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Creativity Motivation – What is motivation – Corey K Katir
Advertising From http://www.creativitymotivation.com Describes motivation process for creativity with emphasis on intrinsic motivation by Corey K Katir 10 Delicious Reasons Why You Should Visit Portugal!
From feedproxy.google It’s been almost four years since I called Portugal my “home away from home”, translating to a half decade of savoring Portuguese food and wine on a regular basis a something Iave never taken for granted. Consequently, while searching for information on Portuguese gastronomy, I stumbled across Catavino’s Facebook page. Immediately drawn to Ryan and […] Continue Reading → Related posts:
Cha, cha, cha, changesa|Spanish wine needs to learn from the Pancho affair
From feedproxy.google Jay Miller is out. Neal Martin is in. This is the story that spilled onto “the Twitter“, in the blogosphere, and onto “the Facebooks”. Regurgitated and recycled from one blog to another showing that there is no limit to the amount of naval gazing possible by any niche community. The scandal relates to whether Pancho […] Continue Reading → Related posts:
The Never Ending Journey: 6 Years of Transformation
From feedproxy.google Not surprisingly, Iave delayed writing this post for weeks, dutifully trying to answer the question, awhat happened over the past 6 years and how does one summarize such an experience in one article?a Admittedly, itas absolutely impossible. To write a one off post on how our lives have changed feels as inconsequential as writing a […] Continue Reading → Related posts:
Cooking up a Farewell Feast with Moscatel
From feedproxy.google Parting is such sweet sorrow. That Bard really knew what he was talking about, didnat he? Itas this way with Gabriella and Ryanas announcement that Catavino is saying goodbye. My emotions were mixed at hearing the news. Initially, I was disappointed that I wouldnat have my monthly outpouring of a favorite Portuguese dish, wine or […] Continue Reading → Related posts:
How it all Began, a Quick Look Back at the Early Years
From feedproxy.google When we first moved to Spain, we arrived with almost nothing. Our Spanish consisted of A ”hola”, “gracias” and after a couple of days hanging out with other Spaniards, “Vale”, the ubiquitous “ok”. Our friends were back in Minnesota, but we were in Madrid and lucky enough to have a place to live. A fellow TEFL […] Continue Reading → Related posts:
Starts with Goodbye, Catavino Wraps up 6 years of Iberian Wine
From feedproxy.google As many of you know, when Ryan and I married, we legally changed our last name. As I didn’t want to be called Gabriella Anderson, and he cared even less for Ryan Reynes, we opted to break social norms by designing our own surname. Having travelled through Portugal for our wedding and honeymoon, we created […] Continue Reading → Related posts:
Portugal: One man on a bicycle in a land of beauty
From rss.feedsportal When the rain stopped and hazy sunshine emerged, I climbed off the bike and gazed around. The landscape was not dramatic, but it was utterly entrancing: an undulating expanse of green meadows dotted with cork oaks, holm oaks and olive trees, seemingly devoid of fences or walls. From this country road only the faint, tingling bells of unseen grazing animals and the call of birds could be heard. It was April and wild flowers were out in force, the meadows carpeted in yellow, white and purple, the waysides thronged with vivid poppies, rock roses, bugloss and alkanet.
Competitiveness, part two
From feedproxy.google
WHETHER your trade account is deteriorating or improving is not the only measure of competitiveness, of course. As many noted, Germany kept the lid on its unit labour costs in the early years of euro membership but other nations did not. Correcting the internal imbalances requires other countries to reduce their costs, relative to those of Germany. So here is a condensed version of the figures from Eurostat, covering the same years and countries as the trade data.
% change 2008-11
France +3.6
Germany +4.6
Greece -1.7
Ireland +4.6
Italy +2.7
Portugal 0.0
Spain -2.7
So everybody (bar Ireland) has gained some of the ground lost to Germany, with Spain achieving the most. The Irish figure seems rather odd and is the result of a big rise in 2008 – since then costs have been falling fast.
The competitiveness issue
From feedproxy.google
WE SPEND so much time looking at the debt-to-GDP ratios and the annual deficits that we can forget the fundamental flaw at the heart of the euro zone; that some countries became uncompetitive in the course of membership of the single currency. The best way to get economies to grow, and alleviate the debt problem, is to make them more competitive.
So what has happened to trade positions in the last few years? Here are the cumulative changes in exports and imports (taken from the IMF yearbook) between 2008 and 2011 for the key countries. In the third column are estimates for this year’s current account position, as a % of GDP, taken from this week’s Economist (Ireland and Portugal figures are for 2011).
Exports Imports C/a
France* -4.0 -1.4 -2.0
Germany +1.7 +5.8 +4.8
Greece** -17.1 -34.8 -5.3
Ireland +2.2 -19.2 +0.1
Italy -4.0 -1.2 -2.5
Portugal +1.9 -15.8 -6.0
Spain +7.5 -13.0 -2.8
* The French import numbers for 2011 have been annualised from the first three quarters. ** The Greek figures are for 2008-2010.
The collapse of demand in Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain is clear from the import numbers. But there is a significant difference in the export numbers; Ireland has dragged itself into surplus, while Spain has done very well on the export side. Portugal still looked troubled as of last year, but its trade position seems to have improved significantly so far this year. Finally a note on the much-maligned Germans. The country is the only one to have increased imports since 2008 and as the region’s largest economy, that must be of some help to the others.
PS This is just a blog note so please forgive the makeshift appearance of the table.
Post-war reflections
From feedproxy.google
WHEN people argue we can muddle our way through after the debt crisis, they often cite the period after 1945 as an example.* But it is worth remembering the state of European economies after the Second World War.
There are some good examples in the excellent book Postwar by the late Tony Judt. First of all, workers could be switched from military service to productive work. In 1945, 10 million British men and women were in uniform or making arms, out of an employed population of 21.5 million adults.
Meanwhile one forgets how much of the mid-20th century economy was devoted to agriculture. in 1950, 23% of the West German population worked in farming, while the figure in France was nearly 30%. For Italy, the proportion was 40%, while in Spain, Portugal and Greece, one in two workers was employed in the agricultural sector. As China is currently demonstrating, the productivity gains that can be achieved by switching workers from agriculture to industry are amazing. By the 1970s, fewer than 20% of western Europeans worked on the farm, and in Germany and France, the proportion was less than 10%.
Thirdly, Americans and Europeans benefited from cheap oil. In 1955, a barrel of Saudi crude cost $1.93; by 1971, the cost had risen to just $2.18, despite inflation elsewhere. This enabled the developed world to switch from coal to oil. In 1950, coal and coke accounted for 83% of Europe’s fuel consumption, oil for just 8.5%. By 1970, oil was 60% and coke and coal just 29%.
In short, the tail winds were wonderfully beneficial. By 1970, however, the farming-industry switch had taken place, while the era of cheap oil ended in 1973. The dismal 1970s followed and the term eurosclerosis was coined. Developed world growth received three fillips in the 1980s and 1990s; the oil price fell steadily in real terms, China and eastern Europe joined the global economy, and more women entered the workforce (34% of American women were working in 1960, 60% by 2000). Those changes may have suckered us in to taking on more debt, as we overestimated the future growth rate. Alas, it is hard to see what will boost underlying growth in the current era, especially as developing world demand is pushing the oil price up.
Technology will help, as would reform of European markets and breakthroughs in cheap energy (solar? electric cars?). But those factors still seem to pale wehn set against the post-1945 era.
* An “expert” on a BBC phone-in last night said Britain managed to recover without austerity. Nonsense. After President Truman gratefully acknowledged Britain’s six-year fight against Hitler by instantly cancelling the lend-lease programme, the country was desperately short of dollars to pay for imports. Rationing was extended after the war was ended, and some allocations were cut. Food rationing did not end until 1954.
Some genuine uncertainties
From feedproxy.google
SOCRATES said: “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.” And we should all be humble enough to follow the great man’s example, especially with regard to economics, where it is impossible to run counterfactual tests (what would have happened had we done X instead of Y), where Nobel prize-winners disagree and where the forecasting record of the average economist has been so poor.
So here are a few questions that bug me and that readers might like to think about.
1. It is easy to understand the case that European austerity is self-defeating. But it is also easy to see that one cannot run large deficits year after year without limit, and that some countries (Greece, Portugal) have exhausted the willingness of private investors to finance them. One could combine a commitment to fiscal stimulus in the short-term with a pledge for reduced deficits in the medium term. But will the medium term ever arrive, or will it be a case of “gruel tomorrow, gruel yesterday, but never gruel today”?
2. A long period of fiscal deficits will inevitably mean that the government plays a larger role in the state. But the European role is already large; France spends 56% of GDP. Never mind the issue of crowding out private sector investment, which isn’t happening at the moment, but might happen in the future. Doesn’t a larger state equate to slower long-term growth prospects?
3. What do the markets want? More austerity or less? European leaders are understandably confused. In the US, would markets really want a Republican sweep of Presidency and Congress that was committed to an austerity drive and to restricting the Fed’s ability to do QE? But would a divided government be any better, given the repeated failures to pass long-term reforms?
4. On the same issue, how can we interpret market movements? The British government says low bond yields are the result of investor confidence in its austerity programme. But what about the APS325 billion gilt-buying programme of the Bank of England? And what about the purchase of UK bonds by worried investors in the euro zone? (Again, we have no counterfactuals to test the governmenrt’s assertion.)
5. How do we judge the effectiveness of policy? Keynesians criticise the US for not doing enough, calls that may redouble after today’s disappointing payrolls. But the US has a budget deficit of 8.5% of GDP, negative real interest rates on both cash and 10-year bonds and the Fed has pursued two rounds of QE. How does one distinguish between policies that have failed, and those that have not been pushed far enough?
I am sure that many people will assign some ideological bias to these questions but they seem to me to be reasonable issues with which policymakers, investors and voters must grapple, let alone the humble trade of columnists. The absolute certainty with which some people proclaim on either side of these issues fills me with unease.
Spot the deleveraging
From feedproxy.google
JUST back from sitting in at a strategy session of GLG, the hedge fund group, where the very erudite Jamil Baz held forth. He made your blogger appear quite cheerful by comparison, and one reason for his gloom was the lack of deleveraging to date. Here are the numbers (taken from central bank data) for total debt-to-GDP ratios for nations in June 2007, compared with the latest figures (in brackets) for September 2011*.
France 399 (504)
Germany 301 (310)
Greece 215 (287)
Ireland 788 (1182)
Italy 324 (364)
Japan 587 (621)
Portugal 320 (408)
Spain 418 (469)
UK 627 (1110)
US 332 (340)
A degree of caution needs to be applied to the UK and Irish numbers where the financial sector’s debt is unconsolidated. But even if we ignore the financial sector, the only deleveraging in Britain has been by consumers, and that to the extent of just 3% of GDP. Irish consumers and businesses are more levered than before, and, of course, in both cases, governments have a lot more debt.
What about the US? Here it is fair to say there has been some deleveraging from the peak, which occurred in 2009, and both households and the finance sector have made more progress than in any other nation (a decline of 27% of GDP from 2007). Nevertheless, if you think the system was overgeared in 2007, at the height of a credit boom, then it’s hard to argue it’s not overgeared now. And the US is the only nation where it’s possible to argue that any deleveraging has occurred.
* Except for Greece, which is March 2011
Double take – agreements to end double taxation for Portuguese investors
From legalweek.com
legalweek
Portugal has been working to introduce agreements in regions such as the UAE and Africa to end the double taxation inflicted upon businesses investing in the economies. PLMJ’s Rogerio Fernandes Ferreira and Monica Respicio Goncalves report
CMS expands European reach with addition of Portuguese firm
From legalweek.com
legalweek
The CMS law firm network is set to expand into Portugal with the addition of Rui Pena Arnaut & Associados (RPA). The move, which was approved by the network’s executive committee on Friday (21 October), will see RPA rebrand as CMS Rui Pena & Arnaut from 1 January next year, extending CMS’s reach to 55 offices across 30 countries.
legalweek
A partner at SNR Denton associate firm F Castelo Branco & Associados (FCB&A) has been appointed as Portugal’s new Minister of Justice. Paula Teixeira da Cruz has taken up the position following a June election in which Pedro Passos Coelho became the country’s Prime Minister.
Iberia
From legalweek.com
legalweek
Optimistic lawyers in Portugal’s depressed market post-bailout; and the Spanish courts’ controversial decisions regarding interest rate swaps
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