sexta-feira, 21 de fevereiro de 2014

Eurovision: Destination - Copenhagen 2014 (II)

Here we are in a very busy month for the Eurovision path to Copenhagen. Many countries will reveal their artists and songs this month.
Here I analyze more two countries, curiously both will be represented in Denmark with a band.

Finland and Softengine

Despite the winning in 2006 with the 3rd most voted song ever in the contest, Finland is among the lest
successful in the scandinavian "block". Even missing only 2 times the grand final after 2006, Finland never was in the TOP10 or closer to that.
Last year, this scandinavian country brought a very funny song and a very controversial performance. But, despite all the controversy the song came in 24th position.
This year Finland brings a different song from last years. In the national final there were some very good songs, especially the songs that finished in the TOP3. All these three songs could be a very good choice for the contest but, despite many people prefere the second ranked Mikko Pohjola, I prefere the winning song.
Let's start to analyze the 2nd and 3rd ranked. The band MIAU is probably the most original from all three, but I think it's not the most adequate for this kind of contest and could be very misunderstood, especially by the juries.
As for the 2nd ranked, he has probably the best voice in the TOP3 (and maybe among all the candidates), but the sing is not so memorable , and this could be a disadvantage in the time to vote.
And finally, my comment to the winner. I like this kind of performances on the Eurovision: a band singing pop-rock songs. The song probably doesn't bring us anything new, could be similar to many others, but at least it's a style that the most part of the people like to listen, and if they keep the same performance in the national final, I can't find (so far, it will depend on all the competition of course) reasons for Finland miss the grand final this year. The group has the passion to give a great performance to the audience and the singer is vocaly very secure.
This year Finland will perform in the 2nd semi-final and unfortunately Finland cannot count with the countries that tend to give it more points. None of the scandinavian neighbors will vote in this semi-final and, according to the statistics the only country that tends to give more points to Finland that will vote in this semifinal will be Israel, which in the last years is not among the countris that gives more points to this Nordic country.
So, at least thank God Finland will bring a good song, able to attract votes from the countries that doesn't give points to Finland due to the neighbor block system.

Switzerland and Sebalter


Switzerland is among the countries more damaged by the current block voting system, and in the last years has had some very unfair results. However I agree with the last year result, and honestly, I hope this year Switzerland has the same destiny. The group is interesting, transmits good feeling but the song is a little far away from what could be. It's not only because of the whistles, although is the biggest reason. I think that something is missing in this song, to give it more power and to transmit all the message and emotions the song has. And the vocalist needs to pay more attention to some vocal failures during the performance. But at least was the best choice from all the finalists. Only the 2nd ranked could also have been a good choice, although the song was too average.
Switzerland doesn't have a easy life in this competition and of course this country cannot count to benefit from the political vote this year as usual. The countries that according to the statistics give more points to Switzerland and that will vote in the same semifinal are the United Kingdom, Austria and in a lower level Finland and Germany.
Well... if the artists maintain the good mood (that is probably, together with the diversity of instruments used, the best aspect of all the song and performance) in the semifinal, they could not pass to the grand final but at least will not be among the crappy swiss participations.

segunda-feira, 10 de fevereiro de 2014

The emerging economies and their role in the current crisis

The emerging economies are those who are cuurently in the path between the underdevelopment and the development situation. Of course they usually have an important role in the world economy. According to the flying geese model, these economies started to receive the labour intensive industries, and are now changing to the capital intensive industries and having an important role in some sectors.
However, maybe more than never, these economies are having an important role, especially in the current crisis.
Could the current economic situation be worse without the role of these economies? Could the solution for the current crisis be in the emergent economies?
That's what we are trying to see now.

Could the exit for the current crisis be in the BRIC's economic performance?
The great performance
One of the biggest facts of the last decades is the development and the economic growth of the so called "emerging economies", especially the BRIC's: Brazil, Russia, India and China, that are now among the biggest contributors to the world economy. And their weight will increase in the next decades. And in the recent years, one factor appears: the intra-emerging economies trade. In 2005, already 50% of the trade of these countries were among them. This is the result of the improvement in the consumptions patterns and the increase in the domestic demand.
But there are other groups inside the big group of the emerging economies. And, if some of them have already an important role in the regional trade and are achieving the high-income, others are still in the beggining of their path. We can divide the emergent economies into three groups:

> the developed emergents, which includes countries with high economic growth rates, like the BRIC's, but have a long way to achieve the political and isntitucional development, and others like Portugal or South Korea which achieved a good level of industrialization but are facing some economic problems especially the middle-income trap, and in gaining a important position in the global market;
> the mono.economies, which have the productive activity extremly concentrated in one product. They can face the risk if they don't diversify their productive activity, neither take advantage of the good seasons of their mono-product;
> insufficient emergent economies, the countries which development path is still in the beggining phase. They were the countries who suffered the most with the crisis by the reasons we will se later.

So, in the beggining of the current crisis it seemed that the emergent economies will not be affected by it, or at least will suffer just a litlle bit. This idea that the economic performance of the emergent economies would be independent of the economic performance of the most developed economies, especially the USA, received many supporters, including the political leaders of the emergent economies.
So, when the current crisis started, the reactions from the emergent economies were almost nonexistent. And in  fact they had good reasons to react like that. The most developed economies could renovate their debts thanks to the credibility they had in the international markets. And of course, the emergent economies didn't have the credibility to do that. So, the only way they had to constantly renew their debts was thanks to the currency reserves accumulated by the countries in the 90's. This accumulation was the result of years of comercial surplus with the outside, which led to a reduction in the debt and in the risk of financial crisis.
However, even with these good aspects, the trade between these economies and the western economies was still about 50% in the biggenning of the current crisis. With the progress of the economic crisis, it became obvious that emerging economies would be directly affected by the crisis started in the USA.

GDP growth in the BRIC's
Source: World Bank statistics 2014

Exports growth in the BRIC's
Source: data obtained by the information available on the World Bank Statistics 2014

By these graphics is possible to see that the recession arrived to the emergent economies later, but had negative effects especially in the mono-economies, whose industrial specialization made ​​them more vulnerable to terms of trade deterioration. And even with the high cuurent accumulation, the markets were awared about what happened in the 90's, and the access to the credit became more difficult.
The second problems faced by the emergent economies, is the contraction of the international demand of the commodities (that still has an important weight in the total exportation in most of these economies). And the third is the decrease in the commodities and raw-materials prices, having especial effects in the insufficient emerging economies.
So, it seems a bad scenario for the emerging economies. However, these economies had two advantages comparing to the most developed countries. First, since they took place in the industrizliation process later, the creation and investment in financial securities which were the responsibles for the crisis, weren't so disseminated. And, since their were in the middle of the development process, the domestic market wasn't full explored like in the developed countries. So, the domestic demand was in the ascending process, and these countries could cover the decrease in the international demand, by the increase in the domestic demand. And since the big part of the population are now emerging from the poverty, they have enough income to consume the intensive labour, or low technologic products that the big part of these countries still produce.
And in three of the emerging economies, Brazil, India and especially China, they have an advantage, that can also give the opportunity to export to the most developed countries where the crisis is bigger: the so called "social dumping".
The techological assimilation, associated to the extremly low labour costs and bad work conditions, gives to China the possibility to produce and export products more sofisticated than before, at a more competitive prices than the companies in the developed economies. So, even with lower productivity, these economies can compete with the similar products produced in the developed economies, thanks to the lower prices.
Bur of course, even with the possibility to export to the developed economies with a competitive price, the emerging economies will recover faster than the others, thanks to the domestic demand. And of course the level of recovering will also depend on the government's role in these areas:
> fiscal and incentive policies;
> social programs to stimulate the domestic demand (give the opportunity to the people increase their consumption, especially for the goods that the country can't put in the external market);

The recovering of the emerging economies can in fact help the recovering of the most developed economies. But to achieve that it will be necessary the coordination of policies and procedures at the international level. The basic areas of intervention are the creation of a new finantial regulation system, the reform of the international financial system and the extension of the regulation and the penalization to the fiscal paradises.

So, as we can see in this article, the reason why the people speak more now about the emerging economies, is because the exit for the current crisis could depend a lot of their performance.