Članak je Američki pogleda na pitanje nuklearki, pa nije posebno kompatibilan sa energetskim potrebama malih zemalja poput Hrvatske. Ali neka pitanja su podjednako važna oko odluke o izgradnji nukleaki. (Našoj javnosti, čini mi se, nije ni jasno tko bi uopće trebao donjeti tu odluku za čitavo društvo. Netko od naših političara? Neki vrli tim energetskih intelektualaca? Tržište? O tome se baš i ne priča.) Uglavnom, sigurno da ovo nije detaljno razmatranje svih aspekata nuklearne energije/nuklearke, poput The Future of Nuclear Power by MIT, ali je dovoljno informativno sa DA i NE strane po pitanjima:

-Nuklearka kao odgovor na globalno zatopljenje (Iako Hrvatska kao mala zemlja tu ne može puno ili išta napraviti. Nešto o tome sam već pisao.) NE ne emitiraju ni živu ni sumpor.

-Ekonomije (troškovima) izgradnje NE i ekonomičnosti usporedo sa drugim izvorima poput ugljena i alternativnih izvora vjetra i sunca. BTW, ne zaboravite da nema besplatnog ručka. Na veliku žalost, mnogo zeleni upravo imaju takvo razmišljanje i tako predstavljaju alternativne izvore. (O ekonomiji NE je nedavno pisao i BusinessWeek.)

-Sigurnosti NE, tehnologiji, nesrećama i stavovima javnosti zbog slika Černobila ili "The China Syndrome" filma. Zašto je fokus samo na šteti/smrtnosti zbog NE? Stotine ljudi godišnje pogine u rudnicima ugljena, no tome se ne priča. Koja je potencijalna stopa smrtnost zbog nesreće u NE, a koja zbog globalnog zatopljenja? U borbi protiv globalnog zatopljenja NE pomaže, a opet fokus je samo na rizicima nesreće NE.

-Nuklearnim otpadom i skladištenjem, što je i u Hrvatskoj, kao i Americi, više politički problem, nego tehnički. -Bojazni oko proliferacije nuklearnog materijala (i.e. plašenje javnosti sa slikama mushroom cloud).

Is nuclear power the answer for a warming planet? Or is it too expensive and dangerous to satisfy future energy needs?

Interest in nuclear power is heating up, as the hunt intensifies for "green" alternatives to fossil fuels like coal and natural gas. Even some environmentalists have come on board, citing the severity of the global-warming threat to explain their embrace of the once-maligned power source.

But the issue is far from settled. Proponents insist that nuclear is a necessary alternative in an energy-constrained world. They say that the economics make sense -- and that the public has a warped image of the safety risks, thanks to Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and "The China Syndrome." Opponents, meanwhile, are convinced that the costs are way too high to justify the safety hazards, as well as the increased risks of proliferation.

Has nuclear's time come? The debate rages on.

NUCLEAR'S THE ANSWER

The argument for nuclear power can be stated pretty simply: We have no choice.

If the world intends to address the threat of global warming and still satisfy its growing appetite for electricity, it needs an ambitious expansion of nuclear power.

Scientists agree that greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide, are building up in the atmosphere and contributing to a gradual increase in global average temperatures. At the same time, making electricity accounts for about a third of U.S. greenhouse emissions, mostly from burning fossil fuels to produce power.

Nuclear power plants, on the other hand, emit virtually no carbon dioxide -- and no sulfur or mercury either. Even when taking into account "full life-cycle emissions" -- including mining of uranium, shipping fuel, constructing plants and managing waste -- nuclear's carbon-dioxide discharges are comparable to the full life-cycle emissions of wind and hydropower and less than solar power.

Nuclear power, of course, isn't the only answer. We need to get more energy from other nonpolluting sources such as solar and wind. Conservation is crucial. So is using technology to make more efficient use of fossil-fuel power.

But we have to be realistic about the limits of these alternatives. As it is, the 104 nuclear power plants in the U.S. generate about a fifth of the nation's energy. Wind accounts for about 1%, and solar even less than that. Any increase in the number of nuclear power plants can help -- even if they won't solve the whole problem.

More important from the standpoint of displacing fossil fuel, nuclear can meet power demand 24 hours a day. Solar and wind can't do that. Nuclear is the only current technology that fits the bill.

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YES TO NUKES Dominion Resources' Kewaunee nuclear plant in Carlton, Wis., on Lake Michigan.

The Real Economics

So, what's the case against nuclear power? It boils down to two things: economics and safety.

Neither holds up to scrutiny.

First, economics. Critics argue that the high cost of building and financing a new plant makes nuclear power uneconomical when compared with other sources of power.

But that's misleading on a number of levels. One reason it's so expensive at this point is that no new plant has been started in the U.S. since the last one to begin construction in 1977. Lenders -- uncertain how long any new plant would take because of political and regulatory delays -- are wary of financing the first new ones. So financing costs are unusually high. As we build more, the timing will be more predictable, and financing costs will no doubt come down as lenders become more comfortable.

Loan guarantees and other federal incentives are needed to get us over this hump. They are not permanent subsidies for uneconomical ventures. Instead, they're limited to the first half dozen of plants as a way to reassure investors that regulatory delays won't needlessly hold up construction. It's important to remember that although nuclear energy has been around a while, it's hardly a "mature" industry, as some critics say. Because of the lack of new plants in so many years, nuclear in many ways is more like an emerging technology, and so subsidies make sense to get it going.

It's also true that a shortage of parts and skills is raising the cost of new plants. But if we start building more plants, the number of companies supplying parts will increase to meet the demand, lowering the price.

Most important, nuclear power appears economically uncompetitive primarily because the price of "cheaper" fossil fuels, mainly coal, don't reflect the high cost that carbon emissions pose for the environment. Add those costs, and suddenly, nuclear power will look like a bargain.

That's likely to happen soon. Governments are expected to assign a cost to greenhouse gases, through either a direct tax (based on the carbon content of a fuel) or a so-called cap-and-trade system, which would set a limit on emissions while allowing companies whose discharges are lower than the cap to sell or trade credits to companies whose pollution exceeds the cap.

Suddenly, big carbon polluters like coal-produced electricity are going to look a lot more expensive compared with low-carbon sources -- in particular, nuclear, wind and hydropower.

It's estimated that a carbon "price" of between $25 and $50 a ton makes nuclear power economically competitive with coal. That should be enough to ease investor concerns about utilities that build new nuclear plants.

Even without a carbon tax, rising natural-gas prices are beginning to make nuclear power more competitive. That's true even in some deregulated markets, such as Texas.

NRG Energy Inc., based in Princeton, N.J., has filed an application to build a reactor adjacent to an existing plant in Texas. Though it's too early to know how much the plant will eventually cost -- or even if it ultimately will get built -- high natural-gas prices alone are enough to justify construction, according to NRG.

One other point on cost: Solar and wind advocates say these sources are cheaper than nuclear -- and getting cheaper. But again, even if true, the intermittent nature of these sources make them flawed replacements for carbon-emitting sources. Nuclear is the only clean-energy way to address that gap.

No 'China Syndrome'

Let's turn to the critics' other argument: safety. We're still living in a world whose viewpoints have been warped by the 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania and the 1986 explosion at the Chernobyl plant in the Ukraine, as well as by the anti-nuclear movie "The China Syndrome."

The truth is that there's little doubt that in the U.S., at least, plants are much safer now than they were in the past. Those accidents led regulators and the industry to bolster safety at U.S. nuclear plants. There are more safety features at the plants, plant personnel are better trained, and reactors have been redesigned so that accidents are far less likely to occur. For instance, every U.S. plant has an on-site control-room simulator where employees can hone their skills and handle simulated emergencies, and plant workers spend one week out of every six in the simulator or in the classroom.

The next generation of plants is designed to be even safer, using fewer pumps and piping and relying more on gravity to move water for cooling the hot nuclear core. This means fewer possible places where equipment failure could cause a serious accident.

And even if a serious accident does occur, U.S. plants are designed to make sure that no radiation is released into the environment. Reactors are contained inside a huge structure of reinforced concrete with walls that are as much as four feet thick; the Chernobyl reactor lacked such a structure.

What's more, you can't look at safety in a vacuum. Consider the hazards of the world's reliance on coal-fired plants: Coal mining world-wide results in several thousand deaths every year, most of them in China, and burning coal is a leading source of mercury in the atmosphere.

Furthermore, look at safety more broadly -- from an environmental perspective. The death and destruction stemming from global warming far exceed what is likely to happen if there is a nuclear accident. And yet, when we talk about safety, we seem to focus only on the risks of nuclear power.

Politics of Disposal

The long-term disposal of nuclear waste is also a problem -- but it's mainly a policy issue, not a technical one.

Most experts agree that the best way to dispose of waste is deep underground, where radioactive materials can be prevented from entering the environment and where it can be guarded against theft or terrorist attack. In the U.S., the Energy Department picked Yucca Mountain in southwestern Nevada for a repository, but political wrangling has so far blocked proceeding with the site, and final approval is considered a long shot. Even if approved, it won't be able to begin accepting waste for a decade or more.

In the meantime, interim storage in deep pools next to nuclear plants is considered sufficiently safe to meet the industry's needs until well into the future. The amount of waste produced is relatively small; all the waste produced so far in the U.S. would only cover a football field about five yards deep. Older, cooler fuel can also be stored for decades in dry casks.

Longer term, advanced fuel recycling and reprocessing can reduce the amount of waste that needs to be stored. While reprocessing wouldn't eliminate the need for a long-term repository, it can reduce the amount, heat and radioactivity of the remaining waste.

Stopping the Spread

Finally, critics say that an expansion of nuclear power will increase the danger that potentially hostile nations will use nuclear material from a power program to develop atomic weapons, or that rogue states or terrorists will steal nuclear material to make bombs.

While nonproliferation is an important consideration, the proliferation problem won't be solved by turning away from nuclear power.

To curtail these risks, governments need to strengthen current international anti-proliferation efforts to, among other things, give the International Atomic Energy Agency more information about a country's nuclear-related activities and IAEA inspectors greater access to suspect locations. Further, current fuel-reprocessing techniques are limited and new processing technologies are being developed to limit the amount and accessibility of weapons-grade materials (by, for instance, producing a form of plutonium that needs further reprocessing before it could be used in bombs).

One final point about security: One of the biggest dangers to our security is from oil nations providing support to anti-U.S. terrorist groups. The faster we can move away from carbon-based energy, the faster we take away that funding source. Nuclear energy offers the fastest and most direct path to that safer future.

NO TO NUCLEAR

Nuclear power isn't a solution to global warming. Rather, global warming is just a convenient rationale for an obsolete energy source that makes no sense when compared to the alternatives.

Sure, nuclear power generates lots of electricity while producing virtually no carbon dioxide. But it still faces the same problems that have stymied the development of new nuclear plants for the past 20 years -- exorbitant costs, the risks of an accident or terrorist attack, the threat of proliferation and the challenge of disposing of nuclear waste.

The cost issue alone will mean that few if any new nuclear power stations will get built in the next few years, at least in the U.S., and any that do will require expensive taxpayer subsidies. Instead of subsidizing the development of new plants that have all these other problems, the U.S. would be better off investing in other ways to meet growing energy demands and reduce carbon-dioxide emissions.

In fact, the sheer number of nuclear plants needed to make a major dent in greenhouse emissions means the industry hasn't a prayer of turning nuclear power into the solution to global warming. One study from last year determined that to make a significant contribution toward stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide, about 21 new 1,000-megawatt plants would have to be built each year for the next 50 years, including those needed to replace existing reactors, all of which are expected to be retired by 2050. That's considerably more than the most ambitious industry growth projections.

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NO NUKES Greenpeace demonstrators wave an anti-nuclear banner as they stand on the roof of a truck near a nuclear treatment facility in western France.

Too Expensive

But let's start with the biggest problem with nuclear power: the cost.

While no one knows what a new reactor will cost until one gets built, estimates for new construction continue to rise. Building a new plant could cost as much as $6,000 a kilowatt of generating capacity, up from estimates of about $4,000 a kilowatt just a year ago. FPL Group, of Juno Beach, Fla., estimates that two new reactors planned for southeast Florida would cost between $6 billion and $9 billion each.

Part of the reason for the rising cost estimates is the small number of vendors able to supply critical reactor components, as well as a shortage of engineering and construction skills in the nuclear industry. Perhaps the biggest bottleneck is in the huge reactor vessels that contain a plant's radioactive core. Only one plant in the world is capable of forging the huge vessels in a single piece, and it can produce only a handful of the forgings a year. Though the plant intends to expand capacity in the next couple of years, and China has said it plans to begin making the forgings, this key component is expected to limit development for many years.

The only way to make nuclear power economically competitive would be the imposition of steep "prices" on carbon-emitting power sources. Nobody knows precisely how high those prices would have to go -- there are too many variables to consider. But estimates range as high as $60 a ton of carbon dioxide. This imposes an unacceptably high price on consumers.

More important, though, there are less-costly ways of weaning ourselves off these carbon-emitting energy sources. Even if a high price of carbon makes nuclear economic, the costs of renewable energy such as wind and solar power are cheaper, and getting cheaper all the time. By contrast, nuclear is more expensive, and getting more expensive all the time.

Solving a Problem

And yes, it's true that wind and solar suffer from the problem of not being available 24 hours a day. But new technology is already beginning to solve that problem. And we'd be better off -- from both an economic and safety standpoint -- if we used natural gas to fill in the gaps, rather than nuclear.

Subsidies to the industry distort the financial picture further. In the U.S., Washington assumes liability for any catastrophic damages above $10.5 billion for an accident, and has taken on responsibility for the disposal of nuclear waste. The 1995 federal Energy Policy Act also provides loan guarantees for as much as 80% of the cost of new reactors and additional financial guarantees of up to $2 billion for costs arising from regulatory delays.

The 1995 act saw subsidies as a way to prime the pump of a nuclear-energy revival in the U.S.; increased demand and a stable regulatory environment would ultimately reduce the cost of building new plants. However, the industry for 50 years has shown only a trend toward higher costs, and there's no evidence that subsidies will spur any reduction in those costs.

And besides, if nuclear power is such a great deal, it should be able to stand on its own, and not require such subsidies from the taxpayer. Government subsidies should sponsor research and development into new or emerging energy technologies where prices are already falling and the subsidies can jump-start demand to help further bring down costs. They're inappropriate for mature industries, like nuclear power, where market forces should be allowed to do their work.

The Safety Issue

Cost isn't the only reason an expansion of nuclear power is a bad idea.

The safety of nuclear plants has certainly improved, thanks to changes adopted in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident. But safety problems persist, because the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission isn't adequately enforcing existing safety standards. What's more, countries where nuclear power is likely to expand don't have a strong system for regulating nuclear safety.

The important thing to remember about safety is this: The entire nuclear power industry is vulnerable to the safety standards of its worst performers, because an accident anywhere in the world would stoke another antinuclear backlash among the public and investors.

There's also the question of waste disposal. Proponents of nuclear power say disposal of the industry's waste products is a political problem. That's true. But it doesn't make the problem any less real. California, for instance, won't allow construction of more plants until the waste issue is resolved.

Opposition to a long-term waste repository at Yucca Mountain shows how difficult it will be to come up with a politically acceptable solution. Yucca Mountain has been plagued by questions about the selection process and its suitability as a repository, and even if it is ultimately approved, it won't be available for at least another decade -- and it will be filled to capacity almost immediately. If it isn't approved, any replacement site will face the same opposition from neighbors and local political leaders.

Proliferation Threat

By far the greatest risk is the possibility that an expansion of nuclear power will contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Plants that enrich uranium for power plants can also be used to enrich for bombs; this is the path Iran is suspected of taking in developing a weapons program. An ambitious expansion of nuclear power would require a lot more facilities for enriching uranium, broadening this risk. Facilities for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel for reuse pose the danger that the material can be diverted for weapons.

Expansion of nuclear power in the U.S. doesn't pose a great proliferation risk, but a nuclear renaissance will put a strain on the current anti-proliferation system. Most of the growth world-wide is expected to be in countries -- such as those in the Middle East and Africa -- where a nuclear-energy program could give cover to surreptitious weapons development and create the local expertise in handling and processing nuclear materials.

The dangers of nuclear proliferation would be heightened if a nuclear revival turned to reprocessing of spent fuel to reduce the amount of high-level waste that builds up and to maintain adequate fuel supplies. Reprocessing is a problem because it can produce separated plutonium -- which is easier to steal or divert for weapons production, as North Korea has done, than plutonium contained in highly radioactive fuel. And commercial reprocessing plants produce so much plutonium that keeping track of it all is difficult, making it easier to divert enough for weapons without the loss being detected.

If nuclear power really were able to make a big dent in greenhouse emissions, then it would be worth the time and resources necessary to address all these problems. Instead, though, the magnitude of these difficulties will keep any nuclear renaissance too small to make a difference, and will require expensive government support just to achieve modest gains. Those resources are better spent elsewhere.

Write to Michael Totty at michael.totty@wsj.com⁹

Regarded as the father of the field known as “mechanism design theory,” Mr. Hurwicz tackled a problem that the field of economics didn’t traditionally consider: When markets don’t allocate resources efficiently, or at all, what sort of allocation mechanisms can be created that will do so?

In textbooks, Adam Smith’s invisible hand matches buyers with sellers equally. A million potato farmers will find a million potato eaters and will sell their goods for the maximum that buyers are willing to pay. In the real world, buyers and sellers can’t find each other, or one buyer tries to corner the market, or the government grows the potatoes. Mechanism design theory addresses what happens when buyers and sellers keep private information about how they value a good or service.

Mr. Hurwicz, born in Moscow, began developing theories that show when markets aren’t capable of operating efficiently — and to measure what type of mechanism would work best. “Leo Hurwicz made the breakthrough that the key part of the problem is that people don’t have incentives to share information” about the price at which they are willing to buy or sell, said Roger B. Myerson, who studied Mr. Hurwicz’s work as a Harvard graduate student and shared his Nobel Prize along with Eric S. Maskin.

Ni na naprednom levelu se o toj teoriji ne uči/raspravlja pretjerano. "Mechanism design" se ne nalazi u standardnim (naprednijim) knjigama, recimo iz mikroekonomije. Hal Varian, autor jednog od najpoznatijih udžbenika iz mikroekonomije, je pisao radove o "economic mechanism design", ali nije temu uključio u svoj udžbenik za studente. Vjerojatno zato jer je "mechanism design" vrlo matematički orijentirana metodologija analize rezultata ekonomske efikasnosti, ali je ipak sub-disciplina mikroekonomije i teorije igara. "Mechanism Design Theory" se obično pojavi oko diskusija o dizajnu aukcija (zbog potreba privatizacije primjerice) ili teoriji igara. Za sve više od toga treba tražiti specijalne izvore, poput Hurwiczove knjige Designing Economic Mechanisms objavljene tek 2006. Za jednog prosječnog studenta da se upozna sa predmetom "mechanisam design theory", po mom mišljenju, je slučajnost. Možda će to Nobel promjeniti i "mechanism design" će polako uči u udžbenike. Do onda pročitajte ispod više o teoriji iz New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (nema matematičkih formula!).

Abstract

A mechanism is a specification of how economic decisions are determined as a function of the information that is known by the individuals in the economy. Mechanism theory shows that incentive constraints should be considered coequally with resource constraints in the formulation of the economic problem. Where individuals’ private information and actions are difficult to monitor, the need to give people an incentive to share information and exert efforts may impose constraints on economic systems just as much as the limited availability of raw materials. Mechanism design is the fundamental mathematical methodology for analysing economic efficiency subject to incentive constraints.

Overview

A mechanism is a specification of how economic decisions are determined as a function of the information that is known by the individuals in the economy. In this sense, almost any kind of market institution or economic organization can be viewed, in principle, as a mechanism. Thus mechanism theory can offer a unifying conceptual structure in which a wide range of institutions can be compared, and optimal institutions can be identified.

The basic insight of mechanism theory is that incentive constraints should be considered coequally with resource constraints in the formulation of the economic problem. In situations where individuals’ private information and actions are difficult to monitor, the need to give people an incentive to share information and exert efforts may impose constraints on economic systems just as much as the limited availability of raw materials. The theory of mechanism design is the fundamental mathematical methodology for analysing these constraints.

The study of mechanisms begins with a special class of mechanisms called direct-revelation mechanisms, which operate as follows. There is assumed to be a mediator who can communicate separately and confidentially with every individual in the economy. This mediator may be thought of as a trustworthy person, or as a computer tied into a telephone network. At each stage of the economic process, each individual is asked to report all of his private information (that is, everything that he knows that other individuals in the economy might not know) to the mediator. After receiving these reports confidentially from every individual, the mediator may then confidentially recommend some action or move to each individual. A direct-revelation mechanism is any rule for specifying how the mediator's recommendations are determined, as a function of the reports received.

A direct-revelation mechanism is said to be incentive compatible if, when each individual expects that the others will be honest and obedient to the mediator, then no individual could ever expect to do better (given the information available to him) by reporting dishonestly to the mediator or by disobeying the mediator's recommendations. That is, if honesty and obedience is an equilibrium (in the game-theoretic sense), then the mechanism is incentive compatible.

The analysis of such incentive-compatible direct-revelation mechanisms might at first seem to be of rather narrow interest, because such fully centralized mediation of economic systems is rare, and incentives for dishonesty and disobedience are commonly observed in real economic institutions. The importance of studying such mechanisms is derived from two key insights: (i) for any equilibrium of any general mechanism, there is an incentive-compatible direct-revelation mechanism that is essentially equivalent; and (ii) the set of incentive-compatible direct-revelation mechanisms has simple mathematical properties that often make it easy to characterize, because it can be defined by a set of linear inequalities. Thus, by analysing incentive-compatible direct-revelation mechanisms, we can characterize what can be accomplished in all possible equilibria of all possible mechanisms, for a given economic situation.

Insight (i) above is known as the revelation principle. It was first recognized by Gibbard (1973), but for a somewhat narrower solution concept (dominant strategies, instead of Bayesian equilibrium) and for the case where only informational honesty is problematic (no moral hazard). The formulation of the revelation principle for the broader solution concept of Bayesian equilibrium, but still in the case of purely informational problems, was recognized independently by many authors around 1978 (see Dasgupta, Hammond and Maskin, 1979; Harris and Townsend, 1981; Holmstrom, 1977; Myerson, 1979; Rosenthal, 1978). Aumann's (1974; 1987) concept of correlated equilibrium gave the first expression to the revelation principle in the case where only obedient choice of actions is problematic (pure moral hazard, no adverse selection). The synthesis of the revelation principle for general Bayesian games with incomplete information, where both honesty and obedience are problematic, was given by Myerson (1982). A generalization of the revelation principle to multistage games was stated by Myerson (1986).

The intuition behind the revelation principle is as follows. First, a central mediator who has collected all relevant information known by all individuals in the economy could issue recommendations to the individuals so as to simulate the outcome of any organizational or market system, centralized or decentralized. After the individuals have revealed all of their information to the mediator, he can simply tell them to do whatever they would have done in the other system. Second, the more information that an individual has, the harder it may be to prevent him from finding ways to gain by disobeying the mediator. So the incentive constraints will be least binding when the mediator reveals to each individual only the minimal information needed to identify his own recommended action, and nothing else about the reports or recommendations of other individuals. So, if we assume that the mediator is a discrete and trustworthy information-processing device, with no costs of processing information, then there is no loss of generality in assuming that each individual will confidentially reveal all of his information to the mediator (maximal revelation to the trustworthy mediator), and the mediator in return will reveal to each individual only his own recommended action (minimal revelation to the individuals whose behaviour is subject to incentive constraints).

The formal proof of the revelation principle is difficult only because it is cumbersome to develop the notation for defining, in full generality, the set of all general mechanisms, and for defining equilibrium behaviour by the individuals in any given mechanism. Once all of this notation is in place, the construction of the equivalent incentive-compatible direct-revelation mechanism is straightforward. Given any mechanism and any equilibrium of the mechanism, we simply specify that the mediator's recommended actions are those that would result in the given mechanism if everyone behaved as specified in the given equilibrium when his actual private information was as reported to the mediator. To check that this constructed direct-revelation mechanism is incentive compatible, notice that any player who could gain by disobeying the mediator could also gain by similarly disobeying his own strategy in the given equilibrium of the given mechanism, which is impossible (by definition of equilibrium).

Come on people! Slovenci samo što nisu dostigli 50,000 skinutih FireFox3, a duplo ih je manje od nas. Hrvatska sadašnjim tempom neće preko 40,000 downloads još tjedan dana. Trenutno Slovenci imaju 49,790 skinutih FireFox3 a naš broj je na mapi.

11. Zapovijed - Thou Shall Download FireFox3!

Nikad nismo imali veće šanse postići značajni uspijeh, čak ni '98. Sad, da li je to baš tako?

Klasično pitanje je da li smo mi uistinu toliko dobri i sposobni ili su jednostavno drugi slabiji? Da li su oni igrali slabo i mi iskorištavali slabosti, ili smo mi bili bolji? Njemačka se predstavljala od samog početka kao 1. favorit, pa kad smo mi pobjedili Njemačku ispada da smo nekakvo iznenađenje i otkriva nas kao favorita. (Do onda smo bili pritajeni favorit.) To bi značilo da smo mi iznenadili Njemačku, a ne da smo jedna od nogometnih sila Europe. Ali mi nismo iznenadili Njemačku, mi smo je nadigrali i sposobnost da to učinimo nije trebala iznenaditi nitkog. Vjerujem da je ovaj put bilo legitimno za očekivati pobjedu Hrvatske, za razliku od '98 kad je Hrvatska maestralno pobjedila legitimnog favorita. Hrvatska je sada realno mogla pobjediti Njemačku, očekivala se pobjeda i to je jednostavno napravila. Naravno takvo "politički nekorektno" objašnjenje nećete čuti od stožera ili naših novinara, no to ne znači da nije ispravan.

Ne znam zašto se ovu današnju Njemačku na početku Eura smatralo tolikim favoritom. Zato jer je Njemačka pa kao mora biti favorit? Ali igrom i općenito prezentacijom to nije pokazala. Hrvatska jest. Dobro, protiv Austrije smo slabije igrali, labavo na nogama, pali još u prvom poluvremenu. Ali, protiv jakih, favorita ili prvih na ljestvici i najslabije ekipe uvijek igraju bolje, uvijek grizu, uvijek se žele dokazati. Očito to neki sportski novinari nisu nikad naučili ili iskusili. (Sjetimo se članaka o slabosti Austrije prije početka Eura.) Suprotno vrijedi za favorite - oni krenu lakše, bez velike nervoze i sa većom dozom samopouzdanja, pogotovo ako se gol postigne očekivano brzo. Ponekad previše samopouzdanja rezultira iznenadnim gubitkom. Ali to se nije dogodilo Hrvatskoj. Očekivala se pobjeda protiv najslabijih, ali se znalo da neće doći sama po sebi. Austrija je grizla više od očekivanog, Hrvatska je pobjedila kao favorit. Uostalom sreća prati najbolje i kad im ne ide.

Sve ovo oko Njemačke jer bi na nju opet mogli nabasati u polufinalu.

Realno je za očekivati pobjedu nad Turskom, klasa smo iznad njih i očekivani favoriti čak i za naslov. Valjda je svima jasno sada kako uz Nizozemsku, Hrvatska je najsigurniji favorit. Da li je apsolutni ili relatvini? Kao treći je vjerojatno Portugal ili Španjolska. Da, ćuti ćemo službeni korektni govor kako su Turci dobri, čvrsti i nepredvidljivi, te kako ih se ne može otpisati kao laku prepreku. No ti i takvi argumetni nisu laskavi i za pobjedu nad Hrvatskom dovoljni. Ipak treba biti više od dobar i "divlji" za poraziti Hrvatsku. Koliko ljudi u javnosti i koliko stručnjaka bi diglo ruku da je pobjeda Turske realna? U Hrvatskoj i široj Europi, objektivno govoreći, vjerojatno nitko. U Turskoj, netko bi, ali malo njih ako je ocjenjivanje isključivo objektivno. Istraživanja u Hrvatskoj pokazuju da javnost vidi Hrvatsku u polufinalu. Ali to je i dvosjekli mač. Opet ulazimo u utakmicu kao favoriti, opet imamo underdoga koji će gristi protiv favorita. Što je slabiji protivnik, veći je pritisak na leđima da moramo pobjediti. Priče kako je četvrtfinale bio cilj više ne zadovoljavaju. Mene nekako zabrinjavao Portugal, ali mislim da i njih sada možemo dobiti. Jedino Nizozemska ostaje kao apsolutni favorit. Ulazak u finale zadovoljava, a mogući poraz od Nizozemske je jedino što bi bilo legitimno, na šta nitko ne bi mogao prigovoriti našima.

Znaći, moja prognoza, prolazimo Tursku, a da li ćemo na Njemačku ili Portugal znati ćemo u četvrtak. Da li ćemo onda opet proći Njemačku?

Jedan podatak bi možda moga zabrinuti. Zašto je Njemačka favorit otkriva i zanimljivost cijene nafte ovog ljeta. Najme, 6.Lipnja cijena nafte je skočila za $10.75, što je najveći postotni skok od Lipnja 1996. Tog ljeta je Njemačka (ako ste slučajno zaboravili) osvojila Europsko prvenstvo. Da li će i ovog?

--"Rast cijena nafte uzrokovali su skriveni principi neoliberalne doktrine da prisilno preraspodjeli ono što je traženo, te se radi o državnom i tržišnom parazitizmu onih institucija koje sudjeluju u procesu kupoprodaje nafte. Jedan barel nafte preproda se danas 13 puta, a broj parazita raste i sve više će rasti. S obzirom da je hrvatska vlast unutar interpersonalnog lanca kapital-odnosa ona i nema prostora za neko drugo ponašanje osim onoga kojeg diktira globalizacija kao proces kodifikacije principa prava jačega. Sila postaje pravo usprkos spoznaji da pravo na nasilje nema nitko, jer nasilje ne može biti ničije pravo."

Slavko Kulić, znanstveni savjetnik i predstojnik odjela za supradisciplinarna istraživanja na Ekonomskom institutu u Zagrebu

--"While I don’t think blame is necessarily the right concept here, I have been arguing that low real interest rates have worked to raise real commodity prices through a number of channels. Each of these channels could be called “speculation,” if speculation is defined as behavior based on expectations of future prices. A number of commentators, including Don Kohn and Paul Krugman, have argued that low interest rates and speculation cannot be the sources of the problem, because oil inventories are low. It is true that low interest rates, other things equal, should in theory increase firms’ desire to hold inventories.

We are talking about relatively integrated world markets, however, so it is world inventories that should matter most. According to the International Energy Agency’s Oil Market Report, oil inventories held in developed countries have been above average during most of the last year, as the next graph shows. OECD oil inventories above long-run average. They rose sharply in January 2008, which happens to be the month when the very aggressive cuts in US interest rates took place. These numbers are far from conclusive, but still…"

Jeff Frankels Weblog, HarvardU

-- "So here are two questions: Are speculators mainly, or even largely, responsible for high oil prices? And if they aren’t, why have so many commentators insisted, year after year, that there’s an oil bubble?

The only way speculation can have a persistent effect on oil prices, then, is if it leads to physical hoarding — an increase in private inventories of black gunk. This actually happened in the late 1970s, when the effects of disrupted Iranian supply were amplified by widespread panic stockpiling.

But it hasn’t happened this time: all through the period of the alleged bubble, inventories have remained at more or less normal levels. This tells us that the rise in oil prices isn’t the result of runaway speculation; it’s the result of fundamental factors, mainly the growing difficulty of finding oil and the rapid growth of emerging economies like China. The rise in oil prices these past few years had to happen to keep demand growth from exceeding supply growth.

Saying that high-priced oil isn’t a bubble doesn’t mean that oil prices will never decline. I wouldn’t be shocked if a pullback in demand, driven by delayed effects of high prices, sends the price of crude back below $100 for a while. But it does mean that speculators aren’t at the heart of the story."

Paul Krugman, The Oil Nonbubble, The New York Times. Vidi i ovdje.

-- "Yet the evidence suggests that, to the contrary, the rising price is beginning to curb demand and increase supply, just as the textbooks say it should.

Those who see speculators as the culprits point to the emergence of oil and other commodities as a popular asset class, alongside stocks, bonds and property. Ever more investors are piling into the oil markets, the argument runs, pushing up the price as they do so. The number of transactions involving oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), the biggest market for oil, has almost tripled since 2004. That neatly mirrors a tripling of the price of oil over the same period.

But Jeffrey Harris, the chief economist of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which regulates NYMEX and other American commodities exchanges, does not see any evidence that the growth of speculation in oil has caused the price to rise. Rising prices, after all, might have been stimulating the growing investment, rather than the other way around. There is no clear correlation between increased speculation and higher prices in commodities markets in general. Despite a continuing flow of investment in nickel, for example, its price has fallen by half over the past year....

...Mr Harris of the CFTC, for one, believes that the oil price is still a function of supply and demand. For the past few years, the world's production capacity has grown only sluggishly. Meanwhile, demand, especially from the developing world, has been growing faster. So there is hardly any slack in the system. Only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are thought to be able to increase their output from today's levels, and even then, there are doubts, since Saudi Arabia, in particular, is secretive about the state of its oil industry....

....Meanwhile, the high price is clearly beginning to crimp demand. The growth in global consumption last year was barely a quarter what it was in 2004 (see chart); this year, it is likely be even lower. In rich countries (or at least among the members of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a rough proxy), the effect is even more pronounced. Consumption has been falling for the past two and a half years....

....In the short run, neither demand for nor supply of oil is very elastic. It takes time for people to replace their old guzzlers with more fuel-efficient cars, or to switch to jobs with shorter commutes, or to move closer to public transport. By the same token, it can take ten years or more to develop an oilfield after its discovery—and that does not include the time firms need to bolster their exploration units...."

The Economist - Double, Double, oil and Trouble, May 29th 2008

--" In the rest of the world, however, soaring oil prices have had little traction on demand. In many countries outside of the OECD, first time car buyers have no memory of past gasoline prices, and by virtue of car ownership, now have a claim on the world’s rapidly shrinking oil reserves. The extent to which prices ration limited supply over the next five years depends to a significant degree on how much oil will be diverted from world oil markets to meet the consumption needs of major oil exporters themselves. Last year, OPEC together with independent producers Russia and Mexico, consumed over 13 mn bbl/day of oil, constituting, next to the US, the second-largest oil market in the world.

For the most part, soaring rates of domestic fuel consumption, particularly in OPEC countries, can be traced to egregiously low pump prices. Gasoline in the 25-cents/gal range in Venezuela and in the 50-60 cents/gal range in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran, have not, surprisingly, spurred enormous fuel appetites in those countries....

...With production faltering, soaring rates of domestic fuel consumption will soon cannibalize export capacity. Exports from OPEC, Russia and Mexico are expected to decline by 2.5 mn bbl/day in the next five years (Chart 6). To a large extent, that has already happened in OPEC, whose export growth has slowed dramatically in recent years. Soaring Russian exports had effectively filled the void created by OPEC, but now, as we recently heard from Russia’s resources minister, both Russian production and exports are set to decline....

...The more oil is consumed in oil-producing countries, the less oil will be consumed in the OECD. Since oil-producing countries effectively have first call on their own oil, the balance is the residual which the price mechanism must ration. Boosted by the explosive growth in oil consumption in oil-producing countries, we expect that by 2012, consumption in the rest of the world will exceed OECD consumption, a virtually unthinkable prospect a little over a decade ago, when consumption outside of the OECD measured little more than half of the OECD’s annual oil intake."

Jeff Rubin & Peter Buchanan, CIBC -The Age of Scarcity, April 24th, 2008

-- " ... we have reviewed a number of theories as to what has produced the current high price of oil, including commodity price speculation, strong world demand, time delays or geological limitations on increasing production, OPEC monopoly pricing, and an increasingly important contribution of the scarcity rent. Rather than think of these as competing hypotheses, one possibility is that there is an element of truth to all of them."

Unquestionably the two key features in any account are a decrease in the price elasticity of demand and the strong growth in demand from China, the Middle East, and other newly industrialized economies. These twin facts explain the initial strong pressure on prices that may have triggered commodity speculation in the first place. Speculation could have edged producers like Saudi Arabia into the discovery that small production declines could increase current revenues and may be in their long run interests as well. And the strong demand may have moved us into a regime in which scarcity rents, while negligible in 1997, are now
an important permanent factor in the price of petroleum. Notwithstanding, different emphases among these explanations would produce profoundly different predictions as to what will happen next. If speculation and short-run price inelasticity are the key driving factors, we would expect shortly to see potentially dramatic moves downward in price. The scarcity rent, by contrast, is expected to increase, not decrease, over time."

James Hamilton, UC SanDiego iz novog rada Understanding Crude Oil Prices.

Kako bi Barry Ritholz rekao na svom blogu, uz svu silnu priču o nafti znalo se da će idiotski komentar doći, kad-tad. Koji je od ovih taj, procjenite sami. ;)

A kvaliteta državnih usluga za sav taj silni novac? Isto ništa bolja, što je isto ništa novog. Naglasak je i dalje na saniranju financijskih problema zdravstvenog sustava, umjesto na njegovom restrukturiranju i saniranju. Dok je priljev poreznog novca odličan, državne mjere kontrole troškova drže vodu. (U svibsnju primjerice cijene zdravstva su porasle 0.1%) Upravo suprotno od onoga što je poželjno i ispravno.

Ali, vjerojatno nema zemlje u svijetu čiji građani imaju toliko novca za izgradnju brodova, od supertankera do car-carriera, za strance. Na drugu ruku, ako trebate (nadam se da ne) ostati u bolnici koji dan, ovisno gdje živite, trebati će te i svoje plahte donijeti. Upravo što je normalno u naopakoj Hrvatskoj politici. Briljantno.

Kao da takve slabe vijesti nisu bile dosta, da li je netko vidio inflaciju za Svibanj? "Komotnih" 6.4% u odnosu na prošlu godinu. Očekivala se veća stopa u Svibnju. Cijene pri proizvođačima su porasle 8.7% u Svibnju, a PPI obično daje predsliku kretanja CPI. Najveći doprinos ukupnim potrošačkim cijenama su imali hrana i piće, te promet. Iz priopćenja DZSa.

Najveći doprinos povećanju indeksa potrošačkih cijena u svibnju 2008. u odnosu na travanj 2008. imale su cijene prehrane i bezalkoholnih pića (za 0,48%), cijene prometa (za 0,31%), cijene odjeće i obuće (za 0,18%), cijene rekreacije i kulture (za 0,06%) te pokućstva, opreme za kuću te redovitog održavanja kao i cijene ugostiteljskih usluga za (0,04%).

Promatrano po glavnim skupinama prema namjeni potrošnje, u svibnju 2008. u odnosu na travanj 2008. najviše su porasle cijene prometa (za 2,7%), (zbog povećanja cijena goriva i međumjesnog prijevoza putnika autobusom), cijene odjeće i obuće (za 2,2%), cijene prehrane i bezalkoholnih pića (za 1,5%) (voće, meso, riža, kruh, brašno, keksi i tjestenina, mlijeko, sir, ulja i masti te začini), cijene ugostiteljskih usluga (za 1,2%) (smještaj u hotelima i kampovima), cijene rekreacije i kulture za (1,0%) (paket-aranžmani), cijene pokućstva, opreme za kuću i redovitog održavanja za (0,7%). Cijene alkoholnih pića i duhana, u svibnju u odnosu na travanj više su za 0,2%, cijene zdravstva kao i cijene ostalih dobara i usluga više su za 0,1% .

Moramo gledati Euro, makar da nam je zadovoljstvo privremeno veće.

Nemam neki pripremljeni post, ali ipak nešto zanimljivo. Poskupljenja struje i mjere Vlade su zaokupile interes građana u svim funkcijama (poslovnim, investitorskim, radnim, potrošnim) posljednih par dana, što je i normalno jer visoke cijene energije utječu na novčanika sviju. No, zbog toga nitko neće gasiti tv da bi uštedio koju kunu na struji. Ništa od toga neće imati utjecaj na gledanost utakmica reprezentacije - taj parametar je konstanta. Tako, iako je cijena struje sada najzanimljivija, ona je ipak malo volatilna u odnosu na cijene benzina i nafte. Već jučer u Otvorenom je bilo govora o nafti, ne o struji. Cijene barela skaču dnevno i prognoze su da će dostići $150/barel ovo ljeto. Hrvatski mediji prenose cijene i pumpaju paniku sa potencijalnih $200/barel, ali ne i sa dugoročno predviđenim padom na $75/barel.

Evo intervju sa onim tko je prognozirao sve tri cijene i njihov smjer, Mr. Crude Oil.

Arjun Murti je analyst sa Goldman Sachs investicijskoj kući. Održava niski profil, ne slika se, ali svojim (senzacionalnim?) izvještajima pokreće tržišta nafte, bar za dan. Nije da nema drugih analitičar koji predviđaju porast cijena, ali njegove analize su u isto vrijeme bile nevjerovatno visoke i točne. Dok je nafta bila na $40 on je predviđao preko $100, a 2004. je stvorio frazu "super spike" u kojem se sada nalazimo. U Svibnju je NYT imao članak o njemu (od kud i prvi graf). Da li je rijetko briljantan analitičar ili se radi o čistoj sreći, pitao je Daniel Altman sa IHT bloga Managin Globalization.

Ovaj intervju je od Ponedjeljka iz financijskog tjednika Barron's. (Drugi graf je FYI; courtesy Angry Bear blog. Click za uvećanje.)

What Mr. Crude Oil Sees Ahead

AN INTERVIEW WITH ARJUN MURTI: Gas may have to hit $5.75 a gallon before consumption cools enough to take the heat off fuel prices.

IN 2004, ARJUN N. MURTI, A TOP ENERGY ANALYST AT GOLDMAN SACHS, published a report predicting "a potentially large upward spike in crude oil, natural gas and refining margins at some point this decade." It was a controversial call, with crude around $40 a barrel at the time. But it was right on the money.

Four years later, crude is trading around 139.

Murti sees energy in the later stages of a "super spike," in which prices rise to a point where demand drops off. In a note last month, he wrote that "the possibility of $150-to-$200-per-barrel oil seems increasingly likely over the next six to 24 months."

With supply growth constrained and global demand staying strong, prices must rise further, in Murti's view. Barron's caught up with him last week in his New York office.

The 39-year-old analyst doesn't give many interviews and keeps a low profile, preferring not to be photographed. But his strong views on energy have resonated across the financial markets.

Scott Pollack

"We don't think the world has run out of oil. We do think [many producers] aren't on track to grow their supply aggressively." --Arjun Murti

Barron's: What do you make of Friday's big surge in oil prices?

Murti: There have been a number of bullish fundamental data points recently that contributed to the rally. These include further declines in U.S oil inventories announced June 4, the announcement of a decline in Russian oil production in May, and recent comments that Mexico expects further meaningful declines in oil production over the rest of this year.

Longer-term, what's driving crude to such high levels?

Spare capacity throughout the energy complex seems very limited, whether for OPEC crude oil, natural gas or refining. In all of those areas, capacity is limited. And it's getting very difficult for companies and countries to boost supply -- something that became increasingly apparent to us over the first half of this decade.

Our view started shifting, from one of "It is easy to grow supply," which was the perceived view of the 1990s, to "It is going to be more difficult to grow supply." That's partly because some oil-producing regions, like Mexico and the North Sea, are declining. The Lower 48 states in the U.S. are very mature.

There are growth areas, such as Brazil and Angola. But when we add up all those pluses and minuses, non-OPEC supply looks like it is not going to grow very much.

So, essentially, there is constrained supply, along with increasing demand?

Demand has been consistently growing. On the supply side, we don't subscribe to the peak-oil view. We don't think the world has run out of oil.

We do think that the places that have large quantities of recoverable oil, notably Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela and Russia, aren't on track to grow their supply aggressively. It is growing at a very moderate rate, and so the remaining oil resources are concentrated. And, to some degree, high prices are disincentivizing some of these countries to either open up their industry or spend the money themselves.

What actually is keeping them from producing more?

These countries don't need the incremental revenue. They're getting the revenue through price; they don't need it through volume. It means they have sufficient capital to try and develop their oil industry on their own. With high prices, they don't need Western capital. Venezuela, where Western companies' assets have been expropriated, is a good example.

You've made the distinction in your research that while the world's oil supply is barely growing, if at all, there is a lot of oil that's not being taken out of the ground. Take Russia, for example. Why aren't they producing more oil?

In a lot of the key oil-exporting countries, the government is the key driver of whether their oil fields get developed. Relative to 10 years ago, Russia is in a very healthy position.

So, logically, there is less incentive for Russia to massively grow their supply and bring down oil prices. Frankly, that's true for a lot of these countries.

In terms of your super-spike scenario, what phase are we in?

We are getting closer to the end game here, where despite eight years of rising energy prices, supply looks like it is going to barely grow this year. We have been bullish, but we didn't expect such a slow growth rate of supply. And demand outside the U.S., Europe and Japan has been more resilient than we expected.

What markets are you referring to?

That would include China. The Middle East is a big demand driver, though it is often underappreciated. In aggregate, Middle East demand is about the same size as China's and it's growing at about the same rate. Demand from Latin America is also increasing.

Let's talk about the possibility of crude hitting $200 a barrel. If we get there, how does it play out?

Our view has been that the price will keep going up to the level where it meaningfully reduces demand. This is Economics 101; we need more supply or less demand. And because there are various political and geologic constraints on growing supply, we're left with looking for the price at which demand is reduced. We've never thought we knew what that exact number is. But we've tried to look at the 1970s, notably the economic impact of gasoline prices that ultimately led to a reduction in demand.

How does the current situation compare with the 1970s?

In the 1970s, you had a traditional supply shock. You took a bunch of oil off the market, and the price rose very quickly in a short period of time. That led to lower demand that proved sustainable, because the market worried that the supply wouldn't come back. It has been, up until the last three or four months, a much more gradual increase -- and therefore, people have generally been able to get used to the price. And it's allowed demand to be more resilient than even we thought it would be.

But if crude does hit $200 a barrel, what kind of prices will we see at the pump?

Oil at $150 to $200 a barrel would imply between $4 and $5.75 a gallon.

At which point you probably see a falloff in demand, right?

We are already starting to see a drop in demand in the U.S., but they are still having demand growth in the non-OECD countries, including China, the Middle East and Asia. The OECD [Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development] countries are mainly the U.S., Europe and Japan. The real question: At what point do the non-OECD economies slow down? The other thing about U.S. demand is, at what point do you have sustainable change in consumer behavior? So if the price temporarily goes to $4 [a gallon], but immediately falls back to $3, it's likely that people will keep driving cars with poor gasoline mileage. But if people believe the increase in oil prices is more sustainable, they might shift to taking mass transportation, if available, driving hybrids or taking the other kind of actions that are necessary to reduce demand on a sustained basis.

Do you see a sustained drop in demand at $200 a barrel?

That is the big question. We have always assumed that, at some point, you get a sustained drop in demand. Our long-term oil forecast looking out 20 years is [for crude] to fall back to $75 a barrel, or some lower number. The questions are: How long do prices stay high? How sharply do they rise? And do people truly change their behavior or are they just temporarily driving less? It's an unknown at this point.

There's been a lot of discussion about speculators driving up commodity prices.

Oil markets are driven by fundamentals. Our response to the notion that it is merely a bubble is that you are still seeing no supply growth. If the price isn't real, where is the supply?

Where are natural-gas prices going?

Our thesis has been that LNG [liquefied natural gas] wouldn't arrive in the U.S. in anywhere near the quantities people expected, because LNG prices are so much higher in the rest of the world. In a country like Japan or Korea, they are now paying $18 to $20 per million BTUs [British thermal units]. Our natural-gas prices have risen to around to $12 million per BTU. Europe is $13 to $14 [million], so we have amongst the lowest natural-gas prices in the world. Therefore, it makes less sense for companies to ship liquefied natural gas to the U.S. For LNG to come into the U.S., we would have to have much higher natural-gas prices than the rest of the world. So either prices would have to fall in the rest of the world or they would have to rise here. Also, natural-gas inventories in the U.S. are tightening, putting upward pressure on prices.

You are pretty bullish on energy. But you're Neutral on the refiners.

The challenge for the refiners right now is that we are starting to see the U.S. experience negative gasoline-demand growth and the U.S. refiners are very tied to gasoline margins, which are likely to be lackluster if gasoline demand growth is negative. There is also higher ethanol production. The bottom line is that U.S. refiners get squeezed.

One group you and your colleagues do like is the integrated oil companies. Why?

Right now, the market seems to be very pessimistic on the integrated oils. I think the market is worried that there may be windfall-profit taxes.

The market has also taken the view that if you're bullish on oil, you're better off owning E&P [exploration and production] companies or oil-services companies. And, again, the market has generally factored in lower oil prices than we think are likely. All this makes the major oils look very inexpensive.

As of last week, the major oils, including ExxonMobil [ticker: XOM], ConocoPhillips [COP] and Chevron [CVX] were trading at about eight times earnings, based on oil prices of $110 a barrel. They were trading at four times enterprise value [stock-market value plus net debt] to Ebitda [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization]. That's fairly inexpensive by historical measures.

Do any of these companies stand out?

ConocoPhillips is our overall top pick among the major oils, partly because they have more oil in OECD countries. The tax rates tend to be a little bit lower in those countries than they are in some of the non-OECD countries. They've also got a large natural-gas position, which they got when they acquired Burlington Resources several years ago. In the two years after they bought it, natural-gas prices fell. So the market has taken a pessimistic view of the Burlington Resources acquisition. But now, with natural-gas prices rebounding to around $12 per million BTUs, those assets should be performing a lot better.

Another sector you favor is exploration and production.

The E&P companies tend to be more leveraged to natural gas, where we also have a fairly bullish outlook. Gas prices have been very inexpensive over the past couple of years, and they are just starting to recover in the U.S. So some of these natural-gas E&P companies are big beneficiaries of that. Also, many of these E&Ps are now in some of the newer natural-gas shale plays, like the Barnett Shale in Texas, the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas and the Horn River Basin in British Columbia.

Our top pick is Cabot Oil & Gas [COG], one of the smaller companies, with a market capitalization of about $6 billion.

We like their exposures to some of these specific shale plays, including the Marcellus Shale in Appalachia. Because they are a smaller company, some of these new areas can have a disproportionate impact on the size of their reserves and production. Another company in this group that we like is Apache [APA], which is larger, with a market capitalization of about $45 billion. They have a nice balance between crude and natural gas and domestic and international exposure. We think international natural-gas prices are likely to start rallying, and Apache has got a good position in Egypt and Australia. And they have a number of key assets domestically.

All of these companies look very inexpensive because the market hasn't factored in anything near the current oil and natural-gas prices. Based on our numbers, Apache's enterprise value was recently at four times Ebitda and Cabot's was a little bit more expensive at 6.5 times Ebitda.

What other sectors look attractive?

Pipelines. The pipeline companies don't directly benefit from higher commodity prices, as would integrated oil or E&P companies, but there is a great need to expand our pipeline infrastructure in this country, and a lot of the companies we favor are positioned to do just that. Oneok [OKE] and El Paso [EP] are two we like. El Paso has a very large natural-gas pipeline network, and it looks undervalued to us. As for Oneok, they are well-positioned to benefit from a lot of natural gas in the Rockies and some of these mid-continent shale plays.

Are there any calls you wish you could have back?

We stayed too bullish on the U.S. refiners for too long, and that has been a mistake.

What most concerns you about energy stocks, going forward?

The biggest risk is that emerging-market growth abruptly changes for some reason. It is hard to predict that reason, but if it changes, it will probably change suddenly. That's what we worry about.

As for the possibility of $200 oil, that's not sustainable in your view, right?

No, we call it a spike, which implies an upside and a downside. So we don't talk about a sustainable price of $200. We call it a peak price, but we don't know what that is. We've got a range of $150 to $200.

Thanks very much, Arjun.

Blogeri su reagirali. Harvardov prof. Mankiw je predložio da se, ukoliko taj prijedlog prođe (vjerojatno neće), Harvard postepeno preseli na drugu lokaciju, negdje na jug. Prominentni Harvardov alumni i bloger prof. Brad DeLong priču je proširio na efikasnost organizacije i proširenja sveučilišta, usporedivši Harvard sa UCLA i otvorio pitanje što Harvard radi sa svojom najvećom zakladom na svijetu. Ukratko, Harvard je 1960. imao oko 1200 studenata, danas ih ima oko 1600. UCLA je od 1960. sa 5000 studenata, danas došao na 40 000. UCLA je tako napravio više limunade iz dostupnih limuna, unatoč relativno slabijoj početnoj poziciji. Drugim riječima, Harvardova proizvoda funkcija je upitne efikasnosti, ali ne zbog neznanja administratora, već, moguće, zbog modela upravljanja sveučilištem. DeLong daje (za nas na ovim prostorima posebno zanimljivo) objašnjenje:

"Somebody last week--was it Jan de Vries? John Ellwood? Somebody else? I forget who, but it is not original to me--said that the right model for Harvard over the past century is Yugoslavia. Remember the story of the Yugoslavian socialist worker-managed firm? If you add another worker to the firm, that worker gets a pro-rata share of the firm's value added. The firm's value added has a component attributable to the firm's capital stock, a component attributable to the ideas embedded in the firm, a component attributable to the firm's market position, and a component attributable to the workers. Hire another worker, and only the last of these goes up: the first three do not, and so average compensation falls.

This means that a worker-managed firm is likely to shrink whenever it gets good news that makes it more productive--the larger is the value added due to ideas, capital, or market position, the more expensive does it become for the existing workers to replace workers who leave, let alone hire enough workers to expand. While a competitive market capitalist firm responds to good news about its productivity and value to society by increasing employment, a Yugoslavian-model market socialist firm responds to good news about its productivity and value to society by shrinking. On this analysis, the very success of Harvard over the past two generations together with its degree of worker management has created enormous internal pressures not to expand, the better to share out the surplus among the existing stakeholders."

Pošto knjigu (vani niti tjedan dana) nisam pročitao, ne mogu o njoj i njenim temam diskutirati van recenzija koje pročitam sada i van onoga što znam od prije. Malo sam je prelistao jer mi je upala u oči, ali male su šanse da ću je kupiti novu. (I paperback će biti dovoljan.)

Par tema se pojavljuje u intervju. Za Hrvatsku je najzanimljivija njegova izjava da i Hrvatsku pogađa globalna kriza. To je prilično opširna i generička izjava sa malo konkretnog značaja, ali ukoliko Vlada bude pritisnuta od strane medija na komentar o njoj, mogla bi imati značaja. To bi bila šteta i gubitak vremena. Hrvatsku svakako ne trese globalna kriza, ali neće ni ostati oaza sigurnosti. Ranjiva je; Rohatinski i HNB je nedavno upozorio i obavještava na to već već godinama. Naravno da će usporavanje svjetskog gospodarstva i nepovoljni vanjski financijski uvijeti imati negativne utjecaja i na hrvatsku ekonomiju. Ali Vlada se ne bi trebala koncentrirati na opovrgavanje Sorosa već nastaviti svoj posao, svoje reforme.

Van toga, teme koje se pojavljuju u intervju su opširnije i cijeli post se može o svakoj od njih napisati.

Tri teme, po meni, upadaju u uči kao zanimljivije, u odnosu na općenito upozoravanje da Američka i EU ekonomije usporavaju/prijeti im najgora recesija od VD - regulacija, imovinski mjehuri i navodno, nova paradigma. One također, zahtjevaju veće poznavanje tematike od same informiranosti o temi. S obzirom da ću se ograničiti ovdje u pisanju, izdvojiti ću par citata iz intervjua sa komentarom.

Na pitanje novinarke "Kako to da su političari, ekonomisti, poduzetnici, šefovi financijskih institucija prihvatili ideju da se tržište samoregulira i da prirodno teži ravnoteži?“ Soros odgovara:

"Pogriješio je čitav ekonomski establišment.... Svi su počeli vjerovati u savršenstvo tržišta, koje je, kao njihova krajnja suprotnost, svemoguće, naravno ako ga ne sputavamo reguliranjem.“

Savršenstvo tržišta se ovdje predstavlja kao "self-evident truth" i kao da su svi opčinjeni time. Ja ne znam za i jednog pametnog/poznatog ekonomista koji vjeruje da je tržište savršeno. Mislim da i Soros razmišlja malo sofisticiranije od tog odgovora, koji bi neupućenima mogao zvučati kao da je ekonomski „establišment“ brdo fanatika. Mogao je barem reći, zbog usporedbe sa komunizmom, da je tržište relativno savršeno. Moga je i malo i razjasniti razlike između makro i mikro teorija tržišta. Nije ni jasno na koje je tržište mislio, novčano, kapitala ili tržišta realne ekonomije? To očitno nije bitno ako ti je cilj politički nabijen odgovor kako bi zgrabio naslovnicu. Pošto Soros uglavnom piše o i bavi se mehanizmima financijskih tržišta, te je njegova teorija refleksije (refleksiviteta?) aplicirana na financijsko tržište, nije krivo pretpostaviti da primarno na njih misli i ovdje. (Ja nikad nisam čuo da priča o tržištu rada(?))

Spominjanje regulacije financijskih tržišta i financijske industrije te protivljenju nekih istoj (zbog sputavanja) također zvuči „fanatično“. Određene vrste i količina regulacije je potrebna i dobrodošla i to nitko ne sputava. Debate i neslaganja su oko detalja, konkretnih načina i autoriteta koji bi to trebali sprovoditi. Soros, istina kaže, "Po mom mišljenju, ne smijemo napustiti tržišne mehanizme samo zato što nisu savršeni, nego se moramo truditi da ih poboljšamo" i Soros drži da financijska tržišta igraju važnu ulogu u ukupnoj ekonomiji. No to je opet generička izjava i čitaoc ne zna što bi sa njom. S obzirom na druge knjige, Soros vjerojatno ni u ovoj je nudi svoja riješenja za regulaciju.

Martin Wolf je nedavno u svom blogu na Financial Timesu sumirao "Financijska regulacija je teška, ali neophodna." No to ne znači da dodatna, nova regulacija financijske industrije jamči bolje i sigurnije performanse financijskog sistema i da je neupitno sposobna spriječiti nove krize i zapinjanja financijskog sistema. Nova u smislu da obuhvaća i razumije nove financijske instrumente i prilagođava stare novim načinima je jedna stvar, dok nova i opširna u smislu da guši performanse i uzimanje rizika financijske industrije je druga. Regulacija može i narušiti alokaciju resursa i to je razlog zašto se većina ekonomista protivi novoj regulaciji pogotovo u kriznim vremenima kada ima više populističkih poteza političara nego dobro promišljenih, ekspertnih analiza. Također, regulacija koja ispravlja tržišne nepravilnosti je vjerojatno poželjna (opet postoji debata o detaljima.) Da bi micro-management regulatora bio uspiješan, tj. da bi predvidjeli buduću financijsku krizu na vrijeme, oni sami moraju gledati u budućnost, biti korak ispred samih financijskih igrača i preventivno reagirati. Ta očekivanja se jednostavno nisu obistinila, tj. nije bilo silnih uspijeha u preventivnom predviđanju i spriječavanju novih kriza. To je primarno, pretpostavljam, jer se regulatori neprirodno koncentriraju na prošle krize i uzroke kako bi naučili više. I dok neki kažu da je svaka financijska kriza manje više ista pa je takvo ponašanje regulatora normalno, drugi će reći da "ako si vidio jednu financijsku krizu, vidio si i dalje samo jednu."

To nas vodi to Sorosova otvorene i jednostavne konstatacije:

"To je uloga državnih agencija koje kontroliraju tržište. Njihova dužnost je da predvide “mjehure”. Što je više ovakvih “spašavanja”, to znači da su tamo loše obavili svoj posao. Naime, oni se ne mogu ograničiti samo na brigu o inflaciji, cijenama i dohotku...."

I niže:

..."Središnje banke koje su se dosad ograničavale na izdavanje novca moraju naučiti predvidjeti financijske “mjehure”, trebaju interpretirati “duševna stanja” na tržištu. Priznajem, radi se o vrlo osjetljivom pokušaju upravljanja očekivanjima."

Oba komentara se, uz vrlo malo sumnje, uglavnom odnose na Američku središnju banku, FED. U Jutarnjem Soros napominje kako ne želi kriviti Greenspana, no u nekim drugim (vidi Telegraph video i članak) direktno krivi Greenspana za sadašnju krizu zbog nedovoljnog reguliranja i pravovremenog interveniranja u mjehur. Pitanje imovinskih mjehura (asset bubbles), njihovo predviđanje i ispuhivanje, je možda i važnije za monetarnu politiku od pitanja regulacije. (Ili to tako samo izgleda zbog ne-glamuroznosti teme financijske regulacije?) Ipak, obje su usko povezani. Zato ću se ja na njima i zadržati kraće za sada.

Centralne banke uzimaju u obzir cijene imovina (nisu ipak slijepe), ali u vrlo limitiranom smislu te postoje razlike između centralnih banaka. Oni koji se zalažu da to bude formalnije, smatraju da index cijena treba sadržavati cijene dionica, cijene nekretnina uz potrošačke i proizvodne cijene, zbog rastuće važnosti i veličine imovinskih tržišta u ekonomiji. Soros, barem kroz gornje citate, predstavlja pogleda da je zadaća FEDa da potpuno predvidi mjehure i reagira/intervenira na njih pravovremeno. No to nije zadaća i svrha FEDa kao centralne banke zadužene za monetarnu politiku i makro stabilnost. Ako i dozvolimo da je jedan od zadataka FEDa, onda je to sigurno niže na listi i moramo biti svijesni političkih implikacija takve intervenciju u tržište, koje Soros izgleda nije svjestan jer priznaje da se radi o vrlo osjetiljivom upravljanju očekivanjima, misleći na financijska tržišta, a ne i na realnu ekonomiju i građane. Možda u knjizi diskutira o tome, ali ovdje ne znamo više što točno Soros želi reći. Kakav bi efekt, primjerice, to upravljanje očekivanjima i cjenama imovine od trećih strana imalo na investitore i kupce imovine poput nekretnina?

Pozicija FEDa u vezi imovinskih mjehura je za sada, i vjerojatno će tako ostati u skoroj budućnosti, jasna: FED je protiv namjernog ispuhivanja cijena imovinskih mjehura kroz monetarnu politiku, i.e. korištenjem kamatnih stopa. FED neće namjerno, prijevremeno intervenirati na određenom tržištu kako bi prsnuo mjehur. Razlozi za to su jednostavni: mjehure je teško definitivno identificirati, centralni bankari nemaju ništa bolje informacije ili sposobnosti predivdjeti mjehure od privatnog sektora, monetarna politika nema dovoljno kvalitetne/precizne instrumente da kirurški ispuše samo mjehur, te je zbog toga opasnost štete za čitavu ekonomiju i imovinu od namjernog ispuhivanja mjehura velika. Uz to, FED jest svijestan opasnosti nekih mjehura za financijski sistem i makro stabilnost. Kvalitetnim i pravovremenim mjerama centralna banka može ublažiti šok prsnutog mjehura i spriječiti posljedice za realnu ekonomiju. Ipak, ima nešto mjesta za napredak.

Iako se taj pogled i stav neće promjeniti u skoro vrijeme, nedavno, barem u Americi, polako dolazi do diskusija o ulozi monetarne politike i regulacije u stvaranju imovinskih mjehura, te unaprijeđenju nadzora. Pošto je sama monetarna politika (regulacija kamatnih stopa) već zauzeta i opterećena zadatkom postizanja niske inflacije i pune zaposlenosti, bolja regulacija i nadgledanje ostaje kao jedini instrument kojim se može poboljšati/učvrstiti financijski sistem. Ne koncentriranjem FEDa na predivđanje i potom namjernom interveniranju kako bi se mjehur ispuhao i što bi potencijalno isto ugrozilo financijski sistem i njegovu funkciju u makro stabilnosti. Soros, izgleda (neću tvrditi jer nisam vidio knjigu) misli da je to bolji način i trebao biti glavni/primarni cilj centralne banke. Ona se ne bi trebala koncentrirati više samo na inflaciju, dohodak, nezaposlenost pošto je stabilnost u realnoj ekonomiji postignuta. Na taj način bi se, navodno, izbjegle krize i nestabilnosti financijskog sektora; a realno bi se možda stvorio samo privid da neće biti novih kriza ili mjehura. Uz taj stav FEDa, on je ipak zakonski ograničen na cilj stabilnosti cijena i pune zaposlenosti. Uz to uloga FEDa, kao i drugih centralnih banaka, je da brane integritet financijskog sistema svoje zemlje. Zbog toga dolazi do spašavanja velikih banka, koji istina na volju ne izgledaju popularno u javnosti, pogotovo ako se koristi porezni novac ali su ponekad nužne. Kako bi taj cilj bio kompatibilan sa namjernim preduhitrenim "bušenjem" mjehura i pogoršavanjem stabilnosti financijskog sektora koji bi potom povratnom vezom negativno djelovao na makro stabilnost? Bolja regulacija i nadzor, u funkciji spriječavanja te povratne veze između imovinskog mjehura i sposobnosti kreditiranja je kvalitetnija i politički najizglednija mjera.

Uz te važne teme, Soros ponovo dovodi na svijetlo svoju teoriju refleksije, primarno u financijskim tržištima, kao nove paradigme koja bi zamjenila staru. (Pojavila se krajem 80tih. Mislim da je 1987. izašla Alkemija). Ja nisam silno upoznat sa njom, van sporadičnog čitanja, no čini mi se da se u globalu, bez da idem u detalje, radi o posebnoj upotrebi i načinu razmišljanja o očekivanjima. Možda bi trebao pročitati novu knjigu da bi se pobliže upoznao sa njenom srži, refleksijom, iako mislim da ne poznavanje iste me neće onemogućiti da si osiguram izdašnu mirovinu. Kako i što god bilo, za Sorosa refleksija čini čuda i fenomenalne zarade (iako je priznao da ove godine jedna ostaje na nuli zbog silne volatilnosti). Problem nastaje kad Soros nastoji upotrijebiti refleksiju na više ekonomskih područja, bilo ukupne financijske ekonomije ili kritike ukupnog "ekonomskog establišmenta." Na jednu ruku Soros, onako extremno krivi taj establišment i "njegovu" paradigmu za sve probleme i jer nisu prihvatili njegovu teorju refleksije. On kritizira postojeće poglede na financijska tržišta i investiranje i tu Soros koristi svoje razumjevanje u kritici financijske ekonomije. Na drugu ruku Soros koristi svoju financijsku eskpertizu, iskustvo i teorije da bi kritizirao čitavu ekonomiju kao društvenu znanost i njene koncepte, za koje i priznaje da malo zna, ali i pokazuje u raznim drugim pisanjima. To je postiglo suprotan efekt od željenog. Sorosa se uzima ozbiljno, njegove teorije ne baš. Soros je financijski mag i zbog velike uspiješnosti u investiranju mnogi će, posebno "financijaši", biti privučeni ovoj knjizi kao i prijašnjim. Uz to, njegove filantropske aktivnosti su vrijedne hvale i počasti. No, te dvije uloge ga ipak ne kvalificiraju automatski kao briljantnog i uvijek-u-pravu analitičara svih financijskih i pogotovo ekonomskih tema ili kao javnog intelektualca.

Na kraju, malo se dotaklo i teme demokracije i tržišta. Možda bi šira i zanimljivija tema iz toga trebala biti demokracija, tržište i ekonomski rast. Svi znamo da Kina nije demokracija, već autoritetna zemlja, i da prakticiran vođeno tržište u velikom djelom svoje ekonomije. To joj dobro za sada ide, jer reprezentativna demokracija kao šta je mi znamo nije nužna za ekonomski rast.

]]> http://cronomy.wordpress.com/?p=439 Sun, 25 May 2008 07:08:54 +0000 cronomy http://cronomy.wordpress.com/?p=439 Eurovizija je uvijek bila puna kontroverzi i optužbi o političkim "manevrima". Optužbe o političkom glasanju, trgovini glasovima ili političkoj koluziji se redovno pojave nakon glasanja i proglašenja pobjednika. Birtanci su standardno već ogorčeni i u svojim ocjenama (ili nedostatku) vide političke faktore i međunarode odnose "tamo na kontinentu." Tako je i ovaj put nakon pobjede Rusije.

Kontroverza i polemika ima dovoljno za ozbiljno akademsko analiziranje svih dostupnih podataka da bi se vidjelo da li je sumnja o politički orijentiranom glasanju opravdana. Ideja da koluzija i geopolitika igraju veću ulogu od kvalitete pjesama prilikom ocjenjivanja je već prije studirana od strane raznih vrsta autora - financijski matematičari, kompjuterski inžinjeri, biolozi, sociolozi. I The Economist se bavio tim pitanjem u jednom izdanju 2005. Vjerojatno među posljednjim radovima koji analiziraju ovu tematiku uspoređujući sa svim prijašnjim radovima su dva ekonomista (ekonometričara). Pošto ekonomska znanost ponekad predstavlja ozbiljno analiziranje smješnih tema, dala je svoj doprinos i ovom “važnom” pitanju glasanja na Euroviziji. :) Ipak je kvaliteta.

U ovogodišnjem ožujskom izdanju Europan Journal of Political Economy autori Victor Ginsburgh i Abdul Noury u svom su radu analizirali, pomoću ekonometrijskih tehnika, podatke o glasovanju za sve Eurovizije of 1975. do 2003. Cilj je bio analizirati determinante uspijeha i glasanja pojedinih zemalja kroz objašenjenje glasova svake pojedine zemlje za drugu zemlju. Na taj način autori su testirali postojanje trgovine glasovima, namjerne ili nenamjerne, zbog političkih razloga. (Rad u pdf-u ovdje)

Prijašnji radovi su tražili dokaze za upitno glasanje, zbog sumnji na poličko umjesto artističko ocjenjivanje, i pronašli da uistinu postoje blokovi zemalja gdje je ocjenjivanje. Radovi dr. Dereka Gatherera su posebno značajni jer je on utvrdio postojanje tri velika glasačka bloka između 1975-2005: Skandinavski + baltičke zemlje, Balkan (bivša Juga+Bugarska, Rumu.) i Rusija sa susjednim zemljama bivšeg SSSRa. Gatherer je predvidio pobjedu Srbije 2007. Sudeći po glasovima i pobjedniku ove godine i posljednjih par, Gatherer je upravu - zemlje koje ne pripadaju jednom od ova tri bloka nemaju velike šanse pobjediti.

Yair (1995) was among the first to study the contest. Using the voting data over the period 1975–1992, he found three bloc areas namely Western, Mediterranean and Northern Europe. Gatherer (2004) analyzed the period 1975–2002 and identified two large blocs, called “the Viking Empire” including Scandinavian and Baltic countries, and the “Warsaw Pact” comprising Russia, Romania and the former Yugoslavia. More recently, Gatherer (2004, 2006) used Monte Carlo simulation methods to study voting pattern of countries over the period 1975–2005. He emphasized the emergence of large geographical blocs since the mid-90s. Fenn et al. (2005) investigated the relations between European countries represented in the contest in terms of a dynamical network, and concluded that there exist “unofficial cliques of countries” and vote patterns.

No, neki od tih radova su zanemarili faktor kvalitete pjesme i izvođenja u ocjenjivanju. Na jednu ruku, pošto je kvalitetu koju suci ocjenjuju teško promatrati i bilježiti, pogotovo nakon 1997. kad je uvedeno direktno telefonsko glasanje javnosti, normalno da je kvaliteta bila isključena. Na drugu ruku, u idealnom svijetu (idealnoj Europi?) jedina determinanta prilikom glasanje bi bila kvaliteta pjesme i performansa, pa se taj faktor ne može tek tako zanemariti. Uz kvalitetu, faktori koji bi mogli imati utjecaj na ocjenjivanje su jezik pjesme, spol izvođača, solo, duet ili grupna izvedba, redosljed izvedbe također ima utjecaj na rezultat. Da podsjetim, cilj je analizirati glas zemlje x prilikom ocjenjivanja nastupa zemlje y; ne determinante ukupnih glasova. Prema tome, trebamo pogledati i drugu stranu jednađbe i uzeti u obzir karakteristike glasača ili suca. U obzir dolaze lingvističke i kulturale udaljenosti između suca i izvođača, kao predstavnici kulturološke približenosti između stanovništva.

Tu dolazi naš rad iz Europan Journal of Political Economy. U radu, autori su pokazali, za razliku od svih ostalih, da kvaliteta igra ključnu ulogu i da nema političke trgovine glasovima, već da se radi o kulturološko/jezičnim faktorima.

In this paper we show that “quality” as determined by the juries of the various competitions, and which is ignored by Fenn et al. (2005), among others, plays the most important role. There exist cliques or voting blocs, but these are based on linguistic and cultural similarities, which, once they are introduced to explain the votes cast by each participating country for other countries, eliminate the effect of votes' exchanges based on political issues. We thus conclude that what may look as vote trading is in fact sincere voting based on “quality,” and linguistic and cultural proximities. Still, one can argue that the voting procedure takes into account factors that are not purely artistic.

Pošto nema direktnih obzervacija kvalitete, potrebno je izraditi kvalitetnu proxy mjeru kvalitete. Kako bi mjera kvalitete bila što bolja autori uzimaju u obzir postojanje 3 velika glasačka bloka indentificirana u radu Derek Gatherera. U mjeri kvalitete pojedine zemlje isključeni su glasovi svih članova koji pripadaju tom istom glasačkom bloku. Npr. u mjeri kvalitete Hrvatske pjesme isključeni su glasovi zemalja koje pripadaju Balkanskom bloku. U mjeri kvalitete Ukrajine isključeni su glasovi Rusije i Poljske. Itd... Mjera kvalitete tako nije zahvaćena postojanjem tih velikih glasačkih blokova i prema tome kvaliteta nije precjenjena.

To je bitno, jer kroz više testova, kvaliteta uvijek izlazi kao dominanti faktor prilikom glasanja.

We first observe that quality always plays a very significant role, and can be interpreted as showing that there is large agreement between judges on the rating of candidates. Vote trading is significant only in specification (a), in which no account is taken of linguistic and cultural distances. It ceases to be so in all the other specifications once linguistic and/or cultural distances are also accounted for. Note that even when the coefficient on vote trading is significantly different from zero, its value is very small.

Rezultati drugog testiranja su vrlo slični.

Results produced by TSLS are very similar to the previous ones. They show that quality is still very significant, there is no significant vote trading, singer characteristics do not matter, language proximity is significantly different from zero at the 1% probability level, and two cultural distance measures are significantly different from zero at the 5% level.

Kod usporedbe koeficijenata (oni koji se razumiju mogu pogledati u tablice u radu) rezultati opet potvrđuje dominaciju kvalitete i umanjuje (gotovo da eliminira) trgovinu glasovima kad se uzmu u obzir lingvistički i kulturološki faktori.

Results show that the quality of the singer (or group) is the most important variable, and that the effect of vote trading is dwarfed by the effect of linguistic and cultural distances......

All our results point in the same direction. “Quality” is the main determinant in the voting procedure, linguistic and other cultural factors are present, but not at the forefront. Political vote trading is not an issue once cultural factors are taken into account. This does not mean that there is no vote trading, but it is rather due to cultural and linguistic factors.

Još jedan rad donosi slične zaključke. Iako ga nisam vidio, BBC prenosi da rad dr. Michel Vellekoopa i dr. Laure Spierdijk, nakon analize glasanja isto između 1975. i 2003. objašnjava:

After correcting for language, cultural and religious preferences, they found strong evidence of political voting only among Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Other voting patterns, Dr Vellekoop says, can largely be explained by language preferences and shared cultural tastes. Cyprus and Greece, for example, are commonly accused of favouring each other and of all the countries, statistics suggest they are the most likely to vote for each other. Wogan seemed to sum it up when Cyprus awarded Greece 12 points in last year's contest. "Over the years people say this is ludicrous, this is ridiculous," he laughed. "But still they do it. They just don't care."

But Dr Vellekopp says his statistical analysis shows the reason the two countries give high marks to each other so often is because their people speak the same language and probably like the same kind of music.

Možda ovo pomogne netkom u klađenju na sljedećoj Еуровиѕији. Eh, i ja se ulovim teme za pisati.

U razvijenim zemljama taj udio je između 10% i 20%; u zemljama u razvoju doseže i 65%. Primjerice u eurozoni taj udio je 14.7%; u Hrvatskoj udio je 27.7%. Zbog nižeg levela razvoja u Hrvatskoj (prihodovnog statusa većine građana), to je gdje se inflacija najviše osjeća prilikom mjesečne kupovine. Čak i u razvijenim zemljama, poput UKa, hrana je jedini dio gdje se vidi inflacija. Index bez hrane je u deflaciji. No, to objašnjenje/analiza utjecaja cijene dobara na ukupnu inflaciju je već poznata (osim možda Vladi koja je učinila gaf početkom godine i napala komunalije kao primarnog krivca za inflaciju).

Sirova nafta probija rekorde što dovodi do povećanja cijene benzina i dizela. Poljoprivredne sirovine za čitavu 2007. su značano porasle. Cijena žita je porasla za 100%, riže za 45%, soje za 70%. U posljednjih godinu dana cijena žita u Hrvatskoj je opet porasla 100% prema DZSu. Oba faktora utječu na cijene industrijskih prehrambenih proizvoda. Ali, ta dva faktora ne mogu biti jedina koji utječu na cijene prehrambenih proizvoda, a vjerojatno je (iako ne možda sigurno bez kvalitetnih podataka) da nisu ni dominantna.

Ipak, sve dok cijene ta dva faktora rastu dozvoljeno je, čini se, povećavati cijene gotovo svih industrijskih proizvoda. Što najviše zabrinjava građane posebice relativno siromašni