Vol. Teac. XXII - Lack of Skilled Labour

        This is a summary of two reports: one published at Washingtonpost.com at February 5, 2012 and was written by Juan Forero, and has the title,¨Expats Lured by Brazil`s Booming Economy.¨  The other was published at Reuters.com at April 6, 2011 and was written by Cesar Bianconi, and has the title: ¨lack of Skilled Labor Hampers Brazil companies.¨ First, I would like to clarify that I have not nothing against imigration, on the contrary, I think workers need to go where there are jobs. This post is to highlighted the need of more investment in education in Brazil.

        The number of foreigners residing in Brazil reached 1,5 million last year, up from 961,000 in 2010. Work authorizations shot up 32% in the first 9 months of 2011. Americans have led the way. In addition, 2 million Brazilians who had been living overseas have returned home.

         Those arriving here clearly have an adventurous streak. But they also made their decisions based on pragmatic considerations: Brazil has grown by 4.4% a year since 2004. It has also received about $ 200 billion in foreign direct investment in the past 6 years. And despite the formidable red tape for foreign workers, this country has an increasingly diverse economy with room for those in finance, engineering, web design, petro-engineering and other.

         ¨When you are talking about skilled labor, there is a huge lack of supply, so as a result if you have the courage to come down to Brazil, or have the language skills, it is not a no-brainer to come here¨, said Jonathan Rosenthal, 31, who runs a capital management firm with a Brazilian partner.

          In Belo Horizonte, Google has actively sought engineers for its research unit, about 10% are foreigners. ¨The economy is growing faster than the university engineering departments in the country¨, said Ribeiro Neto Google`s engineering director.

          Other foreigners here, like David Bailey, a Briton who lives in Rio with three other Europeans, are joining the growing world of internet startups.

           7 in every 10 Brazilian companies are currently facing a shortage of skilled workers. The national industry confederation ( CNI ) poll over 1,600 companies found the shortage are making manufactures less competitive relative to peers abroad.

           One major issue is the precarious state of Brazil`s primary and secondary education.

           ¨What brings the attention is the fact that companies are feeling the pinch of something that universities and other specialized education institutions are too, the poor quality of basic education¨, says Renato Fonseca, head of research of CNI.

           That underscores a challenge for Brazil to keep growing ahead. About 78% of companies are investing on their own training programs to overcome the lack of specialized labor, CNI said.

           The ministry of education budget for 2010 was 60 billion reais, twice as much that of 2006. However, public investment in education in the past years was less than 5% of GDP. Some analysts say the Brazilian government should invest at least 7% of GDP a year in order to improve the education system.

Western Surveillance Tech in the Hands of Despots

         This report was published at Spiegel.de at August 12, 2011 and was written by Uwe Buse and Marcel Rosenbach, this is a summary and include also the second part with the title¨The fine line between opression and crime fighting¨.

         Abdul Al Khanjar has had endure torture six times in the last 17 years. But for the last eight months he has been living in a room hiding, the only way he can be contacted is through human rights organizations by Skype. He is considered an enemy of the government and was arrested for planning to overthrow the regime. He was sentenced in absentia to 15 years in prison. He says that are other like him. They were confronted during interrogation with incriminating material: transcripts of their telephone conversations, copies of their emails, and comments made in chat rooms.

         There are surveillance companies in Germany which promises total transparency to its customers in foreign governments and tries to keep its own activities as shielded from outside scrutiny as possible. In the Cyber Warfare Europe Conference in Berlin an alarming attempt to create total surveillance at the expense of freedom was on display, included the latest tools for hacking computers. Another product is designed to facilitate live surveillance through webcams and microphones and even monitor Skype conversations and chat rooms.

          Abdul Al Khanjar knows well the possibilities that the international surveillance industry offers its customers. One day, when he was in prison in Bahrain, his torturers came with a few sheets of paper in his hands. They are transcripts of conversations Khanjar had had on his mobile phone before he was arrested. His torturers were able to obtain that because of the western surveillance tech in use.

          People like Khanjar are not completely without allies. As Arabs governments agencies and intelligence service upgrade their tech, a growing munber of western activists are providing support and assistance to the opposition. One of them is Jacob Appelbaum.

           Appelbaum, an American, has been involved in the fight against censorship on the internet for years. He is often helping activists worldwide remain anonymous on the web. He compares surveillance companies that sell their product to despots with companies in the Third Reich that supported the Nazi with modern technology.

          ¨Surveillance systems are weapons that are used to commit human rights violations. The example of Egypt, Syria and Tunisia clearly illustrate that the trade in spyware programs must be uncovered and stopped,¨ he says.

           There are some industries who make a thoughtful impression. After the Syria dealings of his partner area were exposed, Ultimaco executive temporarly suspended relations with the company. He says ¨I have no interest in our tech being used in Syria, but suspending the sale to middle east is wrong, because this tech, as the movements there have shown, also contains elements that promote freedom¨.

          It is a twisted situation, but at its core it revolves around the question of what is more important, security or freedom, and where exactly the line should be drawn. And it is not easy to answer, because both sides have valid arguments.

          Total monitoring leads to a police state, but total freedom from surveillance makes it more difficult for the government to fight crime.

           In Bahrain, Abdul Al Khanjar acknowledge all of these aspects, including the horrifying tech possibilities and the conflicting arguments. For a moment, he seems to be at a loss. But then he says that he is betting on politics and in the civilization of power. He has no other option.

Vol. Teac. XXI - Real GDP Growth in 2011

       This report was published at IMF.gov in the World Economic Outlook at April 2012, and show us the real GDP growth in many countries around the world in 2011, but before the figures, there is a little report about Latin America with the title below, after, the GDP growth, in the first column, only Latin American countries and in the second,at first the country with the greatest GDP growth of 2011 of the world to one with the lowest GDP growth. The same in the L. A. countries list.
       If you want to know more about how GDP growth is important to development and general progress of the population, you can read these reports.
     1)  Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction: Evidence from Kazakhstan.   At CITESEERX.IST.PSU.edu
     2)  Decline of Inequality and Poverty in Latin America.   At Worldpress.org
     3)  Growth, Inequality and Poverty Reduction in Developing Countries.   At OECD.org
     4)  Does Economic Growth Reduce Poverty?   At USAID.gov


                      Latin America :  Watch out for Downdrafts.

      Swings in risk aversion over the past six months led at first to a moderation of capital flows and exchanges rates. But, recently a renewal of capital flows and pressure on exchange rate. Policy tightening began to bear fruit, leading to stabilization of credit growth. Nonetheless, inflation is still above the midpoint of the target in many countries. Policymakers need to remain vigilant to possible downdrafts from Europe and updrafts from capital flows.

                       Real GDP Growth in 2011
                                                                                     Qatar   18.8%
     Panama    10.6%                                                       Mongolia   17.3%
     Argentina    8.9%                                                      China   9.2%
     Ecuador     7.8%                                                       Turkey   8.5%
     Peru     6.9%                                                             India   7.2%
     Colombia   5.9%                                                        Russia   4.3%
     Chile    5.9%                                                              Poland   4.3%
     Uruguay   5.7%                                                          Sweden   4.0%
     Bolivia   5.1%                                                             Germany   3.1%
     Costa Rica   4.2%                                                      Canada   2.5%
     Venezuela    4.2%                                                      USA   1.7%
     Mexico    4.0%                                                           France   1.7%
     Paraguay    3.8%                                                        Spain   0.7%
     Brasil      2.7%                                                            UK   0.7%
                                                                                        Italy   0.4%
   
 

Cities Rush Into High Speed Internet

    This report was published at Times.com at June 17, 2011 and was written by Bob Diddlebock. This is a summary and the title is above.

     Last year, when Google announced it wanted to build and test-drive a new hyper-speed fiber optic nerwork in a U.S. community, more than 1,000 cities applied. Municipals officials offered everything from tax abatements to free advertising.

     Google chose Kansas City, but the competition for Google`s attention underscored an important fact: Cities have come to view high-speed access to the internet as an infrastructure that`s as critical to their future as highways were in the past.

     Denver, too, has pushed to boost high-speed access. City officials there say broadband capabilities give them the leverage to pitch companies about relocating parts of their operations to Denver. ¨It has made us much more competitive with other markets, and led to a lot of tech growth.¨ Says economist Richard Wobbekind of the University of Colorado.

     The fact is that tech companies usually attract a highly educated and entrepreneurial workforce, which can lead to new start-ups and more jobs. High-speed internet access could be a first step in attracting those workers.

      President Obama has said that boosting internet speeds around the country is important to increasing the U.S. competitiveness. The U.S. at 4 megabits per second, on average, currently ranks 15th in the world.

     In order to lure Google, Kansas City officials promised to fast track building permits for the project. Another selling point was that K.C. already has underground conduits that could host miles of high-capacity fiber-optic cable.

      Kansas City Mayor Joe Reardon says, ¨broadband is fundamental to the future of our schools, our health-care system, for business of all sizes, and for entrepreneurs.¨

8 in 10 Oppose Internet Surveillance Without a Warrant

     This report was published at Huffingtonpost.ca at August 25, 2011. This is a summary and the title is above.


      A survey released by the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada reported that 82% of those polled ¨opposed giving police and intelligence agencies the power to access email records and other internet usage data without a warrant from the courts.¨
      The 2011 Canadian Privacy Survey found that not only do a vast majority of Canadians want court-ordered warrant for online surveillance, most ( 83% ) not even want their internet service providers to ask their permission to track any of their online behaviour.
      The survey found a Canadian populace that is increasingly aware of privacy problems online, and 40% surveyed said computers and internet pose a risk to their privacy, compared to only 26% two years ago. The Canadians also expressed distrust in government on the issue, with only 22% saying they are confident in the government handling of data.
      Critics have called the proposed ¨lawful access¨ legislation a threat to civil liberties that would essentially remove judicial oversight from police investigations carried out online.
       There are signs the government may be tempering its approach to the issue, a government spokewoman said ¨ we agree that police should have the ability, with the appropriate legal constraints to access communications for the purpose of gathering evidence. We would not support allowing police access data without a warrant¨.