Discurso de Trichet: o que precisa de fazer a Europa para crescer mais

Location: Berlin
Author: Jean-Claude Trichet
Date: Friday, October 20, 2006

The following is a speech by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, at the Ludwig Erhard Lecture.

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First of all, Dr Hans Tietmeyer is a pioneer of Economic and Monetary Union and the euro, and so, for obvious reasons, I feel close to him and responsible for ensuring that his work on the European project is continued. I particularly share his views on how to conduct monetary policy. Allow me to quote him to illustrate my point, “In the longer run, monetary stability has proved to be unequivocally beneficial for growth and employment. Moreover, it is the most social of all conceivable economic strategies”

Second, and on a more personal basis, I pride myself on being among his friends for more than 20 years.

Thanks to leaders like Hans, who shared the same vision for the future of Europe, in 1999, 11 European countries introduced the single currency, followed later by Greece. Slovenia will join the euro area next year. The introduction of the euro has been a remarkable success, acknowledged not only in Europe but in the whole world. However, to continue fully exploiting the benefits of the euro, Europe has to face important challenges that require major policy measures. Indeed, when comparing the euro area’s economic performance to that of the US in terms of growth, there is clear evidence of the fact that we have still a lot of progress to make. Since 1996, the annual growth rate in the euro area has averaged 2.1% per yearcompared with 3.4% in the US, reflecting a particularly mediocre euro area’s growth potential. As a result, while in 1996, the GDP per capita level in PPP in the euro area represented 84% of the US level, it represented only 76% in 2005.

Increasing potential output growth in Europe is today a priority for the euro area, as potential output growth is one of the major catalysts for improvement in living standards. It is also an important issue for the central bank, as potential output can be thought of as the maximum output an economy can sustain in the medium and long term without a rise in inflation.

I will first review the past economic growth performance of the euro area, focusing on some of the underlying factors of potential output growth, namely labour resource utilisation (or labour supply) and hourly labour productivity growth, in particular in comparison with the US and other advanced industrialized economies. Then I will elaborate on the kind of reforms which I consider essential to increase the potential growth rate and the prosperity of Europe in the future.

The economic performance of the euro area since the mid-1990s

Let me start with an assessment of the euro area’s economic performance by:

• first recalling a few general facts,
• then, analysing the euro area labour market and labour productivity performance in more detail.

As I already mentioned, over the period from 1996 to 2005, euro area output grew on average by about 1.3 percentage points less than in the US, and the gap appears to be persistent.

The main factor which explains these developments is the diverging trend in hourly labour productivity growth. Labour productivity growth is indeed typically the most important determinant of long-term potential output growth. During the 1980’s and the first half of the 1990s, hourly labour productivity in the euro area grew on average by 2.4%, decelerating to on average 1.3% between 1996 and 2005. By contrast, US hourly labour productivity growth rose from 1.3% to 2.2% over the same period.

At the same time, the euro area witnessed a slight improvement in the utilisation of labour, which increased on average by 0.3% between 1996 and 2005 compared with 0.1% in the US] when defined as the total annual hours worked divided by the total population. Labour utilisation reflects the extent to which the potential labour resources in an economy are actually utilised and therefore has a direct influence on output growth. The slight improvement in labour utilisation mainly reflects the significant rise in the euro area employment rate from 58% in 1996 to 63.5% in 2005, accompanied by a decline in the aggregate unemployment rate from 10.7% to 8.6%. However, the increase in employment has been partly dampened by a fall in the average annual hours worked per person of 0.4% per annum over the same period [compared with a fall of 0.2% in the US].

Let me now describe in more detail four features of the European labour market and labour productivity performance that will provide some useful insight on progress achieved by the euro area economy and its weaknesses.

First of all, despite the progress recorded on the labour market side, the overall employment rate in the euro area remains low by international standards [63.5% in the euro area compared with 71.5% in the US in 2005] and the unemployment rate is clearly too high [8.6% compared with 5.1% in the US in 2005. Moreover, in 2005 the number of annual hours worked in the euro area was 1603 compared to 1804 in the US. All in all, this clearly suggests that there is still considerable room for improvement as regards increasing the level of labour resource utilisation in Europe.

Second, while the prime-age male employment rate in the euro area is comparable to that observed in the United States, when we look at the youth, female and older worker employment rates, the disparities are considerable. The female employment rate was 55% in the euro area and 66% in the US, the older workers employment rate was 40% in the euro area and 60% in the US, the youth employment rate was 37% in the euro area and 54% in the US. These figures appear to be consistent with an “insider-outsider” characterisation of the European labour market, where structural impediments prevent those groups “at the margin” of the labour market from entering and participating in the labour market.

The rise in the overall employment rate in the euro area over the last ten years has been mainly driven by an increase in the female and older workers employment rates, partly reflecting the progress made by structural reforms and wage moderation policy in some European countries. Nevertheless, and turning to my third point which relates more specifically to hourly labour productivity growth performance, specific policies aiming at increasing employment particularly in the unskilled segment of the labour market have certainly contributed to the observed slowdown in labour productivity growth. However, this apparent trade-off between labour utilisation and productivity is likely to be a temporary phenomenon that should fade when the economy reaches a higher “equilibrium” labour/output ratio.

However, it is worth mentioning that the US managed at the same time to increase both labour input and labour productivity. This leads to my final point. There is indeed another factor that explains the difference in the rate of labour productivity growth in Europe compared with the US, which in my view is a major policy concern, namely the fact that Europe is lagging behind in terms of innovation and more specifically the diffusion of information and communication technology (ICT). Several authors have already highlighted the major role of ICT in the revival of labour productivity growth in the US.

While the ICT sector is the single most important source of productivity growth, it represented only 40% of EU productivity growth compared with 60% in the US. In 2004, total R&D investment in the euro area accounted for 1.9% of GDP and the ICT sector represented as much as 20% of this amount, while in the US, 2.8% of GDP was spent on R&D and the ICT sector represented as much as 30% of this total. Even more important is the effect ICT diffusion has had on productivity in the US economy, particularly in the services sector, with a substantial impact on retail and wholesale business and on the financial services sector. ICT investment, which is a good indicator of ICT diffusion, represented 4% of GDP in the US over the period from 1996 to 2004 compared with only 2% in the euro area. The structural characteristics of the US economy – a more flexible labour market, a higher degree of competition in product markets and lower barriers to entry for new firms – were apparently more conducive to exploiting the opportunities provided by new technologies. By contrast, the productivity growth performance in Europe was characterised by a lack of technology diffusion across sectors, particularly in the services sector.

The need for further structural reforms in Europe

Overall, this brief assessment of the underlying causes of Europe’s disappointing longer-term growth performance provides a mixed picture of the European economy. Of course, I focused on a specific set of supply-side determinants of economic growth. Economic growth is also influenced by other factors, including the macroeconomic policy framework. I will deal with some of these aspects, including the contribution of monetary policy to sustainable output growth, later on in my speech.

The lack of sufficient structural reform in Europe is, in my view, a major cause of the difference in the rate of economic growth in Europe compared with the US and with some other advanced industrialized economies, and of the fall in potential output growth in Europe. All in all, it appears that the overriding policy concern for Europe is how to simultaneously achieve solid employment and productivity growth. I will therefore now turn to those structural reforms that have the potential to increase both euro area labour productivity growth and labour utilisation, and therefore long-term growth potential. It is clear that embarking on the path of such major structural reforms is easier said than done, especially in the current environment, where the European economy is facing a number of important challenges, including rapid technological change, ageing populations as well as accelerating globalisation. For instance, ageing will not only put pressure on public finances by driving up ageing-related expenditure, but will most certainly also bring down the potential growth rate of Europe if no reforms take place. According to the European Commission’s projections, the impact of ageing populations alone could reduce potential output growth in Europe by nearly half by 2040, from the present rate of 2%-2.25% to around 1.25% if structural reforms are not carried out.

All in all, these challenges will require major efforts to increase the output growth and adjustment capacity of the euro area in general and the flexibility of workers in particular. European governments should take advantage of the recent favourable growth developments to push ahead with structural reform.

Without aiming to be exhaustive, I should like to highlight some of the key priorities for reform in four main areas, namely:

• Getting more people into work,
• Increasing competition,
• Unlocking business potential,
• And finally, supporting an innovative environment.

First of all, well-functioning labour markets are extremely important in fostering higher economic growth. The differences in labour market developments, especially with regard to the level of labour utilisation, between the US and Europe has prompted some economists to suggest the existence of a “European model” and a “US model”, related to the trade-off between labour and leisure. One view is that the lower levels of GDP per capita in Europe reflect a European preference for more leisure time. However, we should bear in mind that lower participation rates are not necessarily associated solely with personal preferences, but are also triggered by the legal and regulatory environment, tax systems and social institutions. Benefit systems that are too generous discourage job searching, early retirement schemes encourage early withdrawal from the labour market - employment rates for older workers aged from 55 to 64 stood at just 40% in the euro area in 2005 and at around 60% in the US - and marginal tax rates that are too high discourage labour market entry and have a downward effect on average hours worked. Necessary measures to increase labour utilisation or labour supply include the reform of tax and benefit systems to address these problems and increase incentives to work. Measures aimed at reconciling motherhood with professional life, such as the provision of childcare, should also raise participation rates. Furthermore, the use of flexible forms of work such as part-time and temporary work may also provide further working incentives.

High unemployment rates in the euro area and in particular high youth unemployment rates, amounting to 17.8% in 2005 compared with 11.3% in the US, clearly suggest the need to spur not only labour supply but also labour demand. In this context, there is a need to promote wage flexibility and to address labour market rigidities. Adjustments should be made to employment legislation where it impedes the hiring of younger and older workers in particular.

And reform does pay off. Indeed, the European countries that did engage on the path of such reforms in particular Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands have achieved success in reducing unemployment and stimulating job creation, despite significantly different economic conditions. In 2005 the unemployment rate in these countries stood below 5.0%, while their overall employment rate was above or close to the US level. To achieve such remarkable success, these countries reformed their tax and benefit systems by reducing for example tax wedges on labour income and by carrying out a stricter enforcement of job search rules and a better surveillance of eligibility. They also increased, when needed, the flexibility of their labour market by easing employment protection legislation (EPL), in particular as regards temporary workers.

What all these countries also have in common is a significant reduction of product market regulation (PMR). This leads to the second prerequisite for higher medium to long-term growth: increasing competition towards establishing efficient and well-functioning product markets.

Most studies point to the potential competitive pressure has to increase employment, at least in the long run, and to boost productivity trends by improving production efficiency and by enhancing the incentive to invest and innovate. The links between competition and productivity growth are now both theoretically and empirically well-established. The ECB and the Eurosystem as well as the Commission have been working in this domain of research.

In the EU, some progress has been made in this regard. For example, several network industries, like telecommunications, are now fully or largely open to competition. A lot remains to be done: the extension and deepening of the EU internal market remains a priority. With service-related activities representing around 70% of value added and employment in the euro area, more competition in the EU service markets is absolutely of the essence.

In this context, the adoption of the Services Directive by the European Parliament in February 2006 constitutes a step forward in the right direction even if it has been somewhat watered down which I regretted. Let us also stress that the mere adoption of Internal Market directives does not automatically produce benefits. Once adopted, directives must be transposed into national law and enforced in order to produce benefits and Member States have the primary responsibility for these tasks.

The third prerequisite for higher growth in the euro area is the unlocking of business potential by creating an entrepreneurial-friendly economic environment. Europe needs more new and thriving firms willing to reap the benefits of opening markets and to embark on creative or innovative ventures for commercial exploitation on a larger scale. It is increasingly new and smaller firms, rather than large ones, that are the major providers of new jobs. The contribution from firm dynamic processes to aggregate labour productivity growth and innovation also plays a major role, in particular in high-tech industries. All in all, an entrepreneurial-friendly economic environment would imply less red tape for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to help them develop at home and across borders, as well as positive action to ease access to the finance they need. As regards risk capital markets, venture capital (VC) financing is also crucial. Without these funds, many new and innovative companies will simply not emerge. And Europe is significantly lagging behind in this field, as VC financing in Europe remains only a fraction of what it is in the US relative to the size of their economies. The immense importance of having an entrepreneurial-friendly economic environment is however increasingly appreciated by European governments, and several initiatives at national or EU level have started to implement actions for “better regulation”. For example, in March 2006, the European Council called for the establishment of “one-stop-shop” arrangements in each Member State by the end of 2007, which would enable a company to be set up in one week. Today, the number of days needed to set up a new business in the euro area ranges from eight days in France and Portugal to 47 and 38 days in Spain and Greece respectively, compared to only five days in the US.

Fourth, to fully exploit productivity potential, the labour and product market reforms I just mentioned need to be accompanied by policies that help to diffuse innovation and technological change. This includes, inter alia, measures to support innovation through higher investment in research and development (R&D). The immense importance of this issue, and the great opportunities provided by investment in research, are also increasingly appreciated by European governments and firms. Europe has set itself the target of achieving a share of 3% of GDP by 2010 and some progress seems to have been made in this regard. According to a recent EU pilot survey on R&D investment, European companies expect their global investment in research and development to grow by about 5% per year over the next three years, which represents a considerable improvement over recent years. At that growth rate, provided it would effectively materialize, European companies would be doing as well as their US counterparts in terms of R&D investment for the first time since a large number of years. The survey also found that European companies continue to prefer to locate R&D activities in their home country, with Germany, the United Kingdom and France topping their lists of favoured destinations.

To make these measures most effective, they need to be accompanied by efforts to improve the labour force’s level of education and expertise.

The impact of education on growth may be related to innovation, as well as the adoption of new technologies. Policies aimed at improving human capital are usually considered to be of the utmost importance in this field. One possible explanation, commonly mentioned in literature, is that the diffusion of innovation and new technology is associated with a rapid decrease in learning costs over time triggered by the increasing number of users. More widespread knowledge about how to exploit new technology would obviously speed up the rate of diffusion and foster non linear effects as regards the benefits associated with it.

Better education and training also helps to reduce mismatches in the labour market and allows for a smoother reallocation of workers between sectors and firms.

All in all, meeting the challenges of technological progress and ensuring the labour force’s employability and flexibility, requires that human capital is continuously adjusted to labour market needs through improved education and training, as well as lifelong learning.

The last decades have already brought about an enormous increase in the level of educational attainment, the so-called “catch-up effect in education”. In the euro area, according to OECD data for 2003, an average of 73% of those aged from 25 to 34 had attained at least upper secondary education, compared to only 46% of persons aged from 55 to 64.

However, so far investment in human capital in Europe is still clearly inadequate for a “knowledge-intensive” economy. In 2005, the US annual expenditure on higher education institutions per student was 17,890 EUR, while in the euro area only about 7,402 EUR was spent. Furthermore, we need more high quality scientists and researchers. In the EU we have about 5.3 scientists and researchers per thousand workers, compared with the US’s nine per thousand.

The state of structural reform

If euro area countries now summon up their strength and ambitiously push forward with structural reform, this will support and broaden the improvement in economic activity in the euro area. This is why the ECB has always encouraged the implementation of structural reform within the so-called Lisbon Strategy, which was put in place during a meeting of the European Council of Heads of State and Government in Lisbon in 2000. Over these first few years, progress has been made in some areas, as is also indicated by an increase in the euro area employment rate. Still, the reforms have not been far-reaching enough and their implementation, in particular, has been too slow, particularly as regards the urgency of these reforms and the opportunity costs associated with this slow motion.

Against this background, the mid-term review of the Lisbon Strategy in 2005 led to a re-launch of the process by shifting the strategy’s focus to growth and employment. Also, a number of changes were made to the governance framework of the Lisbon Strategy in order to improve the implementation rate of structural reforms. One outcome of this process was that all EU countries had to prepare National Reform Programmes (NRPs) outlining steps for structural reform for the period from 2005 to 2008. Overall, the NRPs appear to reflect a stronger political commitment to the reform process in the context of the Lisbon Strategy, and all euro area governments acknowledge the need for further reforms and the benefits arising from implementing such reforms. It has also been acknowledged that a well-functioning and competitive Internal Market is particularly important for the euro area inasmuch as it will enhance its capacity to adjust smoothly to asymmetric shocks. This will help to more fully reap the substantial benefits of the single currency.

In this context, the NRPs appear to be an important step forward and these efforts are welcomed by the ECB. Indeed, the potential gains are very significant. A recent study finds that if Europe reaches the objectives set down in the Lisbon Strategy (in particular, full implementation of the internal market for services, a reduction of administrative burdens, improvements in human capital as well as the R&D and employment targets), EU GDP could be 12 to 23% higher than otherwise and employment increased by about 11% by 2025. These figures might look impressive. But these orders of magnitude are not out of reach. Fancy that if only we could go back to our labour productivity yearly progress level of the 80’s, namely 2.5 %, we would gain each year around 1.2 % of growth knowing that our present average yearly level is 1.3 %...

Macroeconomic stability to support higher and sustainable growth

As mentioned earlier, the supply-side determinants of long-term growth that I have emphasised should not be understood as an exhaustive explanation for the growth performance of the European economy. We should also look beyond the microeconomics of the supply-side and ensure an appropriate macroeconomic framework in Europe. I am referring now to the national fiscal policies and the single monetary policy.

First of all, sound fiscal policies in Europe are of the essence because they ultimately are supporting growth and stability. Through various channels, including favourable “ricardian” confidence effects, prudent fiscal policies contribute to lower risk premia on long-term interest rates and thus to more favourable financing conditions. This, in turn, promotes investment and long-term growth. It is, amongst others, for these reasons – to have a stable and sustainable fiscal framework for economic growth as well as to support a stability-oriented monetary policy – that the EU has adopted the Stability and Growth Pact.

Beyond that, the “quality” of public finances matters also enormously for growth. The level and composition of government taxes and expenditure has an impact on the way markets function, and they can hinder – or promote – growth. Reducing public spending inefficiency, would pave the way to financing tax cuts. And public expenditure directed towards productivity-enhancing physical and human capital accumulation rather than towards propping up failing enterprises or “sunset industries” is, of course, growth-promoting.

I do not need now to explain in detail why we at the ECB insist that the best contribution monetary policy can make to growth is to maintain price stability. I am in the presence of Hans about whom Time magazine wrote in 1997 “If the Romans had a god of central banking, he might look like Hans Tietmeyer”. Let me make a brief comment about the role of monetary policy in fostering sustainable economic growth in Europe.

What a central bank must do and can do is to avoid, to the extent possible, the negative effects on long-term growth of the uncertainty caused by high, variable and unanticipated inflation. The variability of inflation increases uncertainty and exerts a major negative influence on investment and thus on potential output as well as on other components of aggregate demand. The environment of price stability in line with our definition, the credibility of the ECB in delivering price stability over time and therefore the solid anchoring of inflation expectations, are paving the way for the favourable levels of medium and long term market rates, lending support to sustainable economic activity.

Orhan Pamuk, nobel da literatura

Orhan Pamuk tornou-se ontem o primeiro escritor turco a ganhar o prémio Nobel da Literatura.

Deixo-vos com um pequeno comentário do The Guardian.

Nicholas Birch
Friday October 13, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

Twenty-four hours after Orhan Pamuk became the first ever Turkish writer to win the Nobel prize, reactions in Turkey are strangely mixed.

His fellow artists have been overwhelmingly positive. Yasar Kemal, doyen of Turkish novelists and often tipped for the Nobel himself, emailed Pamuk to congratulate him for an award that he "thoroughly deserved", while the winner of the 2003 Grand Jury prize at Cannes, Nuri Bilge Ceylan declared he was as happy as if he'd won it himself.

Others picked up on Pamuk's suggestion that his award was above all a victory for all Turkish writers. "It's a great opportunity for Turkey and Turkish literature to be better known by the world," said the bestselling crime writer Ahmet Umit.

Generosity has been in much shorter supply in Turkey's mainstream media. "Should we be pleased or sad?" asked Fatih Altayli, editor of the mass circulation daily Sabah, in his Friday column.

Unlike the fork-tongued contributions of other equally prominent journalists, what he wrote next at least had the merit of being straightforward.

The best reaction to Pamuk's victory was pride, he opined. And yet "we can't quite see Pamuk as 'one of us'... We see him as someone who 'sells us out' and ... can't even stand behind what he says."

Turkey's most influential paper, Hurriyet, also felt the same impulse to question Pamuk's Turkishness.

Editor Ertugrul Ozkok wrote at length in his column about the difficulty of choosing the seemingly banal headline "Nobel to a Turk," declaring "we all know this headline will probably satisfy nobody's 'Turkish side'."

While some have seen Pamuk as something of an outsider since the publication in 2002 of Snow - his most overtly political novel - such ill-disguised bile has surrounded him ever since he told a Swiss newspaper last year that nobody but him dared to say that Turkey had killed 30,000 Kurds and a million Armenians. Within hours, he became Turkey's enemy number one.

Lawyers hauled him into court on charges of "insulting Turkishness" - charges dropped amid ugly scenes earlier this year after international pressure - and one provincial official issued orders for copies of his books to be collected and burnt. Not one was found.

Pamuk's sin wasn't just to break a taboo. By talking about such delicate topics with foreigners, he opened himself to accusations of treason and political opportunism. Many Turks remain convinced his remarks were a calculated attempt to win the status of political dissident.

The cartoon on the front of today's Sabah shows the novelist in front of shelves emblazoned "works that won Orhan Pamuk the Nobel".

On the upper shelf, his seven novels. On the lower, a grey tome with "Turkish Penal Code Article 301" - the article used to bring him to trial last December - inscribed on its spine.

Some see the criticisms as simple jealousy on the part of a parochial-minded intelligentsia. Others present them as just the latest evidence of how much damage the authoritarian coup of 1980 did to Turkish society.

But the debate is also typical of the country's elite: determined to be taken seriously on the international stage, but only on its own terms.

"It's tragic really", said Elif Shafak, another novelist brought to book under Article 301 last month. "This is a huge honour both for Pamuk and the country, and yet so many people are so politicised they forget about literature entirely."

Why It's So Hard to Value Social Networking Sites

Less than three years after emerging from nowhere, the hot social networking website MySpace is on pace to be worth a whopping $15 billion in just three more years. Or is it?

Is the much smaller Facebook, run by a 22-year-old, really worth the $900 million or more Yahoo is reported to have offered for it? Maybe. Or maybe this is Dot-Com Bubble, Part II, with MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and the other new Internet phenoms destined for oblivion when the fad fades.

"What makes this hard is that these companies seem to be so many years away from the kind of earnings that the valuation numbers are forecasting for them," says Andrew Metrick, finance professor at Wharton. The $15 billion MySpace figure "would imply that a lot more people will be on MySpace than are currently on it."

While the social networking sites vary considerably, each relies heavily on content provided by users who can post personal profiles and build networks among friends and others with shared interests. For the most part, these users have free access and the sites are funded with advertising revenue. To lure advertisers, young sites typically offer deep discounts that make profitability elusive, and it is unclear when they will be able to push ad rates higher, if ever.

The problem, as Wharton accounting professor Robert W. Holthausen sees it, is a dearth of information to plug into the standard valuation models. "You have little data on what kind of revenues they can generate and what their cost structure is."

Valuing advertising-driven sites is particularly hard because the same numbers -- such as the number of users or page views -- can mean different things depending on how the advertisers are billed, Holthausen adds. "How often do they get paid for that advertising? Is it just when the advertisement appears? Or does there have to be a click through?" Similarly, not every user has the same value. That depends on how much the typical user is likely to spend and what he or she is likely to buy. Finally, Holthausen notes, a site will be more valuable if it uses a proprietary technology than if it simply offers services competitors can easily duplicate.

The $15 billion MySpace prediction was issued late in September by RBC Capital analyst Jordan Rohan, fresh from a meeting with Fox Interactive, the News Corp. unit that acquired MySpace's parent company, Intermix Media, about a year ago for a then-astounding $580 million. Rohan cited MySpace's phenomenal growth. It now has more than 90 million active users, twice as many as a year earlier, making it a magnet for advertisers. It recently signed a deal with Google to display search results and sponsored advertising links in exchange for $900 million over three years. In setting the $15 billion forecast, Rohan pointed to Google, which also relies on ad revenue, and which has a market capitalization of $120 billion.

But is Google a good benchmark? Google is without question the premier Internet search service, while MySpace is one of a number of competitors scrambling for market share in a new industry. Google has a proven track record of profitability, while MySpace does not.

Moreover, even Google's $120 billion market cap may reflect some irrational exuberance, making it a misleading model. Its shares sell for about 55 times annual earnings, roughly triple the price-to-earnings ratio of the average Standard & Poor's 500 company. Using the same 55-times-earnings figure, MySpace would need about $270 million in annual profit to justify a $15 billion value. Can it do that in three years, given it is expected to generate only about $200 million in revenue this year? It looks like a reach.

Consider some of the figures bandied about for Facebook. Last January, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, now 22, reportedly turned down a $750 million offer from Viacom, holding out for $2 billion, according to news accounts. This fall he is said to be mulling over a $900 million offer from Yahoo. Those are big numbers considering that the business, started early in 2004, has a modest nine million users and is believed to have annual revenue of around $50 million, though some experts expect that to double soon. If Facebook were valued at 55 times earnings, it would need a $16 million profit to justify a $900 million price.

"Discounted Cash Flow"

Still, there are sure to be some winners in social networking, and sites that are already pulling in significant revenue must certainly have an edge over the dozens of lesser-known competitors. "That's a lot of revenue," Metrick says, noting that this distinguishes Facebook from the dot-com bubble firms. "There were a lot of Internet companies in 1999 that had no revenue.... That kind of [$900 million valuation] doesn't seem so crazy if you believe there is a lot of growth built in." But, he adds, "There are a whole lot of examples of firms like Netscape which grew -- and then eventually lost."

The market-capitalization method of valuation is typically used with a public company -- a free standing entity that sells stock to the public. And it's best for stating a current value rather than a future one. Analysts also like to factor in a company's future prospects, using any number of calculations to derive a figure for "discounted cash flow." Essentially, they look at expected revenues over a given number of years and subtract expenses to arrive at a figure for "free cash flow." Then, using various assumptions about interest rates, they determine what money received in the future is worth in today's terms.

Analysts can never be sure about any company's future revenues and expenses, but the problem is even worse when dealing with a young company in a fledgling industry. The assumptions used in any valuation model are ideally based on experience of at least six or seven competitors, Metrick says. But there is no good peer data in the new social networking business.

With older industries, analysts often value a company on some ratio, such as a multiple of revenues. "But the problem is you are assuming the valuations put on these are rational," says Holthausen, arguing that expectations for new industries are often not rational. During the dot-com bubble, some companies that did have substantial revenues were valued far beyond what any standard analysis would say they were worth, he adds. "You totally had to suspend belief."

After the bubble burst, valuing the survivors did become more sensible, and some are assessed fairly easily with standard approaches, according to Wharton marketing professor Peter Fader. That's especially true of publicly traded companies involved in ordinary commerce, such as bookseller Amazon.com and auction site eBay. Their stocks trade at 45 and 39 times earnings, respectively.

"You're not going to see an Amazon being overvalued like [Internet stocks] used to be," he says, "but these social network sites are the Wild West. This is an area where it has been notoriously fickle. It's not like search engines, where you can really compare them on objective criteria," he suggests, referring to established players like Google and Yahoo.

Among the unknowns: How well can social networking sites hold on to their users? One player, Friendster, burst onto the scene a few years ago, then largely deflated. On the other hand, users go to considerable trouble to upload information and images to these sites, and to establish elaborate networks of friends for electronic sharing. They are not likely to abandon all that effort as casually as they would switch from one online bookseller to another. "It does seem to me there is some stickiness to the model," Holthausen says.

Networks Based around Products

Metrick believes social networking sites will not be a passing fad. But there's no guarantee that MySpace, Facebook or any of the other current players will be the big winners in the end. Fader, too, believes social networking is here to stay, but he thinks it may work best not as a freestanding function but as an additional feature on sites that draw users for other reasons. Hence, the winners may turn out to be other sites that adopt social networking features. Or they may be new players, or current networking sites that broaden their offerings.

Many sites may ultimately be acquired in the way MySpace was bought by publicly traded News Corp., the enormous multi-national media company run by Rupert Murdoch. Part of the News Corp. strategy is to let advertisers link users into networks based around products, such as movies or music groups. More than a million bands have profiles on MySpace, for example.

If MySpace becomes the model, social networking sites will be quite different from the classic dot-com bubble companies which tried to cash in big by going public while staying independent. The risks are not the same when an iffy venture is part of something bigger, says John R. Percival, adjunct professor of finance at Wharton. "This is kind of like the oil and gas business. The risk might not be as great as you think, and a high valuation might be justified."

A small, independent oil driller faces a huge risk in drilling a new hole, which may be dry, he says. Compared to that, risks from changing oil prices and demand are relatively small. But the situation is reversed when the driller is part of a bigger enterprise that drills many wells. A dry hole here and there doesn't matter, but changes in oil prices and demand do.

Social networking sites may be risky for their founders and the venture capital firms that fund them in the early years, but they don't appear to be pumping huge amounts of risk to the marketplace the way tech firms did in the late 1990s. "If you have a little bit of money invested in this and you're already invested in other things," says Percival, "frankly the risk is not as big as you think."

Recalling the first dot-com bubble six years ago, Fader notes, "We all look back and laugh and say we will not go through that exercise again, but this could easily be a case of history repeating itself."

Location: Phildadelphia
Author: Knowledge@Wharton
Date: Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Actual Editora

Estou a ler o livro do Buzz Marketing, do qual oportunamente farei uma pequena nota de síntese para os leitores deste blogue.

Mas entrementes queria deixar-vos com uma pequena descoberta: a Actual Editora (www.actualeditora.pt). Com quem tomei contacto aquando do lançamento do último livro de Charles Handy.

A editora destingue-se das outras, e bem, por uma série de factores:

- especialização em temas económicos, gestão, marketing, liderança e desenvolvimento pessoal;
- livros de sucesso nos mercados anglo-saxónicos;
- capas cuidadas e muito atractivas;
- traduções esmeradas;
- composição do texto indutora de leitura não cansativa.

Um regalo.
Parabéns!

MIFID: avanços recentes

A nova directiva europeia relativa aos Mercados e Investimentos (Market in Financial Instruments Directive) será transposta nas legislações nacionais até final de Janeiro de 2007 e realidade em Novembro de 2007.

O Committee of European Securities Regulators nomeou uma equipa de especialista para o Level 3 da Directiva. Este grupo irá recomendar e propôr às autoridades legislativas e regulatórias o detalhe técnico necessário para a sua implementação.

Derrota do Porto

Em Braga, ontem à noite, o que relançou o campeonato.
E o Sporting Clube de Braga, com uma equipa de rejeitados (Paulo Santos, Wender, Luís Filipe, João Pinto, Marcel) fez a cabeça em água a Jesualdo Ferreira e seus comandados...

Desenvolvimento da democracia electrónica

A APDSI - Associação Portuguesa para o Desenvolvimento da Sociedade Electrónica criou um grupo de trabalho dedicado ao tema da Democracia Electrónica.

Podem os estimados leitores acompanhar o curso dos trabalhos aqui neste blogue ou em http://democraciaelectronica.blogspot.com

Ainda e sobre os Hedge Funds, muito na berra...

Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) has introduced a bill in Congress requiring regulators to study risks that hedge funds pose to the U.S. economy and to make recommendations about disclosure requirements for the big investment pools.

"Regulators need to explore hedge funds and the potential risks they pose to financial markets and investors," said Castle, a member of the House Committee on Financial Services. "Transparency in our financial system is important for market discipline and investor confidence." Castle's statement comes the same day that Greenwich, Conn.-based hedge fund Amaranth Advisors LLC said it suffered big losses on natural-gas investments and is eliminating positions in the volatile commodity.

In a letter signed by Amaranth founder Nicholas Maounis and made available to MarketWatch Monday, the fund said it could be down more than 35% for the year to date when the natural-gas positions are unwound. "We have met every margin call to date. We are in discussions with our prime brokers and other counterparties and are working to protect our investors while meeting the obligations of our creditors," Maounis wrote in the letter addressed to investors. Early last month, MotherRock LP, an energy hedge fund run by the former president of the New York Mercantile Exchange, said it was shutting down also after suffering big losses in natural-gas markets in recent months.

Hedge funds have drawn scrutiny as they have become more accessible to average investors. Last month, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox told a Senate committee that his agency' is working on new rules about regulating the private investment partnerships. He said the investor-protection agency won't appeal a court ruling overturning a rule requiring hedge-fund managers to register with the SEC as investment advisers. Cox also said one proposal is a new antifraud rule that would effectively look through a hedge fund to its investors. Moreover, the SEC's considering increasing the minimum income and asset requirement for individuals who want to invest in hedge funds, Cox added.

Castle's bill calls on the President's Working Group on Financial Markets to study the type of information that the funds should disclose to the public; the potential risks that hedge funds pose to markets and investors; whether hedge-fund investors are able to protect themselves from risks associated with their investments; the growth of pension funds investing in hedge funds, and other issues. Castle acknowledged Congress has few days remaining before the November elections but said he was confident lawmakers would produce hedge fund-related legislation within a year. "There's a lack of information available to people that have to make decisions," Castle said.

Voar como o Jardel: letra de Carlos Tê e música de Rui Veloso

Eu queria unir as pedras desavindas
escoras do meu mundo movedico
aquelas duas pedras perfeitas e lindas
das quais eu nasci forte e inteirico

Eu queria ter barra nesse cais
para quando o mar ameaca a minha proa
E queria vencer todos os vendavais
que se erguem quando o diabo se assoa

Tu querias perceber os passaros
Voar como o jardel sobre os centrais
Saber por que dao seda os casulos
Mas isso ja eram sonhos a mais

Conta-me os teus truques e fintas
Sera que os "Nikes" fazem voar
Diz-me o que sabes e nao me mintas
ao menos em ti posso confiar

Agora diz-me agora o que aprendeste
De tanto saltar muros e fronteiras
Olha para mim e ve como cresceste
Com a forca bruta das trepadeiras

Põe aqui a mao e sente o deserto
Cheio de culpas que nao sao minhas
E ainda que nada à volta bata certo
Juro ganhar o jogo sem espinhas

Tu querias perceber os passaros
Voar como o jardel sobre os centrais
Saber por que dao seda os casulos
Mas isso ja eram sonhos a mais

Economic Risk - US Downturn Won't Derail World Economy

A sharp slowdown in the U.S. economy in 2007 is unlikely to drag the rest of the global economy down with it, according to a research report by Merrill Lynch's global economic team. The good news is that there are strong sources of growth outside the U.S. that should prove resilient to a consumer-led U.S. slowdown.

(Fonte: the risk center´s risk alert daily digest)

Conferência da MSI em Lisboa

Decorreu estas terça e quarta-feiras, em Lisboa, no Hotel Meridien, uma Conferência do MSI (Marketing Science Institute).

Elevado nível académico e intelectual, debates vivos, apresentações agradáveis e com o powerpoint reduzido ao mínimo indispensável.

Em breve daremos mais notas sobre a Conferência, que este vosso escriba é dos relatores.

Marketing Metrics and Financial Performance

It is said that at least half of all advertising spending is ineffective, that up to 80% of new-product initiatives fail commercially, and that 85% of sales promotions lose money. Such sobering statistics invite a deeper examination of the productivity of marketing investments, especially as they impact customer attitudes and financial performance.
Newly developed marketing metrics and an abundance of good customer and marketing data provide the opportunity for improved marketing practice going forward. However, the data and the metrics do not suffice. We also need to know how the metrics relate to each other, and how marketing investments impact these metrics in different ways. For example, do increases in sales always correspond to increases in brand equity or in customer equity? If not, what are the tradeoffs between them? This conference will explore these and other issues including:
How do customer metrics relate to business performance? Which customer metrics should CFO’s and CMO’s be responsive to?
How do marketing mix models help clarify the all-important connection between marketing spending and business performance?
How do we integrate customer metrics, marketing ROI and financial performance?

(from Marketing Science Institute; http://www.msi.org/msi/meetings.cfm)

talentos de meus alunos

O Pedro Pimentel é modelo em anúncios para televisão de produtos como os automóveis SKODA ou o Sonasol.

O Martim desenvolveu o seu AbsolutMartunis, nóvel blogue, que podem aceder através dos links deste meu sítio.

Entrementes é bom estar em Lagos a contemplar a baía e o azul imenso... tomara que o vento norte venha logo pois as minhas velas estão à espera...

Os descontos de Alegre

Os descontos de Alegre e a ética política
(...) Agora, a questão de fundo é isto: como é que é possível haver um sistema, uma lei, que permita uma situação desta natureza, que é que uma pessoa que trabalha três meses, porque continua a descontar ao longo da vida apesar de nunca mais ter exercido aquela função, tem direito a receber uma pensão de 600 contos. Eu pergunto: isto é justo? Que é legal, eventualmente é. Agora, é justo? Se for oito dias tem direito a 500 contos? Se for 15 dias? Quer dizer, três meses. É que isto não é um seguro privado. Num seguro privado eu digo: "Eu quero ter, no final da vida, uma pensão de tantos, e, portanto, desconto tantos por mês." Aqui não, aqui há uma ligação entre a actividade desenvolvida e o desconto. (...)Diz Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa na reprodução no DN da sua crónica de domingo na RTP
X--X--X
É verdade o que diz, quer quanto à irracionalidade do sistema quer quanto à honorabilidade do "poeta" (que antecede o que aqui transcrevo). O problema é, contudo, mais fundo e ele passa por ele em grande velocidade como gato em telhado de zinco.
Que estatuto confere o exercício de funções de representação política, naturalmente precárias, que possibilite a majoração de vantagens da actividade privada suspensa pelo exercício de funções políticas? Não se trata de perceber uma remuneração por uma função que não se exerce, mas de receber uma pensão de reforma por uma actividade que não se desempenhou, e que é condição sine qua non de um benefício que se alcançou pela idade e pelo cumprimento de obrigações de desconto. Ou seja a pensão é um benefício e uma contrapartida da prestação de uma determinada actividade profissional durante um amplo espaço de tempo? Ou uma benesse que alcança quem é experto e aproveita os buracos do sistema? Onde está a justeza do sistema e a linha divisória entre estatuto e privilégios?
posted by andarilho

O Antunoco no Exílio de Andarilho

Saído no Exílio de Andarilho, do professor Arnaldo Gonçalves, personagem maior nas relações luso-asiáticas

"Um blog sobre Marketing, publicidade e politica
Com a devida vénia, aqui deixo referência ao blog do amigo Philip Aristlotle Smith, que recomendo pela sobriedade e cuidado, aqui. "

Venezuela and Russia: axis of oil?

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's fourth visit to Moscow focused on new arms deals and energy co-operation. Both countries also used the occasion to further their international ambitions, inflated by windfall oil revenues. Yet while the Venezuelan president aspires to a strategic partnership, Mr Putin has a more limited agenda-and views Venezuela almost as much as an instrument as a partner.

Livro Marketing: lançamento em Novembro

Porque o Marketing está em grande renovação e aceleração de conhecimentos.

Porque pouco se tem escrito, de forma acessível, para o público interessado profissionalmente (gestores, economistas,...) e/ou para o público não especialista.

Porque existem bons exemplos internacionais e alguns nacionais sobre os quais é imperativo fazer alguma "doutrina" e tirar ilações.

Porque o problema da produtividade das empresas e dos países passa, em grande parte, pela resolução de problemas de marketing.

Porque os públicos alvo estão em fragmentação.

Porque os livros de marketing não têm que ser do tipo "banda desenhada" pueril.

Porque os livros de marketing podem ser instrutivos sem ser maçudos.

Por tudo isso, dois professores universitários (entre os quais o autor deste blogue!) vão lançar um livro de Marketing. Com direito a festa de lançamento (onde espero ver familiares, amigos e actuais e ex-alunos), cobertura da imprensa, etc.
Com a chancela de uma prestigiada editora.

Estejam atentos...!

Networking: ferramentas electrónicas

Duas ferramentas electrónicas úteis para quem deseja sempre saber o paradeiro de seus amigos e contactos, bem como manter sempre actualizados, face aos outros, os seus skills e realizações:

- Plaxo (www.plaxo.com)

Gratuita, constitui um engenhoso programa de cartões de visita electrónicos. Tem cartões pessoais e profissionais, onde uns e outros podem ser destinados ou vistos por pessoas de perfis diferentes.

Adicionalmente permite fazer envios periódicos de actualização de dados.

Mas o verdadeiro bónus está reservado para os aderentes ao Plaxo. Todos os que o tiverem integrado na barra do outlook (ou no yahoo mail) têm a garantia que qualquer alteração nos cartões (mudanças de emprego, telefones, email, etc) será registada no outlook de todos os outros que na sua lista de contactos também usem a ferramenta Plaxo.

Permite a integração com a agenda do telemóvel (compatível wap ou superior) desde que com acesso à internet.

Alerta-nos sobre os aniversários de nossos amigos (sogra, inclusivé...)

Em resumo, grátis, útil e não intrusiva.

- Linkedin (www.linkedin)

A ferramenta de networking electrónico por excelência. Permite manter um mini cv electrónico, partilhá-lo com os aderentes da rede linkedin nossos amigos. Permite fazer recrutamentos, participar em projectos colaborativos, etc, etc.

Claramente muito "job" ou "task oriented". Também integrada no outlook.

Marketing e Recursos Humanos: entrevista

Caros leitores

Deixo-vos com o link (http://planetarh.com/modules/smartsection/item.php?itemid=282) para uma belíssima entrevista do Doutor Bruno Valverde Cota a propósito de recursos humanos e marketing, a importância da qualificação e formação dos recursos humanos em empresas de serviços.

Dislogo

1) Estes dois últimos Sábados estive a dar aulas no programa de pós graduação Dislogo (futuramente Progama Geral de Gestão).

2) Alunos motivados e dedicados, o que torna um prazer dar estas aulas.

3) Conscientes de que a formação é um processo contínuo, sem pausas mas também, fazendo uso de um velho adágio alentejano, sem pressas.

Pateira muda de endereço e ganha vida própria

O blogue Pateira cresceu, ganhou leitores mas manteve o espírito irreverente.

O crescimento levou-o a um nono endereço:

www.pateira.net

Abandona assim o alojamento Blogger mas continua disponível no link nesta página.

Força

AristotlePhilipsSmith

Declaration of Independence

This week's Worth Reading is the Declaration of Independence, which was adopted unanimously by a Congress of representatives of the thirteen British colonies in America 230 years ago today. Drafted primarily by Thomas Jefferson, who later became the third president of the United States, the Declaration begins with a succinct statement of what the American Founders considered to be universal political principles, then continues with a recitation of the "long train of abuses and usurpations" visited upon the colonies by Britain's King George III, abuses that in their view fully justify the declaration of independence contained in the final paragraph. The Declaration of Independence is one of the most important political documents of the United States. Its wording and ideas have also been incorporated into political statements and declarations in numerous countries, and it is today considered a classic statement of the principles of legitimate democratic government. Although the Declaration consists only of several hundred words of text, it has generated a huge literature of analysis, commentary, and criticism over the past several centuries. Most books on the Declaration contain extensive bibliographies but few of these are available online. The Web site of the National Archives of the United States provides links to several sources of additional readings, and a Google search will also provide much more material for those who wish to study the Declaration in greater detail. Our posthumous thanks to Thomas Jefferson and his coauthors, whose text appears below, for providing this week's Worth Reading.
With best wishes,
Tom Skladony


IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offencesFor abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
________________________________________
The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1Georgia:Button GwinnettLyman HallGeorge Walton
Column 2North Carolina:William HooperJoseph HewesJohn PennSouth Carolina:Edward RutledgeThomas Heyward, Jr.Thomas Lynch, Jr.Arthur Middleton
Column 3Massachusetts:John HancockMaryland:Samuel ChaseWilliam PacaThomas StoneCharles Carroll of CarrolltonVirginia:George WytheRichard Henry LeeThomas JeffersonBenjamin HarrisonThomas Nelson, Jr.Francis Lightfoot LeeCarter Braxton
Column 4Pennsylvania:Robert MorrisBenjamin RushBenjamin FranklinJohn MortonGeorge ClymerJames SmithGeorge TaylorJames WilsonGeorge RossDelaware:Caesar RodneyGeorge ReadThomas McKean
Column 5New York:William FloydPhilip LivingstonFrancis LewisLewis MorrisNew Jersey:Richard StocktonJohn WitherspoonFrancis HopkinsonJohn HartAbraham Clark
Column 6New Hampshire:Josiah BartlettWilliam WhippleMassachusetts:Samuel AdamsJohn AdamsRobert Treat PaineElbridge GerryRhode Island:Stephen HopkinsWilliam ElleryConnecticut:Roger ShermanSamuel HuntingtonWilliam WilliamsOliver WolcottNew Hampshire:Matthew Thornton

Wall Street Journal e Cristiano Ronaldo

A grande questão de marketing do dia de hoje e uma chamada de atenção:- a primeira página do Wall Street Journal dedicada aos hedge funds portugueses e ao nosso futebol;- saber se a exibição de Cristiano Ronaldo de hoje vai ser suficiente para combater a depreciação no valor do seu passe e no seu valor de marketing derivada do célebre manguito que ele fez no estádio do SLBenfica (que empresa vai querer continuar associada a um jogador que insulta o público pagante e consumidor... já repararam que existe um banco que não vai renovar o patrocínio que mantinha com ele...porque será?).

Chelsea win the World Cup

Abramovich strikes - and Chelsea win the World Cup Kevin MitchellSunday July 2, 2006The Observer
Most mornings and early evenings on a patch of rough ground near a railway line in Cologne, a group of small boys can be found kicking a football, like millions of small boys everywhere. One is Ronaldhino. One is Michael Ballack. One is Arjen Robben. One is fat and wears glasses.
They are not in the national colours of their heroes. They are playing out their fantasies inspired by what they have seen on television of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Chelsea.

n a crowded cafe/bar overlooking the Schlossegarten in Stuttgart, Roman Abramovich, a man of such staggering wealth few fantasies are beyond him, sits surrounded by associates with bulges in their jackets. He has been waiting 20 minutes to be served.
One of his entourage reminds a waitress who it is she is ignoring. 'Bear with me,' she says, oblivious to Abramovich's fame, 'I've only got two hands.'
England fans, alerted to the presence of footballing royalty, surround the man who has the clout to fund Chelsea and half of Siberia; he obliges by smiling into their cameras and mobile phones. When he has finished signing their tout-inflated tickets he puts down his drink and his minders sweep him away to watch England grind out a turgid win over Ecuador.
The paradox that attends football is that, while it engages more people than any other sport, reaching into villages in the Andes, housing estates in Slough, penthouses in Minsk, the projects of Chicago, a playground in Cologne, and sustains the hopes of whole nations once every four years, it exists most vividly and more regularly in the imagination of its audience within the confines of a few grotesquely rich clubs.
Throughout this tournament, Sepp Blatter, the president of Fifa, has been characterised as 'the most powerful man in football.' Tell it to marines looking after Abramovich. Or his Russian friend who funds Corinthians in Brazil, where Jose Mourinho holidayed recently, where Tevez plays, where Mascherano plays. And what odds their playing for Chelsea this season, or next?
Whoever wins the World Cup, Abramovich wins. Theoretically, he could buy every decent player in the world. Practically, he has bought enough of them to give Chelsea not only a stranglehold on the domestic title and a good chance in Europe but jitters in the boardroom. They are deeply in the red. It might all yet crash around Roman's ears.
Meanwhile, Chelsea could beat Brazil. Truly. They might beat Argentina. Or Italy. Almost certainly England. So could Barcelona. That clubs are stronger than most national teams has been plain for at least the past two World Cups.
Chelsea could field this outfield line-up drawn from their personnel still at the tournament on Friday: Ferreira, Carvalho, Terry, Gallas; Makelele, Ballack, Lampard, Cole; Crespo, Shevchenko. If you wanted to throw Wayne Bridge or Robert Huth in goal, you'd have a complete team of formidable quality - all of them heading home soon to dominate the Premiership for the third season in a row.
How ironic that Franz Beckenbauer, whose presence is stamped all over this tournament, the man who brought the World Cup to Germany, should have uttered these words only eight years ago: 'The European league will come and the top clubs will gain in power. One day there won't be national teams any more. They will be replaced in the World Cup by club sides. Europe is growing together. At the moment the national team has a high value. But the influence of the clubs is getting bigger.'
Beckenbauer did not want to rock the World Cup boat last week when we asked how he had put those gloomy predictions aside for this tournament. This week, when Fifa go through the ritual of passing on the flame to the next hosts, South Africa, no doubt he will mouth the usual platitudes about the universal game.
But Beckenbauer eight years ago was right in some respects. He recognised then that allegiances shift alarmingly. Below the elite level, locality means little. Glamour overrides history, because tradition is increasingly meaningless in a world so blatantly driven by greed and excess. That is sad. But there is an upside. Even at Chelsea.
Anyone who remembers the days of Keith Jones being booed at Stamford Bridge by the club's racist supporters because he was black will, surely, regard it as progress - intentional or not - that Chelsea have in their 2006 squad a range of nationalities, skin colours, diversity and talent to inspire celebration rather than derision. Fans love or hate Didier Drogba not because he is black, but because he scores or misses. Impressionable children of the New Idiot Age are hypnotised by the charisma of wealth and success, to the point where old prejudices have become irrelevant. The result is good, if the route is flawed.
It would be absurd to dismiss the World Cup. This week, when they are slapping themselves on the back, the Fifa people will revel in television viewing figures estimated to be five billion, the biggest ever. It's part of the mix, part of football as entertainment.
When we pack up and go home, when the streets of Germany return to normal, football will change gears again. The Premiership resumes before the Pakistan cricket team leave England. Whoever reaches Berlin and triumphs will be remembered only for as long as news from Stamford Bridge does not crowd out everything else.
And, in a park in Cologne, the fat boy in the glasses will trail in the dust of Ronaldinho, Ballack and Robben...
Appearances, goals, and top performances by players from the most represented clubs at the World Cup (before quarter-finals)
Apps Players Still In Goals Man Of Match
Chelsea 46 15 11 8 8
Arsenal 46 16 6 7 2
Juventus 37 12 9 2 3
AC Milan 37 12 8 4 2
Barcelona 30 10 4 4 2
Man Utd 28 12 7 3 1
R Madrid 28 9 5 6 2
B Munich 27 9 7 2 3
D Kiev 24 7 7 1 1
Lyon 23 10 9 2 0
Valencia 20 8 4 3 0
Liverpool 19 9 4 5 2
Romario, a real prince among game's royalty
Everywhere you look in Germany, Pele is there. He is still the most marketable name and face in football. Nobody in the history of the game has come close. Not even Maradona, but the German cameramen seemed to have tired of recording his wide-eyed shirt-waving by the time Argentina were blowing it against Germany in Berlin on Friday.
But one old campaigner is still trying to catch Pele. By his own reckoning, Romario is 25 goals shy of a thousand in club football - which, statistically at least, would put him alongside Pele. It has become a disquieting obsession.
Baixinho (Shorty) has never lacked self-belief - understandably, given his 55 goals in 70 internationals and his title-winning exploits with PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona and Valencia, as well as spells of adoration at Vasco, Flamengo and Fluminense.
But he is running out of options. In April, Romario signed a six-month contract with Miami FC in the second-tier USL, a homely little competition played out in front of miserably small crowds.
Miami, a middling team lying sixth after 12 matches, are grateful for Romario's nine goals from 10 games. For what it's worth, Romario is leading the league and he's the king of Tropical Park. On 19 July, Romario will play for the league's all-star team in North Carolina - against Sheffield Wednesday.
Still, for a 40-year-old whose priorities are dancing and seeing in the sunrise, he's doing OK. Since the days he left the favela of the Jacarezinho district in Rio, he has always done his own thing.
As well as chasing Pele's record, Romario is picking up pocket money for his six children, the youngest of whom, one-year-old Ivy, has Down's syndrome.
In his last appearance for Brazil, a year ago, he scored. He lifted his yellow shirt to reveal a message on his T-shirt: 'My daughter has Down's, and she's a princess.' In his own way, Romario is a bit of a prince.

They got what they deserved

Complacent to the last, Eriksson and his spoilt players got what they deserved - absolutely nichts Richard Williams in Baden-BadenMonday July 3, 2006The Guardian
In the aftermath of a punishing defeat, no man should be called to account for his impromptu remarks. But when Frank Lampard said on Saturday night that England had "deserved" to win the match in which defeat had just eliminated them from the World Cup, he was inadvertently exposing the problem at the heart of the team's consistent inability to scale the highest peaks.
David Beckham had used the same word earlier in the campaign. England would get to the World Cup final, the captain said, because they "deserved" to be there. Since no deeper analysis was forthcoming, his listeners were left to infer that the evidence in support of his contention might have included any or all of the following: England's historic role as the game's mother country; the vast popularity of the Premiership at home and abroad; the inflated pay and celebrity status of its players; and the attention lavished on the public appearances of their wives and girlfriends.
When Sven-Goran Eriksson also spoke about the team "deserving" to reach the final, he tried to suggest that it was because of the quality of their football. Strictly on the basis of their successive performances against Hungary, Jamaica, Paraguay, Trinidad & Tobago, Sweden and Ecuador, however, it would have taken a battalion of the world's finest legal advocates to make a case for the justice of their arrival in the final rounds of the biggest international football tournament of all.
The attitude represented by the words of Lampard and Beckham represents a culture of complacency at work, and it could be seen in the climactic shoot-out against Portugal, when three of England's penalty takers failed with attempts in which the slackness of their body language and their shooting spoke of men who were ready to put their trust in the belief, as England players have believed for several generations, that their reputations alone would be enough to ensure their success.
A successful apprenticeship in the upper reaches of English football wraps such an effective comfort blanket around a young player that he is seldom exposed to the harsh realities of the outside world, and never confronts those moments in which failure really does mean disaster. When they are called to summon reserves of resilience at moments of extreme pressure, they discover those reserves either do not exist or have been depleted by the demands of domestic football.
Where, on Saturday, was the Englishman prepared to take control of the game as Zinédine Zidane would do in France's defeat of Brazil later that night? The only candidate was Owen Hargreaves, who both converted his penalty - the one Englishman to do so - and secured the man- of-the-match award with 120 minutes of non-stop tackling, intercepting, running and passing. Alone among his colleagues, he displayed a dynamism that seemed to come from within. What also makes him unique among the squad, of course, is that he has never lived in England. The two things may not be unconnected.
Before Hargreaves was born, his parents left Britain to make a new life for their family in Canada. They succeeded, and in so doing may have laid the mental foundation for his son's career. Owen Hargreaves arrived in Munich as a 16-year-old and began a long struggle to establish himself among the superstars in the first team at Bayern, in a country where he knew no one and had to learn the language from scratch. When times were difficult, when he was dropped or suffered injuries, his parents' example of ambition and self-sufficiency can have done him no harm.
Hargreaves may also have benefited from the Bundesliga's 34-match season and its mid-winter break. Whereas he faced up to Portugal's challenge with what the English like to see as their characteristic qualities of energy and doggedness, his native-born team-mates struggled to turn their talent and desire for success into the currency of coherent football.
Individually, there was much to admire in their display - in Ashley Cole's gradual return to form, in John Terry's obduracy, in Aaron Lennon's zigzag runs and in Peter Crouch's sheer willingness - but collectively they could only demonstrate the difficulty they experience in achieving, even sporadically, the kind of momentum that the better sides in this tournament have maintained virtually from first whistle to last.
Permutating his resources for the fifth time in five matches as he responded to the opposition's strengths and his own squad's injuries, Eriksson asked Hargreaves to provide a screen for the defence while a midfield quartet attempted to support Wayne Rooney, the lone front runner. That it took the coach so long to reach this conclusion, after having Hargreaves in his squad for almost five years, is among the most serious indictments of his regime.
The fatal flaw in the way the formation was applied was the use of Rio Ferdinand as the launchpad for attacks. On countless occasions the ball was given to the centre-back in the expectation that he would make the first significant pass. He would take a touch to control the ball, look up, take another touch, look up again, have another think and then, after a delay often of six or seven seconds, play it - not always accurately - to a team-mate.
By the time he was ready to part with the ball, two things would have happened: first, his team-mates had effectively come to a standstill; second, the Portuguese defenders had been given the time to move in to cover them. So almost every England move would start from a static position, with the opposition well prepared for counter-measures.
Although Ferdinand is a decent passer of the ball, he is not Andrea Pirlo. Neither is Hargreaves, but he should have been encouraged to become the kind of pivot that Claude Makelele represents for Chelsea and France, taking the ball from the defence and recycling it to the midfield with the minimum of fuss or wasted time, acting as the team's metronome. Then England might have had a chance to develop the kind of rhythm and movement that we sometimes see from Arsenal, Chelsea and, less frequently nowadays, Manchester United, but at which English-born players in general have never been adept.
When the Football Association hired Eriksson as England's first foreign coach, it was reasonable to expect that an improvement in fluidity was among the benefits the players could expect from his long experience in Italy and Portugal. All they got, really, was a swift application of common sense to a formerly chaotic selection policy and a discovery that Eriksson's notion of an acceptable standard of living matched their own five-star expectations.
His inability to get Englishmen to play football together with a combination of spontaneity and consistency means that, after its promising start, the Eriksson era must on balance be accounted a failure. Sadly, given the unfailing courtesy with which he confronted an often hostile environment, he was not the man to dismantle the mental barrier that prevented his players from turning their talents into real achievement at international level. In the end they, and he, deserved no more than they got.

The hand of god haunts England

By Craig Lord

RICARDO, GOD AND THE voice of Nelly Furtado are lauded as the holy trinity at the helm of Portugal’s victory over England by a national press that does pride rather better than Schadenfreude. If the Correio da Manhä suggests that the hand of “divine intervention, or perhaps Murphy’s Law” was at play when it came to the penalty shoot-out, Ricardo, the goalkeeper, was more certain. “God is Portuguese,” he tells the paper. Continuing the religious theme, we hear from Luís Figo, the captain, that his men came through “in the spirit of sacrifice and suffering”. Much coverage was devoted to spontaneous Portuguese street parties, not only at home but in London, Paris, São Paulo and Macau, in Portugal, where “even the English joined the party”. Ricardo, who “haunted England yet again”, is the hero of the hour. At the age of 10, we learn, he lined up for a trial in his home town of Montijo with “dreams of becoming the best striker in the world. He was told there were many ahead of him in the queue, so he moved across to the shorter queue and became a goalkeeper instead.” While he can now dream of how he stopped England’s penalties, the English “once again confirmed themselves to have an aversion to showdowns”, states O Record. Gloating is rare. Where it rears its head, it is mainly aimed at England’s fans. O Jogo carries the headline “Ricardo — they hate you”. Portugal fans had done well in the face of the roar of the Three Lions. “While the English hoards screamed 2-0, (the Portuguese) sang with the force of Nelly Furtado against the force of ‘Football’s coming home’ — now, England is going home.”

Jogos de futebol e produtividade nacional

Ontem o jogo Portugal-México, terceiro da selecção portuguesa no Mundial de 2006, calhou em plena hora de trabalho. 15 horas em Lisboa.
As ruas ficaram desertas. O fluxo de automóveis a sairem de Lisboa era intenso...Os escritórios desertificaram-se...Os maridos deixaram de atender as chamadas das esposas para seus telemóveis...As reuniões foram desmarcadas...

Poupar 200 milhões de euros

Uma vez por mês e durante alguns dias, o Parlamento Europeutransfere-se de Bruxelas para Strasbourg por inteiro, com todos osseus colaboradores e toda a sua documentação. A única razão para este desperdício de 200 milhões de euros por ano deve-se à vontade daFrança. Todos os países da União pagam a conta! Nós também!Presentemente, um determinado número de membros do Parlamento Europeu,pertencentes a diferentes partidos e países, iniciaram uma acção que visa acabar com este desperdício. É necessário recolher um milhão deassinaturas para que este assunto possa ser inserido na agenda daComissão Europeia.Já se recolheram mais de 620 000 assinaturas, mas é preciso um milhão! Visite o site http://www.oneseat.eu e assine para se poder acabarcom este abuso.P.S.: não hesite em transmitir o conteúdo desta mensagem aos seus amigos, para provocarmos uma cadeia de bom senso Informações mais detalhadas (para os desconfiados como eu) em http://www.europafederalisterna.se/oneseat/?view=about&lang=pt

Ética e negócios: um texto muito actual

Tivemos a oportunidade de participar, na primeira quinzena do mês de Julho, no 2º Seminário Internacional da Uniapac/Associação Cristã de Empresários e Gestores (ACEGE) subordinado ao tema da Ética Empresarial. O «Campus» da Universidade de Louven (Louvaina), desde tempos medievos sítio do saber dos «Países Baixos», proporcionou o ambiente intelectual propício para o debate entre gestores experientes, académicos reputados e jovens quadros de grandes empresas europeias.

As empresas europeias têm sido confrontadas com um aumento de consciência social dos cidadãos e dos investidores nos mercados de capitais. As organizações não governamentais (ONG´s, com o “Sierra Club”, “Greenpeace”, entre as mais notórias), com áreas de interesse desde a protecção ambiental, passando pela defesa dos consumidores até à preservação de espécies animais, têm ganho protagonismo crescente nos países da OCDE. Em simultâneo, têm proliferado e ganho crescente aceitação, por parte dos pequenos investidores, os fundos de investimento com preocupações éticas ou ecológicas. Recusando-se a investir em empresas sem um claro “Código Ético de Conduta” e em negócios de reduzida responsabilidade social, fundos e ONG´s têm lançado para a ribalta, pelos piores motivos, as empresas operantes em indústrias como o tabaco, o petróleo ou o armamento. Mas até agora insuspeitas empresas de calçado ou vestuário, para citar apenas alguns dos casos mais recentes, têm sido acusadas de uma política pouco criteriosa de subcontratação (com os seus fornecedores a empregarem trabalho infantil no Sudoeste Asiático).
A emergência da geração Bobos[1] (“bohemians and burgeois”) à liderança social, económica e política, um pouco por toda a Europa Ocidental, só vai reforçar a vaga de fundo que exige maior sentido ético na condução dos negócios.

Contrariando a ortodoxia que vai proliferando nas teorias da Gestão, foi consensual entre os participantes que a Europa Ocidental e os Estados Unidos da América do Norte devem exibir diferentes concepções de ética empresarial. Apesar de um tronco comum civilizacional, as diferentes experiências históricas, sociais, políticas e religiosas da Europa Continental levam a que os participantes do Seminário tenham concluído que três escolas, igualmente legítimas, devem afirmar-se autonomamente no campo da Ética Empresarial: a Anglo-saxónica (Eua, Reino Unido), a Europeia continental protestante (alemã, Escandinava), e uma de cariz mais católico (Europa do Sul). As prescrições morais de uma escola se aplicadas em contextos, geográficos e humanos, que lhe são alienígenas produzem um efeito de mal disfarçada repulsa social.[2]

Um outro mito alvo de cuidada análise foi o do menor desempenho empresarial (redução de lucros) motivada pela adopção de uma «praxis» ética nos negócios. Embora a investigação empírica ainda esteja na sua infância, sendo prematuro estabelecer relações científicas de causalidade, os primeiros resultados parecem convergir no sentido de que existe uma correlação positiva entre rendibilidade empresarial (“return on equity”) e prática Ética na actividade empresarial!

Chegados a este ponto, qual grito de “Ipiranga” que deve nortear os empresários e os gestores de matriz cristã, importa percepcionar o rumo para as empresas portuguesas. Aqui, estamos crentes, a prática dos gestores portugueses, fortemente influenciada pela tradição católica, tradicionalista e amiúde paternalista, é essencialmente ética. Mas a maior lacuna radica na ausência de uma tradição de corporizar essa prática, consuetudinária, sob a forma de um “Código, escrito, de Conduta Ética”, explicitando e comunicando activamente quais são os comportamentos aceitáveis e reprováveis em campos como: as relações com os fornecedores, compromissos para com os empregados, transparência para com accionistas ou clientes ou ainda a forma como a empresa(s) vai contribuir para ajudar a comunidade envolvente. Por vezes isto requer um “Ethical Business Manager” definido na organização. Procurando que as maiores empresas portuguesas, uma vez consumada a fusão da Bolsa de Valores de Lisboa e Porto com a Euronext, não venham a ser ostracizadas pelos investidores institucionais operando em mercados de capitais onde estas questões já quase se tornaram corriqueiras...

Paulo Gonçalves Marcos
Texto publicado na newsletter da ACEGE em Julho de 2001
[1] David Brooks, in “Bobos in Paradise”.
[2] Como aconteceu com a francesa Danone, no final da Primavera de 2001. Pretendendo aplicar, na França, a receita norte-americana de despedimentos em massa como forma de aumentar os lucros, reduzindo os custos. Algo mal compreendido pela opinião pública francesa, quando confrontada, com os ainda assim elevados lucros da companhia.

Energy and market risk: a glimpse

Market Risk - Banks Agree on US Format for LCDS
Leading derivatives dealer banks have agreed to standard documentation for loan-related credit default swaps in the US. The agreement in the US comes as market participants in Europe remain at loggerheads over how such contracts should work. The need for standardized contracts reflects growing investor interest in managing risk in the booming market for syndicated loans.

Energy Risk - China, India Seek to Avert Bidding War for Russian Oil
China and India plan their second joint bid for oil fields, an offer of about $2 billion for deposits in Kazakhstan. China and India consume 11 percent of global oil output. Citic Group, China's biggest investment company, and Oil & Natural Gas Corp., India's largest oil producer, may bid for Calgary-based Nations Energy's assets.


In www.riskcenter.com

O roubo e a ameaça de espionagem

Nos últimos anos tem-se verificado um aumento significativo do roubo de informações com valor económico nas empresas e nos centros de investigação científica e tecnológica.
O roubo do know-how e de informação reservada duma organização – incluindo processos de inovação, de pesquisa e desenvolvimento, de produção, de distribuição e de promoção, planos e estratégias empresariais ou propostas em concursos – é um acto de concorrência desleal que se traduz em prejuízos significativos para as empresas e para o país.
Estado, empresários e trabalhadores, todos perdem, já que o eventual sucesso destas acções pode colocar em risco a sobrevivência de empresas e de postos de trabalho. Também os centros de investigação e as universidades sofrem roubos de conhecimentos que poderão ser transferidos para entidades estrangeiras.
No actual contexto de agressiva concorrência económica mundial, as organizações portuguesas, mesmo as de pequena dimensão, são visadas por entidades estrangeiras. A qualidade dos nossos recursos humanos e a capacidade de inovação das nossas organizações potenciam a criação de valor e atraem interesses estrangeiros.
O roubo de conhecimentos por parte de entidades estrangeiras assume frequentemente os métodos da espionagem. As acções de espionagem, principalmente na área económica, não são apenas praticadas pelos Serviços de Informações. Há também várias entidades que, directa ou indirectamente, trabalham para aqueles Serviços ou para entidades privadas que se dedicam, de forma aberta ou encoberta, à recolha de informações.
A inexistência de uma cultura de segurança nas organizações leva a que, na generalidade, as pessoas tenham um comportamento despreocupado e inocente relativamente às questões de segurança. Este comportamento constitui uma vulnerabilidade que é explorada pelos agentes da ameaça.

In www.pse.com.pt

A MiFID e a internacionalização Banca Portuguesa

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 – decoirrentes 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”.

Paulo Alexandre Gonçalves Marcos, 18 de Maio de 2006
Economista. Gestor. Professor Universitário.

Sistema Financeiro Português: internacionalização

Internacionalização do Sector Financeiro Português
Tópicos de enquadramento

1. Os Relatórios e Contas relativos ao ano de 2005 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. A expansão do sector tem sido feita não só ao longo das dimensões mais clássicas da banca dita de investimento ( com o project finance, o leverage trade ou o structured trade finance, por exemplo) mas também nas dimensões da banca comercial.


3. Na banca comercial assiste-se à expansão das redes de retalho dos  bancos portugueses em mercados de proximidade geográfica ou cultural e ainda em países de elevada atractividade quando medida pelo binómio concorrência-potencial de crescimento do sector.

Atente-se que os negócios da banca de investimento, gestão de activos e actuação em mercados financeiros (monetários, obrigaccionistas, accionistas) se revela com um perfil global, os da banca de retalho continuam a ser predominantemente de cariz local.

• 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:


• 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


• Financial Services Plan (MiFID, mercados grossistas, SEPA, Prospectos de emissão, directiva sobre a venda à distância de serviços financeiros, etc)


• IAS/IFRS, que vieram introduzir maior comparabilidade.


• Integração económica e financeira dos mercados, onde uma multiplicidade de operações de aquisição e fusão de carácter transnacional vieram alterar as estruturas dos sectores e dos Grupos Estratégicos operantes no sector.


• Desenvolvimentos nas tecnologias de comunicação e informação e crescente 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.


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


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


• Desvantagem de custos:


• Prováveis deseconomias de escala;


• Menores sinergias operativas (falta de escala, menores oportunidades de economias de gama);


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


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


• 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 mercado mais centrais da Europa).


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


• Os mercados internacionais são alvo de uma análise do seu potencial, estudando-se ritmos de convergência com países mais avançados, concorrentes existentes e prováveis, capacidade das instituições portuguesas transferirem vantagens concorrenciais para estes mercados (o que também pode passar por fenómenos exógenos como afinidades culturais, geográficas ou de complementaridade económica).


• 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 contaram-se aquisições de bancos locais ou a criação de bancos desde a raiz.


• 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.


• 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.

Paulo Alexandre Gonçalves Marcos, 22 de Maio de 2006

Diogo Campelo e o Queijo Limiano

Diogo Campelo, a votação do orçamento de Estado e os círculos uninominais

O significado político da discussão do orçamento de Estado em muito transcende a mera contabilização dos resultados da votação. E o fenómeno Diogo Campelo é a chave para compreendermos o quanto está em causa.
Campelo, que não conhecemos pessoalmente, assumiu um muito mediático papel de autarca e de deputado. O seu duplo papel permitiu-lhe assumir-se como um defensor das gentes do Alto Minho, na linha da tradição anglo-saxónica de "member of parliament".
Em Inglaterra, cada deputado ao parlamento de Westminster é eleito em círculos uninominais, maioritários a uma só volta. Cada círculo eleitoral elege, assim, um e só um deputado. Desta forma a ligação e as lealdades do deputado estão não somente com o partido, sob o qual foi eleito, mas também com os seus eleitores.
Apesar do imenso clamor de indignação ao "negócio" entre o  deputado e o governo, julgamos que as questões centrais não foram ainda colocadas. Estas parecem-nos ser as seguintes:

• é eticamente defensável a acumulação de cargos públicos?


• É legítimo a um autarca interromper, quando lhe aprouver, a sua função de presidente de câmara, assumindo, esporadicamente, o papel de deputado?


• Deve um deputado representar o Povo (como se parece depreender do artigo 147 da Constituição) e exercer o seu mandato de forma livre (art. 155), ou deve alinhar o seu voto com os interesses da direcção do seu grupo parlamentar?


• Se o orçamento fosse viabilizado por acordo com um pequeno partido ou grupo de deputados (exemplos: verdes, bloco de esquerda, PSD/Madeira) teria atendido a negociação mais a interesses ideológicos do que a interesses particulares (ou locais)? E seria isso negativo ou positivo?

Adicionalmente podemos dizer que o  grande mérito de Campelo foi o de trazer a imprevisibilidade ao Parlamento, fazendo com que este transmita uma maior diversidade de opiniões. Os cidadãos, habitualmente alheados dos assuntos e debates parlamentares, desataram a discutir o orçamento e a votação do mesmo, trazendo à ribalta uma paixão que se julgava já há muito perdida…
Deputados que se comportam como Homens-Livres, que defendem aqueles que os elegeram, são decerto bem-vindos à democracia portuguesa ao estimularem o debate e participação cívica, num país que se revela apático em termos de vivência política dos cidadãos.
Terá o exemplo de Campelo vindo para frutificar?

Paulo Gonçalves Marcos

Sócrates deve ter estudado Goebbels

"Medina Carreira critica a reforma da Segurança Social proposta pelo Governo, por resolver apenas um quarto do problema. Diz que o ministro Vieira da Silva é incompetente e que Sócrates «deve ter estudado Goebbels», o ministro de Hitler. "

A explosão da blogosfera

The blogosphere is doubling in size every six months and is now 60 times larger than it was three years ago, according to the latest quarterly installment of David Sifry's "State of the Blogosphere" report. He writes that Technorati now tracks over 35.3 Million blogs. On average, a new weblog is created every second of every day - more than 75,000 new blogs created every day. Technorati also tracks about 1.2 million new blog posts per day, or about 50,000 per hour.
April, 17, 2006. www.marketingvox.com

Walk the World: uma forma diferente de passar o dia 21 de Maio de 2006

Recebido de uma amiga e de um amigo o seguinte texto que transcrevo:

"Que me dizem de ajudar o World Food Programme (WFP), a agencia das Nações Unidas que ajuda a alimentar os que mais precisam?

No Domingo, dia 21 de Maio de 2006, o WFP, juntamente com os seus parceiros e milhares de pessoas por todo o Mundo, juntar-se-ão num evento único à escala global: Walk the World. Num dia, milhares de pessoas vão caminhar lado a lado, de Este para Oeste, em varias cidades em todos os 24 fusos horários, começando as 10h locais de cada cidade, criando o efeito de caminhar a volta do mundo, com o objectivo de levantar fundos e terminar com o flagelo da fome entre as crianças.
Em 2005, a iniciativa WtW teve lugar em 266 locais de 91 países, juntando 250 mil pessoas, levantando fundos que permitiram alimentar 70 mil crianças. O objectivo deste ano e triplicar o numero de participantes.

O Banco Espírito Santo, no âmbito do seu programa de responsabilidade social Realizar Mais, aliou-se a esta iniciativa, possibilitando a quem quiser participar nesta causa, efectuar a inscrição nos balcões BES.

As inscrições oficiais podem também ser feitas on-line em http://www.fighthunger.org/wtw06/lisboa. Contudo, antes do dia do evento, e com objectivo de facilitar a logística, é necessário adquirir a t-shirt + boné (através da doação de €10) numa loja Sportzone ou nos balcões BES da Av. da Liberdade, Praça de Londres, Rotunda da Boavista (Porto) e Filial Porto.
Também o BES dos Açores se associa à inciativa através dos seus Balcões na Horta e no Faial.

Para se inspirarem, cliquem http://www.fighthunger.org/files/energy_en.wmv. "

J.-F. Revel, French Philosopher, Is Dead at 82

By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: May 2, 2006
New York Times


Jean-François Revel, a prolific philosopher, writer and journalist who summoned the classical polemical weapons of Voltaire and Montaigne, including humor, irony and surprise, to illuminate subjects from French cuisine to French anti-Americanism, died on Saturday in Paris. He was 82.
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Jean-Pierre Muller/A.F.P. -Getty Images, 2003
Jean-François Revel, in the uniform of the Académie Française.
His wife, Claude Sarraute, announced the death but did not disclose the cause, The Associated Press reported.
Mr. Revel called himself a leftist, but was known during the cold war as a champion of American values when many European intellectuals praised Marx and Mao, though he castigated the United States for the Vietnam War. In "Without Marx or Jesus" (1970), he said that America, in fact, was winning, and that "the revolution of the 20th century will take place in the United States."
More than three decades later, when many of his countrymen were outraged by the Iraq war and elements of Washington's effort to curb terrorism, he continued to write in favor of the United States. He suggested that Europeans refused to accept responsibility for their own mistakes.
Mr. Revel's career extended from academia, to editing and commenting in newspapers and magazines, to administering three book publishers, to radio commentary, to writing more than 30 books.
His subjects included comments on the attractiveness of Italian women (overrated), the glories of France (very overrated) and the inventiveness in French cooking ("madness," more often than not).
Among his many works, he wrote a three-volume history of the development of Western thought; argued against the prevailing Marxist and existentialist interpretations of Proust; and drew much comment with a dialogue about Buddhism with his son, a Buddhist monk.
He was one of the 40 members, called Immortals, of the Académie Française, which keeps the standards of the French language.
Mr. Revel's persistent intellectual thrust was as a philosopher of freedom in the tradition of Raymond Aron. He went from suggesting in his 1984 book, "How Democracies Perish," that democracy may turn out to be "a historical accident," to arguing in 1993 in "Democracy Against Itself: The Future of the Democratic Impulse," that democracy had become not only indispensable, but inevitable.
A decade later, he contended that the same French sort of intellectuals who had difficulty criticizing Stalin seemed unwilling to face up to the threat of Islamic terrorism.
The writer was born Jean-François Ricard, on Jan. 19, 1924, in Marseille. He first used Revel as a literary pseudonym. When he was 6 months old, his family took him to Mozambique, where his father had an import-export business. His first language was Portuguese.
He attended schools in Marseille and Lyon, and was 16 when the Germans conquered France. He was active in the Resistance, and later said the officious, disgraceful behavior of the French who collaborated with the Nazis informed his often wry style of writing. Mr. Revel received his degree in philosophy from the École Normale Supérieure, where the cream of French intellectuals were educated. He taught French in Algiers, Mexico City and Florence, where he collected observations for an irreverent book about Italy that looked askance at hair on the legs of women, among other things.
Early in his writing career, he wrote two book-length essays to the effect that philosophy was no longer a serious subject. During this period, he taught philosophy in Paris.
In 1960 he became chief literary editor for France Observateur, the first of a succession of journalistic jobs, including literary editor at L'Express. In the 1960's he devoted an entire book to attacking de Gaulle mercilessly for his purple prose and capitalizing the title General for himself but for no other generals.
Mr. Revel wrote speeches for François Mitterrand, the Socialist who became president, and in 1967 ran as a Socialist candidate in the parliamentary elections and lost.
Mr. Revel is survived by his wife and several children.
He had begun to become familiar with North America while teaching in Mexico in the 1950's and continued his education during an extended visit to Canada in 1969 and 1970 and to California in 1970. He collected material to support his hypothesis that a profound social transformation was taking place in the United States.
In an interview in 1970 with The New York Post after publication of "Without Marx or Jesus," he said his research did not involve talking to political leaders.
"I just looked around, talked to people, to students," he said. "And in the 20th century the information is pretty good, and I read a lot of your press and books."
In the introduction to his "Anti-Americanism" book, Mr. Revel wrote that he found an America "in complete contrast to the conventional portrayal then generally accepted in Europe." In particular, he was impressed with Americans' willingness to address and correct their own faults.
He went on to attack those Europeans who said the United States had brought terrorists' attacks on itself through misguided foreign policies.
"Obsessed by their hatred and floundering in illogicality, these dupes forget that the United States, acting in her own self-interest, is also acting in the interest of us Europeans and in the interest of many other countries, threatened, or already subverted and ruined, by terrorism," he wrote.

Chavez plans foreign oil tax

President Hugo Chavez said Venezuela would take further steps to increase revenues from its petroleum industry, including a new tax on companies that extract oil in the South American nation. Venezuela is the world's fifth largest oil exporter.

Portugal abre as fronteiras à livre circulação dos trabalhadores do Leste Europeu

No início de Março, Portugal notificou Bruxelas de que iria acabar com esse regime de quotas que atribuía autorizações de trabalho aos imigrantes oriundos de novos Estados-membros. Portugal abre assim as suas fronteiras, acompanhado pela Espanha e Grécia. Até hoje apenas três Estados-membros, a Irlanda, Reino Unido e a Suécia, não mantinham qualquer limitação no acesso ao respectivo mercado de trabalho dos cidadãos dos dez países da Europa de Leste e das ilhas de Chipre e Malta.Passados dois anos e perante a evidência que a temida invasão dos trabalhadores de Leste não teve lugar, Portugal decidiu abrir as Alemanha, Áustria e a Dinamarca vão manter as restrições até ao final do prazo (2011) e a Holanda anunciou que manterá o regime actual até ao final deste ano.

Comentários:
1)Algumas profissões estarão sob pressão adicional, especialmente devido ao aumento da mobilidade dos polacos: estomatologistas, optometristas, enfermeiros, médicos.
2) Não vamos ter canalizadores polacos: já cá temos os ucranianos...

Nacionalizações na Bolívia

Nos jornais de hoje: Acabou-se o saque dos recursos naturais da Bolívia”, afirmou ontem o presidente da Bolívia, Evo Morales, durante o anúncio surpresa da nacionalização dos recursos energéticos do país. A implementação da medida não era esperada tão cedo, pelo que as principais empresas com contratos de exploração de gás natural e petróleo, a espanhola Repsol YPF e a Brasileira Petrobras, não reagiram de imediato ao discurso do presidente.

Meus comentários:
1) Afirmação nacionalista, cimento que agarra os populistas ao poder, à falta de melhores argumentos.
2) Custa a crer que a Bolívia consiga ser mais eficiente nacionalizando. Seria caso único.
3) Adicionalmente terá que indemnizar. Pagará o povo, está bem de ver...
4) Talvez mais grave é o que representa a nacionalização: um ataque a algo que deveria ser sagrado: a posse privada. Algo que vai mexer com as intenções futuras de investimento ou de novas iniciativas empresariais. O clima de empreendedorismo vai decerto tornar-se menos amigável...
5) Porque já vimos este "enredo" vezes sem fim, o desfecho é razoavelmente expectável: menos crescimentos económico, mais desemprego, ...