BLOG DO PROFESSOR ANTONIO CARLOS FRAQUELLI 2007-19

Porto Alegre, June 5th, 2020

Official time of the alley on Rua General João Manoel, 06h10, 15.4 degrees C, 98% humidity, rain

The prospect for the normalization of the economy is still in full doubt in my perception, but I surrender to the concern of European governments that it is possible to risk.    Or rather, that it is necessary to take a risk.   Risk what?   Risk how?

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I confess that I don’t have access to the models that epidemiologists work with.    So, it is difficult to imagine what the specifications of these mathematical models are like.    However, the question remains.    Risk what?   Risk how?    Risking lives?

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I look at the statistics, I look at the curves and confirm that the United States is way ahead.    Even so, Brazil looks like a formula 1.      It has a lot to do.    Among Europeans I believe they have reached the plateau.    And I recognize that it is a great achievement.

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India and Bangladesh seem to me that they still have a lot of track to cover.    And Mexico seems to be leaving the box and going to the track.     So there is still a lot to happen in the coming weeks and until the epidemic ends.

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Looking at country curves, I think the UK, Italy, Spain and France are on the plateau.   The United States and Russia do not have the plateau in sight, but have stopped having steep advances in their curves.  

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Although in the case of New York, the number of deaths reached a minimum level yesterday, the situation of the spread of the virus is diverse within the United States.    I read that there are 13 states in the same condition as New York.    There are even states that already show a reduction in the curve, but at the same time, there are 19 other states – among them Florida and Texas – that still show growth in the coronavirus.  

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Now Brazil, India and Bangladesh are showing frightening coronavirus increments.    Mexico also seems to me to be in that last group, but the proximity to the territory of the USA may mean some partnership, some joint solution.     Trump was a partner and benefited López Obrador when cutting oil production by assuming quota reductions that would fit PEMEX.    

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So, even though they reached the plateau, I think that European countries cannot claim that they have reached the end of the race.    It is impossible to imagine that if Formula 1 reached the plateau he will receive the flag.    I believe that the four countries – the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and France – have their peak assured, but what comes next is not a mathematical problem for lay people in health.

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Mathematicians could study the conditions of order of curves by countries.   These conditions allow the analyst to have a light on the concavity and convexity of the curves. 

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Statisticians could work with variables called dummy, artificial, which can only take the value zero or one, that is, which can show an effect that changes the result.    In this case, I tought in the classroom, the cases of war and peace, dry and full,  and we could have, now, the case of with pandemic and without pandemic.

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What seems critical to me in all my reasoning is the lack, still, of a clear understanding of the epidemic itself.    What is the nature of the coronavirus?   

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Is there a chance of transmutation?     I remember my time working at FEE, a Brazilian institution of economics and statistics, when I wrote about bird flu, influenza, the H5N1 influenza virus.    At that time, what was most talked about was the risk of transmutation.      This time, I don’t remember reading anyone talking about it. 

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I follow on radio and television about the “carriage ride” of the virus.     At this time, at 6:57 in the morning, CNN in the United States is discussing the coronavirus.    The other channels I have on SKY, BBC, Spanish, TV5 from France, Deutche Welle, RAI and NHK, are all dealing with the virus.     By the way, Japan’s NHK has English programming whenever the title is News Watch.    Later, at 9:00 am, the program News Watch 9 will air.

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European countries have created a tremendous bureaucracy to change the phase – Spain today moves from 2 to 3 – and the theme is recurrent in the regional media.     King Felipe VI is in a position of respect, in front of the television cameras, with a whole group of authorities present to pay homage to the victims of the coronavirus. 

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Last night I tuned the radio to three stations in Andorra, la Vieja .     I listened to Rádio Flaix And 93.8 FM, Rádio Andorra 1 96 FM and Rádio Montaillou Pyrénées 97.7 FM.    There was musical programming, but the health crisis was constantly being addressed.

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In addition to the concern with transmutation, there is a lot of movement on the streets of American cities because of the assassination of George Floyd.     Yesterday afternoon was the tenth consecutive day of protests.   This can spread, even more. the virus.

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I think the funerals in Houston on the June 8th will end the ongoing process, but Donald Trump has polarized and instability is likely to remain. 

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Trump spoke, and speaks, of Law and Order to his voters with attention focused on the November 3 elections. The protests rescued historic flags from the social movements of the 1960s and must not give in to Trump’s threats to use the army to end the demonstrations. 

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So far everything has gone relatively peacefully in the demonstrations, but I do not neglect the possibility of a return to police violence.    The moment is very tense.    It would be another multiplier for the expansion of the virus.

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Well, in closing, I started the text by focusing on the European case but migrated to the United States in search of an explanation of the nature of the coronavirus.    What worries me is the time to go back to school.    I see and agree with all the advances in studies and work at home, via computer.

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But there are still two problems.     Contagion on return to school can lead to a second outbreak of the virus.   The quality of education, in the short term, will not be the same when compared to face-to-face education.     The same is true for work, the home work. 

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Finally, I follow the return of people to the streets in Europe on television.    I see the happiness of children running around the plazas, however I also see the concern of adults with what comes next.

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Good morning, blog reader.    Here, the night was very rainy.    In the morning there was a very cold wind.    The day is gray.    But everything will get better, as Dr Pangloss would say.    I love the old lady of Taubaté from the brilliant Veríssimo.

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PHOTO BELOW: 

At the last Porto Alegre Book Fair I met my great friend Armindo Trevisan. He was my professor for a year at the School of Economics at the Federal University of Santa Maria, in 1964.

He was an incredible teacher. At the time, the UFSM Economics course was not yet federal, it belonged to the entity supporting the Marist Brothers. So there were two disciplines of a religious nature, Dogmatic Theology and Christian Social Doctrine, and Trevisan was responsible for the first. 

He knew a lot.   Too much of everything.    After the 60s I left Santa Maria and came to meet Armindo Trevisan in Porto Alegre, in the nineties, already as a poet and writer.     

At that point, I can only register that I had the honor of being his student within UFSM, the work of the magnanimous rector Mariano da Rocha. 

Porto Alegre, June 4, 2020

Opening hours of the alley on Rua General João Manoel, 12:11 pm, 16.4 degrees C, 87% humidity, sun at will

I start Thursday surfing the behavior of the S&P 500 index in the last twelve months.    Where are we after so much instability?   

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On June 4, 2019 the index value was 2,803.27 points.    He advanced to 3,386.15 points on 19.02.2020.   That was the previous trajectory.    Then came the coronavirus crisis.    The index retreated to 2,23740 on March 23, 2020. Yesterday, he ended Wednesday at 3,122.87 points on 03.06.2020.   It does not have the shape of a letter N, but it is close to the shape of the same letter.   Slightly inclined.

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That’s what matters, blog reader, and we are talked.   The rest is futurology.    We are at sea and there is no land in sight.   The instruments failed and the sky is closed.    At one time or another and I will see Crux, and I get the minotaur.    I am not Theseus, nor have I found Ariadne.     I am armed because I always carry a roll of string with me.    My problem is if it appears as a steak.     I have been a vegetarian for 45 years. 

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I always liked math.     In the United States, in addition to training in Economics, I took a dozen subjects in quantitative methods.     From the Statistics department to the Engineering department, I felt the coexistence with the peaks of doubt.     My anxiety was often to clarify whether my mental S&P 500 was taking off or entering traffic for landing. 

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Econometrics was my target.    In the course of the shooting I met extraordinary teachers, consulted unimaginable libraries, lived with very intelligent colleagues and used equipment recently made available.    It was a wonderful life.    I believe that I will never find an equal environment.   

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My mental S&P 500 went up when I received an invitation to work at the Space Research Institute (Brazil).     I was still in the USA, I was very honored, I kept the correspondence with great affection, but, I confess, there is no vaccine to stop being a teacher.     And I embarked on my career until the end. 

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Today, in the face of the behavior of the New York Stock Exchange, I follow others who have econometrics as their target.    And I try to be attentive to what they say.     The problem is that in the middle there is information that yesterday the United States registered over 20 thousand cases of coronavirus.    Then the analysis loses focus and the target becomes unattainable.

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And when the coronavirus comes into focus, it drops everything.     From my analysis of the New York stock exchange to my reflection as a professor of econometrics.    And the matter comes back to Trump and his race for the November 3 election.    The picture started to converge on Joe Biden when George Floyd was asphyxiated and the movement against police violence broke out

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The confrontation between what I see all evening on American city streets and President Donald Trump’s Law and Order speech did not stop the S&P 500 from moving forward at 0.82 & on Wednesday.    The movement against racism has been unprecedented since Martin Luther King, this in 1968.    In parallel with the advance of the index since the floor of 2.23740, on 23.03.2020, it seems that the peak of 3.386.15 points of 19.02.2020 appears.

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And from there, beyond?    More movement and more pricing?    Would this be the path to normalization?   I think it’s a little early for any speculation.    I have written little about what I think of the phase that will succeed the one that used the innovation wildcard.    

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Korea led the innovation race for five straight years.   The litany was repeated wherever I went.    The United States was in the eleventh position,   China was in the 19th position and Brazil, beyond the 80th.    And so, Johns Hopkins counts today 6,538,486 of infected and on the verge of 400 thousand deaths.

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Digital resilience has allowed Korea to count 11,629 infected and 273 deaths as of this Thursday.    It is the idea that innovation, in its digital version, faces the disease.     Really, the smart city responded to the coronavirus. What is regrettable, however, is that a digitized country has not yet reached the vaccine.  

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Korea stopped at PIPA law.   The  Personal Information Protection Act will be the number one item on the agenda to come.    What modeling will be adopted?    What information will be used?    How many, around the world, will continue to spread the virtues and ignore attitudes?    What an error of course that was in the speech!

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In the meantime, reader friend, the movement on the streets continues, prices on the stock exchange continue, the race for the White House continues, but the world will never be the same.    South Korea say so! 

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Good morning, blog reader!

PHOTO BELOW:

Reader friend, the photo below is not from Sant’Ana, Brazil, my hometown in the 1920s.     Much less Cacequi, Brazil, with its splendid Railroad Station where I had the best soup in the world in the 1950s.    The city in the photo is Fairbanks .   It was summer. 

That’s right.    The city of photography is Fairbanks, the second city in Alaska, in a photo I took from the plane when it was going to the final stretch of the airport, in 1974.     It had 14,711 inhabitants in 1970.    The largest city is called Anchorage which had 48,041 inhabitants at the same time. 

I listen to Radio KFAR 660 AM from there every night.     It is a way to keep me updated with what happens in the other hemisphere.      The electronic address is    https://www.radios.com.br/aovivo/kfar-660-am/1149

On SKY, channel 70, channel Discovery, there are three programs on Alaska that show all kinds of adversity.    One deals with the pilot’s vision of the plane, another deals with living on the roads and a third concerns a family who lives in the countryside.

The Great Alaskan Family (channel 70) will air starting at 1:15 pm today and repeats on June 7, at 2:00 pm.     Dr. Dee, a veterinarian, (Channel 71) will air on 06.06, Saturday, at 07.00.      The Alaska Construction program will be presented on Sunday, June 7, at 10:45 am.      The Remote Constructions program will take place on June 7th, starting at 12:30 pm.

But there is more, much more, but it takes some patience to start this virtual journey through the largest state in the USA. 

You see, reader, that today Alaska has only 731 thousand inhabitants.     São José dos Campos, the city where the Space Research Institute is located and which I could have been living with if I had accepted the invitation, in 1974, has a population of 713 thousand inhabitants.  

Try tuning in to the KFAR 660 AM radio now.     Spoken english is understandable for a Brazilian and the American economy is always in focus.    Check out!

Porto Alegre, June 2, 2020

Opening hours of the alley of Rua General João Manoel, 06h10, 9 degrees C, 81% humidity, no rain 

I make a tour of the Asian newspapers and stop in a headline in the Japan Times today. She reports that corporate profits in the first quarter saw the biggest drops since the 2009 crisis, the fall of 2009.   It is the coronavirus crisis leaving its record in the land of the rising sun.  

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As I write this post, I am remembering the first day that I arrived in Tokyo to take a Planning Course sponsored by the Government of Japan. I was a fellow at the Overseas Technical Cooperation Agency (ACTO) and participated in a class with economists from different countries. countries of the world.   

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Because on the first day at ACTO I went to lunch at a restaurant that was on site. The place was large and crowded. There was a large china cabinet at the entrance, with dishes served, I imagine they were plastic copies, where there was every possibility for the visitor to be served. We went with the waiter to the cabinet and pointed out each of the desired foods.  

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An hour later I remember that one of the colleagues suggested that we go to the lobby because he wanted to smoke a cigarette. We left the packed hall and arrived at the crowded hall. The smoker looked at us, smiled and invited everyone to go to the street. When we arrived on the sidewalk in front of the building there was a crowd.   

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That is, wherever we went, there were a lot of people. I remember that I thought there was a Brazil within a Rio Grande do Sul. In these conditions it couldn’t be different. When the crisis in Wuhan came up, the first idea that came to mind was the difficulty that Japan would have in living with the virus.

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I access the Johns Hopkins scoreboard and realize that Japan has 1 6,786 infected, practically equal to the number in Argentina, and 899 deaths, 350 more cases than in the country of Alberto Fernández. I heard interviews with Brazilian infectologists that in the cases of Japan and Korea there were widespread tests and this should explain the reduced number of victims although the territory is very small 

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Although Shinzo Abe’s government controlled the epidemic, economic activities were strongly impacted by the current crisis. GDP that had grown 0.7% in 2019 is expected to decline -5.2% in 2020 according to the April edition of the World Economic Outlook, (WEO), the World Economic Outlook of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

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Japan’s economic stability figures are surfacing a traditional problem in the local environment. I remember my time as a teacher when I heard those responsible for the Bank of Japan or the Treasury express their perceptions of extreme optimism when “some inflation was assured” .

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Now, for inflation to traditional recipes; for deflation, no. So, there was a permanent “dating” with an expectation of some price increase. For last year, 2019, the CPI stood at 0.5% and for the current year, 2020, the forecast is for an increase of only 0.2%.

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This predicted behavior is the result of living with the coronavirus crisis. A drop in Gross Domestic Product of -5.2% and the Consumer Price Index stabilized at 0.2% in the current year. The economy is reversing and prices do not react in 2020.  

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In this scenario and before taxation, Japanese companies that are followed up in studies by the Ministry of Finance, recorded profits of 15.14 trillion yen, equivalent to US $ 140 billion, which meant a 32% decrease compared to the period similar to the previous year. There were four consecutive quarterly declines.

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Now, this drop, according to the Japan Times edition, is only equivalent to that which occurred between July and September 2009, the year of the Great World Recession, and which reached the level of -32.4%.

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Good morning blog reader!

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PHOTO BELOW:

In the photo I took in 1974, the person on the right was Mr. K. Kato, coordinator of the Planning course, and the one on the left is economist Darlan Conte, a technician at the Regional Economic Development Bank (BRDE) and my colleague and also a fellow, at the time of his stay in Tokyo.  

The picture shows the Japan Planning Agency’s computer room. I needed permission to take the photo. Mr. Kato has a blue magazine with a graphic on the cover, which is the Japanese publication equivalent to the Economic Situation of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation.

The publication statistics were used in the classroom and I still have a copy of the magazine that appears in the photograph. The red dot represents the loss of photo quality after almost 50 years. 

Porto Alegre, 31 de mayo de 2020

Hora oficial del callejón en la Rua General João Manoel, 18h11, 17.0 grados C, 44% de humedad, llovió todo el domingo

Estados Unidos reina sobre la crisis del coronavirus. De hecho, cuando el país organizó el lanzamiento de dos astronautas en la nave espacial Crew Dragon a la Estación Espacial Internacional, en medio de huracanes cerca de Cabo Cañaveral, el epicentro del coronavirus ya había migrado al continente americano. 

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Abro el marcador Johns Hopkins y confirmo que hay 6.025.960 infectados en el mundo. Hay 1.771.224 en los Estados Unidos y 498.440 en Brasil. El resto de los países vienen después. En muertes, hay 103.815 en los Estados Unidos y 28.384 en Brasil. Aquí, Brasil ocupa el cuarto lugar, pero en el piso del carro es cuestión de tiempo para un acercamiento más cercano con el país líder del grupo.

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Me siento en el cine viendo una película de ficción. En la pantalla, una depresión económica. Mis lecciones de los últimos cincuenta años sobre la crisis de 1929 se convirtieron en un hecho del siglo pasado. Ahora, la realidad es diferente. 

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En la película, en medio de los últimos intentos fallidos de innovación, el infecólogo principal no puede alcanzar la vacuna. Atento a las imágenes, apoyo al infectólogo, pero el subgrupo de innovación simplemente no puede obtener el resultado esperado.   

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Thony Alfauci, el director de la película, creó un grupo de ficción para inventar medicamentos, pero nada. Cuando sale del laboratorio, el infecólogo principal pasa por las instalaciones de las empresas que se han declarado en quiebra, en las sucursales bancarias donde hay señales que indican que el crédito solo estará disponible desde allí durante tres días.   

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En el periódico, el titular muestra líneas de personas desempleadas en un período de reducción parcial del aislamiento. Hay carteles, de los populares que piden comida. Hay más comida escrita en el plato que pasa frente a la cámara.   

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La estadística que importa es el nivel de producción. El coronavirus no da un descanso, pero es necesario invertir en la creación de uno nuevo mañana. La controversia entre preservar vidas y encontrar trabajo son aguas pasadas. Ahora, el desafío es diferente.  

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En el editorial del periódico, el infecólogo jefe lee sobre cuestiones básicas de economía. En el mundo hay dudas sobre las inversiones y los gastos futuros. ¿El nuevo perfil llegó para quedarse? ¿Por cuánto tiempo? La economía que era, se quedó. La normalización esperada permanece en espera. 

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Los textos básicos de la experiencia secular se cargaron en los archivos de la biblioteca de Alejandría.   Los bibliotecarios locales se quejan. El historial de Alexandrina está casi lleno. Argumentan que el enfoque local es diferente. ¿Hacer lo que?  Es una historia así, Abdul Fatah Khalil Al-Sisi quiere complacer y no hay nada de qué quejarse.

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A medida que las víctimas del coronavirus se estabilizaron en el piso, los negocios parecen haber reabierto como si fuera el final de una guerra. La diferencia es que la infraestructura permanece en pie. No había tierra quemada. La naturaleza habría preservado el trabajo del pasado y solo habría cobrado vidas humanas en todos los lados de las trincheras.

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Al final, el PIB de EE. UU. Cayó un 4,8% en el primer trimestre. No hay sorpresa a la vista. La tasa anualizada en el segundo trimestre será un horror. La caída en la tasa anualizada en la última crisis, la de 2018-19, cayó un -8.2% en el cuarto trimestre de 2018, pero esta tasa puede multiplicarse por cuatro cuando el NBER publica los datos en sus tres versiones, un inicial, dos más revisados.

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Por ahora, todo se ha jugado para Donald Trump. En la segunda quincena de marzo, la aprobación del presidente aumentó al 45,4% del público consultado por FiveThirtyEight. Recuerdo haber escrito una publicación porque fue una reacción del presidente, ya que los demócratas habían elegido entre Joe Biden y Bernie Sanders.

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Aunque simpatizaba con la administración, consideré que, en condiciones normales, Biden y Sanders no eran oponentes de Trump. Luego, Estados Unidos se volcó con el coronavirus. Y Trump comenzó a vivir con otro oponente, más joven y sin las mismas pretensiones políticas que Joe Biden.

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Allí, el gobernador Andrew Cuomo, de Nueva York, comenzó a enfrentar a Donald Trump, en una controversia “a los devas”, diariamente con la Casa Blanca. La popularidad del presidente volvió a caer. Del 45.4% de preferencia, el nuevo índice mostró 42.6% el 18 de abril. 

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He estado siguiendo la forma en que Trump se comporta en público. Lo vi, por televisión, en Cabo Cañaveral en el intento fallido de la cápsula, el miércoles, y lo volví a ver cuando llegó al mismo lugar, al lado de Melania, ayer por la tarde. El presidente parece que la popularidad no se ha retirado.

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La situación estadounidense parece vivir con las caídas más abruptas posibles, pero es necesario reconocer que las autoridades y los agentes económicos reaccionan de inmediato. Además, los recursos llegan a su destino final. 

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Mientras tanto, Trump actúa contra empresas locales que interactúan con China. Es una verdadera pulga en la camisa de los Fondos que asigna recursos en empresas chinas. Al mismo tiempo, las alertas a las empresas locales de los posibles efectos de las acciones de piratas informáticos chinos son una acción recurrente en el país.

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Los medios han publicitado la nueva configuración de Hong Kong con la seguridad de China. Las patrullas estadounidenses están llegando a la costa de Malasia. Trump parece ignorar el discurso de Xi de un monopolio sobre las relaciones económicas que involucran petróleo en el Mar del Sur de China.

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Trump le dio la espalda a la Organización Mundial de Comercio y a la Organización Mundial de la Salud. Ciertamente, otras organizaciones que el presidente acusa de financiarse con dinero estadounidense están en la mira. Especialmente aquellos que predican una agenda sostenible, que es lo que los europeos predican para la reanudación de las actividades económicas.

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Creo que la Organización Meteorológica Mundial puede estar entre las siguientes en recibir críticas de Donald Trump. El coronavirus ha dado un impulso a los niveles de emisión de carbono. La comunidad internacional trabaja con una caída del 6.0% de 2019 a 2020. La agenda sostenible debe ser apoyada desde allí. Trump ciertamente estará en contra de eso.

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Finalmente, una palabra sobre precificación.   La aversión al riesgo sigue al choque entre Estados Unidos y China. Hay horas de precaución asociadas con la decisión de Xi de imponer una ley de seguridad en Hong Kong. La contraparte debía reconocer que había una pérdida de autonomía y una posible revocación de los acuerdos comerciales. Las cifras del mercado laboral en términos de reclamos de seguros se han ralentizado, pero es probable que las cifras de mayo impresionen, tanto en seguros como en tasas de desempleo. …

Buenas noches lector de blog. Día muy lluvioso en Porto Alegre.

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FOTO ABAJO:

La imagen es de San Sebastián, en la frontera de España con Francia, en una foto de 1969. Este viaje temprano en automóvil que hice por países europeos fue el primer día de temperatura agradable que encontré durante el viaje.

Escribí en una publicación anterior que quería conocerte porque era parte del País Vasco. Encontré una ciudad maravillosa. Había playas porque está cerca de Baia da Concha. El acceso a la ciudad era a través de paredes con muchos escudos y escudos de armas en las entradas. 

Desde la secundaria en mi ciudad natal, escuché sobre la organización armada que estaba en el país, recuerdo las imágenes de ETA,  Euskadi Ta Askatasuna,   en las páginas de O Cruzeiro. Tuve dificultades para comprender cómo se desarrollaba el proceso en torno a las actividades del grupo armado.

En ese momento, como estudiante, también escuchaba en la radio y leía en los periódicos acerca del IRA, el Ejército Repulicano Irlandés, el Ejército Republicano Irlandés, un ejército paramilitar católico. Al enterarme de la información, me pregunté cómo, siendo católica, practicaba todo lo que mostraban las imágenes en nombre de la separación del Reino Unido de una parte de Irlanda.

Fue difícil entender las actividades de IRA (1919)   y ETA (1959) en mi adolescencia. Sin embargo, ambos estaban sistemáticamente en las páginas de los periódicos. 

Bueno, pero aparte de todo lo que sabía cuando era menor, lo que importaba en ese momento, 1969, era que estaba en San Sebastián, en el País Vasco, al lado del Golfo de Vizcaya. Y todo parecía extremadamente moderno. Las avenidas estaban llenas de turistas. Todo muy diferente de lo que había visto hasta ahora en España.