History in the making...

A pagina do Negocios hoje na internet e algo para fazer historia, senao vejamos:

- Um fundo especialista em posicoes curtas acaba de retirar a sua posicao no BCP, e ainda que com lucro nao obteve os retornos que poderia pensar...fico mais descansado ainda que no BCP preciso de mais alguma noticia positiva para poder ver que a sangria esta estancada;

- Semapa estara presente na AG da Cimpor...veremos como acaba este filme;

- Almunia, VP da Comisao Europeia, admite que a Europa reagiu tarde a crise grega. Nao sera estranho que seja um espanhol a dize-lo porque os alemaes parecem ainda nao perceber que o Euro e uma ligacao umbilical para o bom e o mau, sem desprimor para que efectivamente se definam meios para por em pratica a disciplina que as regras dos PEC’s parecem nao ter conseguido, sobretudo em tempos de bonanca como foram os que se registaram ate 2007/08;

- Ex-ministro das finanças grego diz que ele e o ultimo culpado da situacao que se passa por terras helenicas mas manifesta que se sentiu incapaz de lutar contra a sociedade que nao queria parar de se endividar;

- Soares avisa os sindicatos a pensarem duas vezes antes de fazerem mais greves. Esta para mim, conjuntamente com a mea culpa meio a atirar o pedragulho para Berlim de Almunia, e mesmo a bomba do dia e talvez de muitas decadas. Soares tem toda a razao no que diz. Mas Soares sabe que se o governo nao fosse do PS, se Socrates nao estivesse no limbo total em que esta, era impossivel lermos e ouvirmos tais declaracoes suas. Soares, o arauto da defesa primordial dos direitos liberdades e garantias, que nunca aceita que em nome do crescimento se ponha em causa a vontade de um povo nestas vertentes de queixume pelas decisoes de politica economica (Algo tao vil e tao fora da vida das pessoas...o defice, a divida, os credores...) e que acima de tudo defende o direito a indignacao, esse Soares nao e este Soares de hoje. Nao pode ser. Mas fico contente que seja este o que temos agora e espero encarecidamente que se mantenha assim no futuro ja nao tao distante em que Socrates e o seu PS nao estejam no governo;

- CMVM encontrou esquema Ponzi no BPP...a serio? Quem diria.

O que os srs. Socrates e Teixeira dos Santos querem ver escrito...

The importance of not being Greece

A government desperate to persuade markets that it is better than they fear

Apr 22nd 2010 | LISBON | From The Economist print edition

FORGET slogans about golden beaches or vinho verde. What the Portuguese government wants the world to know is simpler: Portugal is not Greece. Far from having the next sovereign-debt crisis, as predicted by several economists, politicians are painting Portugal as a well-behaved member of the euro, in no way comparable to wayward, mendacious Greece.

Portugal is doing better than Greece in its budget deficit (9.4% of GDP in 2009, compared with 12.7%) and public debt (85% of GDP this year, against 124% in Greece). Unlike Greece, its public accounts are credible and it has a record of taking tough fiscal measures when necessary—between 2005 and 2007, it cut its budget deficit in half, from 6.1% of GDP to 2.6%. A four-year austerity programme to chop the budget deficit again, this time to 2.8% of GDP in 2013, has been adopted.

Again unlike Greece, the centre-left government of José Sócrates is a pioneer of reform. It has linked pensions to changes in life expectancy and introduced incentives for later retirement. According to the European Commission, age-related public spending will rise by only 2.9% of GDP in Portugal over the next 50 years, compared with a euro-area average of 5.1% and a startling 16% in Greece. Despite some public-sector protests, opposition to spending cuts is less noisy than in Greece.

So why are markets fretting over Lisbon's debt burden (yields on two-year bonds have risen to 4.8%)? And why have such figures as Simon Johnson, a former IMF chief economist, and Nouriel Roubini, a New York economics professor once labelled Dr Doom, said that a Greek-style crisis could infect Portugal?

One answer is that Portugal's biggest problem is not primarily fiscal. It concerns growth—or the lack of it. Real GDP growth over the decade since Portugal joined the euro has been the slowest in the zone, despite a boom in Spain, its main trading partner. The country avoided a property bubble of the kind that burst so disastrously in Spain and Ireland. Though it doesn't help much, Portugal's already slow growth also made it less vulnerable to the global recession. "Spain was the wild tiger of Europe and had much further to fall when the recession came," says João Talone, a private-equity manager. "Portuguese companies were already used to extracting value in a difficult climate."

Low growth reflects a disastrous loss of competitiveness since the country joined the euro. Portugal has lost export-market share to emerging economies (including those of eastern Europe) that churn out similar low-value products. This is largely due to a steady rise in unit labour costs, as wage increases outstripped productivity growth (see chart). One consequence is that the Portuguese, once exemplary savers, have been borrowing heavily abroad. Household debt is now the equivalent of almost 100% of GDP and the debt of non-financial companies is nearly 140%.

Mr Sócrates sees himself as the modern face of a country in transition from low-cost manufacturing to knowledge-based industries. In five years, he claims, Portugal has become a European leader in renewable energy. It has also cut civil-service jobs from 747,000 to 675,000. It sends some 35% of its young people to university. It is investing over 1.5% of GDP in research, much more than Spain. At the same time, however, Portugal is losing some of its EU structural funds to the club's newer, poorer members from eastern Europe.

A slow-moving bureaucracy, inefficient courts, poor schools and state-supported pockets of the economy protected from competition combine to hold Portugal back. Businessmen moan about rigid labour laws, which there is little political will to reform. Portugal has one of Europe's toughest employee-protection regimes.

In short, Portugal is indeed different from Greece. But if the markets decided to put this to the test, chronic low growth, a drastic loss of competitiveness and high public and private indebtedness are all weaknesses which could swiftly undermine the protection that being different is meant to bring.