Monday, December 01, 2014

Pepe Mujica y 30 frases del presidente más humilde del mundo




El próximo 1 de marzo de 2015, José Mujica entregará la Presidencia de Uruguay a su correligionario Tabaré Vázquez. Durante los cinco años de su actual gestión, el considerado "presidente más pobre del mundo" debido a su vida austera, acuño una serie de frases que tuvieron gran repercusión. Seleccionamos 30 de ellas:
1) "A los que les gusta mucho la plata hay que correrlos de la política. Son un peligro".
2) "Los políticos tenemos que vivir como vive la mayoría y no como vive la minoría".
3) "Si tuviera muchas cosas tendría que ocuparme de ellas. La verdadera libertas está en consumir poco".
4) "La política es la lucha por la felicidad de todos".
5) "Pobres no son los que tienen pocos. Son los que quieren mucho. Yo no vivo con pobreza, vivo con austeridad, con renunciamiento. Preciso poco para vivir".
6) "Continuará la guerra hasta que la naturaleza nos llame y haga inevitable nuestra civilización".
7) "Estoy muy contento con el hoy, me tiene abrumado el pasado mañana".
8) "El hombre moderno anda siempre apurado, porque si la economía no crece es una tragedia".
9) "Yo quiero saber la verdad, pero en la justicia no creo un carajo".
10) “Quizá esté equivocado, porque yo me equivoco mucho; pero lo digo como lo pienso”.
11) “Hay cosas que tienen valor cuando se pierden”.
12) “Siento rabia, me caliento, digo disparates, pero no puedo cultivar el odio (…). Hay que respetar, sobre todo cuando más duele”.
13) “Ser libre es (…) gastar la mayor cantidad de tiempo de nuestra vida en aquello que nos gusta hacer”
14) “El poder no cambia a las personas, sólo revela quiénes verdaderamente son”.
15) “Esa vieja es peor que el tuerto. El tuerto era más político, ésta es más terca” (Sobre Cristina Fernández).
16) “Me comí 14 años en cana y dos horas después de que salí, ya estaba militando”.
17) “Lo inevitable no se lloriquea. Lo inevitable hay que enfrentarlo”.
18) “Nuestro mundo necesita menos organismos mundiales, que sirven más a las cadenas hoteleras, y más humanidad y ciencia”.
19) “Sí, es posible un mundo con una humanidad mejor. Pero tal vez hoy la primera tarea sea salvar la vida”.
20) ”Vengo del sur, y como tal, cargo inequívocamente con los millones de compatriotas pobres de América Latina, patria común”.
21) “La economía sucia, el narcotráfico, la estafa, el fraude y la corrupción son plagas contemporáneas cobijadas por ese antivalor, ese que sostiene que somos más felices si nos enriquecemos sea como sea”.
22) “Ocupamos el templo con el dios Mercado, él nos organiza la economía, la política, los hábitos, la vida y hasta nos financia en cuotas de tarjeta la apariencia de felicidad”.
23) “Hemos nacido sólo para consumir y consumir y cuando no podemos, cargamos con la frustración, la pobreza y hasta la automarginación y autoexclusión”.
24) “Si aspiráramos en esta humanidad a consumir como un americano promedio, son imprescindibles tres planetas para poder vivir”.
25) ”Enfrentamos el sedentarismo con caminadores, al insomnio con pastillas, a la soledad con electrónica”.
26) “El hombrecito promedio a veces sueña con vacaciones y libertad. Siempre sueña con concluir las cuentas, hasta que un día el corazón se para y adiós”.
27) “Prometemos una vida de derroche y despilfarro, que en el fondo constituye una cuenta regresiva contra la naturaleza y contra la humanidad como futuro”.
28) “Soy un paisano terco. No razono en términos económicos. Pero estoy peleado con la civilización en la que estoy viviendo”.
29) “Despilfarramos dos mil millones de dólares por minuto en presupuesto militar a nivel mundial. Decir que no hay plata es no tener vergüenza”.
30) “Vivir mejor no es sólo tener más, sino que es ser más feliz”.

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Tuesday, September 09, 2014

América, no puedo escribir tu nombre sin morirme

Tomado de "Las Imprecaciones" 1955
(Manuel Scorza 1928-1983)

América,
no puedo escribir tu nombre sin morirme.
Aunque aprendí de niño,
no me salen derechos los renglones;
a cada sílaba tropiezo con cadáveres,
detrás de cada letra encuentro un hombre ardiendo,
y no puedo ni cerrar la a
porque alguien grita como si se quedara dentro.

Vengo del Odio,
vengo del salto mortal de los balazos;
está mi corazón sudando pumas:
sólo oigo el zumbido de la pena.

Yo atravesé negras gargantas,
crucé calles de pobreza,
América, te conozco,
yo mismo tendí la cama
donde expiró mi vida vacía.

Yo tenía dieciocho años
yo vivía
en un pueblo pequeño,
oyendo el diálogo de musgo de las tardes,
pero pasó mi patria cojeando,
los ahogados empezaron a pedir más agua,
salían de mi boca escarabajos.
Sordo, oscuro, batracio, desterrado,
¡era yo quien humeaba en las cocinas!

¡Amargas tierras,
patrias de ceniza,
no me entra el corazón en traje de paloma!
¡Cuando veo la cara de este pueblo
hasta la vida me queda grande!
¡Pobre América!
En vano los poetas
deshojan ruiseñores.
No verán tu rostro mientras no se atrevan
a llamarte por tu nombre, ¡América mendiga,
América de los encarcelados,
América de los perseguidos,
América de los parientes pobres!
¡Nadie te verá si no deshacen
este nudo que tengo en la garganta!

POPULIBROS


Wednesday, August 20, 2014

NSA Teams With Providers To Monitor Your Email - Twitter - Facebook


No Such Agency (NSA) Teams With 

Providers To Monitor Your Email

NSA logoSurely they were doing this anyway? Ellen Nakashima reports for the Washington Post:
The National Security Agency is working with Internet service providers to deploy a new generation of tools to scan e-mail and other digital traffic with the goal of thwarting cyberattacks against defense firms by foreign adversaries, senior defense and industry officials say.
The novel program, which began last month on a voluntary, trial basis, relies on sophisticated NSA data sets to identify malicious programs slipped into the vast stream of Internet data flowing to the nation’s largest defense firms. Such attacks, including one last month against Bethesda-based Lockheed Martin, are nearly constant as rival nations and terrorist groups seek access to U.S. military secrets.
“We hope the . . . cyber pilot can be the beginning of something bigger,” Deputy Defense Secretary William J. Lynn III said at a global security conference in Paris on Thursday. “It could serve as a model that can be transported to other critical infrastructure sectors, under the leadership of the Department of Homeland Security.”
The prospect of a role for the NSA, the nation’s largest spy agency and a part of the Defense Department, in helping Internet service providers filter domestic Web traffic already had sparked concerns among privacy activists. Lynn’s suggestion that the program might be extended beyond the work of defense contractors threatened to raise the stakes.
James X. Dempsey, vice president for public policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, a civil liberties group, said that limiting the NSA’s role to sharing data is “an elegant solution” to the long-standing problem of how to use the agency’s expertise while avoiding domestic surveillance by the government. But, he said, any extension of the program must guarantee protections against government access to private Internet traffic.
“We wouldn’t want this to become a backdoor form of surveillance,” Dempsey said…

OTHER SOURCE:  

Mark Klein on AT&T/NSA Domestic Surveillance Program: “The NSA is Getting Everything.”

http://cryptogon.com/?p=1588 

The Grossman-Stiglitz Paradox

Source: http://jinsukpark.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/the-grossman-stiglitz-paradox/

PDF here

This paradox defies market efficiency, but at the same time, it contradicts market inefficiency arguments. We can clearly show this by modifying two essential assumptions of the paradox:
1. investors’ belief in market efficiency
2. information/transaction cost
 A. Belief in efficiency to market inefficiency Suppose market investors are rational, they believe the financial market is efficient (so, market prices reflect all available information). Then, they do not have any incentive to analyse information and initiate trades when the process of gathering information and making transaction is costly. Thus, they will just buy-and-hold their initial portfolios, that is, passive investment strategy is implemented all over the market. However, as time goes by, new (random) information will surely arise, but it is not going to be incorporated into the market prices since no one is willing to trade. Consequently, fundamental prices, which incorporate all relevant information, will deviate from the market prices. In other words, if all market participants truly believe the market is efficient, it will lead to market inefficiency. This is the paradox.

 B. Belief in inefficiency to market efficiency On the other hand, the opposite argument is possible. Suppose all market participants are irrational, that is, they do not believe the market is efficient. They will seek profitable opportunities and initiate market trade to exploit them. It will be strengthened if we further assume no information processing and transaction cost. However, as they intensify their efforts to search the opportunities responding the arrivals of new information, all profitable opportunities will be dried up and the market prices will eventually reach the fundamental prices (if exists). The paradox in here is that when market investors believe market inefficiency, they will drive the market into efficiency.

 C. Implications for rational investors If rational investors are truly rational, they will anticipate this paradox. Assuming rational and noise traders co-exist, the rational investors would let (or promote) noise traders fulfill their own beliefs in inefficiency. By their behaviors, market prices will remain efficient over time. The rational investors then simply can ride the market (e.g. using index funds) while paying little cost. Also, they would not spend much efforts to defy the market efficiency as the disbelief of market efficiency is essential to achieve their investment goals.
 D. The existence of fundamental prices On the other hand, whether the fundamental prices ever exist is another issue to test. It may be too volatile to be justified by ex-post dividend stream (Schiller). Or they consist of pure expectation of future cash flows, dividend payment or stock prices, which are hard to be tested by ex-post dividends.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

AMISTAD


I'm still here, leaning towards this machine


"[...] Jugamos a ser héroes 
porque somos cobardes 

y a ser santos 
porque somos malos; 

jugamos a ser asesinos 
porque morimos de ganas de matar a nuestro prójimo, 

jugamos 
porque somos mentirosos de nacimiento."

Title: From "Congrats, Chinaski" (Charles Bukowski)
Lyrics: Jean Paul Sartre

Saturday, May 31, 2014

Climate Policy Milestones

As stated by former US Senator Timothy Wirth at ASU-GIOS:
- We urgently need to address carbon prices, stranded assets, and global climate policy issues.
- Don't look climate policies as burden but as opportunities
- US and China should go together

This a list of United Nations Climate Change conferences.  
The future will be decided at COP 21/CMP 11 - Paris Conference.


Maya Angelou - "On the pulse of morning"
















A Rock, A River, A Tree 
Hosts to species long since departed, 
Marked the mastodon, 
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens 
Of their sojourn here 
On our planet floor, 
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom 
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages. 

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, 
Come, you may stand upon my 
Back and face your distant destiny, 
But seek no haven in my shadow. 
I will give you no hidding place down here. 

You, created only a little lower than 
The angels, have crouched too long in 
The bruising darkness 
Have lain too long 
Face down in ignorance. 
Your mouths spilling words 

Armed for slaughter. 
The Rock cries out to us today, you may stand upon me, 
But do not hide your face. 

Across the wall of the world, 
A River sings a beautiful song. It says, 
Come, rest here by my side. 

Each of you, a bordered country, 
Delicate and strangely made proud, 
Yet thrusting perpetually under siege. 
Your armed struggles for profit 
Have left collars of waste upon 
My shore, currents of debris upon my breast. 
Yet today I call you to my riverside, 
If you will study war no more. Come, 
Clad in peace, and I will sing the songs 
The Creator gave to me when I and the 
Tree and the rock were one. 
Before cynicism was a bloody sear across your 
Brow and when you yet knew you still 
Knew nothing. 
The River sang and sings on. 

There is a true yearning to respond to 
The singing River and the wise Rock. 
So say the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew 
The African, the Native American, the Sioux, 
The Catholic, the Muslim, the French, the Greek 
The Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheik, 
The Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, 
The privileged, the homeless, the Teacher. 
They hear. They all hear 
The speaking of the Tree. 

They hear the first and last of every Tree 
Speak to humankind today. Come to me, here beside the River. 
Plant yourself beside the River. 

Each of you, descendant of some passed 
On traveller, has been paid for. 
You, who gave me my first name, you, 
Pawnee, Apache, Seneca, you 
Cherokee Nation, who rested with me, then 
Forced on bloody feet, 
Left me to the employment of 
Other seekers -- desperate for gain, 
Starving for gold. 
You, the Turk, the Arab, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot, 
You the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought, 
Sold, stolen, arriving on the nightmare 
Praying for a dream. 
Here, root yourselves beside me. 
I am that Tree planted by the River, 
Which will not be moved. 
I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree 
I am yours -- your passages have been paid. 
Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need 
For this bright morning dawning for you. 
History, despite its wrenching pain 
Cannot be unlived, but if faced 
With courage, need not be lived again. 

Lift up your eyes upon 
This day breaking for you. 
Give birth again 
To the dream. 

Women, children, men, 
Take it into the palms of your hands, 
Mold it into the shape of your most 
Private need. Sculpt it into 
The image of your most public self. 
Lift up your hearts 
Each new hour holds new chances 
For a new beginning. 
Do not be wedded forever 
To fear, yoked eternally 
To brutishness. 

The horizon leans forward, 
Offering you space to place new steps of change. 
Here, on the pulse of this fine day 
You may have the courage 
To look up and out and upon me, the 
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country. 
No less to Midas than the mendicant. 
No less to you now than the mastodon then. 

Here, on the pulse of this new day 
You may have the grace to look up and out 
And into your sister's eyes, and into 
Your brother's face, your country 
And say simply 
Very simply 
With hope -- 
Good morning. 

Justin Hall-Tipping on Free energy!

The power plant of the future is no power plant!



El próximo mes me nivelo (Julio Ramón Ribeyro, 1969)

El próximo mes me nivelo El próximo mes me nivelo (no se publicó como un libro individual,  fue publicado en 1972  como parte del  segundo t...