandes Estados deixam de estar presentes, o espaço vazio é ocupado pelos outros.

Como reza a canção o sonho foi bom enquanto durou. A quezilenta realidade da vida internacional impõe que se retorne ao bom senso, ao pragmatismo, ao cinismo dos sorrisos e à dislepsia (assumida) entre as boas intenções e os comportamentos.

Esta mudança de direcção impõe um conjunto de reajustamentos à actuação dos Estados Unidos, da Grã-Bretanha e do eixo democrático. Desde logo, uma reflexão séria sobre adversários e ameaças; depois, um inventário das metodologias capazes de as diluírem ou conter; terceiro, aquilo que em linguagem clausewitziana se chama a “contagem das espingardas”: apurar quem subscreve e se identifica com os nossos princípios e valores e está (ou não) disposto a correr riscos por eles.

Trata-se de um exercício exemplar - iniciado há pouco tempo pelo Conselho Geral da NATO - que mais adiante se provará útil, auspicioso e bem avisado.

O concerto das democracias1 confronta-se, a meu ver, com três ameaças que se têm organizado e agigantado, aproveitando a “distracção” do Ocidente com a guerra do Iraque. Em primeiro lugar, as forças, as redes do terrorismo internacional, incentivadas pelo exemplo e sucessos da Al Qaeda e que no Médio Oriente, na Ásia muçulmana, em África arregimentam, com enorme azáfama, seguidores, militantes e financiadores.

O terrorismo actual já não é o terrorismo de turbante e barba ridicularizado pelo cartoon de Bin Laden. É um “corporate terrorism” gerido como uma empresa, tecnologicamente bem apetrechado, sofisticado do ponto de vista organizativo, bem financiado e muito apoiado, ao nível da gestão da propaganda, por jornalistas, intelectuais e órgãos de informação sustentados pela Arábia Saudita e os principados petrolíferos do Golfo Pérsico.

Em segundo lugar, os países párias (no calão das RIs os “rogue states”), a Coreia do Norte, o Irão, a Síria e os seus aliados. Países que não formando, por enquanto, uma coligação política, partilham vários valores comuns - a teocratização do Estado, o combate ao cristianismo, a subjugação das mulheres, o silenciamento da imprensa livre, o ódio à modernidade - e se unem numa estratégia conjugada - a desestabilização do Ocidente, o isolamento dos Estados Unidos e da Grã-Bretanha, a redução da vigilância da comunidade mundial face aos atropelos aos direitos humanos, à propaganda belicista e nuclear; a fragilização das capacidades de defesa e de retaliação táctica do Ocidente e daqueles dois países, em particular.

Também aqui se vem cometendo o erro táctico de considerar estas ameaças incipientes ou destinadas ao fracasso. Preside aqui a falácia néscia que as forças da luz e da liberdade prevalecerão, em qualquer situação, sobre as da anarquia, do obscurantismo e do terror. Não se percebe é se por mão divina ou porque os “outros” são estúpidos.

Em terceiro e último lugar, as grandes nações emergentes asiáticas, a China, a Índia e a Rússia. Esta é uma ameaça de natureza diferente das outras e com finalidade distinta. Desde logo, porque não vislumbra a derrota do Ocidente, o aniquilamento dos seus valores, por outro lado, porque actua ao nível dos “soft powers” - a proeminência comercial, o assédio aos mercados energéticos, o controlo estratégico. Visa circunscrever o poderio do Ocidente e, sobretudo, dos Estados Unidos, no plano internacional, ditando ou pelo menos condicionando a “agenda”. Obrigando à concertação de estratégias, seja no plano bilateral, seja no plano das agências multilaterais.

O enleio pelas emergências benevolentes faz o trote nos media, marcando o tempo e os temas da actualidade, mas dificilmente ilude a questão essencial que o que está em causa é a (velha) rivalidade pelos recursos, pela influência e pelo poder.

Toda esta complexa malha de ameaças e interdependências sugere uma enorme capacidade de discernimento e cabeça fria aos designers da política externa do Ocidente. Não é por acaso que alguns velhos senadores da política internacional se têm dado ao trabalho de vir a terreiro2 repôr algum bom senso. Se as velhas explicações do tempo da Guerra Fria não se ajustam muito a um contexto de multipolaridade ou exogenia, o exercício de diagnóstico e a seriação de ameaças podem revelar-se de extrema utilidade como ferramentas de trabalho e previsão.

Faz todo o sentido voltarmos a soletrar conceitos-chave como appeasement, balance of power, Carter doctrine, collective security, compellence, deterrence, proliferation. Bem como a duvidar das boas intenções pespontadas pelos discursos demagógicos.

Imaginámos um tempo sem predadores, convictos que como que porque milagre mudáramos a natureza dos homens. Percebemos agora que o que mudou foi apenas a latitude, a língua em que se expressam, a religião que têm, a cor da pele. Os interesses porque se batem são os mesmos. Como dizia Benjamin Franklin “make youselves sheep and the wolves will eat you”.

1 Designo por tal a aliança formada pelos Estados Unidos, a Grã-Bretanha, alguns países europeus, o Canadá, o Japão, a Austrália e Nova Zelândia, principalmente.

2 “On negotiating with Teheran”, Henry Kissinger, Herald International Tribune, 1.12.2006.

*Especialista em Relações Internacionais. Escreve neste espaço quinzenalmente às quintas-feiras

MIFID: página 9 da edição 05.12.2006 jornal OJE

Mui excelsos leitores

Espero que tenham a oportunidade a edição de hoje do jornal OJE, mormente a página 9.

Em especial para todos de vós que estão atentos ao sector financeiro. Que atravessa uma vaga de regulação e de exigências de Compliance que está a alterar o paradigma do sector. Desta vez não se trata de mais uma obscura peça legislativa comunitária mas de uma nova Directiva sobre os Mercados e Investimentos Financeiros. Ao elevar os requisitos para operar e ao liberalizar, o Conselho Europeu e o Parlamento tentam dar profundidade ao Mercado de Capitais e à Gestão da Poupança no Espaço Europeu.

Encontram uma breve digressão minha sobre o tema em:

http://www.oje.pt/download.php/f/108/oje-108-completo.pdf

www.oje.pt (edição completa)

Mifid: artigo no jornal OJE

Caros leitores

Sugiro que possam ler o jornal OJE de amanhã.

O diário OJE (www.oje.pt) é já o líder nos jornais económicos e financeiros, tendo superado o Diário Económico.

O seu ritmo de crescimento permite augurar que a sua circulação possa ser, em Dezembro de 2006, superior aos dos dois rivais diários combinados.

O Director do OJE é um nome tradicional no jornalismo económico.

Amanhã o jornal publicará um artigo de 5.000 caracteres sobre a Mifid.

Uma versão ligeiramente retocada sairá num grande jornal semanário brevemente.

A tradição ainda é o que era

O Benfica ganhou em Alvalade. Afinal o resultado mais tradicional deste derby no estádio do clube verde e branco.

Foi lindo de morrer e ainda ficarem mais alguns por marcar... Nuno Gomes continuou a falhar de forma despudorada... Micolli a acertar na barra...

Novas de outros blogues

Se atentarem nos links que recomendamos, deixo-os com algumas recensões sobre o que lá se escreve:

- Rua 7: ácido, corrosivo, um estilo incisivo, político.
- Exílio de Andarilho: Relações Internacionais, vistas a partir do Oriente. Entrou em período de reflexão... Não queremos que acabe... Deixem mensagens de incentivo...
- MarketingMania: o congresso dos profissionais do Marketing, no início de Novembro, ocupa o destaque. Reflexões ponderadas pela pena do presidente da APPM.
- Marketing Faculty: cada vez melhor e uma referência na área do Marketing em Portugal.
- Pateira: goza, descaradamente, com o "caso" dos cartões de representação dos administradores não executivos da Metro do Porto.
- AbsolutMartunis: fala de um novo espectáculo de dança com açucar.

Marketing Inovador

O livro "Marketing Inovador" está pronto e foi entregue na Universidade Católica Editora.
Lá para meados de Fevereiro de 2007, um pouco antes do dia dos namorados, estará numa banca perto do leitor.

Agora estamos em pleno processo de convite e recolha de prefácios de ilustres profissionais do mundo empresarial e académico.

Iremos dando notícias por aqui...

Robert Barro sobre Milton Friedman

Palestra de Robert Barro, da Universidade de Harvard, no Cato Institute, sobre Milton Friedman.
12 fabulosas páginas em formato pdf para download fácil.

http://www.cato.org/events/monconf2006/barro.pdf

Minton Friedman: obituário da Reuters

Milton Friedman Dead at 94

A sad day.

"SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Milton Friedman, the free market economist and winner of a 1976 Nobel Prize, has died, a spokeswoman for his family said on Thursday.

Friedman, who preached free enterprise in the face of government regulation and advocated a monetary policy that called for steady growth in money supplies, was 94."

Be sure to check out these two recent interviews w/ Milton Friedman, by Dr. Russ Roberts.

EconTalk, Friedman on Capitalism and Freedom: "Russ Roberts talks to Milton Friedman about the radical ideas he put forward almost 50 years ago in Capitalism and Freedom. Listen to the most influential economist of the past 50 years discuss the principles of liberty, social responsibility of business, the inertia behind bad legislation and his career as economist and public intellectual."

EconTalk, Milton Friedman on Money: "Russ Roberts talks with Milton Friedman about his research and views on inflation, the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, and what the future holds."

Retirado de http://amateureconomist.blogspot.com

Frases célebres de Milton Friedman: cortesia do The amateur economist blogue

"One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programmes by their intentions rather than their results."
-- Milton Friedman


"There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you're doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I'm not so careful about the content of the present, but I'm very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else's money on myself. And if I spend somebody else's money on myself, then I'm sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else's money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else's money on somebody else, I'm not concerned about how much it is, and I'm not concerned about what I get. And that's government. And that's close to 40% of our national income."
-- Milton Friedman


"If an exchange between two parties is voluntary, it will not take place unless both believe they will benefit from it. Most economic fallacies derive from the neglect of this simple insight, from the tendency to assume that there is a fixed pie, that one party can only gain at the expense of another."
-- Milton Friedman


"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending. The question is, "How do you hold down government spending?" Government spending now amounts to close to 40% of national income not counting indirect spending through regulation and the like. If you include that, you get up to roughly half. The real danger we face is that number will creep up and up and up. The only effective way I think to hold it down, is to hold down the amount of income the government has. The way to do that is to cut taxes."
-- Milton Friedman


Retirado de http://amateureconblog.blogspot.com/

Frases célebres de Milton Friedman

"There's no such thing as a free lunch"
and
"Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon"

Minton Friedman - parte 4- notícia da Associated Press

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: November 17, 2006

Filed at 12:54 a.m. ET

Milton Friedman

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize-winning economist who championed individual freedom, influenced the economic policies of three presidents and befriended world leaders, died Thursday, a spokesman for the Milton and Rose D. Friedman Center in Indianapolis said. He was 94.

In numerous books, a Newsweek magazine column and a PBS show, Friedman championed individual freedom in economics and politics. The longtime University of Chicago professor pioneered a school of thought that became known as the Chicago school of economics. His work is still widely influential in the business world, academia and politics.

Friedman's theory of monetarism was adopted in part by the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations. It opposed the traditional Keynesian economics that had dominated U.S. policy since the New Deal. He was a member of Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board.

His work in consumption analysis, monetary history and stabilization policy earned him the Nobel Prize in economics in 1976.

Friedman favored a policy of steady, moderate growth in the money supply, opposed wage and price controls and criticized the Federal Reserve when it tried to fine-tune the economy.

He argued that government should allow the free market to operate to solve inflation and other economic problems. But he also urged adoption of a ''negative income tax'' in which people who earn less than a certain amount would get money back from national coffers.

Minton Friedman - parte 3 - notícia do Guardian

Mark Tran
Thursday November 16, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Milton Friedman, the Nobel prize-winning economist and Margaret Thatcher's monetarist guru, died today at the age of 94.

Mr Friedman died of heart failure after being taken to hospital near his home in San Francisco, his daughter, Janet Martell, said today.

His wife, Rose Friedman, who co-wrote many of his books, survives him.

A great believer in unfettered markets, Mr Friedman was the leader of the Chicago School of monetary economics. The central tenet of the school was that the money supply determined inflation.

As the flipside to his belief in the central role of markets, Mr Friedman, who won the Nobel prize in 1976, thought the role of government should be as limited as possible.

That view made him highly popular with free market devotees such as Margaret Thatcher and Chile's Augusto Pinochet, who relied on his advice as they put his ideas into practice.

Mr Friedman, however, later distanced himself from Mrs Thatcher's policy of cutting public-sector borrowing at a time of recession.

In 2003, he publicly declared in the Financial Times that monetarist policy had failed. "The use of quantity of money as a target has not been a success ... I'm not sure I would as of today push it as hard as I once did," he said.

Mr Friedman took his free market approach to its logical conclusion on various social issues, advocating the decriminalisation of drugs and prostitution.

An active Republican, Mr Friedman served as an informal economic adviser to Senator Barry Goldwater in his unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 1964, to Richard Nixon in his successful 1968 campaign and to Ronald Reagan in his 1980 campaign.

His books included A Theory of the Consumption Function, The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays, and (with A J Schwartz) A Monetary History of the United States, Monetary Statistics of the United States, and Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom. He was also a columnist for Newsweek magazine.

Minton Friedman - notícia do óbito na Business Week

The death of Milton Friedman at age 94 ends, after more than 60 years, the greatest rivalry in modern economics—the one between the conservative great Friedman and the liberal great Paul Samuelson. Samuelson lives on, at age 91, and remembers his intellectual foe with respect.

"Milton Friedman was a giant," Samuelson said in a Nov. 16 interview from his office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "No 20th-century economist had his importance in moving the American economic profession rightward from 1940 to the present."

More than anyone else, Milton Friedman was responsible for challenging the worldview of British economist John Maynard Keynes, who believed in the power of government to guide and stimulate economic growth. As an alternative to Keynesianism, he put forth a more laissez-faire philosophy known as monetarism—the doctrine that the best thing the government can do is supply the economy with the money it needs and stand aside.

Friedman blamed inflation on tinkering by governments and central banks. Along with Edmund Phelps of Columbia University, who won the 2006 Nobel prize, Friedman showed that central banks can't buy permanently lower unemployment with slightly higher inflation. Wrote Friedman: "Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it cannot occur without a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output."

Promoting Monetarism

Friedman won the Nobel prize in economics in 1976. Among his achievements, the Nobel committee cited the monumental book he wrote with Anna Schwartz, A Monetary History of the United States, which explained how missteps by the Federal Reserve deepened and prolonged the Great Depression of the 1930s.

While Friedman taught and researched at the University of Chicago, making it into a bastion of conservative, monetarist thinking, fellow Nobelist Samuelson held forth in the more liberal environs of MIT, where Keynesianism continued to have a foothold. Friedman's students helped spread free-market thinking around the world, including to Chile; Samuelson wrote the best-selling economics textbook, Economics, published by The McGraw-Hill Companies (MHP) (publisher of BusinessWeek), which influenced generations of undergraduates.

At times, the rivalry was right out in the open. From 1966 to the 1980s, Samuelson and Friedman had alternating columns in Newsweek magazine. But their competition was always collegial.

Says Samuelson: "I've known Milton and Rose Friedman for 65 years [Rose Director Friedman, his wife and co-author, survives her husband]. We have had considerable differences on policy. We have had considerable agreement on analytical matters. Knowing that differences on policy and ideology often poison and taint personal relations, I think we should both be admired for the friendship and civility we maintained over all these years."

Friedman was more the traditional economist, harking back to the wisdom of Alfred Marshall, while Samuelson was the innovator. But Friedman's views hold up remarkably well from today's vantage point.

Economists now generally reject heavy-handed Keynesian intervention and agree with Friedman that inflation is a monetary phenomenon. Friedman backed away from the crudest version of monetarism, which said that central banks should do little but set a target for the growth rate of the money supply. For example, he had high praise for former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, even though Greenspan paid little attention to the size of the money supply when setting short-term interest rates.

Theory of Consumption

According to his autobiography for the Nobel prize, Friedman was born on July 31, 1912, in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up in Rahway, N.J. He wrote: "Financial crisis was a constant companion. Yet there was always enough to eat, and the family atmosphere was warm and supportive."

He received his bachelor's degree from Rutgers University, studied economics at the University of Chicago, and got his PhD from Columbia University. During the Depression, Friedman worked in Washington on a large consumer-budget study that later led to one of his best-known achievements, the so-called "theory of the consumption function," which says that people's spending is determined by their expectations of future or "permanent" income, not just their current income.

Friedman spent most of his academic career in Chicago, then became a senior research fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. In the 1970s he and his wife created a PBS documentary series called Free to Choose, which later became a book.

He was a member of President Reagan's Economic Policy Advisory Board and received from Reagan the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In his final years, he and his wife established the Milton & Rose D. Friedman Foundation, devoted to promoting parental choice in schooling through vouchers.

Coy is BusinessWeek's Economics Editor.

Morreu Milton Friedman - parte 1

David Olive on The Star
Um artigo crítico sobre a vida do homem mais influente da segunda metade do século XX

--------------------

Milton Friedman, guiding spirit of economic conservatives worldwide in the post-World War II era, died yesterday of heart failure at a hospital near his San Francisco home. He was 94. A relentless champion of unfettered free markets and minimalist government, Friedman died just six months after the death of his chief intellectual antagonist, the Canadian-born U.S. economist John Kenneth Galbraith, an unapologetic liberal to the end who promoted an activist role for government in assisting the disadvantaged. Friedman and his wife, Rose, a noted economist in her own right, have for more than a quarter century been chief mascots of the modern conservative movement that has dominated public policy making in the West since the 1980s. The Vancouver-based Fraser Institute, an influential libertarian think tank, was perhaps unrivalled in the zeal with which it adopted the Friedmans as ideological patrons almost since the institute's inception in 1974. Friedman was an adviser to U.S. president Ronald Reagan and British prime minister Margaret Thatcher. He took criticism from human-rights advocates for counselling Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, and from anti-communists on the right for his lectures on free-market principles to government officials and students in the Soviet Union, China and Vietnam. Recalling the protestors who accosted him in Santiago, Friedman said he was resigned to being followed about the globe by demonstrators who made "a concerted effort to tar and feather me." In contrast to Galbraith, whose undiluted liberalism has been out of style since the early 1980s, Friedman went out on a high, his dismissal of government as an effective agent of social progress having ruled as the dominant economic theology for the past quarter-century. That makes the Friedman legacy something of an oddity. For his maxims, so revered in conservative salons in London, Washington and elsewhere, are contradicted by the facts on the ground, and his life story is at odds with some of his most fundamental beliefs. This leading exponent of the private sector's superior acumen over government did not ever toil in the private sector, but for taxpayer-financed government agencies and universities. Criticizing the Depression-era New Deal would consume much of Friedman's thinking and lectures in the 1960s. But unable to find work during the Depression, he regarded the job he secured with one of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal agencies "a lifesaver." Later, on encountering anti-Semitism during a brief teaching stint at the University of Wisconsin, Friedman returned to government work in the federal Treasury department, where, of all things, he played the lead role in devising the current withholding system of collecting income-tax revenue. Friedman railed against corporate philanthropy, insisting that the exclusive role of business is to generate wealth, not engage in social engineering. Yet Friedman's own academic home of longest duration, the University of Chicago, was willed into existence by Standard Oil monopolist John D. Rockefeller. Friedman's influence derived from his prophetic 1960s warning that runaway government spending and spiralling wage costs would someday culminate in a toxic co-existence of moribund economic growth, double-digit inflation and soaring unemployment — a phenomenon dubbed "stagflation" by fellow economist Paul Samuelson, a centrist, when it manifested itself in the 1970s. Friedman's was hardly the only voice raising the alarm, only the most persistent and well-credentialed. During his long tenure as an economics professor at the University of Chicago, Friedman's tutelage of like-minded young economists, some half-dozen of whom went on to become Nobel laureates, earned Friedman the distinction of having appeared to create a movement, namely the "Chicago School," for which there is no liberal counterpart. Friedman himself won Nobel honours in 1976.Friedman earned a reputation as a contrarian for rebelling against government pump-priming in tough economic times, which was advocated by John Maynard Keynes, the greatest economist of the 20th century. But the stagflation that earned Friedman celebrity status, a PBS television series and a Newsweek column, was not caused by those practices. The economic malaise of the 1970s was caused by reckless U.S. spending on Vietnam, two oil shocks in the space of a decade (a barrel of oil cost less than $2 U.S. before the first shock in 1973), and a managerial class in both the public and private sectors content to pass wage increases on to customers rather than stand up to union leaders. All of that was abhorrent to Keynes, who preached fiscal responsibility and balanced budgets in good times in order to bulk up government treasuries for the inevitable bad times. The influence of Friedman and his acolytes is exaggerated, although this is rarely acknowledged by either adherents or opponents of "Friedmanism." It's seldom remarked upon, for instance, that both Reagan and Thatcher used traditional Keynsian methods of increased government spending, along with tax cuts about which Keynes would have been less enthusiastic, to spur the economic boom of the 1980s. Current U.S. President George W. Bush followed an identical strategy in response to the U.S. recession of 2001-02. The era of big government continues apace, with the massive Medicare and other entitlement programs of Lester Pearson and Lyndon Johnson still in place, embellished recently by the creation of the U.S. homeland security department — the biggest expansion in the U.S. bureaucracy since the creation of the Pentagon shortly after World War II. Corporate philanthropy is arcing toward a new zenith, surpassing the largesse of the Rockefeller clan and Andrew Carnegie. "These days, billionaires try to outdo each other not just in how much they give away, but in how effective they can be in tackling problems," writes Slate editor Jacob Weisberg, whose online magazine now sponsors an annual conclave of the world's big business donors. Attending this year's donorfest were Bill Gates, whose foundation has $30 billion (U.S.) to dispense, and, of perhaps more interest, Google Inc. co-founder Larry Page. As an ideology, Friedmanism is widely subscribed to; in practice, it is stillborn. Viable leadership today comes with promises of frugality and doing more with less. But then, inevitably, come the hiring and acquisition binges, the corporate-welfare handouts and renewed farm subsidies, the extravagant public expenditure. Galbraith sought attention while Friedman affected to shun it. "I'm much more interested in having people thinking about the ideas, rather than the person," Friedman insisted. He might have meant it, too. But his legacy would not be well served by a careful examination of either the efficacy of the ideas he fought for, or a true measure of how widely they have been genuinely implemented.

Zune versus Ipod

Chegou o Zune. Mais feio, com menos atributos, mais barato que o Ipod.

Mas tal como o Windows 3 destronou o MAC também não devemos negligenciar o potencial dano que o Zune, com prováveis versões melhoradas no futuro, venha a ser um rival à altura...

Lusofonia e os jogos lusos

Mais um artigo muito interessante do professor arnaldo gonçalves, desde Macau. Saído na edição online do jornal de negócios.

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O reduzido eco dos primeiros Jogos da Lusofonia, que tiveram lugar em Macau entre 7 e 15 de Outubro, na imprensa portuguesa é sintoma claro do divórcio entre as boas intenções na política externa e o afunilamento da agenda na política doméstica. Significa, também, que os responsáveis políticos não conseguem estruturar as prioridades da acção externa de Portugal consentindo em ir a reboque das estratégias dos outros.

Os primeiros Jogos da Lusofonia juntaram 700 atletas oriundos de onze países, de quatro continentes e representando oito modalidades desportivas. Os jogos tiveram lugar por iniciativa da Região Administrativa Especial de Macau contando com o apoio institucional do governo chinês. Os Jogos visaram, segundo os promotores, celebrar o espaço da lusofonia como comunidade de afinidades construídas em redor de uma mesma língua, o português. Os Jogos custaram 160 milhões de patacas (cerca de dezasseis milhões de euros) o que corresponde a 0,55 por cento das receitas brutas totais dos casinos de Macau, registadas nos primeiros sete meses do ano.

Estes números dão bem sinal da pujança do crescimento económico do pequeno enclave, administrado até 1999 por Portugal, mas os Jogos têm uma outra leitura: a utilização pela China do conceito da lusofonia, para propósitos de política externa.

Porquê este súbito interesse da China em potenciar a ideia da lusofonia, da presença portuguesa no Oriente, quando seria natural que tudo fizesse para fazer esquecer a presença portuguesa de 440 anos?

Trata-se de um exemplo de pragmatismo chinês, resultante das reformas económicas lançadas por Deng Xiao Ping na década de 80 explicável por duas razões principais. Em primeiro lugar, a emergência da China como grande potência mundial impondo à China que se afirme como potência pacífica, cosmopolita, aberta ao mundo e apoiante da multiculturalidade. Em segundo lugar, porque as enormes carências energéticas do seu modelo de desenvolvimento, da sua rede de infraestruturas, lhe recomenda que olhe para África, dada a sua riqueza em recursos naturais, como fornecedor alternativo de crude.

De uma forma muito chinesa os responsáveis políticos de Pequim preferem não pôr "os ovos no mesmo cesto", isto é, ficar dependentes de um único parceiro comercial e estratégico, seja a Rússia, a União Europeia ou os países do Médio Oriente. Isso poderia sair muito caro na eventualidade de uma crise internacional como a que se alimenta com a deriva nuclear do Irão.

Este reavivado interesse pelos países que foram parte do império português no continente africano prossegue, também, dois desígnios adicionais: conseguir o reforço da balança comercial com os países africanos e com o Brasil e a tomada de posições em empresas africanas a quem cabe a exploração de recursos naturais estratégicos. Sendo o país com maiores reservas cambiais no mundo a China é o país que qualquer fornecedor de matérias-primas gostaria de ter como parceiro.

Um outro aspecto merece referência. Em reunião do recente fórum para a cooperação económica e comercial entre a China e os Países de Língua Portuguesa que teve lugar, em Setembro passado, em Macau, foi estabelecido que o comércio entre a China e os sete países que constituem aquele possa atingir, em 2009, os 45 a 50 mil milhões de dólares americanos. O que a acontecer corresponderá ao dobro do valor actual do comércio entre a China e aqueles países.

Portugal tem, neste particular, uma posição pouco mais que modesta. Em 2005, as trocas comerciais entre a China e Portugal cifraram-se em mil milhões de dólares norte-americanos, com um défice para Portugal de 300 milhões de dólares. O valor global do comércio China-Países de Língua Portuguesa (I&E) é de 32 mil milhões de dólares a valores de 2005.

A confirmarem-se tais previsões económicas e as intenções chinesas quanto aos mercados africanos, Portugal pode ver reduzido, ainda mais, a sua influência em África.

Resta perceber até que ponto a nomeação do secretário-geral do MNE, embaixador Rui Quartin Santos como próximo embaixador em Pequim pode ajudar a inverter uma tendência de divórcio continuado de Portugal das oportunidades colocadas pelo mercado chinês.

A minha irmã tem trissomia 21 e não foi "abortada"

Não resisto a publicar um texto que o Jaime, meu ex-aluno, publicou nos jornais.

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Os olhos azuis da minha irmã

No último Prós e Contras, a eurodeputada Edite Estrela considerou que o aborto poderia ser legítimo, caso a mãe descobrisse que a criança era portadora de trissomia 21.

Eu tenho uma irmã com olhos azuis. Chama-se Mónica, tem 22 anos e tirou o curso profissional de Serviços Básicos de Hospitalidade.

Trabalha hoje numa pastelaria de Lisboa. Os olhos dela são lindos e ela é educada, feminina, anda sempre perfumada...

A Mónica é a minha irmã e irmã de mais três. Gostamos muito dela e ela é muito feliz. Dá unidade à família, está atenta sempre a todos e a cada um.

A sra. eurodeputada não tem os olhos azuis mas tem uns olhos tão bonitos como os da Mónica. Tem os talentos e as virtudes de avó e de mãe. E tem dificuldades; certamente também chora e se alegra, é mais uma das pessoas deste nosso planeta que acorda todas as manhãs e lava os dentes.

De certeza que já viu um pobre na rua e lhe estendeu a mão direita (a esquerda) ou as duas, ou olhou para uma prostituta e sentiu pena. De certeza que já ajudou alguém em apuros.

Gostávamos que viesse a nossa casa, provasse os muffins que a Mónica faz e visse o gosto com que ela põe a mesa. E descobrisse que esta menina de olhos azuis tem... trissomia 21.

E ficaria bem contente por ela ter nascido. Tal como nós. Tal como qualquer pessoa.

Jaime Bilbao
Destak - 03/11/2006

Twin deficits, twenty years laters

Location: New York
Author: Linda Ricci
Date: Friday, October 27, 2006

The latest edition of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Twin Deficits, Twenty Years Later, is available.

Authors Leonardo Bartolini and Amartya Lahiri analyze the relationship between the increase in the size of fiscal deficits in a large number of industrialized and developing nations and the current account deficits of those countries. They do not find sufficient evidence to support the argument that cutting a nation’s fiscal deficit would significantly reduce its current account deficit.

The authors cite international data that every dollar of increase in fiscal deficit, accounted for primarily by tax cuts, goes in large measure to consumer savings rather than consumption. As a result, some of a nation’s need to borrow from abroad to finance its fiscal deficit is mitigated and its current account deficit is left relatively untouched.

According to the authors, when applied to the United States, this analysis suggests that even if the fiscal deficit—now about 2 percent of GDP—were fully erased, the nation’s current account deficit would improve by only a fraction of its current 7 percent of GDP.

Internacionalização do sector financeiro português: 8 ideias

Internacionalização do Sector Financeiro Português e impacto sobre o tecido produtivo português: 8 ideias

1. Os Relatórios e Contas, relativas aos anos de 2005 e primeiro semestre de 2006, permitem concluir que, nos principais bancos operantes no mercado português, o contributo dos negócios internacionais para a formação do resultado bruto do exercício correspondeu a uma percentagem entre 20 e 35%. E numa tendência que indicia ser crescente.

2. Para melhor se perceber este fenómeno talvez seja conveniente recordar as principais tendências do Meio Envolvente Contextual com que se deparam as instituições financeiras portuguesas:

i. Intensificação e harmonização regulamentar, o que vem aumentar os custos de actuação no mercado (compliance costs) e suscitar um acréscimo concorrencial. Salientem-se alguns: acordo de Basileia 2, DMIF/MiFID, mercados grossistas, SEPA, Prospectos de emissão,

ii. Integração económica e financeira dos mercados,

iii. Convergência do padrão de aquisição de produtos e serviços financeiros por parte dos cidadãos da União. O que tenderá a levar ao aumento das aquisições transfronteiriças.

3. Adicionalmente as instituições portuguesas defrontam-se com as limitações próprias de mercados domésticos, de dimensão reduzida e periféricos. Não sendo exaustivo, podem-se realçar:

a. Reduzidas oportunidades de manutenção do movimento de concentração doméstico. Independentemente do desfecho da OPA do BCP sobre o BPI.

b. Desvantagem de custos:

i. Menores economias de escala;

ii. Inferiores sinergias operativas (falta de escala, menores oportunidades de economias de gama);

iii. Menor acesso a capital para expansão e maior custo do mesmo.

c. Reduzida dimensão e eventual dispersão do capital pode tornar os bancos portugueses mais vulneráveis a processos de aquisição ou de reestruturação empresarial.

4. O desafio passa pela capacidade de continuar a terem autonomia estratégica, para o que é essencial a manutenção de adequados níveis de rendibilidade (dada a situação periférica portuguesa, isto implica um prémio face a outros mercados mais centrais da Europa).

5. A internacionalização pode ser uma forma de elevar a rendibilidade das instituições financeiras portuguesas.

6. Os mercados de retalho financeiro têm permanecido predominantemente locais, pelo que vários especialistas apontam-nos com tendo o maior potencial de desenvolvimento e de aquisição transnacional. As instituições portuguesas têm estado atentas e entre as suas opções de expansão contam-se aquisições de bancos locais ou a criação de bancos desde a raiz.

7. Por fim, deve-se atentar que a capacidade de uma Economia ser capaz de ter uma forte presença internacional em bens e serviços transaccionáveis constitui um forte estímulo ao desenvolvimento dos países. Não decerto por acaso fortuito, tem sido esta a via recomendada para Portugal. Um verdadeiro DESAFIO ESTRATÉGICO.

8. Aqui os Bancos portugueses têm um papel importante, pois é conhecido desde há muito, o papel de estímulo que a expansão internacional das maiores empresas de uma dada Economia exercem sobre as empresas situadas em sectores relacionados ou de suporte. Veja-se o caso das PME espanholas, em verdadeira fúria de internacionalização, à boleia da Telefónica, Ibéria, Iberdrola, BBVA, Santander, ....

17 de Outubro de 2006

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