TIROU-ME AS PALAVRAS DA BOCA: E se o povo não quiser reformas?

«(...) É claro que reformas deste tipo não teriam qualquer hipótese de aprovação no parlamento. Mesmo que o PSD as desejasse (o que não estaria assegurado), encontra-se entalado entre dois partidos, o Chega e o PS, avessos a reformas liberais e que defendem mais intervenção do estado na economia e na sociedade. A resposta de PPC a um impasse deste tipo é confiar no povo. O político reformista deve apresentar e advogar a sua agenda perante os eleitores sempre, em eleições ou fora delas. Deve apresentar as suas propostas com coragem, sem compromisso ou calculismos. Os consensos que muitos advogam são frequentemente bissetrizes que nada mudam, simulacros de reformas que reduzem a pressão para as verdadeiras alterações estruturais. Insistir sempre. Se não for possível, ouça-se o povo. 

Gosto! Mas ... e se o povo não quiser reformas? E se o povo preferir a quietude anestesiante do declínio gradual à agitação transformadora? Afinal foi o povo que deu ao Chega e ao PS o poder bloqueador que atualmente detêm.

É que as reformas têm sempre ganhadores e perdedores. Esperam os reformistas que os benefícios dos ganhadores sobrelevem as perdas dos perdedores - isto é, que as reformas sejam um jogo de soma positiva - e que existam mecanismos redistributivos que permitam a compensação daqueles prejudicados. Em jargão de economista, esperam que as reformas representem uma melhoria potencial à Pareto. O problema complica-se quando consideramos a dimensão intergeracional. Os benefícios das reformas podem levar muito tempo a manifestar-se e os maiores ganhadores podem vir a ser aqueles que hoje ainda são muito jovens ou mesmo ainda não-nascidos - ou seja, segmentos com pouca voz eleitoral ou sem ela Em contrapartida, os eleitores mais velhos, com as vidas resolvidas, são aqueles expostos a maiores riscos e para quem o up side das reformas é menos óbvio. Vê-se assim que em sociedades envelhecidas como a portuguesa, em que a idade mediana são 47 anos e 25% da população tem mais de 65 anos, conseguir maiorias eleitorais reformistas é tremendamente difícil.

O reformador arrisca-se, assim, a ser como o escuteiro que queria praticar a sua boa ação diária levando uma velhinha a atravessar a rua. Só que ela não o queria fazer.»

O reformador e o povo, José A. Ferreira Machado no Jornal Sol

Trumponomics' unintended consequences (6) - Possible collateral damage from the attack on Iran and the Ayatollah regime's response

Other Trumponomics' unintended consequences.

«The shutdown of oil and gas production due to saturation of storage capacity (the so-called tank-top) is a critical scenario, as the sector operates in continuous flow. If the Strait of Hormuz closes and the flow stops, the consequences would be:

1. Structural and Technical Damage to Wells

Unlike a tap, stopping production in an oil field is a complex process.

Damage to reservoirs: The sudden shutdown can alter underground pressure, causing leaks of water or sand that can permanently damage the well.

Difficulty in Restarting: Resuming production can take months and require massive investments. In some cases, the flow never returns to previous levels, resulting in the definitive loss of reserves.

2. "Flaring" and Waste of Gas

Natural gas is often extracted along with oil (associated gas).

If oil tanks are full but the gas cannot be processed or exported, companies are forced to burn the gas (flaring) in massive volumes, generating an environmental disaster and economic waste of resources that could heat millions of homes.

3. Value Destruction and Bankruptcies

Maintenance Costs: Even when shut down, infrastructure requires maintenance to prevent corrosion. Without sales revenue, producing countries (such as those in the Gulf) face acute fiscal crises, as they depend on this flow to finance the state.

Take-or-Pay Contracts: Production shutdowns lead to non-compliance with long-term supply contracts, generating international legal battles and financial penalties of billions of dollars.

4. Extreme Price Volatility

Short Term: The price skyrockets globally due to scarcity in the consumer market.

Medium Term: When production is finally resumed, a sudden oversupply may occur, causing a price crash, similar to what briefly happened in 2020 (negative prices). 

5. Reconfiguration of Energy Geopolitics

The forced shutdown in the Middle East would accelerate the energy transition and investment in exploration in other regions (USA, Brazil, Guyana) and renewable energies, to reduce dependence on such a vulnerable chokepoint.»

Google's Gemini Response

How many trumps there are in this Trump? Read my lips and watch my leaps

 «Donald Trump campaigned on the idea that electing him was the best way to avoid wars. He has referred to himself as the “peace president,” going so far as to complain that he hadn’t won a Nobel Peace Prize.

Yet Trump has governed as a hawkish interventionist whose approach better aligns with his neoconservative secretary of state, Marco Rubio, than with the anti-interventionists in his administration, such as J. D. Vance and Tulsi Gabbard. The United States is now enmeshed in so many conflicts that its foreign policy is closer to “world police” than “America First.”

The newly launched war against Iran is the most significant. Operation Epic Fury begins less than a year after the United States and Israel partnered to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. At the time, Trump declared that operation a success, and Vance defended it by stating, “I certainly empathize with Americans who are exhausted after 25 years of foreign entanglements … But the difference is that back then, we had dumb presidents and now we have a president who actually knows how to accomplish America’s national-security objectives. So this is not gonna be some long, drawn-out thing.” (...)

All alone, this war would make a mockery of MAGA claims that Trump is an anti-interventionist. But it is one in an extensive list of Trump-era entanglements.» 

(Who Is the U.S. Actually at War With Right Now?)

Truth social

DIÁRIO DE BORDO: R.I.P.

 

António Lobo Antunes, in illo tempore

Trinta e três anos antes, no meio dum pelotão de cadetes da EPI em Mafra, composto por ele próprio, mais quatro dezenas de mancebos brutos e o Impertinente, todos ensebados pela falta crónica de água, quem diria que havia de sair daquele invólucro jovem e frágil este animal da escrita, escrevi há 22 anos.

Khamenei May Be Gone, thank you Bibi and thank you Don, but (2)

Continuação de (1).

The late Aitola Khamney in the company of Mr. Trump's crony

The past

«Yes, Mr Trump once warned that Barack Obama would attack Iran because of “his inability to negotiate properly”. Yes, as recently as last May Mr Trump derided “interventionalists” for “intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves”. And, granted, there’s all that recent “president of peace” hooey.

While you’re getting that off your chest, you might also describe how he has tied himself in knots while unspooling his many rationales for waging war together with Israel on Iran. How can he fear a nuclear programme he “obliterated” a few months back? How can he warn that Iran might soon rain intercontinental ballistic missiles on America when the Defence Intelligence Agency has said such weapons were ten years away, provided Iran actually decided to build them? And can this really be the same Donald Trump who used to ridicule the regime-changing, democracy-building visions of “neocons”—and now tells the Washington Post, “All I want is freedom for the people”?

It is the same Mr Trump, so steel yourself. While you can await contortions from lesser America Firsters, such as poor J.D. Vance, do not expect Mr Trump to bother trying to reconcile present practice with past positions. He has always been the most opportunistic of men. He did not become a crypto billionaire by hewing to his public contempt for cryptocurrencies as scams “built on thin air”, just as he did not achieve his astounding political comeback, after trying to thwart the transfer of power in 2021, by following any rule book or, indeed, adhering to any principle—no principle, that is, beyond winning, as he defined it.» (Source)

The possible future

 

I don't think it's possible for a Mr Trump, with no convictions beyond his vanity, a transactional approach to foreign policy, and suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, to understand and anticipate the reaction of the Ayatollah's regime.

He doesn't understand that the Ayatollah's regime, in the name of a barbaric ideology, may be willing to sacrifice its leaders and its people to remain in power, and continue to do so beyond the time horizon of Mr. Trump's mind and the capacity of the American people to endure human (for now few) and economic (probably significant) losses.

Since it is implausible that the Trump administration will take concrete steps, namely put the boots on the ground, to defeat the Ayatollah's regime, it is very likely that, after a few days or weeks, Mr TACO (Trump Always Chicken Out) will wait for the first pretext to cower.

Trumponomics' unintended consequences (5)

Other Trumponomics' unintended consequences.

The White House

Source

Pro memoria (145) - Seventy years ago, Charles de Gaulle warned, but he was not heeded.

«Shortly after Charles de Gaulle became France’s leader in 1958 he warned Konrad Adenauer, then German chancellor, that the Americans were “not reliable, not very solid and understand nothing about history or Europe”. Musing about the shifting balance of world power, le général told an adviser: “Any day the most extraordinary events could happen…America could…become a threat to peace.” By 1966 de Gaulle had built a bomb, pulled out of NATO’s integrated military command and booted American soldiers off French soil.»

That irritating feeling that France was right