Wolfgang Münchau on Sócrates' Politics

Everyone outside sees it; now, everyone inside the country has to see it! Don't fool yourself! Não te deixes enganar! Não te deixes passar por parvo!


(...) The Greek government played it relatively straight but Portugal’s crisis management has been, and remains, appalling.

José Sócrates, prime minister, has chosen to delay applying for a financial rescue package until the last minute. His announcement last week was a tragi-comic highlight of the crisis. With the country on the brink of financial extinction, he gloated on national television that he had secured a better deal than Ireland and Greece. In addition, he claimed the agreement would not cause much pain. When the details emerged a few days later, we could see that none of this was true. The package contains savage spending cuts, freezes in public sector wages and pensions, tax rises and a forecast of two years’ deep recession.

You cannot run a monetary union with the likes of Mr Sócrates, or with finance ministers who spread rumours about a break-up. Europe’s political elites are afraid to tell a truth that economic historians have known forever: that a monetary union without a political union is simply not viable. This is not a debt crisis. This is a political crisis. The eurozone will soon face the choice between an unimaginable step forward to political union or an equally unimaginable step back. We know Mr Schäuble has contemplated, and rejected, the latter. We also know that he prefers the former. It is time to say so.

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Decentralization in Public Education

Decentralization is not created by passing a law. Rather it must be built by overcoming a series of challenges at the center and the periphery by, for example, changing long established behaviours and attitudes, developing new skills, convincing people in the center who enjoy exercising power to give it up, permitting and sometimes encouraging people to take creative risks, promoting and rewarding local initiatives, and maintaining continuity with the decentralization reform even as governments change.

Hanson (1997)

No, I know it looks like the author was writing about portuguese public education but no. It's just plain wisdom.

Keynesianism’s systemic failure

Dedicated to Mr Sócrates and other left wing portuguese party leaders. Get real!

Peter Foster: Keynesianism’s systemic failure

3 words: printers, justice, Portugal

Yes, printers. You know, that peripheral which produces a text and/or graphics of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper. You got the point.

So, what's the relation between printers, justice and Portugal? It's simple.

Today we knew that some courts are at risk of not having printer ink cartridges because the Ministry of Justice of Portugal is lacking the financial resources to buy them. Yes, you read it right. There's nothing unreal here. This is reality.

Yes, Portugal is in Europe and we have electricity here.

Elections in Portugal and Canada

Despite of the fact that the two parliamentary houses are being dissolved almost at the same time, Canadians will have elections on May 2 and Portuguese on June 5.

1 month difference and Canada's not at risk of a bailout!

Portugal needs to start doing things right, that's for sure.

Oh well...