Convocatoria de Hablemos Press

Leonila Hernández (Nila), esposa del actor cubano residente en Estados Unidos Tony Cortes, quien permanece detenida desde el 12 de octubre en los calabozos de Villa Marista, Sede de la Seguridad del Estado cubana, cumplirá el sabado un mes de detenida, ese día hagamos una parada y publiquemos esta foto en todos los blog y sitios ademas de poner mensajes en las redes sociales EXIGIMOS SU LIBERTAD YA.

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Firma por la Libertad y los Derechos Humanos en Cuba.

Contra las cuerdas de nuestra propia deuda. Juan Ramón Rallo

824.494 millones de euros: ésa es la cifra de deuda pública italiana que posee el resto del mundo. No conozco ningún desglose de qué países poseen todo esa montaña de activos tóxicos, pero sí es sabido que la banca francesa –fondos de inversión y de pensiones al margen– está expuesta, al menos, a algo más de 100.000 millones. Por su parte, el conservador sistema financiero italiano ha adquirido alrededor de 855.000 millones de euros, cifra muy superior a los 383.000 millones con los que cuenta para absorber pérdidas. Pero lo peor llega cuando tenemos en cuenta que los vencimientos de esa deuda pública para el año que viene ascienden a 325.000 millones, a lo que habría que sumar otros 75.000 para financiar el déficit de 2012.

[...]

[V]eo cinco posibles salidas, a cada cual peor.

Primero, puesta en marcha inmediata del Fondo Europeo de Rescate con participación muy intensa del FMI (es decir, de EEUU y China). Segundo, aprobación de los eurobonos, lo que significa que las emisiones de los países insolventes quedan avaladas por las de los países que todavía guardan algo de crédito. Tercera, monetización masiva de deuda por parte del Banco Central Europeo, lo que equivaldría a diluir el valor de la divisa para aliviar transitoriamente a los deudores en dificultades. Cuarta, ruptura del euro en dos monedas: un euro fuerte –en el que estarían Alemania, Holanda, Finlandia, Austria, Luxemburgo y tal vez Francia– y un euro débil que incluyera a todos los periféricos –y tal vez Francia– que se devaluara entre un 30% o 40% con respecto al euro fuerte. Y quinta, suspensión de pagos desordenada de países y regreso a las divisas nacionales con sus correspondientes devaluaciones.

[...]


Pregunta sencilla: si los políticos europeos han sido lo suficientemente insensatos como para permitir que la solvencia de sus países se pudriera hasta este punto, ¿qué camino creen que tomarán a partir de ahora?


Leer completo en la Página Personal de Juan Ramón Rallo.

Por qué nos engañamos. Eduardo Robredo Zugasti

Si (como Dawkins argumenta) el engaño es fundamental en la comunicación animal, entonces debe existir una fuerte selección para detectar el engaño y esto, a su vez, debió seleccionar el autoegaño en algun grado, relegando algunos hechos y motivaciones al inconsciente para impedir que traicionaran -mediante los sutiles signos del autoconocimiento- el engaño que estaba teniendo lugar. En consecuencia, el punto de vista convencional de que la selección natural favorece sistemas nerviosos capaces de producir imágenes cada vez más adecuadas del mundo debe ser un punto de vista muy naïve de la evolución mental.

– Robert Trivers (en el prólogo a El gen egoísta de Richard Dawkins)

Robert Trivers (universidad de Rutgers), conocido por sus trabajos sobre la evolución del altruísmo, y William Von Hippel (universidad de Queensland), un psicólogo evolucionista, han publicado recientemente un penetrante y controvertido artículo sobre la evolución del autoengaño [PDF]. A diferencia de la visión tradicional en la psicología, que veía en el autoengaño una estrategia defensiva de las personas en el contexto de un mundo hostil, Trivers y Von Hippel han decidido explorar el aspecto interpersonal del autoengaño, sugiriendo que el autoengaño podría ser una estrategia ofensiva social que habría evolucionado con el objetivo de engañar a los demás. Desde la perspectiva de la evolución humana, el autoengaño podría verse como una especie de entrenamiento individual cognitivo que nos capacita para poder engañar mejor a los demás y obtener así mayor éxito social.

Seguir leyendo en Tercera Cultura.

I Was Wrong, and So Are You. Daniel Klein

BACK IN JUNE 2010, I published a Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that the American left was unenlightened, by and large, as to economic matters. Responding to a set of survey questions that tested people’s real-world understanding of basic economic principles, self-identified progressives and liberals did much worse than conservatives and libertarians, I reported. To sharpen the ax, The Journal titled the piece “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?”—the implication being that people on the left were not.

The op-ed set off fireworks. On The Journal’s Web site, the piece peaked at No.2 in most-e-mailed for the month it was published. The Examiner, in Washington, D.C., ran two opinion pieces in response, one approving and one critical. (The latter noted, correctly, that conservatives were “happily disseminating the results across the right-wing blogosphere.”) The Washington Times reported, “Liberals Livid Over Economic Enlightenment Gauge.” My inbox exploded with messages haranguing me for cynically rigging my results or blessing me for providing proof of a long-suspected truth.

The Wall Street Journal piece was based on an article that Zeljka Buturovic and I had published in Econ Journal Watch, a journal that I edit. In short order, more than 10,000 people downloaded a PDF of the scholarly article. The attention, while slightly unnerving, was also pleasing, and I’ll confess that I found the study results congenial: I’m a libertarian, and I found it easy to believe that people on the left had an especially bad grasp of economics.

But one year later, in May 2011, Buturovic and I published a new scholarly article reporting on a new survey. It turned out that I needed to retract the conclusions I’d trumpeted in The Wall Street Journal. The new results invalidated our original result: under the right circumstances, conservatives and libertarians were as likely as anyone on the left to give wrong answers to economic questions. The proper inference from our work is not that one group is more enlightened, or less. It’s that “myside bias”—the tendency to judge a statement according to how conveniently it fits with one’s settled position—is pervasive among all of America’s political groups. The bias is seen in the data, and in my actions.


Read full in The Atlantic.

The Real "1 Percent". Michael D. Tanner

So just who are those top 1 percent of Americans that we're all supposed to hate?

If you listen to President Obama, the protesters at Occupy Wall Street, and much of the media, it's obvious. They're either "trust-fund babies" who inherited their money, or greedy bankers and hedge-fund managers. Certainly, they haven't worked especially hard for their money. While the recession has thrown millions of Americans out of work, they've been getting even richer. Worse, they don't even pay their fair share in taxes: Millionaires and billionaires are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries.

In reality, each of these stereotypes is wrong.


Roughly 80 percent of millionaires in America are the first generation of their family to be rich. They didn't inherit their wealth; they earned it. How? According to a recent survey of the top 1 percent of American earners, slightly less than 14 percent were involved in banking or finance.

Roughly a third were entrepreneurs or managers of nonfinancial businesses. Nearly 16 percent were doctors or other medical professionals.

Lawyers made up slightly more than 8 percent, and engineers, scientists and computer professionals another 6.6 percent.

Sports and entertainment figures — the folks flying in on their private jets to express solidarity with Occupy Wall Street — composed almost 2 percent.

By and large, the wealthy have worked hard for their money. NYU sociologist Dalton Conley says that "higher-income folks work more hours than lower-wage earners do."

Because so much of their income is tied up in investments, the recession has hit the rich especially hard. Much attention has been paid recently to a Congressional Budget Office study that showed incomes for the top 1 percent rose far faster from 1980 until 2007 than for the rest of us. But the nonpartisan Tax Foundation has found that since 2007, there has been a 39 percent decline in the number of American millionaires.

Among the "super-rich," the decline has been even sharper: The number of Americans earning more than $10 million a year has fallen by 55 percent. In fact, while in 2008 the top 1 percent earned 20 percent of all income here, that figure has declined to just 16 percent. Inequality in America is declining.

As for not paying their fair share, the top 1 percent pay 36.7 percent of all federal income taxes. Because, as noted above, they earn just 16 percent of all income, that certainly seems like more than a fair share.


Read full in Cato Institute.