USA election 08 (3)
A recente crise de Wall Street fez afastar das primeiras páginas a cobertura das presidenciais americanas e o impacto que Sarah Palin estava a ter na campanha. linkObama parece ser para já o grande beneficiário desta crise, aproveitando para afastar-se, uma vez mais, do candidato republicano John McCain, em vantagem desde o anúncio de Palin, nas intenções de voto dos eleitores dos EUA. Três pontos separam agora os dois candidatos com vantagem para Obama.
Se o plano de recuperação, proposto pela administração Bush para ultrapassar a actual crise der certo, ironias do destino, o presidente dos EUA ainda acaba por ficar para a história como o salvador da pátria.
Etiquetas: USA election 08
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Barack Obama has opened up a significant lead over his rival John McCain in the race for the White House, with a poll released today giving him a nine-point advantage among likely voters.
The Washington Post-ABC national poll puts support for the Democratic candidate at 52%, compared with the Republican's 43%. Two weeks ago, in the wake of the Republican national convention, McCain had a two-point lead after a bounce attributed to the strong performance of his running mate, Sarah Palin.
The latest poll shows that 52% of voters view Palin positively but her unfavourable rating has gone up 10 points, from 28% to 38%.
Financial uncertainty weighed heavily on voters' minds, with 9% rating the economy as good or excellent - the lowest rating since before the 1992 election. The results suggest Obama is favoured to lead the country through economic turmoil.
When asked who they trusted to handle the economy, 53% said Obama and 39% said McCain. Two weeks ago, Obama's lead on the issue was five points. Independents have given Obama a 21-point lead on the economy, the highest since campaigning began.
The economy was cited as the most important issue by 50% of respondents, up from 37% two weeks ago. Since the last poll, Lehman Brothers has gone into bankruptcy and the US treasury has intervened to save other investment banks and the insurance company AIG.
Nine per cent of voters identified the war in Iraq as the most important issue in the election. This is the lowest percentage so far.
Obama has made substantial inroads into McCain's advantages on handling Iraq, international affairs and dealing with terrorism. McCain's lead on who could be trusted best to deal with a major unexpected crisis has been completely eroded, having stood at 57% to Obama's 37% just two weeks ago.
The Republican nominee retains a convincing lead when it comes to who would make a good commander in chief, with an approval rating of nearly three-quarters, compared with 48% for Obama.
The poll results reflect a boost in popularity for Obama among white voters at 45%. He stands five percentage points behind McCain and is almost level with the Republican nominee among white women, who heavily favoured McCain two weeks ago thanks in part to the Palin effect.
Obama has a sizeable lead among women overall but the candidates are level-pegging among men. The poll found almost a fifth of voters are undecided or may change their mind on who to vote for.
The survey included telephone interviews with a random national sample of 1,082 adults.
guardian 24.09.08
O cidadão informado poderia estar a par da bolha do imobiliário há, pelo menos, dois anos. Bastaria ler a imprensa. Uma capa já antiga da The Economist trazia uma casa em queda; a única questão era saber se o embate iria ser mais ou menos brutal.
E há economistas como Dean Baker, que escreveu sobre isto há seis anos; Nouriel Roubini, que acertou em todas as etapas da crise; ou o falecido Hyman Minsky, que descreveu teoricamente o que se está a passar. Então e os gestores dos bancos de investimentos - os cinco maiores dos quais faliram, foram vendidos ou mudaram de ramo nos últimos dias - não sabiam o que se estava a passar? Não me cheira. Além de serem pagos a peso de ouro, trata-se de gente inteligentíssima. A questão é que não tinham incentivo para agir de outra forma. Pior ainda: tinham incentivos para agir como agiram.
Não é defeito; é feitio. Agora é comum dizer que os lucros foram privados e os prejuízos vão ser do público. Mas isso não é uma novidade nem se restringe à economia. Passar o risco para a sociedade não é um exemplo do mau funcionamento da coisa; é um exemplo de como a coisa tem funcionado. O debate sobre a Guerra do Iraque foi assim; alguns enganaram-se, todos sofreram as consequências. Os que se tinham enganado, salvo honrosas excepções, não se deram por achados e passaram a exigir que se lhes fizesse a vontade no Irão.
Por isso há sempre este momento na dança - no Iraque, no Katrina, no imobiliário - em que se diz: "Ninguém podia prever o que se passou!". Poupem-nos.
A economia tem crescido na última geração mas os cidadãos comuns são tratados como enteados - nas pensões, na educação, e por aí adiante. Os outros são tratados como filhos a quem se pagam todas as dívidas depois de terem estourado o dinheiro da família no casino. E, verdade seja dita, parece não haver outro remédio.
Há maneiras melhores e piores de o fazer, porém, e enquanto a fasquia do risco não for distribuída de forma mais justa - se a compra de dívidas não tiver como contrapartida uma mudança de regras -, haverá responsabilidades a pedir. Afinal, não foi por milagre que coisas que não são bancos puderam passar a comportar-se como bancos sem darem as garantias que os bancos têm por lei de dar. Foi por acção legislativa de alguns dos nossos representantes eleitos.
Digo "nossos" porque isto não se limita aos EUA. A cultura de passar os riscos para o público foi comum e partilhada por Governos de direita e de esquerda, americanos e europeus. O mesmo Nouriel Roubini que passámos a ter de escutar com atenção nesta crise escreve no Financial Times que os bancos europeus estão em risco por terem comprado muitos dos "produtos tóxicos" financeiros que estiveram na origem disto tudo. Os economistas Daniel Gros e Stefano Micossi avisam que se os bancos americanos eram demasiado grandes para os deixarmos falhar, os bancos europeus são demasiado grandes para os conseguirmos salvar país a país.
Onde está Durão Barroso? Quando o conhecíamos, era um dos mais dogmáticos sacerdotes do mercado. Hoje está desaparecido em combate. Esta crise financeira global vai precisar de regulação global; mas antes que ela chegue precisamos de nova (e melhor) regulação europeia. Eu não estou optimista. Os americanos, ao menos, têm uma escolha entre mudar de defeitos e mudar de feitio nas próximas eleições.
Rui Tavares, JP 24.09.08
The biggest story of the campaign
Today – last night, actually – the New York Times and Roll Call reported (it's hard to see who was first) what may be the biggest political story of the campaign. How big? John McCain might have to fire his campaign manager. Big enough?
The story is this. The lobbying firm of Rick Davis, the manager, was being paid $15,000 a month by Freddie Mac until last month. That fact is a direct contradiction of words McCain had spoken Sunday night. At that time, responding to a Times story being prepared for Monday's paper revealing that Davis had been the head of a lobbying consortium led by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae until 2005, McCain said Davis had done no further work for either mortgage giant.
Someone's lying – either Davis to McCain, or McCain to the public. I trust you see the problem here.
The stories are here, by David Kirkpatrick (whose reporting on this topic has been leading the way) and Jackie Calmes of the Times, and here, by Tory Newmeyer of Roll Call. You should definitely read every word of both. I think after you do you'll agree that, depending on how big the pick-up is today and how hard the Obama camp presses this, it's pretty difficult to see how Davis can stay on as campaign manager.
The revelations are devastating for two reasons. First, as I noted above, either Davis lied to McCain or McCain lied to the voters. From the Times story:
On Sunday, in an interview with CNBC and The Times, Mr. McCain responded to a question about that tie between Mr. Davis and the two mortgage companies by saying that he "has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it."
Who lied to whom? This is the kind of thing we might not know for a while, or maybe never. My hunch would be that Davis concealed it from McCain and that McCain, as is his wont, just winged it Sunday night, without really caring whether it was true, because that's what he does. But let me clearly label that a hunch. I don't know. But it doesn't really matter.
The second reason this is devastating is maybe even bigger than the question of the Sunday lie, which is limited in scope after all to a sort of narrow legal question. The second reason is that McCain has been going around putting lobbyists, specifically for F & F, at the heart of the whole problem. This is from the Roll Call piece:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac emerged as issues in the presidential race last week because of turmoil in the financial markets. In a radio address from Green Bay, Wis., on Saturday, McCain blamed the companies and their political clout for creating the housing mess now roiling Wall Street. "At the center of the problem were the lobbyists, politicians and bureaucrats who succeeded in persuading Congress and the administration to ignore the festering problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,'' he said. "Using money and influence, they prevented reforms that would have curbed their power and limited their ability to damage our economy. And now, as ever, the American taxpayers are left to pay the price for Washington's failure.''
I just can't picture any way of wiggling out of that. He is talking in those sentences about his own campaign manager! And he's going to be able to keep him on? Strange things happen all the time, but I have trouble seeing it.
Oh and by the way: No wonder Steve Schmidt, another top McCain strategist, said on a Monday conference call with reporters that "Whatever The New York Times once was, it is today not by any standard a journalistic organization." He obviously knew that more was coming and was trying to lay some discrediting groundwork.
This is a terrible, terrible story for McCain, and yes, the biggest political story of the general-election campaign so far.
Guardian 24.09.08
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