Tomado de: 100 mitos de la historia de México.
Autor: Francisco Martín Moreno
Paginas: 73-79
El 14 de Diciembre de 1859 Melchor Ocampo y Robert McLane suscribieron el proyecto de un tratado diplomático entre México y los Estados Unidos. A primera vista, ninguno de los artículos del tratado favorecía a nuestro país. Benito Juarez, al parecer, había permitido que, a cambio de cuatro millones de dólares -dos de los cuales quedarían en las arcas estadounidenses para cubrir las injustas e interminables reclamaciones de guerra-, los gringos obtuvieran los derechos de paso por el Istmo de Tehuantepec y por Sonora -de Guaymas a Nogales-; asimismo, el documento abría la posibilidad para ambos países de auxiliarse militarmente, según determinadas circunstancias. Así pues, todo parece indicar que el tratado McLane-Ocampo entregaba la soberanía de una parte del territorio nacional a cambio de un par de millones de dólares.
Juarez, entonces, se comporto igual que Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, el mayor vende patrias de nuestra historia? Aunque la respuesta es un NO! rotundo, la iglesia católica y los conservadores han insistido en que Juarez traiciono Mexico al permitir que se suscribiera el Tratado McLane-Ocampo. Este mito debe ser aclarado, pues solo así podrán comprenderse los verdaderos fines que animaron a Juarez a suscribir ese documento.
LAS MENTIRAS, LAS FALSAS IMPUTACIONES
Desde 1860 los profesores de las escuelas religiosas y los historiadores clericales han difundido la mentira de que Juarez traiciono a México con el Tratado McLane-Ocampo. Curiosamente, en cada una de sus palabras aun se percibe el eco del Manifiesto que Miguel Miramon publico el 1 de Enero de 1860. En la parte medular de este documento -cuyo original se encuentra en el Archivo General de la Nación- se lee lo siguiente:
Por medio de su gobierno establecido en Veracruz, [los liberales] intentan vender la integridad, el honor y la seguridad de la patria, por un tratado infame que deja en la frente de las personas que lo firman, un sello indeleble de traición y de escandalo. [El tratado] se contrae a concesiones de territorio o de vías de transito para los ciudadanos y tropas de los Estados Unidos, que arruinarían nuestros puertos y nuestro comercio y que servirían a aquella república para irse extendiendo sobre nuestro país.
Sin embargo, lo que el general Miramon afirmaba en su Manifiesto era solo una cortina de humo que pretendía ocultar la verdad [Esto según Francisco Martín Moreno]
LA VERDAD SOBRE EL TRATADO MCLANE-OCAMPO
Cuando estallo la guerra de Reforma a causa del violentisimo rechazo de la iglesia católica y de los conservadores a la Constitución de 1857, los ejercitos liberales y los conservadores-eclesiásticos iniciaron una lucha feroz que ensangrento el suelo mexicano. Luego de dos a;os de batallas ninguno de los bandos se alza a con la victoria. Por ello, un ano antes de que se suscribiera el Tratado McLane-Ocampo los clericales y los archiconservadores decidieron buscar el apoyo de Francia y España para derrotar a sus enemigos y provocar el retroceso político, económico y cultural de nuestra patria. Los clérigos y los conservadores estaban dispuestos a conceder todo lo que fuera necesario y aun mas, por medio del Tratado Mon-Almonte -suscrito el 26 de Septiembre de 1859, es decir, tres meses antes que el de McLane-Ocampo-, el cual les proporcionaría los recursos y apoyos necesarios para enfrentar a los liberales, después de reconocer las deudas reales y ficticias que nuestro país tenia con España y Francia.
Para los liberales esta situación era mucho mas que peligrosa: si Francia y España se sumaban a la iglesia y a los conservadores mediante el Tratado Mon-Almonte, el futuro de la República estaba perdido. Así, a finales de 1859, Benito Juarez se vio obligado a buscar una alianza con el gobierno estadounidense. La situación era difícil, ya que, como lo señala José Manuel Villalpando:
[los] estadounidenses no darían su apoyo a cambio de nada, razón por la cual Juarez admitió, en Veracruz, las negociaciones con el enviado estadounidense, Robert McLane, a quien su gobierno dio instrucciones precisas de negociar un tratado ventajoso para ellos a cambio de la promesa de suministrar armas y dinero y, si se daba la ocasión, incluso de intervenir militarmente a favor de los liberales.
Juarez y Melchor Ocampo, que en aquellos momentos era el ministro de Relaciones Exteriores, tenían claro que las pretensiones estadounidenses eran desmesuradas -desde el inicio de las negociaciones los gringos insistían en comprar la península de Baja California-, pero también sabían que era fundamental detener el inminente ataque de las fuerzas clericales y conservadoras a Veracruz, donde se había refugiado el gobierno republicano, ya que Miramon -gracias al respaldo económico de la iglesia y de España- contaba con un poderoso ejercito y con el apoyo naval necesario para atacar a los liberales.
El Benemérito sabia que no podía ceder ni un solo metro del territorio nacional -pues el, a diferencia de Santa Anna, tenia solidas convicciones patrióticas-, por lo tanto, durante las negociaciones con McLane se negó a ceder la península de Baja California, aunque otorgo el libre transito de las mercancías estadounidenses. El Tratado McLane-Ocampo no establecía obligaciones para México en el sentido de entregar ni un solo metro cuadrado del suelo Patrio! Por lo tanto, los conservadores y los historiadores oficiales registrados en las generosas nominas del clero mienten al acusar a Juarez de haber vendido a los extranjeros una parte del territorio nacional. Incluso, la insistencia de Juarez de que se ratificara el tratado tenia -además de las razones políticas que analizare mas adelante- un sentido estrictamente económico: el paso por el Istmo de Tehauntepec permitiría establecer polos de desarrollo marítimo, ferrocarriles, comercial e industrial en el trayecto de Coatzacoalcos a Salina Cruz, un hecho que, sin duda, garantizaría la prosperidad de una de las regiones mas pobres del país.
Asimismo, con la firma del Tratado McLane-Ocampo el gobierno jurista logro un acuerdo fundamental: ambas naciones quedaron comprometidas a auxiliarse militarmente. La victoria era clara: se había conseguido la ayuda estadounidense para derrotar a la iglesia y a los conservadores, y como dijo Patricia Galeana en su conferencia "Las Leyes de Reforma y el Tratado McLane-Ocampo": "este acuerdo permitió el reconocimiento de Estados Unidos al gobierno liberal de Benito Juarez y, con ello, evito que el régimen republicano desapareciera"
Sin embargo, no debe pensarse que la habilidad diplomática de Benito Juarez y Melchor Ocampo se limito a la obtención del reconocimiento del gobierno estadounidense a cambio del derecho de transito por algunas franjas del territorio mexicano. El acuerdo, para tener vigencia, debía ser ratificado por el congreso de ambas naciones, lo cual les dio a los liberales un buen tiempo para prepararse: con el país en guerra, el Congreso no podía sesionar, y cualquier acuerdo se pospondría hasta la victoria sobre la iglesia y los conservadores. Los hechos propiciaron que la ratificación de los acuerdos fuera innecesaria: el clero y los conservadores fueron derrotados y el Congreso estadounidense no ratifico el tratado, porque sus integrantes solo vieron en el nuevas anexiones territoriales que fortalecerían a los estados esclavistas que ya se preparaban para la guerra de secesión.
Juarez tenia un as bajo la manga para ganar tiempo!, y el tratado nunca fue ratificado!, por lo cual, en términos estrictamente jurídicos, nunca existió! McLane suscribió la nada jurídica, mientras que Juarez y Ocampo le amarraron las manos a los norteamericanos , pues el tratado solo permitía la intervención militar si se obtenía el consentimiento del gobierno liberal, el cual jamas aceptaría una moción de esa naturaleza.
Juarez, a diferencia de la iglesia y de los conservadores, no fue un vendepatrias, aunque a fuerza de mentiras sus eternos enemigos traten de utilizar el Tratado McLane-Ocampo para acusarlo. Juarez sabia que si vendía Baja California obtendría millones de dólares y que con tales recursos podría aplastar a los reaccionarios, pero ni así estuvo dispuesto a vender el territorio. Como acusarlo de traidor por entregar al país a los gringos a través del tratado cuando nunca vendió nada y si se preservo la soberanía? Si hubiera sido, un traidor habría repetido las acciones de Santa Anna, de Su alteza Serenísima, el peor enemigo en la historia patria, y habría tenido muchas oportunidades de echar mano de cualquier recurso para derrotar a los reaccionarios y hacerse del poder. Acaso Juarez no habría podido tener conversaciones secretas, como las tuvo Santa Anna, con el presidente Polk para vender parte del territorio y ganar dinero en lo personal, volviéndose, además, inamovible políticamente después de barrer a sus enemigos? Juarez no era un bandido ni un traidor como Su Bajeza. Su conducto es una evidencia de honestidad. El siguiente texto, redactado por el propio zapoteco, deja constancia de ello:
La idea que tienen algunos [...] de que ofrezcamos parte del territorio nacional para obtener el auxilio indicado, es no solo antinacional sino perjudicial a nuestra causa [...] que el enemigo nos venza y nos robe, si tal es nuestro destino; pero nosotros no debemos legalizar ese atentado, entregando voluntariamente lo que nos exige por la fuerza. Si la Francia, los Estados Unidos o cualquiera otra nación se apoderara de algún punto de nuestro territorio y por nuestra debilidad no podemos arrojarlo de el, dejemos siquiera vivo nuestro derecho para que las generaciones que nos sucedan lo recobren.
Benito Juarez, le pese a quien le pese, no fue un traidor, y el Tratado McLane-Ocampo resulto una jugada política de grandes alcances que contribuyo a la derrota de la iglesia y de los archiconservadores.
lunes, 21 de noviembre de 2011
jueves, 10 de noviembre de 2011
The Persistence of the Innovaror's Dilema
The Persistence of the Innovator's Dilemma
Scott Anthony
2011-11-10T17:13:17Z
In 1995, a young Harvard Business School Professor co-authored an article in Harvard Business Review, "Disruptive Technology: Catching the Wave." He and his co-author proposed a new causal mechanism that explained the surprising failure of highly-regarded companies. The most punishing innovations, they argued, were the ones that were easy to dismiss at first blush — simple, affordable solutions that took root outside the mainstream market. The authors called these "disruptive" solutions and provided a straightforward prescription for leaders looking to turn disruption into an opportunity. They suggested that companies should find a customer who loved the disruptive solution despite its limitations and create a separate organization to commercialize it.
Of course, that young HBS professor was Innosight co-founder Clayton Christensen. Since then, he has written over a half-dozen books and many more Harvard Business Review articles, almost all of which touch on disruption in some way. Academic journals have dissected the disruptive innovation theory and hundreds of thousands of students around the world have seen Christensen's famous model.
Yet, the innovator's dilemma persists. Just ask executives at Blockbuster Video, Sony, Nokia, Microsoft, Hertz, Kodak, Delta, and nearly all newspaper companies. That's not to say that there haven't been success stories. But they're notable because they are exceptions.
So, why has this dilemma persisted?
Capital markets is one explanation. As this argument holds, the short-term pressure of the capital markets, coupled with management incentives tied tightly to stock prices, make it hard for companies to investment in new growth businesses. Even if companies know what they need to do, their investors won't let them. Investors aren't necessarily irrational, since they could presumably back up-and-coming disruptors themselves. There is at least one strike against this argument. In markets such as India, Korea, Japan, and China, companies that have different corporate governance models seem equally likely to suffer from the innovator's dilemma.
Perhaps the root problem is leadership limitations. Leaders in established companies seeking to drive disruptive growth have to meet the challenge laid down in 1935 by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Yet, in Chapter 9 of The Silver Lining, I described a stream of research suggesting that only about 5% of leaders have the ability to pass Fitzgerald's test. Every once and a while a Steve Jobs, a Jeff Bezos, or an A.G. Lafley appears, but perhaps their rarity leads to the dilemma's persistence.
Maybe the real challenge lies within. Over the past few decades there has been a fascinating set of research into cognitive biases that lead smart people to make bad decisions.* These biases are particularly acute for companies trying to drive disruptive innovation. Consider the "halo effect," which holds that people who are demonstrably good at one thing are perceived to be good at non-related tasks. The halo effect leads companies to assuming their best operators can seamlessly shift into innovation work. Some can, but many cannot. Confirmation bias, disaster neglect, the fundamental attribution error and many others make it easy to simultaneously discount the need to respond to disruptive threats and overestimate the organization's ability to step into new markets.
There are surely other explanations — for instance, people don't always have high levels of interest in transforming a system that confers certain powers on them — but my own view is that the dangerous combination of leadership limitations and cognitive biases makes the innovator's dilemma an intensely difficult problem to solve.
Perhaps further clarity in the root cause of the persistence of the innovator's dilemma can help increase the number of success stories. Any other ideas?
* Dan Ariely, Michael Mauboussin, Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, and Duncan Watts all write accessibly on the topic.
Scott Anthony
2011-11-10T17:13:17Z
In 1995, a young Harvard Business School Professor co-authored an article in Harvard Business Review, "Disruptive Technology: Catching the Wave." He and his co-author proposed a new causal mechanism that explained the surprising failure of highly-regarded companies. The most punishing innovations, they argued, were the ones that were easy to dismiss at first blush — simple, affordable solutions that took root outside the mainstream market. The authors called these "disruptive" solutions and provided a straightforward prescription for leaders looking to turn disruption into an opportunity. They suggested that companies should find a customer who loved the disruptive solution despite its limitations and create a separate organization to commercialize it.
Of course, that young HBS professor was Innosight co-founder Clayton Christensen. Since then, he has written over a half-dozen books and many more Harvard Business Review articles, almost all of which touch on disruption in some way. Academic journals have dissected the disruptive innovation theory and hundreds of thousands of students around the world have seen Christensen's famous model.
Yet, the innovator's dilemma persists. Just ask executives at Blockbuster Video, Sony, Nokia, Microsoft, Hertz, Kodak, Delta, and nearly all newspaper companies. That's not to say that there haven't been success stories. But they're notable because they are exceptions.
So, why has this dilemma persisted?
Capital markets is one explanation. As this argument holds, the short-term pressure of the capital markets, coupled with management incentives tied tightly to stock prices, make it hard for companies to investment in new growth businesses. Even if companies know what they need to do, their investors won't let them. Investors aren't necessarily irrational, since they could presumably back up-and-coming disruptors themselves. There is at least one strike against this argument. In markets such as India, Korea, Japan, and China, companies that have different corporate governance models seem equally likely to suffer from the innovator's dilemma.
Perhaps the root problem is leadership limitations. Leaders in established companies seeking to drive disruptive growth have to meet the challenge laid down in 1935 by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." Yet, in Chapter 9 of The Silver Lining, I described a stream of research suggesting that only about 5% of leaders have the ability to pass Fitzgerald's test. Every once and a while a Steve Jobs, a Jeff Bezos, or an A.G. Lafley appears, but perhaps their rarity leads to the dilemma's persistence.
Maybe the real challenge lies within. Over the past few decades there has been a fascinating set of research into cognitive biases that lead smart people to make bad decisions.* These biases are particularly acute for companies trying to drive disruptive innovation. Consider the "halo effect," which holds that people who are demonstrably good at one thing are perceived to be good at non-related tasks. The halo effect leads companies to assuming their best operators can seamlessly shift into innovation work. Some can, but many cannot. Confirmation bias, disaster neglect, the fundamental attribution error and many others make it easy to simultaneously discount the need to respond to disruptive threats and overestimate the organization's ability to step into new markets.
There are surely other explanations — for instance, people don't always have high levels of interest in transforming a system that confers certain powers on them — but my own view is that the dangerous combination of leadership limitations and cognitive biases makes the innovator's dilemma an intensely difficult problem to solve.
Perhaps further clarity in the root cause of the persistence of the innovator's dilemma can help increase the number of success stories. Any other ideas?
* Dan Ariely, Michael Mauboussin, Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman, and Duncan Watts all write accessibly on the topic.
miércoles, 9 de noviembre de 2011
The Weakest Link in the U.S.
The Weakest Link in The U.S. Economy
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
2011-11-09T17:08:39Z
Apple used 49,400 employees to generate revenues of $65 billion in 2010. Its outsourcing partner, Chinese Foxconn, employed nearly a million people for $59 billion in the same year. In the U.S., Apple focuses on creating high-paying jobs while it outsources the low-paying ones to Asia. For companies from Dell to HP to Intel, outsourcing provides competitiveness. It makes the shareholders happy and helps produce good earnings. Every global company has the right to pursue opportunities to remain competitive. But the state of events happening in the U.S. economy right now calls for solutions which these very companies could provide.
The U.S. economic crisis could be traced to the structural economic changes which globalization facilitated. American companies are out-innovating most of their citizens. All across the nation, there are still community colleges and trade schools where students graduate and quickly join the unemployment pool, because the jobs for which they have been trained are not available — they weren't available even when they were enrolling. And those jobs may never be back — they are in Asia now. Still, no one is asking to shut down — or even change — these schools.
As the nation goes through this generational transformation, we must understand that the solution to the problem isn't far-fetched. The U.S. economy is innovating at the top, but is failing badly at the bottom. That a U.S. engineer with a Ph.D. in some high tech company creates up to ten jobs in Asia means that ten Americans are displaced from work. Some like this new model, where few are paid very well, and many are left unemployed. But, no one will like a neighborhood where for every mogul, there are ten homeless families. Yet that is what the system is setting up today.
Breaking the Cycle With a New Model
The U.S. will remain the epicenter of global innovation with its good universities and top-focused innovative companies. But for it to break this cycle of boom and bust, it needs a new model. America needs a system that works for the citizens, companies and the nation. That a Chinese company hires more people than the top ten U.S. high tech companies combined, despite getting the bulk of its business from them, shows that there is a weak link in the economy. And when families are broken with no jobs, it's difficult for a nation to hold up.
America's solutions may not necessarily come from Washington, but from the compassionate patriotism of American companies. Can the shareholders demand less and reduce the pressure to outsource? Can the citizens pay a little more to keep those making products in U.S. competitive? It is possible that what has worked for the U.S. in the last few decades may not be attainable in the new global arena?
This is not about building fences to protect against globalization; it is about developing a roadmap for U.S. companies. One lesson learned from the last recession is that every company needs a healthy economy in order to function. When the meltdown began, practically every company suffered. As the crusade for environmental sustainability wages on, now is the time for U.S. companies to begin a discussion on business sustainability at home. If they fail to do that, it is very possible that they may not have the right economic climate in which to do business.
The temptation to think that because revenue is coming in from overseas, and that what happens in China may not affect us, is erroneous. Even if China will eventually lead the world, it is decades away from that, politically and economically. A broken U.S. economy poses severe dangers because across most nations, opportunities will dry up. A sustainable U.S. economy that provides opportunities at the bottom is not just a problem for the president, but for every American employer. It is time to fix this link and rediscover innovation at the bottom.
Ndubuisi Ekekwe
2011-11-09T17:08:39Z
Apple used 49,400 employees to generate revenues of $65 billion in 2010. Its outsourcing partner, Chinese Foxconn, employed nearly a million people for $59 billion in the same year. In the U.S., Apple focuses on creating high-paying jobs while it outsources the low-paying ones to Asia. For companies from Dell to HP to Intel, outsourcing provides competitiveness. It makes the shareholders happy and helps produce good earnings. Every global company has the right to pursue opportunities to remain competitive. But the state of events happening in the U.S. economy right now calls for solutions which these very companies could provide.
The U.S. economic crisis could be traced to the structural economic changes which globalization facilitated. American companies are out-innovating most of their citizens. All across the nation, there are still community colleges and trade schools where students graduate and quickly join the unemployment pool, because the jobs for which they have been trained are not available — they weren't available even when they were enrolling. And those jobs may never be back — they are in Asia now. Still, no one is asking to shut down — or even change — these schools.
As the nation goes through this generational transformation, we must understand that the solution to the problem isn't far-fetched. The U.S. economy is innovating at the top, but is failing badly at the bottom. That a U.S. engineer with a Ph.D. in some high tech company creates up to ten jobs in Asia means that ten Americans are displaced from work. Some like this new model, where few are paid very well, and many are left unemployed. But, no one will like a neighborhood where for every mogul, there are ten homeless families. Yet that is what the system is setting up today.
Breaking the Cycle With a New Model
The U.S. will remain the epicenter of global innovation with its good universities and top-focused innovative companies. But for it to break this cycle of boom and bust, it needs a new model. America needs a system that works for the citizens, companies and the nation. That a Chinese company hires more people than the top ten U.S. high tech companies combined, despite getting the bulk of its business from them, shows that there is a weak link in the economy. And when families are broken with no jobs, it's difficult for a nation to hold up.
America's solutions may not necessarily come from Washington, but from the compassionate patriotism of American companies. Can the shareholders demand less and reduce the pressure to outsource? Can the citizens pay a little more to keep those making products in U.S. competitive? It is possible that what has worked for the U.S. in the last few decades may not be attainable in the new global arena?
This is not about building fences to protect against globalization; it is about developing a roadmap for U.S. companies. One lesson learned from the last recession is that every company needs a healthy economy in order to function. When the meltdown began, practically every company suffered. As the crusade for environmental sustainability wages on, now is the time for U.S. companies to begin a discussion on business sustainability at home. If they fail to do that, it is very possible that they may not have the right economic climate in which to do business.
The temptation to think that because revenue is coming in from overseas, and that what happens in China may not affect us, is erroneous. Even if China will eventually lead the world, it is decades away from that, politically and economically. A broken U.S. economy poses severe dangers because across most nations, opportunities will dry up. A sustainable U.S. economy that provides opportunities at the bottom is not just a problem for the president, but for every American employer. It is time to fix this link and rediscover innovation at the bottom.
sábado, 22 de octubre de 2011
Gulf Stream and the climate
Ocean currents
The Berkeley group does depart from the "orthodox" picture of climate science in its depiction of short-term variability in the global temperature.
The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is generally thought to be the main reason for inter-annual warming or cooling.
But by the Berkeley team's analysis, the global temperature correlates more closely with the state of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) index - a measure of sea surface temperature in the north Atlantic.
There are theories suggesting that the AMO index is in turn driven by fluctuations in the north Atlantic current commonly called the Gulf Stream.
The team suggests it is worth investigating whether the long-term AMO cycles, which are thought to last 65-70 years, may play a part in the temperature rise, fall and rise again seen during the 20th Century.
But they emphasise that anthropogenic global warming (AGW) driven by greenhouse gas emissions is very much in their picture.
"Had we found no global warming, then that would have ruled out AGW," said Prof Muller.
"Had we found half as much, it would have suggested that prior estimates [of AGW] were too large; if we had found more warming, it would have raised the question of whether prior estimates were too low.
"But we didn't; we found that the prior rise was confirmed. That means that we do not directly affect prior estimates."
The team next plans to look at ocean temperatures, in order to construct a truly global dataset.
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jueves, 20 de octubre de 2011
Capitalism and its critics/ The Economist
Capitalism and its critics
Rage against the machine
People are right to be angry. But it is also right to be worried about where populism could take politics
Oct 22nd 2011 | from the print edition
FROM Seattle to Sydney, protesters have taken to the streets. Whether they are inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement in New York or by the indignados in Madrid, they burn with dissatisfaction about the state of the economy, about the unfair way that the poor are paying for the sins of rich bankers, and in some cases about capitalism itself.
In the past it was easy for Western politicians and economic liberals to dismiss such outpourings of fury as a misguided fringe. In Seattle, for instance, the last big protests (against the World Trade Organisation, in 1999) looked mindless. If they had a goal, it was selfish—an attempt to impoverish the emerging world through protectionism. This time too, some things are familiar: the odd bit of violence, a lot of incoherent ranting and plenty of inconsistency (see article). The protesters have different aims in different countries. Higher taxes for the rich and a loathing of financiers is the closest thing to a common denominator, though in America polls show that popular rage against government eclipses that against Wall Street.
Yet even if the protests are small and muddled, it is dangerous to dismiss the broader rage that exists across the West. There are legitimate deep-seated grievances. Young people—and not just those on the streets—are likely to face higher taxes, less generous benefits and longer working lives than their parents. More immediately, houses are expensive, credit hard to get and jobs scarce—not just in old manufacturing industries but in the ritzier services that attract increasingly debt-laden graduates. In America 17.1% of those below 25 are out of work. Across the European Union, youth unemployment averages 20.9%. In Spain it is a staggering 46.2%. Only in Germany, the Netherlands and Austria is the rate in single digits.
It is not just the young who feel squeezed. The middle-aged face falling real wages and diminished pension rights. And the elderly are seeing inflation eat away the value of their savings; in Britain prices are rising by 5.2% but bank deposits yield less than 1%. In the meantime, bankers are back to huge bonuses.
History, misery and protest
To the man-in-the-street, all this smacks of a system that has failed. Neither of the main Western models has much political credit at the moment. European social democracy promised voters benefits that societies can no longer afford. The Anglo-Saxon model claimed that free markets would create prosperity; many voters feel instead that they got a series of debt-fuelled asset bubbles and an economy that was rigged in favour of a financial elite, who took all the proceeds in the good times and then left everybody else with no alternative other than to bail them out. To use one of the protesters’ better slogans, the 1% have gained at the expense of the 99%.
If the grievances are more legitimate and broader than previous rages against the machine, then the dangers are also greater. Populist anger, especially if it has no coherent agenda, can go anywhere in times of want. The 1930s provided the most terrifying example. A more recent (and less frightening) case study is the tea party. The justified fury of America’s striving middle classes against a cumbersome state has in practice translated into a form of obstructive nihilism: nothing to do with taxes can get through Washington, including tax reform.
Worryingly, politicians are already in something of a funk. The Republicans first denounced the occupiers of Wall Street, then cuddled up to them. Across Europe social democratic parties have tended to lose elections if they move too far from the centre ground, but leaders, like Ed Miliband in Britain and François Hollande in France (see article), still find the anti-banker rhetoric enticing. Why not opt for a gesture—tariffs, a supertax on the rich—that may only make matters worse? A struggling Barack Obama, who has already flirted with class warfare and business-bashing, might well consider dragging China and its currency into the fray. And it will get worse: austerity and protest have always gone together (see article).
Tackle the causes, not the symptoms
Braver politicians would focus on two things. The first is tackling the causes of the rage speedily. Above all that means doing more to get their economies moving again. A credible solution to the euro crisis would be a huge start. More generally, focus on policies that boost economic growth: trade less austerity in the short term for medium-term adjustments, such as a higher retirement age. Make sure the rich pay their share, but in a way that makes economic sense: you can boost the tax take from the wealthy by eliminating loopholes while simultaneously lowering marginal rates. Reform finance vigorously. “Move to Basel 3 and higher capital requirements” is not a catchy slogan, but it would do far more to shrink bonuses on Wall Street than most of the ideas echoing across from Zuccotti Park.
The second is telling the truth—especially about what went wrong. The biggest danger is that legitimate criticisms of the excesses of finance risk turning into an unwarranted assault on the whole of globalisation. It is worth remembering that the epicentre of the 2008 disaster was American property, hardly a free market undistorted by government. For all the financiers’ faults (“too big to fail”, the excessive use of derivatives and the rest of it), the huge hole in most governments’ finances stems less from bank bail-outs than from politicians spending too much in the boom and making promises to do with pensions and health care they never could keep. Look behind much of the current misery—from high food prices to the lack of jobs for young Spaniards—and it has less to do with the rise of the emerging world than with state interference.
Global integration has its costs. It will put ever more pressure on Westerners, skilled as well as unskilled. But by any measure the benefits enormously outweigh those costs, and virtually all the ways to create jobs come from opening up economies, not following the protesters’ instincts. Western governments have failed their citizens once; building more barriers to stop goods, ideas, capital and people crossing borders would be a far greater mistake. To the extent that the protests are the first blast in a much longer, broader battle, this newspaper is firmly on the side of openness and freedom.
from the print edition | Leaders
miércoles, 19 de octubre de 2011
IQ Isn't as Fixed as Once Believed, Research Suggests / Robert Lee
A teenager's IQ can rise or fall as many as 20 points in just a few years, a brain-scanning team found in a study published Wednesday that suggests the intelligence measure isn't as fixed as once thought.
The researchers also found that shifts in IQ scores corresponded to small physical changes in brain areas related to intellectual skills, though they weren't able to show a clear cause and effect.
Enlarge Image
University College London; Nature
"If the finding is true, it could signal environmental factors that are changing the brain and intelligence over a relatively short period," said psychologist Robert Plomin at Kings College in London, who studies the genetics of intelligence and wasn't involved in the research. "That is quite astounding."
Long at the center of debates over intelligence, an IQ score typically gauges mental capacity by measuring the relative difference between mental age and actual chronological age through standardized tests of language skill, spatial ability, arithmetic, memory and reasoning. A score of 100 is considered average. Barring injury, that intellectual capacity remains constant throughout life, most experts believe.
But the new findings by researchers at University College London, reported online in Nature, suggest that IQ, often used to predict school performance and job prospects, may be more malleable than previously believed—and more susceptible to outside influences, such as tutoring or neglect.
"A change in 20 points is a huge difference," said the team's senior researcher, Cathy Price, at the university's Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging. Indeed, it can mean the difference between being rated average and being labeled gifted—or, conversely, being categorized as sub-standard.
Enlarge Image
Nature, University College London
Researchers found that dramatic changes in verbal IQ corresponded to changes in an area of the brain associated with speech, whereas nonverbal IQ changes were related to an area involved in hand movements.
To better understand intelligence, Dr. Price and her colleagues studied 33 healthy English teenagers whose IQ scores initially ranged from 80 to 140. They tested the volunteers on standardized intelligence exams in 2004 and again in 2008, to encompass the peak years of their adolescence, while also monitoring subtle changes in brain structure using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
By analyzing verbal and nonverbal IQ performance separately, the researchers discovered that these fundamental facets of intelligence could change markedly, even in cases when an overall composite IQ score remained relatively constant.
"One fifth of them jumped one way or the other," Dr. Price said. One teenager's verbal IQ score rose from 120 at age 13 to 138 at age 17, while her nonverbal IQ dropped from 103 to a below-average score of 85. Another's verbal IQ soared from 104 to 127 in four years, while his nonverbal performance stayed the same.
The rise or fall in verbal IQ scores appeared to be connected to changes in an area of the brain associated with speech, whereas shifts in nonverbal IQ related to an area involved in motor control and hand movements.
In recent years, scientists have determined that experience can readily alter the brain, as networks of neural synapses bloom in response to activity or wither with disuse. Expert musicians, circus jugglers and London cab drivers studying maps—even Colombian guerillas learning to read—have all shown brain changes linked to practice, several brain imaging studies have reported.
Until now, though, researchers had considered general intelligence too basic to be affected by such relatively small neural adjustments. Dr. Price and her colleagues don't know what caused the changes in both the brain and the IQ scores they documented but speculated that they could be a consequence of learning experiences.
Several brain specialists said the brain changes could just as plausibly reflect the pace of normal growth, and the shifts in IQ scores could be due to people's inconsistent performance on tests.
The varying IQ scores could also indicate the test itself is flawed. "It could be a real index of how intelligence varies or it could suggest our measures of intelligence are so variable," said neuroimaging pioneer B.J. Casey at Cornell University's Weill Medical College, who wasn't involved in the study.
Even so, the size of the new study was too small to warrant broad conclusions about adolescence and learning, a time when the brain is normally in flux, experts said. Studies seeking the genetic origins of intelligence, for example, have encompassed thousands of test subjects across decades and still been unable to conclusively identify the genes that shape intelligence, said Dr. Plomin, the Kings College psychologist.
Other experts were confident the IQ variations were evidence of the neural impact of experience, for better or worse.
"An important aspect of the results is that cognitive abilities can increase or decrease," said Oklahoma State University psychometrician Robert Sternberg, who is a past president of the American Psychological Association and wasn't part of the study. "Those who are mentally active will likely benefit," he said. "The couch potatoes among us who do not exercise themselves intellectually will pay a price."
The researchers also found that shifts in IQ scores corresponded to small physical changes in brain areas related to intellectual skills, though they weren't able to show a clear cause and effect.
Enlarge Image
University College London; Nature
"If the finding is true, it could signal environmental factors that are changing the brain and intelligence over a relatively short period," said psychologist Robert Plomin at Kings College in London, who studies the genetics of intelligence and wasn't involved in the research. "That is quite astounding."
Long at the center of debates over intelligence, an IQ score typically gauges mental capacity by measuring the relative difference between mental age and actual chronological age through standardized tests of language skill, spatial ability, arithmetic, memory and reasoning. A score of 100 is considered average. Barring injury, that intellectual capacity remains constant throughout life, most experts believe.
But the new findings by researchers at University College London, reported online in Nature, suggest that IQ, often used to predict school performance and job prospects, may be more malleable than previously believed—and more susceptible to outside influences, such as tutoring or neglect.
"A change in 20 points is a huge difference," said the team's senior researcher, Cathy Price, at the university's Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging. Indeed, it can mean the difference between being rated average and being labeled gifted—or, conversely, being categorized as sub-standard.
Enlarge Image
Nature, University College London
Researchers found that dramatic changes in verbal IQ corresponded to changes in an area of the brain associated with speech, whereas nonverbal IQ changes were related to an area involved in hand movements.
To better understand intelligence, Dr. Price and her colleagues studied 33 healthy English teenagers whose IQ scores initially ranged from 80 to 140. They tested the volunteers on standardized intelligence exams in 2004 and again in 2008, to encompass the peak years of their adolescence, while also monitoring subtle changes in brain structure using functional magnetic resonance imaging.
By analyzing verbal and nonverbal IQ performance separately, the researchers discovered that these fundamental facets of intelligence could change markedly, even in cases when an overall composite IQ score remained relatively constant.
"One fifth of them jumped one way or the other," Dr. Price said. One teenager's verbal IQ score rose from 120 at age 13 to 138 at age 17, while her nonverbal IQ dropped from 103 to a below-average score of 85. Another's verbal IQ soared from 104 to 127 in four years, while his nonverbal performance stayed the same.
The rise or fall in verbal IQ scores appeared to be connected to changes in an area of the brain associated with speech, whereas shifts in nonverbal IQ related to an area involved in motor control and hand movements.
In recent years, scientists have determined that experience can readily alter the brain, as networks of neural synapses bloom in response to activity or wither with disuse. Expert musicians, circus jugglers and London cab drivers studying maps—even Colombian guerillas learning to read—have all shown brain changes linked to practice, several brain imaging studies have reported.
Until now, though, researchers had considered general intelligence too basic to be affected by such relatively small neural adjustments. Dr. Price and her colleagues don't know what caused the changes in both the brain and the IQ scores they documented but speculated that they could be a consequence of learning experiences.
Several brain specialists said the brain changes could just as plausibly reflect the pace of normal growth, and the shifts in IQ scores could be due to people's inconsistent performance on tests.
The varying IQ scores could also indicate the test itself is flawed. "It could be a real index of how intelligence varies or it could suggest our measures of intelligence are so variable," said neuroimaging pioneer B.J. Casey at Cornell University's Weill Medical College, who wasn't involved in the study.
Even so, the size of the new study was too small to warrant broad conclusions about adolescence and learning, a time when the brain is normally in flux, experts said. Studies seeking the genetic origins of intelligence, for example, have encompassed thousands of test subjects across decades and still been unable to conclusively identify the genes that shape intelligence, said Dr. Plomin, the Kings College psychologist.
Other experts were confident the IQ variations were evidence of the neural impact of experience, for better or worse.
"An important aspect of the results is that cognitive abilities can increase or decrease," said Oklahoma State University psychometrician Robert Sternberg, who is a past president of the American Psychological Association and wasn't part of the study. "Those who are mentally active will likely benefit," he said. "The couch potatoes among us who do not exercise themselves intellectually will pay a price."
sábado, 30 de abril de 2011
Confianza
Principles to Remember
Do:
Be honest with yourself about what you know and what you still need to learn
Practice doing the things you are unsure about
Embrace new opportunities to prove you can do difficult things
Don't:
Focus excessively on whether you or not you have the ability - think instead about the value you provide
Hesitate to ask for external validation if you need it
Worry about what others think — focus on yourself, not a theoretical and judgmental audience
Do:
Be honest with yourself about what you know and what you still need to learn
Practice doing the things you are unsure about
Embrace new opportunities to prove you can do difficult things
Don't:
Focus excessively on whether you or not you have the ability - think instead about the value you provide
Hesitate to ask for external validation if you need it
Worry about what others think — focus on yourself, not a theoretical and judgmental audience
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