sábado, fevereiro 28, 2009
OBAMA E OS CATÓLICOS AMERICANOS
"Obama's Amazing Improvement Among Traditional White Catholics"
By STEVEN WALDMAN
We saw another historic first in the White House Wednesday, but this one involved the vice president, not the president. Joe Biden led a White House meeting with a smudge of ash on his forehead, part of his observance of Ash Wednesday. Of course, we had another Catholic in the White House, but John F. Kennedy was not, as far as I can ascertain, photographed at a public event with the sacred smudge.
It's a milestone of religious pluralism and also reminds us of the importance of the Catholic vote. Obama-Biden won in part because they improved dramatically among Catholics. Some may have assumed that meant liberal Catholics flocked to the ticket (and they did) but a new study reveals something stunning: traditional white Catholics went for Obama-Biden in record numbers.
In 2004, white traditional Catholics went 78% for the Republican, George Bush, and 22% for Democrat John Kerry, according to a survey by Prof. John Green of University of Akron. In 2008, they went 61%-39% for John McCain over Barack Obama. That represents an amazing 17 point improvement for the Democrat.
(A "traditional Catholic," according to Prof. Green's methodology, is one who is more likely than average to attend mass, pray, and read scripture; more likely to believe in God, the afterlife, scripture and the devil; and more likely to say religion is very important in their lives.)
How did a pro-choice, pro-gay rights, Protestant make such inroads? Prof. Green suggests that the first reason is the economy. These traditional Catholics voted for Obama despite his liberal views on social issues.
Mark Silk of Trinity College offers a different theory -- that these results reflect less Obama's strength than John Kerry's weakness. Sen. Kerry was battered by bishops for being pro-choice but also for, in effect, being a bad Catholic.
"On the one hand, it suggests that the message that Catholic politicians should be pro-life …has definitely gotten through to the old-time faithful. On the other, it indicates that such Catholics understand this to be less a natural law injunction incumbent on all members of society than a religious obligation for their own kind."
Steven Waldman on BeliefnetOr, as I usually get myself in trouble by saying, Mr. Obama did better among Catholics because he wasn't Catholic.
Messrs. Green and Silk hit the two most important factors but I'd like to throw out a few more (less fully-baked) theories.
The Pope As Secondary Influence. In the run-up to the Iraq war, Catholics heard Pope John Paul II's opposition and Bush's support – and sided with Mr. Bush. But that doesn't mean the pope's views didn't register at all. When the war turned south, Catholic opinion turned rapidly against it. I can't help but think the church planted seeds of doubt. One of the reasons traditional Catholics supported Obama was because they oppose the Iraq war.
The Recessive FDR Gene. Catholics became Democrats in the early 20th century because the party welcomed immigrants and created jobs. As those Catholics grew older, they became more distant from the immigrant experience and more secure economically. They then had the luxury of worrying about other issues like crime and abortion. In 2008, for the first time in almost 90 years, we saw an economic calamity AND a growing anti-immigrant sentiment -- both attributed to Republicans. And you had the Catholic Church preaching economic equity and support for immigrants. On some level, the children and grandchildren of the FDR Catholic Democrats may have carried "Democratness" as a recessive gene, minor, rarely seen, but ready to reawaken under just the right circumstances.
"Abortion Reduction." The survey data also showed that about a quarter of Obama's vote came from people describing themselves as pro-life. Many of these pro-life voters picked Obama in spite of his views on abortion, not because of them, but Obama's talk about "abortion reduction" in effect gave them "permission" to vote for a pro-choice candidate on other issues.
My hunch is that the white traditionalist Catholics are the most fragile part of the Obama coalition. They're subject to tremendous peer-pressure: most of their demographic compatriots voted Republican, so they need to withstand the mockery of their friends. The economy may recede a Democratic issue in the future, either because conditions worsen and Democrats are blamed, or improve, liberating people to think about other issues. All this is why, to keep traditionalist Democrats in the long run, Obama will not only have to improve the economy but deliver on some set of socially conservative issues such as abortion.
The WSJ 28-02-09
By STEVEN WALDMAN
We saw another historic first in the White House Wednesday, but this one involved the vice president, not the president. Joe Biden led a White House meeting with a smudge of ash on his forehead, part of his observance of Ash Wednesday. Of course, we had another Catholic in the White House, but John F. Kennedy was not, as far as I can ascertain, photographed at a public event with the sacred smudge.
It's a milestone of religious pluralism and also reminds us of the importance of the Catholic vote. Obama-Biden won in part because they improved dramatically among Catholics. Some may have assumed that meant liberal Catholics flocked to the ticket (and they did) but a new study reveals something stunning: traditional white Catholics went for Obama-Biden in record numbers.
In 2004, white traditional Catholics went 78% for the Republican, George Bush, and 22% for Democrat John Kerry, according to a survey by Prof. John Green of University of Akron. In 2008, they went 61%-39% for John McCain over Barack Obama. That represents an amazing 17 point improvement for the Democrat.
(A "traditional Catholic," according to Prof. Green's methodology, is one who is more likely than average to attend mass, pray, and read scripture; more likely to believe in God, the afterlife, scripture and the devil; and more likely to say religion is very important in their lives.)
How did a pro-choice, pro-gay rights, Protestant make such inroads? Prof. Green suggests that the first reason is the economy. These traditional Catholics voted for Obama despite his liberal views on social issues.
Mark Silk of Trinity College offers a different theory -- that these results reflect less Obama's strength than John Kerry's weakness. Sen. Kerry was battered by bishops for being pro-choice but also for, in effect, being a bad Catholic.
"On the one hand, it suggests that the message that Catholic politicians should be pro-life …has definitely gotten through to the old-time faithful. On the other, it indicates that such Catholics understand this to be less a natural law injunction incumbent on all members of society than a religious obligation for their own kind."
Steven Waldman on BeliefnetOr, as I usually get myself in trouble by saying, Mr. Obama did better among Catholics because he wasn't Catholic.
Messrs. Green and Silk hit the two most important factors but I'd like to throw out a few more (less fully-baked) theories.
The Pope As Secondary Influence. In the run-up to the Iraq war, Catholics heard Pope John Paul II's opposition and Bush's support – and sided with Mr. Bush. But that doesn't mean the pope's views didn't register at all. When the war turned south, Catholic opinion turned rapidly against it. I can't help but think the church planted seeds of doubt. One of the reasons traditional Catholics supported Obama was because they oppose the Iraq war.
The Recessive FDR Gene. Catholics became Democrats in the early 20th century because the party welcomed immigrants and created jobs. As those Catholics grew older, they became more distant from the immigrant experience and more secure economically. They then had the luxury of worrying about other issues like crime and abortion. In 2008, for the first time in almost 90 years, we saw an economic calamity AND a growing anti-immigrant sentiment -- both attributed to Republicans. And you had the Catholic Church preaching economic equity and support for immigrants. On some level, the children and grandchildren of the FDR Catholic Democrats may have carried "Democratness" as a recessive gene, minor, rarely seen, but ready to reawaken under just the right circumstances.
"Abortion Reduction." The survey data also showed that about a quarter of Obama's vote came from people describing themselves as pro-life. Many of these pro-life voters picked Obama in spite of his views on abortion, not because of them, but Obama's talk about "abortion reduction" in effect gave them "permission" to vote for a pro-choice candidate on other issues.
My hunch is that the white traditionalist Catholics are the most fragile part of the Obama coalition. They're subject to tremendous peer-pressure: most of their demographic compatriots voted Republican, so they need to withstand the mockery of their friends. The economy may recede a Democratic issue in the future, either because conditions worsen and Democrats are blamed, or improve, liberating people to think about other issues. All this is why, to keep traditionalist Democrats in the long run, Obama will not only have to improve the economy but deliver on some set of socially conservative issues such as abortion.
The WSJ 28-02-09
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - PORQUE HOJE É SÁBADO
A RTPMemória passa hoje às 21.20 As neves de Kilimanjaro (The Snows of Kilimanjaro, 1952), em que Gregory Peck tem o papel principal - não é das suas melhores interpretações - numa adaptação da obra de Ernest Hemingway ("Uma grande história de amor vivida em plena luta pela sobrevivência" - com Ava Gardner e Susan Hayward). É mais uma "Noite de Cinema" na RTPM, uma rubrica que inclui um quarto de hora de "apresentação"; ainda não vi nenhuma destas apresentações - mas se vir alguma, comentarei. Henry King, o realizador do filme de hoje, teve melhor resultado na sua outra adaptação de Hemingway (Fiesta ou The Sun Also Rises, 1957), um filme que já aqui foi comentado. Eram os últimos anos da sua carreira, uma fase em que não só esteve quase sempre acompanhado por Gregory Peck como acabou por dedicar também dois filmes ao outro emblema literário da época de Hemingway, o seu amigo, rival e "duplo" Francis Scott Fitzgerald: o último filme de H. King foi uma honrosa adaptação do grande romance de Fitzgerald Tender is the Night (Terna é a noite, 1962) e o penúltimo, em 1959, um relato biográfico dedicado ao escritor e á sua companheira dos últimos tempos, a jornalista Sheilah Graham, Beloved Infidel (A amada infiel), baseado no livro do mesmo título que ela escreveu. "Tanto temática como formalmente o filme define o estilo pobre, mas pessoal, do nosso bem conhecido Henry King", escreveu à época - princípios de 1959 - no Diário da Manhã, Manuel Moutinho (Múrias). Às 21.30 no Hollywood não se pode perder Breakfast at Tiffany's (Boneca de luxo, 1961): Blake Edwards adapta Truman Capote (este sábado é marcado pela presença da grande litertura americana do século passado) e embora nos obrigue a ver George Peppard também nos permite disfrutar de Audrey Hepburn como Holly Golightly, uma das suas menos características e melhores interpretações (mais Patricia Neal, um estranho japonês chamado Mickey Rooney, Martin Balsam, etc.) - e ouvir a canção Moon River de Johnny Mercer e Henry Mancini (cantada pela própria Hepburn). Poucas vezes o lado glamoroso do luxo nova-iorquino foi tão excitante no cinema. No TCM, às 20.00, Raintree Country (A árvore da vida, 1957) com Montgomery Clift e Elisabeth Taylor, um drama sulista dirigido por Edward Dmytryk, e a seguir o Diner (Adeus, amigos, 1982), onde se pode ver Mickey (The Wrestler) Rourke nos seus princípios. A sessão dupla da RTP2 hoje é mesmo para hardliners da cinefilia: A criança, (L'enfant, 2005, dos irmãos Dardenne, belgas, e um filme germano-austríaco (Os edukadores, 2004). À 1.00, a SIC exibe um filme mal amado de John Frankenheimer e que é, de facto, uma "comédia negra" gratuita e improvável de gente sórdida num mundo sórdido, escrita e posta em cena com impecável precisão e a necessária verosimilhança: revejo sempre, quando posso: Jogo de traições (Reindeer Games, 2000).
sexta-feira, fevereiro 27, 2009
FELICIA'S JOURNEY - O FILME DE HOJE NA TVC2
William Trevor has long been hailed as one of the "very best writers of our era" (The Washington Post). In both his short stories and his novels, Trevor manages to shed light on the darkest corners of the human heart. It is no surprise, then, that with Felicia's Journey Trevor uses his gifts as a master storyteller—spare, lyrical prose; a tightly woven story; and finely drawn characters—to turn out this psychological thriller.
Felicia, the unlikely heroine of the story, is a young Irish girl from a strongly conservative Republican family. Having lost her job at the local meat-canning factory, she is forced to stay at home to care for her widowed father, two brothers, and great-grandmother. Just when she begins to lose all hope of escaping the gloom of her existence, a charming man called Johnny Lysaght returns home from England to visit his mother. It doesn't take long for Johnny to seduce the naive and impulsive Felicia. Nor does it take long for him to return to England, leaving Felicia pregnant and with no forwarding address. Once her family discovers her secret, and realizes that the baby's father is a traitor—having joined up with the British Army—Felicia is tossed out of the house and goes to England in search of her lover. It is a quest that will prove futile. Johnny has told her that he works in a lawnmower factory in the Midlands, but it soon becomes clear to everyone but Felicia that he has willfully deceived her.
A combination of innocence and faith keeps Felicia wandering, and ultimately delivers her into the hands of Mr. Hilditch, an outwardly decent man who appears to come to her rescue. But the more benevolent Mr. Hilditch becomes, offering Felicia cups of tea, a meal, and a bed for the night, the more his predatory nature reveals itself. And although the reader slowly realizes that Mr. Hilditch is a monster, planning to add Felicia to his collection of girls in his "Memory Lane," there is something so lonely and pathetic about him that one can't help but feel some compassion for him.
Felicia's journey brings heartache to those around her—her father, heart-sick after denouncing her; Johnny Lysaght, lying on the ground bleeding after being beaten by Felicia's brothers; and even Mr. Hilditch, slipping increasingly into insanity, finally fully aware of the horrors he has committed. In the end, Felicia returns to the streets where she once searched for Johnny Lysaght, alone and homeless, but liberated—from Johnny, from the memory of her dead mother, from her controlling father, and, most of all, from Mr. Hilditch's "Memory Lane".
segunda-feira, fevereiro 23, 2009
"CRASH" LITERATURE - WILL WE SEE IT IN THIS CRISIS?
The Great Gatsby - Mia Ferrow fez Daisy (Malmequer) na versão em cinema do tão especial romance de Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby foi Robert Redford. Mas o filme (Jack Clayton,1974) ficou muito aquém do livro.
Sean McCann no WSJ
"In the fall of 1933, Sherwood Anderson left his home in New York City and set out on a series of journeys that would take him across large sections of the American South and Midwest. He was engaged in a project shared by many of his fellow writers -- including James Agee, Edmund Wilson, John Dos Passos, and Louis Adamic -- all of whom responded to the Great Depression by traveling the nation's back roads and hinterlands hoping to discover how economic disaster had affected the common people. Like many of his peers, Anderson had anticipated anger and radicalism among the poor and unemployed. Instead, he discovered a people stunned by the collapse of their most cherished beliefs. "Puzzled America," the title of the book he composed out of his journeys, said it all.
In particular, Anderson found the people he met to be imprisoned by what he called the "American theory of life" -- a celebration of personal ambition that now seemed cruelly inappropriate. "We Americans have all been taught from childhood," Anderson wrote, "that it is a sort of moral obligation for each of us to rise, to get up in the world." In the crisis of the Depression, however, that belief appeared absurd. The United States now confronted what Anderson called "a crisis of belief."
As Anderson knew, the notion that the United States is a uniquely open society, where the talented and industrious always have the chance to better their lot, is a central element of American self-understanding. The notion has been a prominent feature of American culture since the days of Ben Franklin, and it remains a core feature of the national ethos to this day. Indeed, in recent months the election of Barack Obama has reminded Americans of the promise that in the United States opportunity can be open to all.
The Great Depression, however, subjected even the strongest convictions to stark challenge, revealing cracks in the vision of social mobility that the recent prosperity of the nineteen-twenties had managed to obscure. In truth, the notion that the U.S. was an open and fluid society had always been nearly as much myth as reality -- even when, as was necessarily the case, it was assumed to apply to white men alone. But the myth had come to an especially paradoxical stage in its development in the years leading up to the crash.
Never in American history had the vision of social mobility been more forcefully asserted than in the 1920s. And rarely had the image been so far out of keeping with reality. The Republican Party, which dominated national politics throughout the decade, extolled the twin virtues of economic competition and personal ambition, reminding Americans often that they lived, as Herbert Hoover remarked, in "a fluid classless society...unique in the world." That rhetoric was redoubled by a booming new advertising industry which promised that consumers might vault up the ladder of social status through carefully chosen purchases (often with consumer credit, a recent invention).
And yet, the United States actually became less equal and less fluid in the 1920s, as the era's prosperity increasingly benefited the wealthiest. By the end of the decade, the top 1% of the population received nearly a quarter of the national income, an historic peak that would not be approached again until this past decade. Indeed, the term "social mobility" was coined in 1925 by the sociologist Pitrim Sorokin, who used the phrase to identify a phenomenon in apparent decline. "The wealthy class of the United States is becoming less and less open," Sorokin wrote, "and is tending to be transformed into a caste-like group."
The conflict between the American myth of a classless society and the reality of the nation's deepening caste divisions was the irony at the core of some of the greatest literary works of the 1920s, including Theodore Dreiser's "An American Tragedy" and F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." But it was not until the Great Depression that the traditional vision of social mobility imploded.
Traveling the country, Anderson and his fellow observers found a populace confused by a collapse they could not understand. Everywhere he turned, Anderson noted, he heard the same refrain, "I failed. I failed. It's my own fault." The documentary books that he and his contemporaries created provided a kind of counter-narrative to the conventional American story of personal freedom and individual ambition. These works featured a journey not upward toward wealth and progress, but back into the hinterlands of a confused and immobilized nation.
That journey was echoed by a whole genre of "road" novels, written by angry young writers like Nelson Algren, who depicted an itinerant population of bottom dogs lurching from one disaster to the next. These novels answered the classic American vision of opportunity by imagining a nation of wanderers rapidly going nowhere.
So, too, did the cycle of gangster films -- "Little Caesar," "Scarface," "Public Enemy" -- which reached the peak of their popularity in the early '30s. Depicting boldly ruthless young men whose quests for wealth and power were doomed to end in self-destruction, the gangster film cast personal ambition as a cruel delusion. Even the era's light-hearted "screwball comedies," such as "It Happened One Night" and "My Man Godfrey," were sometimes fables of downward mobility, where arrogant socialites were brought down a notch by their encounters with ordinary people.
The road novels, documentary books and gangster films of the 1930s depicted the myth of social mobility as a bitter cheat. The era's screwball comedies viewed it merely as delightfully laughable. But all suggested that the Depression had left a core feature of American ideology in disarray, and thus emphasized the extent to which the traditional American language of personal ambition was open to redefinition. That opportunity would be seized on by a cohort of artists and intellectuals who took the crisis of the Depression as a chance to cast the idea of social mobility less as a framework for individual striving and more as an occasion for collective action.
John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath" made the Joad family's flight from the dust bowl into an emblem of people coming together to remake their world. A similar image was implicit in the very title of Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor's documentary book "An American Exodus." Even works of light entertainment like the massively popular "Gone With the Wind" or John Ford's landmark Western "Stagecoach" were in keeping with the prevailing message of the times. All these works told of epic journeys in which a group of people overcame destructive competition in their discovery of a common destiny. Each called for Americans to act collectively to remake a democratic society where opportunity would be open to all.
In effect, such declarations helped lay the cultural groundwork for the New Deal, providing the ideological infrastructure for the new governmental institutions created during the '30s. It is not yet clear whether the current economic disaster will produce anything like the profound transformation that shook the U.S. during the Great Depression. Our own crises of belief are likely just beginning. If we are fortunate, however, we will have a generation of artists and intellectuals like those of the 1930s to help us imagine our way past confusion."
Sean McCann, a professor of English at Wesleyan University, is the author of "A Pinnacle of Feeling: American Literature and Presidential Government."
domingo, fevereiro 22, 2009
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - NOITE DE CINEMA
Na RTP Memória, às 21.20, um dos westerns de Fritz Lang, Conquistadores (Western Union, 1941). Nos 20 anos entre 1936 e 1956 em que se concentrou a sua actividade em Hollywood, o grande realizador vienês, cujo Metrópolis fixou uma iconografia cinematográfica do expressionismo cuja influência chega aos dias de hoje, fez de tudo - e distinguiu-se em quase tudo, incluindo o film noir (The Big Heat, Corrupção, 1953) e o filme de cowboys (são dele, também, The Return of Frank James, 1940, e Rancho Notorious, com James Stewart e Marlene Dietrich). Para quem se queira deitar mais tarde, o TCM passa às 00.25 o célebre Dark Victory (Vitória negra, 1939), um melodrama protagonizado por Bette Davis, que lhe valeu a sua terceira nomeação para o Oscar de melhor actriz. Mas por essa hora está a começar a cerimónia de entrega dos Óscares deste ano.
PASSEIO DE DOMINGO - EM "PARIS", COM CÉDRIC KLAPISCH
A sugestão hoje é ir passear por Paris pelos olhos de Cédric Klapisch, o realizador deste belo filme estreado em 2008 e que ontem vi na TVC2. "Paris" é a história de Pierre, um dançarino profissional, que sofre de uma grave doença cardíaca. Enquanto está à espera de um transplante que pode (ou não) salvar sua vida, não tem nada melhor para fazer do que olhar para as pessoas em volta dele, a partir da varanda do seu apartamento parisiense. Quando Elise, sua irmã(Juliette Binoche) com três filhos e sem marido, vai para sua casa para cuidar dele, Pierre não muda. E, em vez de dançar sozinho, é Paris e são os parisienses, quem dança diante dos seus olhos.
sábado, fevereiro 21, 2009
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - DE UMA PONTA À OUTRA
Alan Parker outra vez - com o filme que consolidou a sua carreira americana: Fame (Fama, 1982), às 20.00, no TCM, um musical na linha de A Chorus Line que trasnformou a comédia musical e que se pode comparar hoje mesmo com um premiado exemplar da era "clássica", Um americano em Paris (An American in Paris, 1951), que não é dos meus favoritos nem como comédia musical nem entre os filmes de Vincente Minnelli, que dirigiu muito "artisticamente", mas é uma oportunidade de lembrar Oscar Levant, músico, actor, temperamento difícil, homem de muitos talentos talvez não devidamente reconhecidos - pelo menos ele achava - a quem The Bad and the Beautiful, a chronicle of Hollywood in the Fifties (Time Warner Paperbacks, [2002] 2003) um livro medíocremente escrito mas cheio de informações menores e interessantes, dedica um considerável número de páginas (RTP2, 22.45). (Foi Oscar Levant que disse: "Conheci a Doris Day no tempo em que ela ainda não era virgem!")
Hoje na RTP2 a noite é americana: a seguir torna a passar, pela segunda vez esta semana, E tudo o vento levou. Às 23.45, na RTP1, Kiss kiss, bang bang (2005) uma comédia "negra" (é uma comédia e um filme noir) de Shane Black, muito "referencial" e - para mim -divertida: o título é o de uma das compilações de críticas de cinema da famosa Pauline Kael, de The New Yorker, cada uma das partes do filme tem o título de um livro de Raymond Chandler, etc. Com Robert Downey, Jr. A incluir numa possível categoria em que se contariam The Usual Suspects, os filmes de gansgsters de Guy Ritchie, Há dias de azar e se calhar mais alguns outros que não me ocorrem de momento. A estudar.
Hoje na RTP2 a noite é americana: a seguir torna a passar, pela segunda vez esta semana, E tudo o vento levou. Às 23.45, na RTP1, Kiss kiss, bang bang (2005) uma comédia "negra" (é uma comédia e um filme noir) de Shane Black, muito "referencial" e - para mim -divertida: o título é o de uma das compilações de críticas de cinema da famosa Pauline Kael, de The New Yorker, cada uma das partes do filme tem o título de um livro de Raymond Chandler, etc. Com Robert Downey, Jr. A incluir numa possível categoria em que se contariam The Usual Suspects, os filmes de gansgsters de Guy Ritchie, Há dias de azar e se calhar mais alguns outros que não me ocorrem de momento. A estudar.
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - RETROSPECTIVA
Num dos últimos dias em que faltei a este encontro o canal Hollywood proporcionava-nos numa só noite uma retrospectiva do cinema dos anos oitenta com a sucessiva apresentação de: O expresso da meia-noite (The midnight express, 1978), um filme anglo-americano passado numa Turquia dos nossos piores pesadelos, que lançou a carreira internacional (ou seja americana) do realizador Alan Parker; o magnífico Ligações perigosas (Dangerous Liaisons, 1988), o clássico francês adaptado pelo dramaturgo inglês Cristopher Hampton - que tem uma longa associação ao cinema - dirigido por Stephen Frears e com John Malkovitch, Michelle Pfeiffer, Glenn Close... never better; e O sol da meia noite (White nights, 1985), um drama da guerra fria moribunda, dirigido pelo prolífico Taylor Hackford, outro inglês que fez carreira em Hollywood. A Inglaterra conquistava a Meca do Cinema, mas isso é outra história...
FUTURO INCERTO - UM PRÉMIO NOBEL PERANTE A CRISE
Do New York Times de ontem:
"Who’ll Stop the Pain?"
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of the most recent meeting of its open market
committee — the group that sets interest rates. Most press reports focused either on the Fed’s downgrade of
the near-term outlook or on its adoption of a long-run 2 percent inflation target.
But my eye was caught by the following chilling passage (yes, things are so bad that the summarized musings
of central bankers can keep you up at night): “All participants anticipated that unemployment would remain
substantially above its longer-run sustainable rate at the end of 2011, even absent further economic shocks; a
few indicated that more than five to six years would be needed for the economy to converge to a longer-run
path characterized by sustainable rates of output growth and unemployment and by an appropriate rate of
inflation.”
So people at the Fed are troubled by the same question I’ve been obsessing on lately: What’s supposed to end
this slump? No doubt this, too, shall pass — but how, and when?
To appreciate the problem, you need to know that this isn’t your father’s recession. It’s your grandfather’s, or
maybe even (as I’ll explain) your great-great-grandfather’s.
Your father’s recession was something like the severe downturn of 1981-1982. That recession was, in effect, a
deliberate creation of the Federal Reserve, which raised interest rates to as much as 17 percent in an effort to
control runaway inflation. Once the Fed decided that we had suffered enough, it relented, and the economy
quickly bounced back.
Your grandfather’s recession, on the other hand, was something like the Great Depression, which happened
in spite of the Fed’s efforts, not because of them. When a stock market bubble and a credit boom collapsed,
bringing down much of the banking system with them, the Fed tried to revive the economy with low interest
rates — but even rates barely above zero weren’t low enough to end a prolonged era of high unemployment.
Now we’re in the midst of a crisis that bears an eerie, troubling resemblance to the onset of the Depression;
interest rates are already near zero, and still the economy plunges. How and when will it all end?
To be sure, the Obama administration is taking action to help the economy, but it’s trying to mitigate the
slump, not end it. The stimulus bill, on the administration’s own estimates, will limit the rise in
unemployment but fall far short of restoring full employment. The housing plan announced this week looks
good in the sense that it will help many homeowners, but it won’t spur a new housing boom.
What, then, will actually end the slump?
Well, the Great Depression did eventually come to an end, but that was thanks to an enormous war,
something we’d rather not emulate. The slump that followed Japan’s “bubble economy” also eventually
ended, but only after a lost decade. And when Japan finally did start to experience some solid growth, it was
thanks to an export boom, which was in turn made possible by vigorous growth in the rest of the world — not
an experience anyone can repeat when the whole world is in a slump.
So will our slump go on forever? No. In fact, the seeds of eventual recovery are already being planted.
Consider housing starts, which have fallen to their lowest level in 50 years. That’s bad news for the near term.
It means that spending on construction will fall even more. But it also means that the supply of houses is
lagging behind population growth, which will eventually prompt a housing revival.
Or consider the plunge in auto sales. Again, that’s bad news for the near term. But at current sales rates, as
the finance blog Calculated Risk points out, it would take about 27 years to replace the existing stock of
vehicles. Most cars will be junked long before that, either because they’ve worn out or because they’ve
become obsolete, so we’re building up a pent-up demand for cars.
The same story can be told for durable goods and assets throughout the economy: given time, the current
slump will end itself, the way slumps did in the 19th century. As I said, this may be your great-great-
grandfather’s recession. But recovery may be a long time coming.
The closest 19th-century parallel I can find to the current slump is the recession that followed the Panic of
1873. That recession did eventually end without any government intervention, but it lasted more than five
years, and another prolonged recession followed just three years later.
You can see, then, why some Fed officials are so pessimistic.
Let’s be clear: the Obama administration’s policy initiatives will help in this difficult period — especially if the
administration bites the bullet and takes over weak banks. But still I wonder: Who’ll stop the pain?"
"Who’ll Stop the Pain?"
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve released the minutes of the most recent meeting of its open market
committee — the group that sets interest rates. Most press reports focused either on the Fed’s downgrade of
the near-term outlook or on its adoption of a long-run 2 percent inflation target.
But my eye was caught by the following chilling passage (yes, things are so bad that the summarized musings
of central bankers can keep you up at night): “All participants anticipated that unemployment would remain
substantially above its longer-run sustainable rate at the end of 2011, even absent further economic shocks; a
few indicated that more than five to six years would be needed for the economy to converge to a longer-run
path characterized by sustainable rates of output growth and unemployment and by an appropriate rate of
inflation.”
So people at the Fed are troubled by the same question I’ve been obsessing on lately: What’s supposed to end
this slump? No doubt this, too, shall pass — but how, and when?
To appreciate the problem, you need to know that this isn’t your father’s recession. It’s your grandfather’s, or
maybe even (as I’ll explain) your great-great-grandfather’s.
Your father’s recession was something like the severe downturn of 1981-1982. That recession was, in effect, a
deliberate creation of the Federal Reserve, which raised interest rates to as much as 17 percent in an effort to
control runaway inflation. Once the Fed decided that we had suffered enough, it relented, and the economy
quickly bounced back.
Your grandfather’s recession, on the other hand, was something like the Great Depression, which happened
in spite of the Fed’s efforts, not because of them. When a stock market bubble and a credit boom collapsed,
bringing down much of the banking system with them, the Fed tried to revive the economy with low interest
rates — but even rates barely above zero weren’t low enough to end a prolonged era of high unemployment.
Now we’re in the midst of a crisis that bears an eerie, troubling resemblance to the onset of the Depression;
interest rates are already near zero, and still the economy plunges. How and when will it all end?
To be sure, the Obama administration is taking action to help the economy, but it’s trying to mitigate the
slump, not end it. The stimulus bill, on the administration’s own estimates, will limit the rise in
unemployment but fall far short of restoring full employment. The housing plan announced this week looks
good in the sense that it will help many homeowners, but it won’t spur a new housing boom.
What, then, will actually end the slump?
Well, the Great Depression did eventually come to an end, but that was thanks to an enormous war,
something we’d rather not emulate. The slump that followed Japan’s “bubble economy” also eventually
ended, but only after a lost decade. And when Japan finally did start to experience some solid growth, it was
thanks to an export boom, which was in turn made possible by vigorous growth in the rest of the world — not
an experience anyone can repeat when the whole world is in a slump.
So will our slump go on forever? No. In fact, the seeds of eventual recovery are already being planted.
Consider housing starts, which have fallen to their lowest level in 50 years. That’s bad news for the near term.
It means that spending on construction will fall even more. But it also means that the supply of houses is
lagging behind population growth, which will eventually prompt a housing revival.
Or consider the plunge in auto sales. Again, that’s bad news for the near term. But at current sales rates, as
the finance blog Calculated Risk points out, it would take about 27 years to replace the existing stock of
vehicles. Most cars will be junked long before that, either because they’ve worn out or because they’ve
become obsolete, so we’re building up a pent-up demand for cars.
The same story can be told for durable goods and assets throughout the economy: given time, the current
slump will end itself, the way slumps did in the 19th century. As I said, this may be your great-great-
grandfather’s recession. But recovery may be a long time coming.
The closest 19th-century parallel I can find to the current slump is the recession that followed the Panic of
1873. That recession did eventually end without any government intervention, but it lasted more than five
years, and another prolonged recession followed just three years later.
You can see, then, why some Fed officials are so pessimistic.
Let’s be clear: the Obama administration’s policy initiatives will help in this difficult period — especially if the
administration bites the bullet and takes over weak banks. But still I wonder: Who’ll stop the pain?"
sexta-feira, fevereiro 20, 2009
quinta-feira, fevereiro 19, 2009
ZIMBABWE - "OS ANOS DO TIRANO"
Da crónica de Nuno Rogeiro no JN:
"A antigamente rica Rodésia, que poderia ter emancipado politicamente o povo negro, e ao mesmo tempo dar-lhe justiça social, riqueza e desenvolvimento, caiu, com o tempo, numa tirania desmesurada e irracional. Só agora, por pressão internacional e interna, abre Mugabe a mão às urnas, à mudança, ao verdadeiro domínio popular.
No seu discurso de posse, Morgan Tsvangirai citou Nelson Mandela, pedindo reconciliação e nenhuma vingança. Prometeu trazer de volta os milhões que tiveram de encontrar vida algures. Jurou o desmantelamento do sistema oligárquico e corrupto. Anunciou que, com urgência, vai dar às massas os alimentos de que os seus corpos carecem, para que amanhã possam ocupar-se só do espírito.
Mas Robert Mugabe, o Grande Crocodilo, continua à frente do Estado, presidindo ao Conselho de Segurança nacional e ao Gabinete, repartindo assim funções executivas com o novo governante, que dirige o Conselho de Ministros.
Em várias empresas de África, circula uma carta, assinada pelo Movimento 21 de Fevereiro, do Zimbabué, pedindo contribuições e doações para a festa de anos do presidente. O 85.º aniversário está a ser preparado pelo seu sobrinho Patrick Zhuwawo, e no rol de presentes sugeridos estão milhares de lagostas, garrafas de champanhe e doses de caviar, para além de depósitos em moeda estrangeira, em bancos americanos.
Para evitar mais boatos e escândalo, num país à míngua, se Mugabe, com ou sem pressão de Tsvangirai, cancelasse a festa, e entregasse o cheque correspondente à Cruz Vermelha local, teríamos um bom começo.
Vistas bem as coisas, até Estaline, que viajava num comboio blindado pela URSS, possuía o título oficioso de "Jardineiro da Felicidade Humana".
E Mugabe não é menos do que Estaline. "
No seu discurso de posse, Morgan Tsvangirai citou Nelson Mandela, pedindo reconciliação e nenhuma vingança. Prometeu trazer de volta os milhões que tiveram de encontrar vida algures. Jurou o desmantelamento do sistema oligárquico e corrupto. Anunciou que, com urgência, vai dar às massas os alimentos de que os seus corpos carecem, para que amanhã possam ocupar-se só do espírito.
Mas Robert Mugabe, o Grande Crocodilo, continua à frente do Estado, presidindo ao Conselho de Segurança nacional e ao Gabinete, repartindo assim funções executivas com o novo governante, que dirige o Conselho de Ministros.
Em várias empresas de África, circula uma carta, assinada pelo Movimento 21 de Fevereiro, do Zimbabué, pedindo contribuições e doações para a festa de anos do presidente. O 85.º aniversário está a ser preparado pelo seu sobrinho Patrick Zhuwawo, e no rol de presentes sugeridos estão milhares de lagostas, garrafas de champanhe e doses de caviar, para além de depósitos em moeda estrangeira, em bancos americanos.
Para evitar mais boatos e escândalo, num país à míngua, se Mugabe, com ou sem pressão de Tsvangirai, cancelasse a festa, e entregasse o cheque correspondente à Cruz Vermelha local, teríamos um bom começo.
Vistas bem as coisas, até Estaline, que viajava num comboio blindado pela URSS, possuía o título oficioso de "Jardineiro da Felicidade Humana".
E Mugabe não é menos do que Estaline. "
terça-feira, fevereiro 17, 2009
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - SÓ UMA
Às 22.00, na RTP Memória, dêem uma olhadela a Caminho para dois (Two for the road, 1967), o mais importante dos filmes não musicais de Stanley Donen, o realizador de On the town (1949), Singing in the Rain (1952), Funny Face (1955) e outros. A última comédia musical de Donen foi Damn Yankees! (What Lola wants... Lola gets - com Gwen Vernon), em 1958, e assinou o seu último trabalho cinematográfico em 1984, Blame It on Rio. Não tenho à mão os títulos portugueses destes filmes todos. S. Donen realizou entretanto vários filmes não desdenháveis e no ano 1998 recebeu - muito graciosamente (acho que se pode ver no you tube) - um Oscar pela sua carreira. Nasceu em 1924 e ainda é vivo. Não sei se o tempo terá sido muito misericordioso com Caminho para dois -passaram mais de 40 anos! - mas não se perde nada em verificar.
P. S. - Esquecia-me de It's Always Fair Weather (Dançando nas nuvens, 1955) - Cyd Charisse, pelo amor de Deus - e já me lembro da alguns dos títulos, pelo menos dois: por ordem de entrada em cena, Cantando à chuva, Cinderela em Paris.
P. S. - Esquecia-me de It's Always Fair Weather (Dançando nas nuvens, 1955) - Cyd Charisse, pelo amor de Deus - e já me lembro da alguns dos títulos, pelo menos dois: por ordem de entrada em cena, Cantando à chuva, Cinderela em Paris.
ARROGANTES, IGNORANTES, INTOLERANTES...
Os "Prós e Contras" de ontem, sobre o casamento dos homossexuais, foram uma demonstração do espírito e das tácticas de uma certa esquerda obcecada com a imposição, a todo o custo, das suas concepções: a arrogância de uma pretensa superioridade ética de portadores das bandeiras do futuro, misturada com a vitimização mais telenovelística de casos pessoais; as técnicas do risinho lorpa, quando falam os outros e das argumentações de saco de vento jurídico incompreendido pela igorância da plebe reaccionária; autoridade; da desqualificação dos adversários até ao ponto da dissuassão intimidatória - ser contra o casamento de pessoas do mesmo sexo é ser homófobo!
Os argumentos e paralelos eram extraordinários: a escravatura, o racismo, a luta histórica pelos direitos das pessoas, a Constituição Americana, tudo veio à baila para justificar uma pretensão de um grupo de pressão que está longe de representar o conjunto dos homossexuais, mas que sim -e aí concordamos com Miguel Vale de Almeida - quer remover um símbolo, que o casamento é um contrato ou instituição que, pelas suas características só fez sentido histórica e substancialmente, como base da família tal como tem existido.
Os argumentos e paralelos eram extraordinários: a escravatura, o racismo, a luta histórica pelos direitos das pessoas, a Constituição Americana, tudo veio à baila para justificar uma pretensão de um grupo de pressão que está longe de representar o conjunto dos homossexuais, mas que sim -e aí concordamos com Miguel Vale de Almeida - quer remover um símbolo, que o casamento é um contrato ou instituição que, pelas suas características só fez sentido histórica e substancialmente, como base da família tal como tem existido.
segunda-feira, fevereiro 16, 2009
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - REPRISES
Quando eu ia verdadeiramente ao cinema, na Lisboa da segunda metade do século passado, havia cinemas de estreia e uma outra espécie de salas de um género mais modesto, conhecidas por cinemas de reprise, uma palavra francesa que fazia parte do vocabulário português nessa altura mas às vezes também se dizia em português mais clássico, reposição: eram o equivalente ao que no Madrid de uma parte da minha adolescência se chamava mais castiçamente cines de barrio. O efeito era o mesmo: esses cinemas passavam, normalmente em programa duplo, filmes que já não eram da última apanha. O seu lugar é hoje ocupado pela televisão: em Lisboa, pelo menos, é nesses mal denominados écrans das nossas casas que vemos os filmes que já deixaram há mais ou menos tempo as salas onde foram estreados - às vezes há muitos, muitos anos. Raramente há reestrenos nos cinemas e a garbosa cópia nova é também coisa do passado; quando temos alguma coisa parecida é muito mais imponente, um director's cut, por exemplo, em que o realizador nos mostra a sua versão definitiva do filme (muitas vezes ninguém ganha muito com isso, nem nós nem ele, como é o caso do Apocalypse Now Redux, embora a cena na plantação francesa que não aparecia na versão original mereça ser vista). Desculpem a digressão, mas esta noite, nos canais de televisão, quase tudo o que é digno de menção já foi visto não há muito e mais do que uma vez: Doze indomáveis patifes (The Dirty Dozen, 1967, de Robert Aldrich: a execução que há no princípio evoca o famoso A Hanging de George Orwell, o que não é dizer pouco), Get Carter (1971, não sei se alguma vez chamei a atenção para a presença entre os actores do dramaturgo John Osborne, no papel de um dos gangsters, Kinnear), às 20.00 e às 22.25, no TCM, Fargo (1996, dos irmãos Coen), às 21.30 no Hollywood...
domingo, fevereiro 15, 2009
PASSEIO DE DOMINGO - CASTELO DE OURÉM
Castelo de Ourém - (Com estátua do Condestável à direita) É uma fortaleza afonsina, erguida provàvelmente sobre as ruínas de um anterior castelo mourisco, num lugar carregado de histórias da História de Portugal, desde ter servido de reclusão a D.Mécia Lopez de Haro, mulher de D.Sancho II, até ter sido de Nun' Álvares, Conde de Ourém.
quinta-feira, fevereiro 12, 2009
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - NOTAS
Momentos de glória (Paths of glory, Hugh Hudson, 1981), às 23.30 no Hollywood: depois deste filme que popularizou a música de Vangelis o espectáculo político ou partidário nunca mais foi o mesmo. Vagabundos selvagens (Wild Rovers, 1971), às 22.25 no TCM: um western de Blake Edwards, para nos lembrar que não foi exclusivamente um realizador de comédias. Às 00.35, no TCM, de "mestre" William Wyler (comme c'est loin tout ça), Friendly Persuasion (Sublime tentação, 1956 - pelo menos nos títulos portugueses dos filmes estrangeiros não se aplica a teoria da evolução), um filme sobre os quakers, uma seita religiosa cujos membros são conhecidos por the Friends.
segunda-feira, fevereiro 09, 2009
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - OUTROS TEMPOS
Nunca vi - nem realmente dei pela sua existência - o último filme dirigido por Vincente Minnelli, A matter of time, de 1976. Mas vi quase todos os penúltimos filmes dele, incluindo o que passa hoje às 00.15 no TCM: Os quatro cavaleiros do Apocalipse (The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1962), que não me deixou uma impressão propriamente indelével, embora talvez o defeito seja meu. O argumento era de Robert Ardrey - homem de teatro e de cinema, que nasceu nos Estados Unidos e acabou por ir morrer à Àfrica do Sul. Robert Ardrey é um nome que me tem aparecido muitas vezes ultimamente, ligado a alguns dos filmes que a TV tem ressuscitado; para mim, há-de ser sempre, em primeiro lugar, o autor de African Genesis e The territorial imperative, dois livros que nos anos 6o muitos de nós leram e não esqueceram. Eram os tempos também da descoberta da etologia - quando Konrad Lorenz falava com os patinhos e outros animais e Desmond Morris popularizava a ideia do "macaco nu", e tudo isso estava relacionado e de certa maneira vinha caucionar mais ou menos "cientificamente" - ponho aspas, mas Lorenz recebeu um Prémio Nobel - a ideia de uma ordem natural que pouco tinha a ver com os mitos revolucionários de liberdade, igualdade e fraternidade.
sábado, fevereiro 07, 2009
LEITURA DE FROISSART - O CERCO DE LISBOA
O meu amigo Charles Rostand mandou-me uma edição excelente das Crónicas de Jean Froissart (1337-1405), o historiador da Guerra dos Cem Anos. Ao contrário da nosso Fernão Lopes, um clerc de classe média assumido, ascendido a senhor da memória e recriador da história e da glória da Casa de Aviz e para a glória da dinastia e - justiça lhe seja feita - da defesa da independência de Portugal, Froissart assume-se com uma ética de cavaleiro, como um senhor convicto dos preceitos e preconceitos da classe senhorial
Estou a disfrutar da sua leitura e fiquei também entusiasmado ao rever algumas das iluminuras dos manuscritos, atribuidas a grandes artistas flamengos do século XV. Esta é do cerco de Lisboa
Estou a disfrutar da sua leitura e fiquei também entusiasmado ao rever algumas das iluminuras dos manuscritos, atribuidas a grandes artistas flamengos do século XV. Esta é do cerco de Lisboa
de 1384.
terça-feira, fevereiro 03, 2009
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - E TUDO VENTO LEVOU...
Tarde de mais, outra vez! Está a correr na RTP Memória (desde as 22.00) Gone with the wind (E tudo o vento levou, Victor Fleming, 1939) - e no Hollywood, depois de Husbands and wives (Maridos e mulheres, um dos filmes mais "experimentais", formalmente, de Woody Allen, 1992), Screamers (Gritos mortais, 1995) uma das menos conhecidas adaptações cinematográficas de obras de Philip K. Dick (começou às 23.20) e uma das mais "económicas" e bem sucedidas. Gone with the wind justificava algumas considerações sobre aquilo a que o historiador Edward D.C. Campbell, Jr. chamou The Celluloid South (Hollywood and the Southern Myth) - o que também nos levaria a considerações ainda mais contemporâneas sobre os Beautiful Losers (que não é só um romance de Leonard Cohen mas também um livro de ensaios de Samuel T. Francis sobre The Failure of American Conservatism) na política e na cultura dos Estados Unidos. Mas pode ser que ainda alguém consiga ver um bocadinho de qualquer dos dois filmes referidos que talvez ainda não tenham chegado ao fim.
segunda-feira, fevereiro 02, 2009
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - O CAVALEIRO DA ESCÓCIA
Só um breve aviso, a propósito da recente referência a filmes "históricos" ou de "capa e espada" dos anos 50: hoje às 23.30, no TCM, um exemplar do género, Ivanhoe (1952). Foi dirigido por Richard Thorpe, que também dirigiu a adaptação de outro romance de Sir Walter Scott, Quentin Durward (1955), além de Os cavaleiros da Távola Redonda (Knights of the Round Table, 1952) e O prisioneiro de Zenda (The prisoner of Zenda, também de 1952 - o studio system no seu apogeu). Thorpe viveu quase cem anos (1896-1991) e dirigiu filmes até finais dos anos 60; iniciara a sua carreira nos anos 20 e dirigiu dezenas de filmes. Um dos últimos, por sinal, foi Jailhouse Rock (1957), um dos mais interessantes da carreira cinematográfica de Elvis Presley.
domingo, fevereiro 01, 2009
QUE FITA VAI HOJE? - UM DIA DEPOIS
Ontem, a RTP2 homenageou Jacques Tati: passou a primeira das suas longas-metragens, Jour de Fête (Há festa na aldeia, 1949, na versão restaurada pela sua filha Sophie Tatischeff em 1995, tintada) e, antes, Playtime (1967), que não foi exactamente a última mas foi de certa maneira o seu canto de cisne e foi a sua ruina. Homenagem merecida, a que para meu desgosto não me associei em tempo útil. Podem ver-se no youtube fragmentos de ambos os filmes.
PASSEIO DE DOMINGO - CRAC DOS CAVALEIROS
Fica na Síria perto da fronteira do Líbano. Foi uma das grandes senão a maior fortaleza dos Cruzados na Terra Santa, um castelo dos Hospitalários que tinha, no seu apogeu, uma guarnição de 2,000 homens. Por diferentes razões - prácticas e literárias - interessa-me, nesta ocasião o lugar e a memória.