Jorge Antonio Alves

Congrats #QCClassof2025! @psciqc.bsky.social + LALS

Congratulations QC Honors Graduates

The Financial Realities of the US Trade Deficit that Tariffs Can't Change It's been repeated time and again: The US trade deficit stems from a persistent savings-investment gap. Without closing that gap, the deficit won’t shrink. Tariffs may reduce the bilateral trade defic...

Yesterday saw a sweeping new set of #tariffs from the Trump administration.

But Liliana Rojas-Suarez and Ignacio Albe warn that tariffs won't fix the US trade deficit. Int'l capital markets play a decisive role:
bit.ly/4krdulU

Why Are So Many Chefs De-Spicing Their Menus? Across the city, dishes have gone from hot to not.

Yet one more sign of the collapse of civilization?

We’ve reached the stage where the @nytimes.com does this with a straight face? Stop the bus.

Tough not to be an alarmist when the evidence lines up.

No real insight added here, but as someone who is teaching about the unevenness of state capacity next week, it’s on my mind.

Now, one could pass this off as histeria or even political bias. But this reflects the common concern by everyday citizens across rich and poor parts of the capital, Salvador.

One of the main newspapers in my home state of Bahia now casually has news stories advising tourists to avoid common hand gestures because of their association to org crime.

:)

Some specifics, since the article is in Portuguese: About 20% of ministry expenditures on average in 2024 and growing; almost 3/4s in some smaller departments; about 45% of public health.

Which is neither "good" or "bad" a priori... Both are democratically legitimate, for instance. It just seems to be such disconnect between how markets/media/conventional wisdom talk about things and how they actually happen.

People often overstate the Executive's power to determine fiscal policy in Brazil. Legislators earmark/direct a large share of federal expenditures.

Last couple of days have been especially crazy.

Brazil’s Senate approves tax reform rules with higher VAT rate Bill passes with a 49-19 vote and returns to Lower House for review

One can always nitpick at the specifics and the compromises, but this is the important work of governing. Simplifying and trimming the re-incidence of taxation are huge wins both for BR businesses and consumers.

I thought the mislabel was *worse* than the actual collection of terms.

Colleges Warn International Students to Return Ahead of Trump Term Harvard, Penn and U.S.C. were among the universities and colleges that issued advisories in anticipation of possible travel bans.

“A travel ban is likely to go into effect soon after inauguration....Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Myanmar, Sudan, Tanzania, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, and Somalia. New countries could be added to this list, particularly China and India.”

www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/u...

My favorite line: "Clubs want to nurture street players and then, once they’re in the first team, knock the street out of them."
According to podcasts I've heard with the likes of Bebeto, Denilson, Djalminha, etc, they start knocking it out of them even in junior divisions.

How Pep Guardiola and data destroyed game’s beautiful variety Ever felt like Premier League clubs now all play the same? You may be right, as The Times’s data team reveal the stats behind top flight’s growing and underwhelming uniformity

Standardization is an unfortunate byproduct of institutionalization. But as mentioned in the article, things are also cyclical. Maybe we see a backlash in the next generation?
(Beautiful article w great use of data by @jnorthcroft.bsky.social).

Desperate Haitians Who Fled to the Dominican Republic Are Being Sent Back in Cages Relations between the neighboring countries on the island of Hispaniola have long been frosty. They are now complicated by up to 10,000 deportations a week.

People often focus on the Global North, but most migrants stay in region. Latin American countries have typically been welcoming of each other's refugees, but this this stuff is heartbreaking. [Forgive the sensationalist picture on the link].

Danilo Fernandes, goleirão do Bahia!

Libertadores! Com atuação segura do nosso goleirão elder statesman! Tomara que renovem pro ano que vem. Bora sofrer mais ano que vem! #BBMP

União Europeia e Mercosul, enfim, anunciam acordo - Nexo Jornal Blocos anunciam conclusão de negociações iniciadas há 25 anos. Documento representa a maior parceria comercial do mundo. Ele ainda precisa ser ratificado por órgãos europeus e parlamentos sul-american...

A versão do Nexo é muito boa em portugês. www.nexojornal.com.br/extra/2024/1...

EU, South American Bloc Strike Free-Trade Pact The preliminary deal to lower tariffs​ amid protectionist headwinds would become the EU’s largest trade agreement if ratified.

A little free trade during protectionist times? 25 years of chugging along and we might eventually get somewhere?
www.wsj.com/economy/trad...

Until 2017, the age group with the greatest number of deaths globally was those aged under five years.

An interactive version of the chart can be found here: ourworldindata.org/grapher/annu...

[Pausa pro futebol] Parece que o Bahia tá jogando pra escapar do rebaixamento. Pelo amor dos meus filhinhos…

Surge of Gang Violence in Haiti Leads U.N. Workers to Flee A surge in gang violence over the past two weeks has led international aid organizations to rethink their staff levels in Haiti.

The international community directly contributed to state failure in Haiti and now abandons it.
Notice how the coverage is part of the problem: local population is an afterthought in this article.

Déjà vu all over again?

(Not just in terms of the Trump-like electoral backlash.The "military never really went back to the barracks" people would say that this is a terrible thing, because no way military would accept high profile generals going to jail.)

Wouldn't any other country's democracy or rule of law scores go down if this happened elsewhere?