There are two soft spots in our financial system that need to be addressed: one is the dependency of the banking industry on domestic pension funds for long term financing resources; the other, the undercapitalized life insurance industry that pays two thirds of domestic pensions under an annuity structure. Both of these situations could be […]
Here is what Joe knows: he has been paying on average US$ 110 per barrel of oil for the first 9 months of this year, or 66% more than last year’s average price of US$ 66 per barrel. Moreover, he has been paying three times more than long term average prices of oil of US$ […]
Dear Sir, Has it occurred to you that the present crisis is no crisis after all, once you extinguish this unreasonable panic among financial actors? It turns out that even though the US economy is decelerating, it still grows whether a recession is called for or not, and general liquidity has not been permanently impaired […]
It is not easy to ascertain the depth of the present financial crisis, to differentiate real economic costs from accounting practices that link asset values to markets where prices are no longer reliable, to get to the essence of the problem out of too many distracting figures. But some illustrative facts could contain useful information […]
Estimado Señor Director, Todos estamos de acuerdo en que la inflación es dañina para la economía, y cuando ésta se sale de rangos aceptables, aunque sea temporalmente, sobran las recomendaciones. Aquí le envío entonces una más, antes que continúe la escalada alcista en la tasa de interés de corto plazo por parte del Banco Central. […]
Our present energy crisis has awoken Chile: as of year 2006, domestic energy production –essentially hydroelectricity – represented 24% of total domestic energy consumption, another 24% – natural gas – was supplied from Argentina, a neighboring country, and the rest – 52%- came from multiple foreign coal and oil producers. In that same year, this […]
Dear Sir, Congratulations for your article and the effort to keep vigilant on this kind of inefficient and costly business behavior from a private and also social viewpoint. The big question is what could be recommended to do now. What if these GSE´s were already economically bankrupt? Then the issue from a public policy perspective […]
There has been an obvious loss of momentum in our economic growth, relative to our own past two decades and the rest of the emerging world. In figures, whereas in the 90’s and 2000’s Chile had an average annual growth rate of 6,37% and 4,34% respectively, the emerging and developing economies had equivalent growth rates […]
According to 2007 BP Statistical Review, 2006 world energy consumption amounted to 10.878 million tons oil equivalent – mtoe -, of which 36% corresponded to oil, 24% to natural gas, 28% to coal , 6% to nuclear energy and 6% to hydroelectricity, excluding solar, wind and other minor energy sources. The first two sources, which […]
Estimado Señor Director, A raíz del acuerdo entre Chile y Argentina de 1998 para precisar el recorrido del límite desde el monte Fitz Roy hasta el cerro Daudet, una distancia aproximada de 160 kms, ¿ pierde territorio nuestro país respecto del hasta ahora válido límite definido por el Laudo Arbitral de Su Majestad Británica de […]
Some useful lessons are going to be acknowledged after the present financial volatility period settles, particularly in the US. The most important one will be the divergence between the real economy and the perceived one, the dissociation between short and long term equilibrium values and Wall Street. Real activity in the US is certainly decelerating, […]
After the Second Punic War (218 BC to 201 BC), Rome replaced Carthage as the most important power in Western Mediterranean. Given that Macedonia and its Greek followers were also allied to the defeated party, Eastern Mediterranean was also delivered to Rome after a brief resistance. What is noticeable is that all these events occurred […]
Recientemente se solicitó al Tribunal de la Libre Competencia la aprobación de la fusión accionaria entre Falabella y DyS, que daría origen a una entidad financiera y de retail con una valorización bursátil de US$ 16.000 millones, ventas por US$ 7.500 millones (80 por ciento en Chile) y utilidades por US$ 450 millones anuales (40 […]
The continuing scarcity of cheap energy in the world, due mainly to an unexpected strong economic growth now going for almost 10 years, has not only ignited the search for new and more reliable sources, but also put again into the fore increasing gasoline taxes, particularly in the US. Have not you heard yet about […]
Intervention in Iraq in 2003 was a difficult and hard decision, but also unavoidable. Those who decried it did not offer credible and alternative solutions to a chronic Middle Eastern case of instability, poverty and human suffering, preferring to continue with the fiction of never ending verifications under a suspicious UN veil. It had to […]
Looking at China and India growing at 10 per cent in annual rates in their quest for a developed status is certainly goods news, for their combined 2.500 million inhabitants and the rest of the world. Their per capita incomes, less than US$ 2.000, compared to US standards, over US$ 40.000, just reflect how important […]
The world will soon complete almost a decade with unprecedented growth relatively well distributed across it. But this process has been associated with an impressive wealth transfer from energy lacking areas to those that have a surplus. It so happens that an energy supply problem has been gradually evolving into a foreign policy one that […]
Increasing world economic integration is a fact, as measured in goods trade and physical and human capital movements. But it tends to be deeper in surrounding countries – as it would equivalently happen at cities or neighborhoods levels -, basically because of communication and transportation costs that in essence determine efficient economic boundaries and in […]
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