O Conflito Jurídico para Defender a Liberdade Religiosa nos EUA

O jornal Wall Street Journal publicou um ótimo artigo sobre a briga jurídica na Suprema Corte nos Estados Unidos, em que o governo Obama quer que instituições religiosas ou empresas sejam obrigadas a pagar por métodos abortivos. Centenas de instituições católicas entraram com processo contra ogoverno e também instituições privadas. O texto do jornal fala especificamente sobre a firma Hobby Lobby que defende que não quer pagar por estes métodos por questões religiosas.

O artigo de dois juristas fala sobre a Primeira Emenda da Constituição americana que defende, entre outras coisas, que o governo não pode estabelece leis para uma religião (Establishment Clause) e que o governo não pode atacar a liberdade religiosa.

Vou colocar aqui parte do artigo do jornal, leiam todo o texto clicando aqui.

Religious Exemptions Are Vital for Religious Liberty

By 

ROBERT P. GEORGE And 

HAMZA YUSUF

March 23, 2014 5:59 p.m. ET

The United States is one of the most religiously diverse nations on earth. People of a vast array of traditions of faith live here in a harmony that would have been unthinkable in most of the world for most of human history.

One of the ways America has fostered and protected this diversity is by nurturing a robust understanding of religious liberty that includes granting certain exemptions to people who need them in order to be true to their religious faith. Religious exemptions protect people in situations where legislative or executive acts might otherwise unnecessarily force them to violate their consciences.

Over the centuries, such exemptions have protected a wide variety of believers, including Quakers who cannot fight in wars, Muslims who cannot transport alcohol, and, during prohibition, Catholics and Jews who use wine in their religious rituals. More recently, the system of exemptions has been expanded to protect conscientiously objecting people—whether believers or unbelievers—from being forced to participate in wars, assisted suicide, abortion or prisoner executions.

The robust conception of religious freedom that has served our nation so well is now being challenged in the case of Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., which will be argued before the Supreme Court on March 25. Hobby Lobby (a chain of arts and crafts stores) and its owners, the Green family, are seeking a religious exemption from parts of ObamaCare's contraception and abortion-drug mandate. Their Christian faith forbids them from paying for insurance coverage for the provision of four drugs and devices that may act to terminate newly conceived human lives. Although the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals held that an exemption is required under federal civil-rights law, the government has asked the Supreme Court to compel the Greens to violate their consciences—which they will not do—or suffer crippling fines.

....

The Supreme Court has repeatedly—and unanimously—rejected the claim that policies enacted to vindicate free-exercise rights by accommodating religious beliefs and practices violate the Establishment Clause. For example, in Corporation of Presiding Bishop v. Amos (1987), opponents of a Title VII exemption allowing religious organizations to consider religions in hiring argued that the law violated the Establishment Clause. And in Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005), opponents of a federal law protecting religious exercise for prisoners also argued that the law violated the Establishment Clause.

These Supreme Court rejections make sense, because the same First Amendment that prohibits the establishment of religion also expressly protects the free exercise of religion. It would be illogical to treat protections for religious exercise as establishing someone's religion. This is presumably why the court has upheld religious exemptions many times—sometimes even holding that exemptions are required by the First Amendment or federal civil-rights law—and why thousands of state and federal statutes allow for religious exemptions.

The argument against exemptions would be plausible if such laws only protected religious believers of one faith, or if the laws stipulated that religious interests should prevail in every case in which they competed with other interests and values. 

...

The Establishment Clause argument should also fail. That provision exists to prevent the establishment of a national religion or the granting of superior standing to a religion that happens to have the support of most citizens. It would be perverse for a court to use it to punish the laudable practice—dating all the way back to George Washington's decision to excuse Quakers from his army—of accommodating the free exercise of religion by protecting people whose religious beliefs or practices are not shared by the majority from being compelled even in the absence of a compelling reason to violate their consciences.

Mr. George is professor of jurisprudence at Princeton University and a board member of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing Hobby Lobby. Mr. Yusuf is co-founder and president of Zaytuna College in Berkeley, Calif., the first Muslim liberal arts college in the U.S.

Hayek e Religião. Contra a Excessiva confiança na Razão.

Interessante artigo de Jonathan Neumann sobre as preocupações de Friedrich Hayek (um dos papas do liberalismo econômico e grande ícone contra o comunismo) com a moralidade e o extremo racionalismo. Vou colocar aqui parte do texto. Leiam todo clicando aqui.

God, Hayek and the Conceit of Reason

JONATHAN NEUMANN

January/February 2014

A quarter of a century ago, Friedrich Hayek (1899-1992), winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, published his final contribution to his considerable corpus, an eloquent exposition of his enduring concerns. But The Fatal Conceit (1988) sought not to recapitulate the intricacies of his economic thought (despite its subtitle,"The Errors of Socialism"), or to revisit his postulated and widely celebrated connection of economic collectivism and political tyranny. Rather, he was now, four years from his death, occupied in this short and forgotten volume with one of the most fundamental questions of humankind: the basis and preservation of our civilisation.

By civilisation, Hayek meant the "extended order of human cooperation", also known ("misleadingly") as capitalism. This order, and, more specifically, the traditional morality upon which it rested, Hayek claimed, has been enabled by something other than human instinct and other than reason. The fatal conceit itself, he explained, is excessive faith in reason, based on an erroneous and dangerous notion that we can construct what in fact we must inherit or learn. This conceit is fatal because it results in the collapse of society and the return to savage instinct. Rather, morality lies between instinct and reason, and "learning how to behave is more the source than the result of insight, reason, and understanding".

Unlike his economic and political philosophies, Hayek's moral philosophy is less known, and yet it formed the culmination of his life's work. His critique of reason is profound, but his own understanding of traditional morality is found lacking, and he appears to have agreed.

Hayek sees the centralising impulse of contemporary Western political economy as stemming from a "presumptive rationalism" which he calls "scientism" or "constructivism", and which expresses the "spirit of the age". This presumption is the product of a "litany of errors", which he seeks to disentangle and expose. Specifically, he cites four basic philosophical concepts which, during the past several hundred years, have formed the basis of this way of thinking: rationalism, which denies the acceptability of beliefs founded on anything but experience and reasoning; empiricism, which maintains that all statements claiming to express knowledge are limited to those depending for their justification on experience; positivism, which is defined as the view that all true knowledge is scientific, in the sense of describing the coexistence and succession of observable phenomena; and utilitarianism, which "takes the pleasure and pain of everyone affected by it to be the criterion of the action's rightness".

Hayek asserts that "in such definitions, one finds quite explicitly...the declarations of faith of modern science and philosophy of science, and their declarations of war against moral traditions", because "the leading moral traditions that have created and are creating our culture...cannot be justified in such ways".

To clarify, Hayek induces from these definitions several related presuppositions on the part of the critics of traditional morality: that it is unreasonable to follow what one cannot justify scientifically or prove observationally; that it is unreasonable to follow what one does not understand; that it is unreasonable to follow a particular course unless its purpose is fully specified in advance; and that it is unreasonable to do anything unless its effects are not only fully known in advance, but also fully observable and — as far as utilitarianism is concerned — seen to be beneficial. When morality is founded on reason, moreover, it follows that what is unreasonable also becomes morally dubious.

The problems with these approaches, Hayek explains, are that they show no awareness that there might be limitations to our knowledge or reason in certain areas; they do not consider that part of science's task is to discover those limits; and they show no curiosity about how the extended order actually came into being, how it is maintained, and what might be the consequences of undermining or destroying those traditions which did create and do maintain it.

The connection between constructivist rationalism (the construction of morality from scratch) and socialist thought, Hayek argues, is that they both flow from conceiving order as arrangement and control on the basis of accumulation of all the facts. But, as Hayek earlier showed in his landmark 1945 essay, "The Use of Knowledge in Society", the extended order could not be such an order, for accumulation of all the requisite facts is simply impossible. Now he asserts that, similarly, the practices of traditional morality not only do not, but cannot, meet the requirements or criteria demanded by scientism. Hence they are necessarily "unreasonable" and "unscientific". Hayek insists, though, that this is not "news", for      David Hume (1711-76) observed centuries ago that "the rules of morality are not the conclusions of our reason".

And this is not simply the case with traditional morals (including God, sex, family, and — particularly of interest to Hayek — private property, saving, exchange, honesty, truthfulness and contract), but "is also true of any possible moral code, including any that socialists might ever be able to come up with". Hence were we to pursue this perilous path — as "all versions of scientism have advised" — we would soon "be back at the level of the savage who trusts only his instincts". No argument about morals, therefore, can legitimately turn on the issue of scientific justification, because it cannot be achieved, so nothing can be gained-but everything can be lost.

Having established the limits of reason in a construction of morality, Hayek begins, however, to take a dubious turn. He asserts that "while our moral traditions cannot be constructed, justified or demonstrated in the way demanded, their processes of formation can be partially reconstructed, and in doing so we can to some degree understand the needs that they serve". He sees this as a historical or natural-historical investigation, resembling what followers of Hume called "conjectural history", and not as an attempt to construct, justify, or demonstrate the system itself.

Why would we want to engage in such "rational reconstruction?" Because doing so enables us "to improve and revise our moral traditions by remedying recognisable defects by piecemeal improvement based on immanent criticism, that is, by analysing the compatibility and consistency of their parts, and tinkering with the system accordingly".

On the face of it, this may appear uncontroversial: after all, all moral systems, whether utilitarian, Revealed, or other, are tinkered in this way. Indeed, tradition itself is largely the accumulation over the ages of the sort of gradual "adaptations to the unknown" that Hayek is describing. On such a reading, Hayek's enterprise is modest, and he is simply encouraging intellectual humility in the encounter with traditional morality.

But there is a pivotal difference between traditional moral tinkering and that which Hayek is suggesting: those traditional moral systems usually had Revelatory foundations and an associated telos which made the improvements philosophically coherent and intellectually rigorous. One wonders, then, what Hayek understands to be the source of traditional morality, the means by which morality can be tinkered with, and the end to which morality aims. Put differently, what is it, according to Hayek, that justifies traditional morality?

....

In his final reflections, Hayek concedes that his moral philosophy is deficient. After all, is it truly satisfying to live as though man's, or at least society's, moral purpose in this world is mainly to survive? In the final chapter, entitled "Religion and the Guardians of Tradition", Hayek tries to answer how practices that people dislike, whose effects they cannot have anticipated, could have been passed down the generations. He notes that "part of the answer" is the evolution of moral orders through group selection (morality has survived because it has enabled its adherents to survive). "But," he adds, "this cannot be the whole story." Yet, he asks, if the beneficial effects of morality were not known in advance, whence did morality originate? And how has morality endured despite the opposition of instinct and, more recently, the assaults of reason? "Here we come to religion."

Like it or not, Hayek writes, "we owe the persistence of certain practices and the civilisation that resulted from them, in part to support from beliefs which are not true — or verifiable or testable — in the same sense as are scientific statements". Like others, he is "not prepared to accept the anthropomorphic conception of a personal divinity", yet "the premature loss of what we regard as nonfactual beliefs would have deprived mankind of a powerful support in the long development of the extended order that we now enjoy." The loss of these beliefs now would still create "great difficulties", hence "even an agnostic ought to concede that we owe our morals, and...not only our civilisation but our very lives, to the acceptance of such scientifically unacceptable factual claims."

....

Hayek spent his life arguing for man's freedom. The Fatal Conceit was his last contribution to that effort. The question, though, is how man should then use that freedom. And that is the question Hayek was unable to answer because he could not cross the faithful threshold. Nevertheless, he recognised, in his final published words, that "on that question may rest the survival of our civilisation".

Blog de Férias. Mas antes: Sanções contra Rússia de novo?

Um bom texto na Bloomberg sobre as sanções que se projetam hoje contra a Rússia, por conta dacrise na Ucrânia. O autor, James Gibny, reconta a última tentativa de sanções contra a Rússia e mostra qual é o problema de antes e de agora: dependência de gás da Rússia pela Europa.

Blog de férias, volta dia 28/03.

Sanction Russia? Reagan Tried It With No Luck

2 MAR 17, 2014 8:52 AM ET

By James Gibney

As the U.S. and the European Union consider the expansion of sanctions against Russia for its likely annexation of Crimea, a potential Santayana moment looms: in this case, a possible repeat of the imbroglio that ensued in 1981-82 between the U.S. and Europe over the building of the Soviet Union’s Siberian Gas Pipeline. It’s an episode with sobering lessons for both sides.

At the time, the deal to build a 3,000-mile pipeline to bring Siberian gas to Europe was the biggest East-West project yet undertaken. European leaders saw it as a chance to diversify Europe’s energy sources away from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries while advancing Ostpolitik -- the German strategy of engagement with the USSR.

Cold Warriors in Washington, however, were nervous and unhappy. During the summer of 1981, the Reagan administration’s National Security Council tried to forge a coordinated response to the pipeline, which also represented a commercial opportunity for market-leading U.S. firms and technology. U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Central Intelligence Agency director William Casey and ambassador to the United Nations Jeane Kirkpatrick didn’t want to give the USSR either know-how or hard currency, and fretted about European energy dependence. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, however, worried that stiff restrictions would be ineffective and split the Atlantic alliance. Treasury Secretary Donald Regan and Office of Management and Budget Director David Stockman argued that the pipeline would help the global economy by boosting energy supplies. Others pushed for expanded export controls. Bombarded by options and opinions, President Ronald Reagan complained in an October meeting, “I’m the most confused person of anyone.”

Backed by the Soviet Union, the Polish Army’s declaration of martial law in Poland on Dec. 13, 1981, forced the Reagan administration to clarify its thinking. As part of the ensuing sanctions against Poland's military regime and the USSR, the administration ordered U.S. companies to abandon work on the Siberian pipeline, but made no decision on extending the ban to U.S. subsidiaries or licensees of U.S. technology. A rift between the U.S. and Europe on pipeline sanctions began to widen. When the U.S. decided in late June 1982 to apply sanctions to any U.S. technology or licensee, France’s foreign ministersaid the decision “could well go down as the beginning of the end of the Atlantic alliance.” France, among other countries, refused to go along. A few months later, in a face-saving compromise, the U.S. agreed to withdraw the pipeline sanctions in return for tighter general controls on the transfer of technology to the USSR.

Haig thus turned out to be right when he argued that, “by pursuing our maximum objectives, we run the risk of coming away with very little, severely weakening the alliance and isolating us from our Allies.” Even Margaret Thatcher went wobbly: In a September 1982 meeting with Weinberger, she told him that she didn’t think sanctions would help ease the repression in Poland, and that England faced the possibility that the U.S. pipeline decision would result in four or five U.K. firms going bankrupt. It didn’t help matters that the U.S. had little to propose to Europe as alternatives to Soviet natural gas, especially given the nasty energy shocks that the Europeans had endured at the hands of Middle Eastern suppliers.

One person very familiar with this episode is Antony Blinken, the current Deputy National Security Advisor. (Disclosure: In the second Bill Clinton administration, I worked for Blinken as a speechwriter at the NSC.) He wrote an excellent book on it: “Ally Versus Ally: America, Europe, and the Siberian Pipeline Crisis.” His arguments for the benefits of economic engagement, and against the Reagan administration’s resort to stiff and uncoordinated sanctions, seem vindicated by history -- at least as far as the USSR was concerned.

Yet while the wisdom of never getting too far ahead of your allies still holds, Ostpolitik and economic engagement would seem less effectiveagainst a revanchist Russia. The dispute over Ukraine is not an ideological struggle pitting East against West. Putin’s Russia is not likely to be won over by prolonged engagement with capitalism and democracy, or to collapse through its internal contradictions. It’s an authoritarian kleptocracy that, as Germany’s Angela Merkel has noted, turns to the “laws of the jungle” to advance its interests.

In that context, Europe’s failure to lessen its dependence on Russia’s natural gas seems like strategic malpractice. In the aftermath of the 1981-82 crisis, the U.S. wanted the International Energy Agency to recommend that no country depend on one gas supplier for more than 30 percent of its gas needs. The Europeans demurred. (Published in 1987, Blinken’s book notes that “dependence on the Soviet Union for energy, never in fact a serious problem, has become virtually a moot issue.”) Yet Europe’s unwillingness to take a tough line against Russia rests in no small part on its continued reliance on Russia for more than 30 percent of its crude oil, fuels and gas-based chemical feedstocks. Germany, Russia’s biggest natural gas customer,counted on Russia for almost 35 percent of its imports in 2012. As Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk bluntly put it, “Germany’s dependence on Russian gas may effectively decrease Europe’s sovereignty.”

Fortunately, the alternatives to Russian gas now go well beyond those available to policymakers in the early 1980s, when Haig spoke of assembling an “energy cooperation package” to persuade Europeans to slow down or end their cooperation on the Siberian pipeline. (Even“coal gasification” has come a long way since then.) As President Barack Obama and Europe seek to respond to Putin’s maneuvering, the speed, scope and effectiveness of sanctions will necessarily depend on unity. But more than 30 years after Cold War hawks first argued against Europe’s dependence on Siberian gas, the effort to do something about it has new urgency.

Mercado Financeiro (e Bancos Centrais) Enriquece quem já é Rico. Os 1% dos EUA aumentam o poder.

Vejam o vídeo abaixo que mostra: 1) o que os americanos pensam como a renda é distribuída nos Estados Unidos; 2) como eles acham que seria ideal; e 3) o que realmente é. A Realidade é pior, bem pior do que as pessoas imaginam. 





Quem discute o gráfico é o site Wealth Management. Ele mostra que o dinheiro gasto em estímulos financeiros pelo governo para no bolso dos banqueiros, não ajuda ao povo, nem a economia.

Aqui vai um pouco do que diz Lance Roberts, acessem aqui para o resto.

Poll Shows Why QE Has Been Ineffective

Written by Lance Roberts | Wednesday, March 12, 2014

I have discussed many times in the past the Fed's ongoing Quantitative Easing (QE) programs and their ineffectiveness of generating "self-sustaining" economic growth.  While the Fed's interventions have certainly bolstered asset prices by driving a "carry trade," these programs do not address the central issue necessary in a consumer driven economy which is "employment."  

In an economy that is nearly 70% driven by consumption, production comes first in the economic order.  Without a job, through which an individual produces a good or service in exchange for payment, there is no income to consume with.  While income can come from social welfare, as seen in the latest personal income data, these dollars are derived from the production of others through taxation. 

Like any common accounting equation, if taxation is increased on one side of the ledger, the offset is lower consumption, and ultimately economic growth, on the other.  This is why the multiplier from government spending, and social welfare, is effectively near zero, if not potentially a negative.

The problem with the Federal Reserve's ongoing QE program is that the inflation of asset prices, the "wealth effect," has not impacted much of the overall economy.  A recentBloomberg National Poll found:

"More than three-quarters of Americans say the five-year bull market in U.S. stocks has had little or no effect on their financial well-being."

This is not surprising when you look at the statistics of how wealth is divided in the domestic economy today.

---
Como será no Brasil? Imagino que a faixa do pobres seja bem maior ainda.

(Agradeço o texto ao site Zero Hedge)

"A Tempestade chinesa está vindo". Premiê alerta para baixo crescimento.

O premiê chinês Li Keqiang alertou que a China atravessará período difícil em 2014 e alguns analistas já dizem que a China precisa estimular a economia. Meu Deus, estes caras só pensam no próprio bolso, como estimular a economia em um país que vive a eminência de crise de crédito exagerado, e anuncia falências por conta disso?

Vejam texto da Reuters:

China premier warns on economic slowdown as data fans stimulus talk

By Benjamin Kang Lim and Kevin Yao

Reuters) - Chinese Premier Li Keqiang warned on Thursday that the economy faces "severe challenges" in 2014 - comments that came as weak data fanned speculation the central bank would relax monetary policy to support stuttering growth.

Li, speaking at a news conference on the final day of China's yearly parliament, hinted Beijing would tolerate slower economic expansion this year while it pushes through reforms aimed at providing longer-term and more sustainable growth.

Data released shortly after his comments suggested that tolerance may face an early test. 
Growth in investment, retail sales and factory output all slumped to multi-year lows, suggesting a marked slowdown in the first two months of the year, according to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics.

"A storm is coming," said Gao Yuan, an analyst at Haitong Securities in Shanghai, while Hao Zhou, the China economist for ANZ said "policy easing should be imminent."

But Sheng Laiyun, a spokesman for the statistical bureau, said China's economic fundamentals remain sound despite experiencing some short-term pains from structural adjustments.

"The economy is likely to maintain steady and healthy growth in the future," he was quoted by state radio as saying.

At the carefully orchestrated briefing where questions had to be vetted in advance, Li spent most time discussing the economy. But he also touched upon other topics, including friction in relations with Washington, corruption, pollution, and the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines aircraft.

While acknowledging the economy faced difficulties, Li suggested Beijing would not let growth slip too far. The government has targeted a rise of GDP in 2014 of 7.5 percent after actual growth last year of 7.7 percent.

"We believe we have the ability, and all the means, to ensure that economic growth will stay within a reasonable range this year," he said.

He also signaled the government will allow further debt defaults after Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science and Technology Co Ltd failed last Friday to pay an interest payment on its five-year bonds.

The first default on a domestic bond was hailed by experts as a landmark that will impose more market discipline, a break from the past when bonds enjoyed an implicit guarantee because the government would bail out troubled firms to ensure stability.

Growth in Chinese corporate debt has been unprecedented. A Thomson Reuters analysis of 945 listed medium and large non-financial firms showed total debt soared by more than 260 percent to 4.74 trillion yuan ($777.3 billion) between December 2008 and September 2013.

"We are reluctant to see defaults of financial products, but some cases are hard to avoid," Li said. "We must enhance oversight and solve problems in a timely way to ensure no systemic and regional risks."

Li said financial and fiscal reforms are among top priorities this year, reinforcing market expectations that long-awaited changes to liberalize bank deposit rates and efforts rein in local government debt could be in the pipeline.

Chinese leaders unveiled plans last year for sweeping reforms aimed at transforming the economy's reliance on investment and exports, which have fuelled double-digit growth for three decades, to one that leans more on services and consumption. It included allowing market forces to play a bigger part in the economy.

PRIORITY ON JOBS
The signs of a slowdown in the economy this year have raised worries among some investors that China will miss the 7.5 percent growth target.

"The momentum is really quite weak," Wei Yao, China economist for Societe Generale said after Thursday's data. "Q1 GDP growth is probably already below 7.5 percent. The government will probably do some easing."

Yao said she expected the central bank to reduce bank reserve requirements by 50 basis points. Major banks currently have to put aside a fifth of their cash as reserves and such a measure would represent the central bank's strongest policy easing since 2012.

Sources involved in internal policy discussions told Reuters earlier this week that the central bank was prepared to cut bank reserves if economic growth slowed further. But they said policy action may only happen in the second quarter.

Li skillfully dodged a question on how far Beijing would let economic growth slip before it steps in with policy measures to support activity. Still, he hinted at tolerance for below-target growth, as long as enough new jobs are created.

"The GDP growth target is around 7.5 percent. 'Around' means there is some flexibility and we have some tolerance," he said, adding that the lower limit on growth must ensure job creation.

Finance Minister Lou Jiwei said last week that China can slightly miss the 7.5 percent growth target as long as enough jobs are created.

However, Xu Shaoshi, the head of the pro-growth National Development and Reform Commission, said on Wednesday that the 7.5 percent target would be the lower limit for the government.

Beijing wants to create 10 million new jobs in 2014 and Li has said that the economy must grow 7.2 percent annually to do that. Some 13 million new jobs were created last year when the economy grew 7.7 percent.
Premier Li said the government will take a differentiated approach to cool the property market, rather than using one-size-fits-all policies used by his predecessors that have largely failed to calm real estate inflation.

"We need to apply differentiated property measures in different cities based on different types of demand and local conditions," Li said.

But on government corruption, Li had an unequivocal answer.
"We will show zero tolerance for corrupt behavior and corrupt officials. No matter who it is, or how senior their position, everyone is equal before the law," Li said, without mentioning any names.

Speculation has gathered around China's former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang, who sources say is at the center of a corruption investigation reaching into the highest echelons of government, though Beijing has yet to formally confirm this.

As Futuras Falências na China

O jornal Valor Econômico noticiou esta semana a primeira falência de uma empresa na China. É uma empresa que negocia painéis solares, chamada Shangai Chaori Solar Energy & Technology (nome bonito, não é?).

No texto do Valor Econômico, um analista diz que é como achar uma barata morta na cozinha, sabe-se que há mais baratas, assim sabe-e que há mais empresas que estão em  dificuldade financeira na China, depois que o governo jogou rios de dinheito no mercado e facilitou o crédito com a crise de 2008.

O site Zero Hedge noticiou as possíveis futuras falências na China, são especialmente relacionadas a mineração de carvão.

12 potential defaults reported by the media
Table 1 summarizes the information on the 12 major potential defaults in the trust industry that have been reported by the media. Most of them are coal mine related and heavily concentrated in one area, Shanxi Province. So far it seems to us that most of them may get extended upon the due date. The only exception over the next few months appears to be a product issued by China Credit Trust for a lead and zinc miner in Sichuan, Nonggeshan. Even without any major default over the next few months, the process of debt restructuring can be messy and weigh heavily on market sentiment.

19 Feb 2014, Rmb109mn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by Jilin Trust

• Details: This Rmb109mn tranche is part of a six-tranche trust product worth a total of Rmb973mn arranged by Jilin Trust for Liansheng, a Shanxi coal miner. The other five tranches have matured since 2H 2013 and remain overdue.
• Potential outcome: Repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Liansheng is undergoing a debt restructuring coordinated by the Shanxi provincial government. 1) The provincial government plans to help out involved financial institutions to ensure the region’s access to ongoing financing. According to people close to the situation, the implicit guarantee practice will most likely continue with the Liansheng’s case. 2) Trust companies may have to follow banks to help the miner out. Banks have agreed to extend their mid/long term loans by three years. Top 3 banks have total debts of Rmb10.6bn to Liansheng; top 3 trust lenders, Rmb3.7bn.

(Shanghai Securities News, 2/11; Economic Information, 2/13)
21 Feb 2014, Rmb500mn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by Shanxi Trust

• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Same as the Jilin Trust case.

(Caiing 1/27; China Securities Journal, 1/27; 21st Century Business Herald, 2/14)
07 Mar 2014, Rmb664mn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by Changan Trust

• Details: Other than the Rmb664mn product to mature on Mar 7, Changan Trust arranged another two products for Liansheng, totaling Rmb536mn which matured in Nov 2013. Both products remain overdue.
• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Same as the other Liansheng cases.

(Caiing 1/27; China Securities Journal, 1/27; 21st Century Business Herald, 2/14)
31 Mar 2014, Rmb196mn borrowed by Magic Property & arranged by CITIC Trust

• Details: invested in an office building in Chongqing. The Chongqing developer ran into financial problems in mid-2013. CITIC Trust tried to auction the collateral but failed to do so because the developer has sold the collateral and also mortgaged it to a few other lenders.
• Potential outcome: The developer and the trust company may share the repayment.
• Reasons: 1) When CITIC Trust sold the product, it did not specify the underlying investment project. 2) The local government has intervened, fearing social unrest. A local buyer of a unit in the office building committed suicide as he/she could not obtain the title to the property due to the title dispute between the trust and the developer.

(Source: Financial Planning Weekly, 3/6/2013; Guangzhou Daily, 4/6/2013, Boxun, 5/10/2013)
14 May 2014, Rmb1.5bn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by China Jiangxi International Trust

• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Same as the other three Liansheng cases.

(Caiing 1/27; China Securities Journal, 1/27; 21st Century Business Herald, 2/14)
30 May 2014, Rmb140mn borrowed by Nonggeshan & arranged by China Credit Trust

• Details: invested in a lead and zinc mine in Sichuan.
• Potential outcome: Likely to default.
• Reasons: 1) Compared to coal mines of Zhenfu and Liansheng, the lead and zinc mine is a much less attractive asset: it is located in the mountains over 5,000 meters in altitude, inaccessible for 6 months of the year due to weather conditions, with low lead/zinc content; 2) According to an unnamed regulator, the central government is comfortable with trust defaults in the range of Rmb100-200mn.

(Source: 21st Century Business Herald, 31/7/2012; Caiing, 1/27)
25 Jul 2014, Rmb1.3bn borrowed by Xinbeifang & arranged by China Credit Trust

• Details: Xinbeifang is another Shanxi coal miner.
• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Xinbeifang is negotiating with an SOE to sell some of its coal mine assets.

(Source: China Securities Journal, 1/15)
27 Jul 2014, Rmb319mn borrowed by Hongsheng & arranged by Huarong Trust

• Details: Hongsheng is a Shanxi coal miner. Huarong sold another trust product for it which will mature in 4 September 2014, worth Rmb63mn.
• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Hongsheng may have assets to secure more financing. It issued these two trust products to replace another trust product that matured in Q3 2012. The owner also issued other trust products using his personal property assets as collateral and raised Rmb1.2bn.

(21st Century Business Herald, 20/12/2013)
7 Sept 2014: Rmb400mn borrowed by Zengdai & arranged by CCB Trust

• Details: 1) The proceeds of the product were invested in financial markets. 2) Its 1st tranche, worth Rmb400mn, matured in Mar 2013 with a 38% loss vs. an expected return of 20-30%. Investors agreed to extend the maturity of the product to Sept 2014. 3) Its 2nd tranche, worth Rmb359mn, matured in June 2013 with a 31% loss vs. an expected return of 20-30%. Investors agreed to extend the maturity of the 2nd tranche to Dec 2014.
• Potential outcome: The trust company and the investment company may share the losses.
• Reasons: 1) The investment company refused to repay investors in full at the original due date so the trust company may have to chip in; 2) By Jan 2014, the 1st tranche reported a narrower loss of 24%, and the 2nd tranche, also a narrower loss of 13%; 3) Zengdai may pay on behalf of its investment company for reputation’s sake.

(Source: Securities Daily, 9/7/2013; CCB Trust)
20 Nov 2014, Rmb600mn borrowed by Liansheng & arranged by China Jiangxi Int'l Trust

• Potential outcome: repayment may be extended.
• Reason: Same as the other Liansheng cases.

(Caiing 1/27; China Securities Journal, 1/27; 21st Century Business Herald, 2/14)
23 Dec2014: Rmb1.1bn borrowed by Xiaoyi Dewei & arranged by China Resources Trust

• Details: Xiaoyi Dewei is a Shanxi coal miner. The trust product originally matured in Dec 2013 but repayment was extended to Dec 2014.
• Potential outcome: Likely to default.
• Reason: Both the miner and the trust company refused to repay investors in full at the original due date. There has been no reporting on asset sales by Xiaoyi Dewei.

(Source: Financial Planning Weekly, 11 Nov 2013)
15 Jan 2015, Rmb1.2bn borrowed by Hongsheng’s owner & arranged by Minmetals Trust

• Details: the collateral is the Shanxi coal miner’s personal property assets.
• Potential outcome: May be replaced by a new trust product.
• Reason: Same as the July 2014 Rmb319mn trust product issued by Huarong Trust.

(21st Century Business Herald, 20/12/2013)
2Q/3Q 2014 – the next peak maturing period for collective trusts
We consider the trust market the most vulnerable part of the major financing channels for companies, i.e. loan, corporate bond and trust. The quality of the borrowers in the trust market tends to among the lowest. Within the trust market, collective trust products, i.e. those sold to more than one investor, tend to be risker than single trust products, i.e. those sold to a single investor. This is because investors in single trust products tend to be more substantial in resources, thus most likely more sophisticated in their risk control.
The Wind database lists close to 12,000 collective trust products, worth Rmb1.34tr, which cover roughly half of the collective trust market (Rmb2.72tr as of the end of 2013). It has reasonably good quality data series on the issuing dates and amounts raised. However, data on maturing dates are sporadic. We estimate that the average duration of the trust products is around 2 years. Based on this assumption and the issuing dates, we have mapped out a rough maturing profile of the collective trust market. As we can see from Chart 1, 2Q and 3Q this year will be the next peak maturing period for this market.

A OEA e a Crise da Venezuela.

O texto é do site da Fox News e fala como os Estados Unidos enfrentam uma OEA cada vez mais dominada pelo "socialismo-bolivariano".
 

Venezuela 'sham' resolution renews US scorn for Organization of American States

 

By Judson Berger

Published March 11, 2014
In the shadow of the Washington Monument sits the headquarters of an organization, the oldest of its kind in the world, founded on the pillars of human rights and democracy promotion.

But the Organization of American States -- which dates back to 1948 and now includes all 35 nations of the Western Hemisphere -- increasingly has become a thorn in the side of U.S. policy and a flashpoint for hawkish members of Congress who assail its allegedly "feckless" leadership.

A recent dispute over Venezuela's political unrest once again has renewed that fight. On Friday, the OAS effectively punted, issuing what critics called a watered-down resolution which made clear the group would stay out of Venezuela's affairs.   

The Obama administration, and U.S. lawmakers, are now assailing the OAS for failing to take a stand. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., called the resolution a "sham." 

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., called it "unconscionable that the Member States at the OAS find it difficult to stand up for the people of Venezuela."

Ros-Lehtinen has been one of the organization's toughest critics over the years, and a spokesman told FoxNews.com she remains "open" to trying, as she has in the past, to defund the organization.

The U.S., which took a lead role in forming the OAS more than 60 years ago, is still the biggest donor, covering more than 40 percent of its annual budget. The U.S. contributed more than $65 million in fiscal 2013. Congress passed, and President Obama signed, a bill last year that aims to reduce U.S. spending and encourage other OAS reforms.

Ros-Lehtinen, in a statement to FoxNews.com, suggested further reforms are needed.

"We can no longer stand idly by and let the OAS self-destruct into irrelevance due to its feckless Secretary General and some Member states that fail to support democratic principles," she said. While praising divisions of the OAS like its human rights commission, she accused the group of turning its back "against those seeking freedom." 

The OAS is somewhat of a regional Rorschach test. Some leftist South and Central American leaders see it as a longstanding tool of Washington. Many U.S. lawmakers see an organization that, despite its anti-communist roots, has taken a sharp turn away from the United States in recent years.

The fizzle over Venezuela fueled those concerns.

The group's resolution on Friday, while rejecting violence in Venezuela, backed the "principle of nonintervention in the domestic affairs of states" and voiced support for government-led peace talks. The United States, Canada and Panama objected but were overruled by the 29 states, including Peru and Chile and other South American countries, voting in favor. 

The Obama administration complained that the supposed peace talks are supported only by the government and blasted the OAS for sticking to a platform of nonintervention.

"The OAS cannot sanction a dialogue in which much of the opposition has no voice and no faith," the U.S. said in a footnote to the resolution. "Only Venezuelans can find the solutions to Venezuela's problems, but the situation in Venezuela today makes it imperative that a trusted third party facilitate the conversation as Venezuelans search for those solutions."

With the OAS backing away from the crisis, the political tumult on the streets of Caracas and beyond shows no sign of abating. Amid the more heavily covered stand-off between Russia and the West over Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula, more demonstrators took to the streets of Caracas on Sunday.

Vice President Biden, in Chile for the swearing-in of that country's president, held a series of one-on-one meetings early this week with South American leaders, and Venezuela was expected to be a prime topic. He capped the set of meetings Tuesday morning with a sit-down with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.

As the administration faces accusations from Republican lawmakers of ignoring a troubling trend with Latin American leaders, though, Biden had harsh words for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. He suggested to a Chilean newspaper that the government was using "armed vigilantes" against protesters and accused it of fabricating "outlandish conspiracy theories" about the U.S.

According to The Associated Press, Maduro fired back, saying: "They were defeated in the OAS and now they want revenge."

It's not the first time the U.S. has struggled to advance its policies at the OAS. Not only did the group technically lift a decades-long suspension on Cuba in 2009, but it often has been reluctant to criticize its own members -- leaning on a policy of nonintervention. When the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave himself broad executive powers in late 2010, unilaterally approving dozens of changes over an 18-month period, the OAS did not interfere. The OAS also took no action in 2004 when Ecuador's president at the time dissolved the Supreme Court of Justice. 

Still, other elements of the OAS have taken a tough stance against the misbehavior of its members, including a 2010 report that slammed Chavez' policies in Venezuela.

But criticism of Venezuela may only go so far. One concern in the region is that Venezuela's Latin American neighbors will avoid criticizing the government because they benefit from the country's subsidized oil. The leadership of other regional groups is already aligned with the Maduro government. 

Panama stuck its neck out by calling for the OAS to get involved in the first place, only to see Venezuela break off relations with the Central American country.

Rubio also faulted the Obama administration, claiming it has "neglected the region to the point of making the U.S. mere bystanders, as authoritarians destroy decades of hard fought democratic gains" and saying this should be a "wake up call" for the need to "redouble our efforts" in Venezuela.

Secretary of State John Kerry said late last month that the U.S. is working with Colombia, and other countries, to "see how some kind of mediation might be able to take place."

He said the U.S. is open to a "constructive relationship" with the country but "Venezuela has spontaneously decided again and again to move in a different direction, and more often than not, to try to blame the United States for its own lack of governance and inattention to its economy."

The demonstrations reflect frustrations, largely among the Venezuela middle class, over out-of-control inflation, violence and shortages of basic items.