A lucid and funny article on performance reviews by Lucy Kellaway, at the Financial Times:

Over the past 30 years, I have been appraised three dozen times – as banker, journalist and non-executive director. […] But never have I learnt anything about myself as a result. I have never set any target that I subsequently hit. […] The resulting form is then put on file, making you feel vaguely paranoid, even though you know from experience how much attention will be subsequently paid to it: none whatsoever. […]

The most sinister thing about the current system is that it allows managers to delude themselves into thinking that they are managing their people.

With this delusion stripped away, some managers might take matters into their own hands. They might even start saying “that’s good” and “that’s not so good” at the only helpful time to say such things: when they have just happened. This sort of thing is called managing, and the beauty of it is that it makes formal appraisals quite unnecessary.

Ideas radicales, hoy en el FT:

I am attracted to Professor Martin Feldstein’s idea (Financial Times, February 17) of a temporary euro exit for Greece followed by re-entry at 20 or 30 per cent below the present level. But if that occurred there might not be a euro to rejoin. So it is a last resort. There is an alternative to try first, which might be called an internal devaluation. When Margaret Thatcher was struggling to wean her colleagues from pay and price controls she at one stage considered a compromise: a temporary wage freeze – in an emergency – after which normal negotiating procedures would be restored. In the case of Greece today it would have to be not just a freeze, but a negotiated reduction in nominal wages. Such a course would cut against Greece’s fiercely independent habits and traditions. But surprises can always occur.

Finally, an offbeat idea which is not an alternative to the others, but can run alongside. Countries in the Middle Ages often operated with two or more currencies: an international one such as the ducat or florin, and local currencies with more restricted use. Could not such a local currency, whether or not called the drachma, emerge in this way with or without the sanction of the Greek government? It would surely be better than being crucified by the international financiers.

Un artículo muy divertido sobre la crisis en Grecia:

Greece is a country with rich, underlevereaged savers, underleveraged corporates and a healthy banking system whose government happens to have borrowed a hell of a lot of money. But the world has grounds to be scared: with rates at 5% and government debt comfortably above 100% of GDP, servicing that debt costs 6% of GDP at the moment. GDP growth, in the meantime has not touched 6% nominal in a long, long time.

So here's the deal: No matter what happens, the debt is now at a level where its growth has reached escape velocity. Even if Greece were to run zero deficit, ultimately we are heading to default. We can default now or we can default later. Is that a big deal? Frankly, no. 75% of the debt, probably more, is held externally. If JGBs fail to pay coupon, that's a disaster for Japan, since 95% are held domestically. If GGBs fail to pay coupon, it's far less catastrophic. For the debt-deflation spiral to start, you need the debt to be internal.

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences, a classic article by Eugene Wigner:

The first point is that mathematical concepts turn up in entirely unexpected connections. Moreover, they often permit an unexpectedly close and accurate description of the phenomena in these connections. Secondly, just because of this circumstance, and because we do not understand the reasons of their usefulness, we cannot know whether a theory formulated in terms of mathematical concepts is uniquely appropriate. We are in a position similar to that of a man who was provided with a bunch of keys and who, having to open several doors in succession, always hit on the right key on the first or second trial. He became skeptical concerning the uniqueness of the coordination between keys and doors.

Punteros a algunos de los artículos de análisis publicados últimamente sobre Europa, España y Grecia:

• Old Spanish practices (Economist 2010-01-07 Thu), sobre la presidencia Española:

Editorials across the EU have mocked the idea of Mr Zapatero advising Europe on economic recovery. (…) The European Union, a bunch of midsized powers with lots of ideas about how the world should run its affairs—notably over climate change and financial regulation—should ponder Spain’s lesson. If you want your advice to be heeded, you need something credible to say.

• The pain in Spain (Krugman 2010-01-19 Tue), sobre la pobre productividad del país:

So what can Spain do? It needs to become more competitive — but it can’t have a devaluation, because it’s a euro country. So the only alternative is wage cuts, which are desperately hard to achieve (and create big problems for debtors.)

• Fiscalizing Failure (Krugman 2010-02-02 Tue), argumenta que los problemas en España no son debidos a irresponsabilidad fiscal del gobierno:

If you read much of what’s being said these days by respectable people, you’d believe that deficits are always and everywhere the main source of economic problems. But, you know, that’s not really true. […] The biggest trouble spot isn’t Greece, it’s Spain — which was running budget surpluses just a few years ago. True, Spain is running big deficits now — but that’s because of its economic collapse. And underlying that collapse is the real problem with the euro: one-size-fits-all monetary policy, which offers no relief to countries that suffer adverse shocks.

• The Spanish Tragedy (Krugman 2010-02-05 Fri):

As Europe is roiled by sovereign debt fears, it’s important to realize that the crisis in the largest of the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) has nothing to do with fiscal irresponsibility. On the eve of the crisis, Spain was running a budget surplus; its debts, as you can see in the figure above, were low relative to GDP.

So what happened? Spain is an object lesson in the problems of having monetary union without fiscal and labor market integration. First, there was a huge boom in Spain, largely driven by a housing bubble — and financed by capital outflows from Germany. This boom pulled up Spanish wages. Then the bubble burst, leaving Spanish labor overpriced relative to Germany and France, and precipitating a surge in unemployment. It also led to large Spanish budget deficits, mainly because of collapsing revenue but also due to efforts to limit the rise in unemployment.

• Know your deficits (Krugman 2010-02-07 Sun):

Until the crisis hit, Spain to all appearances was highly responsible on the fiscal front — more so than Germany. The surge in deficits since then reflects the bursting real estate bubble and the lack, under the euro, of any way short of prolonged, grinding deflation for Spain to get its costs in line.

• Euro perspective (Krugman 2010-02-08 Mon), tamaño relativo de las economías de los países en problemas en la Unión Europea.

Spain’s story does not at all fit the story about sustained fiscal irresponsibility leading to inevitable crisis. The budget was in good shape until the crisis hit; the problem was rising costs in the face of huge capital inflows, and no easy way to adjust now given the common currency.

• Anatomy of a euromess (Krugman 2010-02-09 Tue) es un excelente resumen de cómo hemos llegado hasta aquí, explicado en castellano por un servidor:

So, whose fault is all this? Nobody’s, in one sense. In another sense, Europe’s policy elite bears the responsibility: it pushed hard for the single currency, brushing off warnings that exactly this sort of thing might happen (although, as I said, even euroskeptics never imagined it would be this bad).

Am I calling, then, for breakup of the euro. No: the costs of undoing the thing would be immense and hugely disruptive. I think Europe is now stuck with this creation, and needs to move as quickly as possible toward the kind of fiscal and labor market integration that would make it more workable.

• Greek troubles are more than fiscal (Krugman 2010-02-11 Thu):

Right now all the focus is on the budget, which is the action-forcing event. But Greece, like Spain, experienced a large real appreciation during the years of bubble finance — and now it faces a prolonged era of grinding deflation as it works its way back to competitive costs.

Esclarecedor análisis histórico de Paul Krugman sobre la economía y los economistas:

As I see it, the economics profession went astray because economists, as a group, mistook beauty, clad in impressive-looking mathematics, for truth. Until the Great Depression, most economists clung to a vision of capitalism as a perfect or nearly perfect system. That vision wasn’t sustainable in the face of mass unemployment, but as memories of the Depression faded, economists fell back in love with the old, idealized vision of an economy in which rational individuals interact in perfect markets, this time gussied up with fancy equations. The renewed romance with the idealized market was, to be sure, partly a response to shifting political winds, partly a response to financial incentives. But while sabbaticals at the Hoover Institution and job opportunities on Wall Street are nothing to sneeze at, the central cause of the profession’s failure was the desire for an all-encompassing, intellectually elegant approach that also gave economists a chance to show off their mathematical prowess.

The sick men of Europe:

Spain was once a rich source of internal euro-area demand but its consumers are now weighed down by debts accumulated during a long housing boom. The unemployment rate is perilously close to 20% and its rigid jobs markets mean it is unlikely to come down soon. Bond-market pressures mean Spain's government is having to withdraw some of its support to the economy sooner than it would like. The wonder is that Spain is not in a deeper funk. GDP fell by 3.1% in the year to the fourth quarter, not much worse than in Germany.

Hoy Google ha anunciado Google Chart Tools, integrando herramientas previas y dándoles un interfaz de usuario común. He estado experimentando con ellas, y con los datos históricos de temperatura, para publicar un gráfico de las temperaturas en Madrid desde 1853. El veredicto: sencillo y funciona estupendamente. Es difícil no seguir aumentando la dependencia de google.

Y si alguien te dice que este año hace frío recuérdale que la media de temperatura del mes de enero de 1870 fue de 1.6 grados.

Paul Krugman ha publicado hoy un análisis resumido de los problemas de la economía española que me parece de lectura imprescindible para entender cómo nos hemos metido en el berenjenal en el que estamos. Resumiendo e interpretando:

1. Alrededor de 2000 se disparan los precios de los pisos. Los precios no suben porque la gente necesite más pisos, ni porque los pisos ofrezcan más valor, sino porque mucha gente piensa que van a seguir subiendo. Es una situación inestable que depende de que la gente siga creyendo que la subida va a seguir, por eso se le llama burbuja.
2. La subida de los inmuebles hace que entren cantidades ingentes de capital extranjero. La balanza por cuenta corriente pasa de un -4% del PNB en el año 2000 a un -10% en el año 2007. Ésta es la diferencia entre lo que el país vende al extranjero y lo que compra, que tiene que financiar pidiendo prestado.
3. Hay mucho dinero en España. Literalmente: como se supone que el piso vale mucho la gente lo usa como colateral para comprarse el Cayenne, que se acaba financiando con préstamos del extranjero. También hay dinero que entra directamente para pagar activos inmobiliarios. Como hay más dinero la gente quiere comprar más cosas y sube la demanda, pero como la oferta no sube tan rápido tienen que subir los precios.
4. Tanto los precios como los salarios suben un 30% durante la década. Durante el mismo periodo los salarios en Alemania se mantienen constantes (fuente OECD, Unit Labor Cost total economy).
5. Cuando estalla la burbuja nos encontramos de golpe con mucho menos dinero: ya no se puede uno comprar el Cayenne con un préstamo contra el piso, y el mercado inmobiliario español deja de ser apetitoso para los extranjeros. Como no hay dinero cae la demanda y sobra oferta, tanto interna como externa. Empieza a bajar el déficit de la balanza por cuenta corriente (compramos menos al exterior) y aumenta el paro.
6. Los sueldos son un 30% mayores que cuando empezó la fiesta, pero el PNB por cápita solamente ha subido un 7% (fuente: IMF). Según muchos analistas cuando hayamos borrado del todo el efecto de la burbuja encontraremos que el PNB por cápita no ha subido nada en más de una década. O sea: no creamos más riqueza por persona que hace diez años, pero somos un 30% más caros. Eso nos hace mucho menos competitivos que antes.
7. Los altos precios hacen que sea más difícil vender en el exterior. También nos hacen mucho menos atractivos como destino turístico.

El pronóstico es malo. Van a tener que bajar los precios y los salarios y no va a bajar el paro. Esto va para largo.

Con la exuberancia de comentarios desencadenados por el anuncio del iPad están saliendo análisis muy interesantes y números a tener en cuenta (vienen del Financial Times):

At issue is a shift from the wholesale method of selling books, to the “agency” model. [Currently,] Macmillan and other publishers offer Amazon their e-books at 50 per cent of the hardcover price, then allow Amazon to sell them for whatever price it chooses. Around $9.99

This, critics say, has devalued the e-book, conditioning consumers to pay too little and jeopardising the publishing industry in the long term.

Under the agency model, the publisher sets the price for e-books and takes 70 per cent of the sale, giving 30 per cent to the retailer.

Apple is reported to have adopted the agency model with the five publishers it has initially signed up – HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Macmillan, Simon & Schuster and Penguin.

Esto es lo que pensaba al respecto antes de la introducción del iPad alguien que conoce la industria editorial:

The “agency” model is based on the idea that the publisher is selling to the consumer and, therefore, setting the price, and any “agent”, which would usually be a retailer but wouldn’t have to be, that creates that sale would get a “commission” from the publisher for doing so. Since Apple’s normal “take” at the App Store is 30% and discounts from publishers have normally been 50% off the established retail price, publishers can claw back margin even if they don’t get Apple to concede anything from the 30%.

So making this change, if it works, accomplishes three things for big publishers. The obvious two are that they gain a greater degree of control over ebook pricing than they ever had over print book pricing and they get to rewrite the supply chain splits of the consumer dollar.

But the third advantage for the big guys is the most devilish of all: they may gain a permanent edge over smaller players on ebook margins. That is one that, truth be known, was already playing out as Amazon used its leverage to reduce the share smaller publishers got from Kindle sales. But this could institutionalize it.