LUMINÁRIA

It was the Democrats' embrace of neoliberalism that won it for Trump. (-Naomi Klein, via Entre as brumas...). " As pessoas perderam seu sentido de segurança, estatuto e até a identidade. Este resultado é o grito do desespero por uma mudança radical ". «People have lost their sense of security, status and even identity. This result is the scream of an America (and European) desperate for radical change.»

------ Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems (-George Monbiot, 15/4/2016,TheGuardian) (Neoliberalismo- a ideologia que está na raíz de todos os nossos problemas)

George Monbiot Financial meltdown, environmental disaster and even the rise of Donald Trump – neoliberalism has played its part in them all.

Imagine if the people of the Soviet Union had never heard of communism. The ideology that dominates our lives has, for most of us, no name. Mention it in conversation and you’ll be rewarded with a shrug. Even if your listeners have heard the term before, they will struggle to define it. Neoliberalism: do you know what it is?

Its anonymity is both a symptom and cause of its power. It has played a major role in a remarkable variety of crises: the financial meltdown of 2007‑8, the offshoring (fuga de capitais e evasão fiscal) of wealth and power, of which the Panama Papers offer us merely a glimpse, the slow collapse of public health and education, resurgent child poverty, the epidemic of loneliness, the collapse of ecosystems, the rise of Donald Trump. But we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name. What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?

So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom even recognise it as an ideology. We appear to accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a kind of biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power.

Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.

Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.

We internalise and reproduce its creeds. The rich persuade themselves that they acquired their wealth through merit, ignoring the advantages – such as education, inheritance and class – that may have helped to secure it. The poor begin to blame themselves for their failures, even when they can do little to change their circumstances.

Never mind structural unemployment: if you don’t have a job it’s because you are unenterprising. Never mind the impossible costs of housing: if your credit card is maxed out, you’re feckless and improvident. Never mind that your children no longer have a school playing field: if they get fat, it’s your fault. In a world governed by competition, those who fall behind become defined and self-defined as losers.

***

The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938. Among the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek. Both exiles from Austria, they saw social democracy, exemplified by Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the gradual development of Britain’s welfare state, as manifestations of a collectivism that occupied the same spectrum as nazism and communism.

In The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control. Like Mises’s book Bureaucracy, The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax. When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism – the Mont Pelerin Society – it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations.

With their help, he began to create what Daniel Stedman Jones describes in Masters of the Universe as “a kind of neoliberal international”: a transatlantic network of academics, businessmen, journalists and activists. The movement’s rich backers funded a series of thinktanks which would refine and promote the ideology. Among them were the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Institute of Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute. They also financed academic positions and departments, particularly at the universities of Chicago and Virginia.

As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek’s view that governments should regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way – among American apostles such as Milton Friedman – to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for efficiency.

Something else happened during this transition: the movement lost its name. In 1951, Friedman was happy to describe himself as a neoliberal. But soon after that, the term began to disappear. Stranger still, even as the ideology became crisper and the movement more coherent, the lost name was not replaced by any common alternative.

At first, despite its lavish funding, neoliberalism remained at the margins. The postwar consensus was almost universal: John Maynard Keynes’s economic prescriptions were widely applied, full employment and the relief of poverty were common goals in the US and much of western Europe, top rates of tax were high and governments sought social outcomes without embarrassment, developing new public services and safety nets.

But in the 1970s, when Keynesian policies began to fall apart and economic crises struck on both sides of the Atlantic, neoliberal ideas began to enter the mainstream. As Friedman remarked, “when the time came that you had to change ... there was an alternative ready there to be picked up”. With the help of sympathetic journalists and political advisers, elements of neoliberalism, especially its prescriptions for monetary policy, were adopted by Jimmy Carter’s administration in the US and Jim Callaghan’s government in Britain.

After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services. Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world. Most remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour (a 'Nova Via' de Blair) and the Democrats, for example. As Stedman Jones notes, “it is hard to think of another utopia to have been as fully realised.”

It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice and freedom should have been promoted with the slogan “there is no alternative” ('tina'). But, as Hayek remarked on a visit to Pinochet’s Chile – one of the first nations in which the programme was comprehensively applied – “my personal preference leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism”. The freedom that neoliberalism offers, which sounds so beguiling when expressed in general terms, turns out to mean freedom for the pike, not for the minnows.

Freedom from trade unions and collective bargaining means the freedom to suppress wages. Freedom from regulation (desregulação) means the freedom to poison rivers, endanger workers, charge iniquitous rates of interest and design exotic financial instruments (depois tóxicos). Freedom from tax means freedom from the distribution of wealth that lifts people out of poverty. (concentração da riqueza numa minoria 1% e mais desigualdade, empobrecimento da maioria)

As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine, neoliberal theorists advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were distracted: for example, in the aftermath of Pinochet’s coup, the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina, which Friedman described as “an opportunity to radically reform the educational system” in New Orleans.

Where neoliberal policies cannot be imposed domestically, they are imposed internationally, through trade treaties incorporating “investor-state dispute settlement” (isds: TTIP, CETA, ...): offshore tribunals in which corporations can press for the removal of social and environmental protections. When parliaments have voted to restrict sales of cigarettes, protect water supplies from mining companies, freeze energy bills or prevent pharmaceutical firms from ripping off the state, corporations have sued, often successfully. Democracy is reduced to theatre.

Another paradox of neoliberalism is that universal competition relies upon universal quantification and comparison. The result is that workers, job-seekers and public services of every kind are subject to a pettifogging, stifling regime of assessment and monitoring, designed to identify the winners and punish the losers. The doctrine that Von Mises proposed would free us from the bureaucratic nightmare of central planning has instead created one.

Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it rapidly became one. Economic growth has been markedly slower in the neoliberal era (since 1980 in Britain and the US) than it was in the preceding decades; but not for the very rich. Inequality in the distribution of both income and wealth, after 60 years of decline, rose rapidly in this era, due to the smashing of trade unions, tax reductions, rising rents, privatisation and deregulation.

The privatisation or marketisation of public services such as energy, water, trains, health, education, roads and prisons has enabled corporations to set up tollbooths in front of essential assets and charge rent (rentismo), either to citizens or to government, for their use. Rent is another term for unearned income. When you pay an inflated price for a train ticket, only part of the fare compensates the operators for the money they spend on fuel, wages, rolling stock and other outlays. The rest reflects the fact that they have you over a barrel.

Those who own and run the UK’s privatised or semi-privatised services make stupendous fortunes by investing little and charging much. In Russia and India, oligarchs acquired state assets through firesales. In Mexico, Carlos Slim was granted control of almost all landline and mobile phone services and soon became the world’s richest man.

Financialisation, as Andrew Sayer notes in Why We Can’t Afford the Rich, has had a similar impact. “Like rent,” he argues, “interest (juros e comissões) is ... unearned income that accrues without any effort”. As the poor become poorer and the rich become richer, the rich acquire increasing control over another crucial asset: money. Interest payments, overwhelmingly, are a transfer of money from the poor to the rich. As property prices and the withdrawal of state funding load people with debt (think of the switch from student grants/bolsas to student loans/empréstimos), the banks and their executives clean up ('limpam tudo').

Sayer argues that the past four decades have been characterised by a transfer of wealth not only from the poor to the rich, but within the ranks of the wealthy: from those who make their money by producing new goods or services to those who make their money by controlling existing assets and harvesting rent, interest or capital gains. Earned income has been supplanted by unearned income.

Neoliberal policies are everywhere beset by market failures. Not only are the banks too big to fail, but so are the corporations now charged with delivering public services. As Tony Judt pointed out in Ill Fares the Land, Hayek forgot that vital national services cannot be allowed to collapse, which means that competition cannot run its course. Private business takes the profits, the state keeps the risk.(e os custos)

The greater the failure, the more extreme the ideology becomes. (neoliberal)Governments use neoliberal crises as both excuse and opportunity to cut taxes, privatise remaining public services, rip holes in the social safety net, deregulate corporations and re-regulate citizens (limitando/diminuindo a liberdade e privacidade dos cidadãos, impondo mais restrições, taxas/impostos, deveres, burocracia). (-é o Estado capturado e Estado securitário dominado/ao serviço dos super-ricos, i.e. não-democracia mas plutocracia!) The self-hating state now sinks its teeth into every organ of the public sector.

Perhaps the most dangerous impact of neoliberalism is not the economic crises it has caused, but the political crisis. As the domain of the state is reduced, our ability to change the course of our lives through voting also contracts. Instead, neoliberal theory asserts, people can exercise choice through spending. But some have more to spend than others: in the great consumer or shareholder democracy, votes are not equally distributed. The result is a disempowerment of the poor and middle. As parties of the right and former left adopt similar neoliberal policies, disempowerment turns to disenfranchisement. Large numbers of people have been shed from politics.(cidadãos são afastados/ afastam-se/ alienam-se da Política e não exercem plenamente a sua cidadania)

Chris Hedges remarks that “fascist movements build their base not from the politically active but the politically inactive, the ‘losers’ who feel, often correctly, they have no voice or role to play in the political establishment”. When political debate no longer speaks to us, people become responsive instead to slogans, symbols and sensation. To the admirers of Trump, for example, (rational critics,) facts and arguments appear irrelevant.

Judt explained that when the thick mesh of interactions between people and the state has been reduced to nothing but authority and obedience, the only remaining force that binds us is state power. The totalitarianism Hayek feared is more likely to emerge when governments, having lost the moral authority that arises from the delivery of public services, are reduced to “cajoling, threatening and ultimately coercing people to obey them”.

***

Like communism, neoliberalism is the God that failed. But the zombie (neoliberal) doctrine staggers on, and one of the reasons is its anonymity. Or rather, a cluster of anonymities.

The invisible doctrine of the invisible hand is promoted by invisible backers. Slowly, very slowly, we have begun to discover the names of a few of them. We find that the Institute of Economic Affairs, which has argued forcefully in the media against the further regulation of the tobacco industry, has been secretly funded by British American Tobacco since 1963. We discover that Charles and David Koch, two of the richest men in the world, founded the institute that set up the (extreme right/ radical) Tea Party movement. We find that Charles Koch, in establishing one of his thinktanks, noted that “in order to avoid undesirable criticism, how the organisation is controlled and directed should not be widely advertised”.

("Economês" e "novilíngua") The words used by neoliberalism often conceal more than they elucidate. “The market” sounds like a natural system that might bear upon us equally, like gravity or atmospheric pressure. But it is fraught with power relations. What “the market wants” tends to mean what corporations and their bosses want. “Investment”, as Sayer notes, means two quite different things. One is the funding of productive and socially useful activities, the other is the purchase of existing assets to milk them for rent, interest, dividends and capital gains. Using the same word for different activities “camouflages the sources of wealth”, leading us to confuse wealth extraction with wealth creation.

A century ago, the nouveau riche were disparaged by those who had inherited their money. Entrepreneurs sought social acceptance by passing themselves off as rentiers. Today, the relationship has been reversed: the rentiers and inheritors style themselves entre preneurs (empresários, empreendedores). They claim to have earned their unearned income.

These anonymities and confusions mesh with the namelessness and placelessness of modern capitalism: the franchise model which ensures that workers do not know for whom they toil; the companies registered through a network of offshore secrecy regimes so complex that even the police cannot discover the beneficial owners; the tax arrangements that bamboozle governments; the financial products no one understands.

The anonymity of neoliberalism is fiercely guarded. Those who are influenced by Hayek, Mises and Friedman tend to reject the term, maintaining – with some justice – that it is used today only pejoratively. But they offer us no substitute. Some describe themselves as classical liberals or libertarians, but these descriptions are both misleading and curiously self-effacing, as they suggest that there is nothing novel about The Road to Serfdom, Bureaucracy or Friedman’s classic work, Capitalism and Freedom.

***

For all that, there is something admirable about the neoliberal project, at least in its early stages. It was a distinctive, innovative philosophy promoted by a coherent network of thinkers and activists with a clear plan of action. It was patient and persistent. The Road to Serfdom became the path to power.

Neoliberalism’s triumph also reflects the failure of the left. When laissez-faire economics led to catastrophe in 1929, Keynes devised a comprehensive economic theory to replace it. When Keynesian demand management hit the buffers in the '70s, there was an alternative ready. But when neoliberalism fell apart in 2008 there was ... nothing. This is why the zombie walks. The left and centre have produced no new general framework of economic thought for 80 years.

Every invocation of Lord Keynes is an admission of failure. To propose Keynesian solutions to the crises of the 21st century is to ignore three obvious problems. It is hard to mobilise people around old ideas; the flaws exposed in the 70s have not gone away; and, most importantly, they have nothing to say about our gravest predicament: the environmental crisis. Keynesianism works by stimulating consumer demand to promote economic growth. Consumer demand and economic growth are the motors of environmental destruction.(i.e., deve fazer-se uma abordagem de desenvolvimento e ambiente sustentável, e não de consumismo / 'crescimento' económico).

What the history of both Keynesianism and neoliberalism show is that it’s not enough to oppose a broken system. A coherent alternative has to be proposed. For Labour, the Democrats and the wider left, the central task should be to develop an economic Apollo programme, a conscious attempt to design a new system, tailored to the demands of the 21st century.

------- Mas afinal quem paga impostos ?! Quem contribui para a manutenção do Estado e serviços públicos ?! (e quem se aproveita/ usufrui sem pagar ?)

R: Apenas os que não conseguem fugir (através de: actividade/ transacção não declarada, 'contabilidade criativa', 'planeamento fiscal', esquemas de facturas falsas, propriedade intelectual/ 'royalties', 'franchises', sede fiscal em 'offshore', ...) nem são isentados ou subsidiados pelo governo.

i.e.: muitos(...) dos consumidores finais (...) pagam IVA; o IRS pagam os trabalhadores por conta de outrém; o IRC (numa pequena fração) pagam alguns empresários (as grandes empresas não pagam em Portugal, pois apenas pagam uma ínfima parte nos offshores e ainda têm isenções, incentivos e subsídios !!); idem para o IMI, IA, ... e os outros impostos e taxas ...

ou seja, (quase) não paga a classe baixa (pois tem parcos rendimentos e ficam isentos); não paga a elite/ classe alta (porque através das suas empresas fogem de uma maneira ou de outra...); pelo que é a classe média (e em especial os trabalhadores por conta de outrém) que paga e é sobrecarregada de impostos !!

Junte-se a esta injustiça fiscal, o PODER económico-financeiro e dos media (através de exageradas desigualdades, lobbies, colocação de familiares e boys em lugares de administração e direcção, o tráfico de influências/ corrupção, a propaganda/ publicidade; e o baixo nível de literacia e de activismo cidadão), que (estando ao serviço do poder dominante, nacional e transnacional) manipula a informação e eleitores, e determina a política/ governação do país (quase sem pagar impostos!!, tal como a Igreja e a Nobreza na idade média !!) -- estas são as causas da deficiência do nosso país, sociedade, economia, justiça, ... que obriga a emigrar gerações de concidadãos desde há séculos.

------- E porque é que o Fisco (governo, legisladores e A.T.) todos os anos altera o Código Fiscal (IRC, IRS ... declarações e respectivas regras de preenchimento) ? E porque não simplifica (e reduz) a legislação fiscal e os recibos/facturas aceites para apresentação e validação fiscal ?

Será que há interesses de contabilistas, advogados e grandes empresas, a proteger e a beneficiar com lacunas, interpretações e negócios ..., em prejuízo do cidadão comum e do pequeno empresário ?!

------- E quem decide neste país (e no mundo) ?! (vêr tb 'post':) Política ...e PODER (global, financeiro ...)

------- As famílias que vivem em cima (-J.Rodrigues, 14/12/2015, Ladrões de B.)

Em Portugal, a única classe social que pode ser mencionada sem se perder a respeitabilidade no debate público ainda é a famosa, e convenientemente parda, classe média. É como se todos fizessem parte dela. O problema é que de vez em quando a inconveniente realidade, trazida pela mão de jornalistas atentas, impõem-se à sabedoria convencional: 1000 famílias que mandam nisto tudo (e não pagam impostos), (texto tb em comentário) título de um imprescindível artigo de Elisabete Miranda, ilustrando o chamado Estado fiscal de classe. Este não é o da tal média, sendo antes, uma vez mais, o Estado a que chegámos, sempre tão selectivamente permissivo, no capitalismo neoliberal realmente existente.

----- I njustiça fiscal na UE - e em Portugal... (-por AG, 25/11/2015, CausaNossa)

"O relatório Ferreira/Theurer resulta da crucial investigação desenvolvida pela Comissão TAXE para levantar o véu de opacidade em que as multinacionais operam na União Europeia e no mundo para pagar cada vez menos impostos, enquanto se sobrecarregam cidadãos e PMEs e governantes capturados alegam "não haver dinheiro" para o Estado Social, nem para investir na economia e na criação de emprego: os dados sobre Portugal nesta matéria, nos últimos anos, são acabrunhantes - sobre os governantes e as instituições que integraram a Troika.

Mas, mesmo assim, os nossos governos continuam a perseguir "whistleblowers" (informadores ao público) que deviam ser protegidos e a limitar a transparência de acordos fiscais e isenções, benefícios e outras práticas fiscais imorais e injustas, para manter o "dumping" fiscal em que embarcaram.

Este Parlamento não deve aceitar, em co-decisão, um acordo que não obrigue as empresas a publicar os seus relatórios de contas país por país - como já fazem os bancos, sem prejuízo.

A Comissão TAXE tem de continuar a investigar, pela transparência, pelo escrutínio da política fiscal das multinacionais e pelo fim da escandalosa cumplicidade de governantes europeus contra os interesses dos cidadãos e da União".

Minha intervenção ontem, no PE, no debate sobre o relatório da Comissão TAXE, criada no seguimento do escândalo "Luxleaks". Elisa Ferreira é co-relatora do relatório que votaremos esta manhã - e que aconselho todos a ler com muita, muita atencão. Também é sobre a injustiça fiscal em Portugal, que o novo governo socialista terá prioritariamente de corrigir.

---- Revolta fiscal: Comerciantes de vila britânica põem o dinheiro em "offshores" (F.Galope, Visão, 12.11.2015)

É galesa a terreola revoltada contra uma legislação fiscal que beneficia as multinacionais e penaliza os “pequenos”. Chama-se Crickhowell, cujos comerciantes vão usar os mesmos métodos contabilísticos dos “grandes”, convertendo a localidade em paraíso fiscal. Isso para levar o governo britânico a apertar as malhas das leis tributárias que facilitam a fuga legal ao fisco de gigantes como a Google e a Starbucks.

Quando descobriram os alçapões na legislação fiscal britânica com que as gigantes multinacionais evitam pagar impostos no Reino Unido, os comerciantes de Crickhowell não se ficaram pela fúria e má língua. Resolveram agir e mobilizar os seus concidadãos. Agora, garantem, vão aplicar os mesmos métodos contabilísticos usados por empresas como a Google ou a Amazon e converter a localidade num "offshore".

Crickhowell, uma terreola com menos de 2 800 habitantes, situada no País de Gales, está, assim, em pé de guerra. A revolta ameaça converter-se numa autêntica revolução capaz de varrer o Reino Unido (e que deveria alargar-se à U.E., EUA, etc, pois o problema é global).

Sob a jurisdição britânica existem alguns paraísos fiscais, como na (City of London, ilha de Man,) ilha de Jersey, as ilhas Virgens britânicas, ... A dimensão do escândalo dos “offshores” no Reino Unido veio à luz do dia, há um ano, na sequência de uma investigação jornalística do Guardian em colaboração com o Consórcio Internacional de Jornalistas de Investigação. Nesse trabalho detetou-se o uso de paraísos fiscais por cerca de 20 mil entidades e indivíduos britânicos, entre eles alguns financiadores do Partido Conservador, que terá recebido por essa via cerca de oito milhões de libras (€11,3 milhões).

Há vários anos que o governo britânico se diz intolerante para com a evasão fiscal. E num relatório do executivo lê-se mesmo que “no passado, as contas 'offshore' e outros esquemas complexos estiveram envoltos em secretismo, ao ponto de algumas pessoas terem sentido que se podiam eximir às suas responsabilidades contributivas… Esses dias acabaram”.

Mas grande questão nem sequer é o crime de fuga ao fisco mas sim a quantidade de lacunas na legislação, aproveitadas por advogados (e ROCs ...) especializadíssimos na criação de esquemas de ('planeamento' ou) “otimização fiscal” para os seus clientes.

E são essas lacunas que os habitantes de Crickhowell contestam, com as micro-empresas da vila a alegarem estarem a ser vítimas de concorrência desleal por parte das grandes cadeias.

Como exemplos referem a Amazon, que, no Reino Unido, fatura 5 300 milhões de libras (cerca de €7 500 milhões) em vendas online, mas pagando apenas 11,9 milhões (€16,4 milhões) de impostos; o gigante do café Starbucks que, desde a abertura da sua primeira loja em Londres, há 17 anos, terá pago ao fisco somente 8,6 milhões de libras. Outros casos são o da cadeia Caffé Nero, que não pagará imposto sobre os lucros desde 2008, e a todo-poderosa Google, tributada em 20 milhões de libras sobre mais de 3 500 milhões de receitas geradas no Reino Unido.

A rebelião envolve, entre outras, uma empresa artesanal de salmão fumado, um café da terra, uma livraria e uma padaria.

Aconselhadas por peritos, as micro-empresas de Crickhowell – muitas delas há três gerações na mesma família – uniram-se e já apresentaram, às autoridades tributárias de Sua Majestade planos fiscais, que foram copiar aos esquemas de “otimização fiscal” que os “grandes” usam para evitar pagar impostos.

A filosofia subjacente ao movimento não é propriamente a de “ou há moralidade ou comem todos”, nem a de “se não os podes vencer, junta-te a eles”. É mais uma atitude cívica que visa dar o exemplo. É contagiar outras localidades, levando-as a fazerem o mesmo, para pressionar o governo a tapar os buracos na legislação que permitem às multinacionais fugir ao fisco dentro da legalidade.

E isso está patente nas declarações de Jo Carthew, proprietária do fumeiro de Salmão, ao The Independent: “Ficámos chocados ao descobrir que as receitas geradas pelos trabalhadores, que dão o litro nessas cadeias internacionais, não são declaradas.”

E para que não haja mal-entendidos, acrescentou: “Nós queremos pagar os nossos impostos, porque todos usamos as escolas e os hospitais. Mas pretendemos uma mudança da legislação para que todos paguem a sua justa parte”.

A revolta cívica de Crickhowell é acompanhada a par e passo por uma equipa da BBC, que está a rodar um documentário intitulado “A vila que se tornou uma 'offshore'", e que deverá ser transmitido em 2016, levando luz ao sombrio mundo do relacionamento das grandes empresas com o fisco.

------ "Quem paga" a destruição social e o medo ?

       Diário de um tempo diferente    (12.11.2015, J. Pacheco Pereira, Abrupto )
12- Quando é que os jornalistas, que seguem quase unanimemente a linha do "quem paga" (isso) como único critério para avaliar o mérito de qualquer medida e repetem à saciedade a mesma pergunta, se interrogam sobre se essa pergunta deve ser a primeira a ser feita, e se deve ser feita do modo que é feita,   e se não há toda uma carga ideológica (e uma série de simplismos mais que rudimentares) nessa maneira de colocar a questão?
     A resposta é sempre, nós os contribuintes. Portanto, alguém há-de pagar.   Mas será que a pergunta nos diz alguma coisa sobre
quem são os contribuintes que (pagam e os que) deviam pagar mais e não pagam,
os que fogem aos impostos perante a complacência do estado (/A.T. e cidadãos),
ou os que tem (subsídios, deduções e) isenções fiscais que podem ser cortadas,
ou as despesas que são feitas e não deviam ser feitas (ou incluídas/'abatidas'),
ou sobre se há justiça distributiva em quem paga,
ou até, se se justifica que se pague mais.
      Não, não nos diz nada.        É que se for assim, a pergunta "quem paga" quer dizer "isso não se deve fazer", não se devem aumentar salários, pensões, reformas, etc.     E como a pergunta não é feita noutras circunstâncias, é uma pergunta profundamente viciada
pela miserável ideologia (neoliberal) que circula nos nossos dias e que muita gente interiorizou sem pensar no que está a dizer,    ou porque é hostil a que se "pague" a alguns e nunca faz a pergunta a outros.      Ora eu conheço mil e um exemplos em que a pergunta "quem paga" tem todo o sentido de se fazer e ninguém a faz.       (...)

------- Para as multinacionais/ transnacionais ... o Natal é todos os dias ...

. 19 das 20 empresas registadas na Bolsa de Lisboa transferiram a residência fiscal para paraísos fiscais europeus (i.e. 95% das maiores empresas Não pagam impostos em Portugal e algumas ainda recebem incentivos e ...).
(via Entre as Brumas, 24/11/2015)

---- Portugal concede benefícios fiscais a grandes empresas (C.Pinto, Visão, 18/11/2015)

Estado concedeu benefícios fiscais superiores a mil milhões de euros. A Zona Franca da Madeira absorveu mais de 200 milhões, com destaque para a actividade petrolífera. As empresas ligadas à indústria petrolífera, radicadas na Zona Franca da Madeira (ZFM)('offshore'/paraíso fiscal), continuam a ser grandes destinatárias dos benefícios fiscais concedidos pelo Estado português. Entre estas, contam-se pelo menos duas empresas detidas pela Sonangol, empresa do governo angolano para a exploração de petróleo e gás: a Sonasurf e a Sonacergy.

A lista dos benefícios fiscais de IRC foi publicada no final da passada semana, no portal das Finanças, com alguns meses de atraso, como já vem sendo habitual. Foram 16494 empresas beneficiadas, correspondendo a um “perdão” fiscal no valor global de mais de mil milhões de euros.

À cabeça, com 53,068 milhões de euros de poupanças em impostos, está uma filial portuguesa da Saipem italiana, empresa prestadora de serviços e fornecedora de equipamentos às plataformas petrolíferas, detida pela ENI, que, por sua vez, detém ainda 5% da Galp.

A terceira maior fatia individual de benefícios fiscais, no valor de 47,6 milhões de euros, foi para a Eloaliança, que antes se chamava Farrugia, e é detida na totalidade por uma empresa com sede em Bilbao. Ambas pertencem ao universo empresarial do grupo brasileiro ARG que tem uma grande base dos seus negócios na Guiné Equatorial.

A Sonasurf teve uma isenção fiscal de 3,936 milhões de euros. Detida em 49% pela Sonangol (Sociedade Nacional de Combustíveis de Angola), a Sonasurf tem 51% do capital nas mãos da Bourbon Offshore, com sede em Marselha, França, integrada num conglomerado de empresas com representação em todo o mundo, desde a Ásia ao Médio Oriente. Acresce que uma das suas subsidiárias – a Bourbon Offshores Interoil Shipping - está também individualmente sedeada na ZFM e, por essa via, recebeu mais 3,870 milhões de euros de isenções fiscais do Estado português.

Quanto à Sonacergy Serviços e Construções Petrolíferas Lda, também com sede na ZFM, recebeu um pouco acima de dois milhões de euros. Trata-se de uma sociedade detida em 40% também pela Sonangol e 5% pela Wapo International (outra empresa angolana), estando os restantes 55% nas mãos da Acergy B.V., multinacional da extração petrolífera do grupo Subsea7, com sede em Roterdão, Holanda.

Quem também teve isenções fiscais de 3,2 milhões de euros foi a Laforta, sociedade unipessoal de gestão e investimentos, igualmente fixada na ZFM. Detida pela espanhola Complet Drilling Investments S.L., a Laforta está ligado ao Grupo R, empresa petrolífera do México e principal base de apoio do Estado mexicano (o equivalente à Sonangol em Angola).

Uma das características em comum nestas empresas (com sede fiscal no offshore) é que empregam muito poucos residentes (a mesma caixa postal e escritório "representa" dezenas de empresas...) e a sua atuação global está marcada por algum envolvimento em negócios menos transparentes, sendo que nem sempre é fácil perceber a quem pertencem. As contas da Sonasurf e da Sonacergy, por exemplo, não estão refletidas nos relatórios da Sonangol.

Certo é que ao abrigo do estatuto ‘offshore’ da ZFM, - que paga apenas 5% de IRC, em vez dos 25% de lei – deixaram de ser pagos quase 218 milhões de euros de impostos.

A ‘inflação’ de fundos de pensões

Os fundos de pensões foram beneficiados em 198 milhões de euros e são agora em muito maior numero do que nos anos anteriores. Algo que resultou, de acordo com explicação dada pelo Ministério das Finanças, do facto de “só a partir de 2014, a Autoridade Tributária ter tornada obrigatória” a declaração desses fundos. Algo que veio na sequência de chamadas de atenção do Tribunal de Contas, que criticou o facto de as estatísticas publicadas não representarem a totalidade dos benefícios fiscais concedidos.

Assim, o fundo de pensões do Banco de Portugal está logo no segundo lugar da lista, com um benefício fiscal de 50,1 milhões de euros. Seguem-se-lhe todos os outros fundos de bancos: CGD (20,6 milhões), BPI (19,1 milhões), BESCL (18,1 milhões), BBVA (12,1 milhões), só para nomear os que integram a lista dos dez mais beneficiados.

Ainda nos primeiros dez, figura a EDP em 4º lugar, com isenções de 24 milhões de euros; dentro do grupo da EDP, a EDP – Distribuição é também brindada com uma poupança de quase 1,5 milhões de euros; a Caixa de Previdência dos Advogados e Solicitadores, em 5º, com 23,1 milhões; e, em 10º, a Santa Casa da Misericórdia do Porto, com 11,7 milhões. Esta última integra as cerca de 4500 entidades que atuam no âmbito do interesse público (economia social: fundações, associações, empresas privadas com estatuto de IPSS,... congregações religiosas protegidas pela 'Concordata') e que beneficiaram de um valor total de 142 milhões de euros.

No grupo BES, o Fundo de Capital de Risco Espírito Santo Ventures III teve um benefício de 1,6 milhões, a que acresce mais 535 mil euros para o Espírito Santo Capital. Também o Banco Espírito Santo de Investimento obteve 1,2 milhões de euros de isenção.

Nas empresas, destaque para a Corticeira Amorim, de Américo Amorim, considerado um dos mais ricos do país, que beneficiou em 2,7 milhões de euros. A Sonae SGPS teve 1,8 milhões de euros e a NOS, do grupo detido por Belmiro em conjunto com Isabel dos Santos, não precisou de pagar 1,6 milhões.

Os supermercados Pingo Doce, de Francisco Manuel dos Santos, também ficaram isentos de pagar 5,2 milhões de euros. E a Fundação do empresário obteve um benefício de 1,4 milhões.

A totalidade dos incentivos fiscais relativos à criação de emprego andaram nos 37 milhões de euros, enquanto as acções abrangidas pelo mecenato se ficou pelos 23 milhões.

Uberproblems (-por D. Farinho, 07.05.2015, Jugular)

A recente decisão de um tribunal sobre uma providência cautelar requerida pela ANTRAL contra a Uber ('popular "ride-sharing" smartphone application'; 'Solicite, viaje e pague através do seu smartphone') trouxe para Portugal uma discussão que tem acontecido por todo mundo onde a Uber atua: o que fazer quando um novo modelo de negócio subverte um mercado regulado?

Sou um utilizador da Uber desde os seus primeiros dias em Portugal e até já o utilizei no estrangeiro. Em todos os casos a minha experiência foi excelente e bem melhor do que a minha experiência média com táxis. Mas isso não me impede de olhar para o mercado dos táxis e reparar facilmente que é um dos mercados mais regulados que existe. Para começar é dos pouco produtos/serviços que tem os preços tabelados. Além disso está sujeito a um conjunto de obrigações específicas em função da sua natureza da transporte público de passageiros (ver aqui). Essas obrigações implicam custos que a Uber não tem, sendo irrelevante a invocação de que têm um modelo de negócio distinto uma vez que competem exatamente no mesmo mercado. O que lhes retira os custos não é o modelo de negócio, é a intervenção (negativa) do legislador. E este é o único ponto que será juridicamente relevante discutir, independentemente de questões processuais, quer da providência cautelar já conhecida, quer da ação principal que se seguirá.

Se queremos que o modelo de negócio da Uber possa realmente brilhar temos que permitir que o mercado em que opera seja igual para todos. De outro modo, só nos resta, se formos justos, obrigar a Uber a conformar-se com as regras do mercado regulado que criámos para os táxis.

Como disse no início este não é um problema só nosso. Até os sensatos canadianos, de que tanto gosto, andam às voltas com ele. Muito do que se diz neste artigo aplica-se ao que temos que resolver em Portugal. Transcrevo apenas uma passagem:

" The bottom line is that Uber makes municipalities confront inefficient regulation and, therefore, presents an opportunity to modernize taxi licensing. The end result may not be accepting Uber's model, but it should include measures to open up the industry and create better options for consumers. Uber may not be a perfect business model for the cab industry, but it creates an opportunity to provide for a more equitable relationship between consumers and operators."

Os taxistas (e alguns truques/burlas) (-por J.M. Cordeiro, 12/5/2015, Aventar)

---Sarah Adamopoulos: É a política fiscal da globalização enquanto não houver regulação: as empresas nacionais ficam com a carga fiscal e as multinacionais fazem o que querem. Leiam o Piketty sobre isto, que ele explica bem a posição dominante de empresas como a Uber, cujos grandes accionistas são a Google e a GoldmanSachs, já agora.

---Isabel Atalaia: Se gosto de ser vigarizada pelos taxistas? Não, não gosto. Mas gosto ainda menos da ideologia economicista neoliberal/ultra-capitalista da Uber (táxis), AirBnB (apartamentos), Homejoy (limpezas de casas), ... (e grande distribuição). Permita que lhe deixe aqui um excelente artigo sobre negócios da "economia partilhada" (investidores+ executivos+ 'applications' .vs. trabalhadores independentes/ auto-empregados/ 'small business owners'/ micro sócios-trabalhadores, i.e. oligopólios/ empresas dominantes, com menos riscos e menos custos, obtêm mais lucros sobre-explorando e enganando 'auto-empregados' ou fornecedores seus "parceiros dependentes") :

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/09/against-sharing/ (- por Avi Asher-Schapiro, 19/9/2014)

“Sharing economy” companies like Uber shift risk from corporations to workers, weaken labor protections, and drive down wages. (empresas da "economia partilhada" transferem os custos e riscos para os trabalhadores/micro-empresas, enfraquecem a protecção laboral, abaixam salários).

Kazi drives a Toyota Prius for Uber in Los Angeles. He hates it. He barely makes minimum wage, and his back hurts after long shifts. But every time a passenger asks what it’s like working for Uber, he lies: “It’s like owning my own business; I love it.”

Kazi lies because his job depends on it. After passengers finish a ride, Uber asks them to rate their driver on a scale from one to five stars. Drivers with an average below 4.7 can be deactivated — tech-speak for fired.

Gabriele Lopez, an LA Uber driver, also lies. “We just sit there and smile, and tell everyone that the job’s awesome, because that’s what they want to hear,” said Lopez, who’s been driving for UberX, the company’s low-end car service, since it launched last summer.

In fact, if you ask Uber drivers off the clock what they think of the company, it often gets ugly fast. “Uber’s like an exploiting pimp,” said Arman, an Uber driver in LA who asked me to withhold his last name out of fear of retribution. “Uber takes 20 percent of my earnings, and they treat me like shit — they cut prices whenever they want. They can deactivate me whenever they feel like it, and if I complain, they tell me to fuck off.”

In LA, San Francisco, Seattle, and New York, tension between drivers and management has bubbled over in recent months. And even though Uber’s business model discourages collective action (each worker is technically in competition with each other), some drivers are banding together.

Uber drivers in LA, the largest ride-sharing market in the country, held dozens of protests over the summer to oppose rate cuts. Late last month, drivers working with Teamsters Local 986 launched the California App-based Drivers Association (CADA), a sort of Uber drivers union ('sindicato'). Uber workers in Seattle have staged their own protests and have formed the Seattle Ride-Share Drivers Association. Just last week in New York City, drivers for the luxury UberBlack service threatened to strike and successfully reversed a company decision that would have forced them to pick up cheaper and less lucrative UberX rides. On Monday, drivers protested again.

“We want the company to understand that we are not just ants,”(formigas) Joseph DeWolf, a member of CADA’s leadership council, told me at the Teamsters Union hall in El Monte, California. “What we want is a living wage, an open channel of communication with the company, and basic respect.” DeWolf said CADA is signing up members, collecting dues, and plans to strike in LA if Uber refuses to come to the negotiating table.

It won’t be easy. Drivers are going up against a burgeoning goliath valued at around $18 billion. The company just hired David Plouffe, who managed Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns; it’s active in 130 cities; and if company executives are to be believed, it doubles its revenue (receitas) every six months.

Uber makes that money by relying on a network of thousands of drivers who are not technically employees of the company, but rather independent contractors — the company calls them “driver-partners” — who receive a percentage of its fares.

From the very beginning, Uber attracted drivers with a bait-and-switch. Take the company’s launch in LA: In May 2013, Uber charged customers a fare of $2.75 per mile (with an additional 60¢ per minute under eleven mph). Drivers got to keep 80 percent of the fare. Working full time, drivers could make a living wage: between $15 and $20 an hour.

Drivers rushed to sign up, and thousands leased and bought cars just to work for Uber — especially immigrants and low-income people desperate for a well-paying job in a terrible economy. But over the last year, the company has faced stiff competition from its arch-rival, Lyft. To raise demand and push Lyft out of the LA market, Uber has cut UberX fares nearly in half: to $1.10 per mile, plus 21¢ a minute.

Uber drivers have no say in the pricing, yet they must carry their own insurance and foot the bill for gas and repairs — a cost of 56¢ per mile, according to IRS estimates. With Uber’s new pricing model, drivers are forced to work under razor-thin margins. Arman, for instance, made about $20 an hour just a year ago. And now? Some days he doesn’t even break minimum wage.

His experience is quite common among LA Uber drivers I spoke to. For many, driving for Uber has become a nightmare. Arman often works up to seventeen hours a day to bring home what he used to make in an eight-hour shift. When he emailed Uber to complain about his plummeting pay, he said the company blew him off. Uber’s attitude is that drivers are free to stop working if they are dissatisfied, but for drivers like Arman who’ve invested serious money in their cars, quitting isn’t an option.

“These drivers are very vulnerable if they do not band together.” Dan McKibbin, the Teamsters’ West Coast organizer, told me. “Right now they have no one to protect them.”

The company wouldn’t speak to me about CADA, the Teamsters, or how it deals with driver grievances. But it seems to brush off everyone else too. Earlier this summer, when CADA leader DeWolf met with William Barnes, Uber’s LA director, Barnes allegedly laughed in his face.

As DeWolf recounted, when he told Barnes that drivers planned to organize with the Teamsters, Barnes responded, “Uber would never negotiate with any group that claims to represent drivers.”

Uber repeatedly ignored my request for comment on this exchange. Instead, the company issued a statement accusing the Teamsters of trying to “line their coffers” with new Uber-driving members.

Uber claims there’s no need for a union; it instead asks drivers to trust that the company acts in their best interest. Uber refused to show me complete data detailing average hourly compensation for drivers. It does claim, however, that UberX drivers are making more money now than before this summer’s price cuts.

“The average fares per hour for a Los Angeles UberX driver-partner in the last four weeks were 21.4% higher than the December 2013 weekly average,” Uber spokesperson Eva Behrend told me. “And drivers on average have seen fares per hour increase 28% from where they were in May of this year.”

I couldn’t find a single driver who is making more money with the lower rates.

What’s clear is that for Uber drivers to get by, they’re going to have to take on more rides per shift. Uber implicitly concedes as much: “With price cuts, trips per hour for partner-drivers have increased with higher demand,” Behrend said.

So while drivers make less per fare, Uber suggests they recoup losses by just driving more miles. That may make sense for an Uber analyst crunching the numbers in Silicon Valley, but for drivers, more miles means hustling to cram as many runs into a shift as possible to make the small margins worthwhile.

“These days, I won’t even stop to take a shit, I just drive — sometimes for up to fifteen hours a day,” a driver named Dan told me after pulling an all-nighter bringing drunk people home from bars. “It’s humiliating.”

Lower rates also means they pay more out of their own pockets for gas, and their cars depreciate in value faster because they’re driving extra miles.

Meanwhile, Uber acts as if it’s doing drivers a favor by offering them work in the first place. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, who loves giving inspirational talks about innovation, often claims that Uber helps people “become small business owners.” But working long shifts and forking over 20 percent of fares to a group of Silicon Valley app-engineers doesn’t really count as owning a small business.

“They think we are a bunch of losers who can’t find better jobs,” DeWolf said. “That’s why they treat us like robots — like we are replaceable.”

Uber, of course, disputes this characterization. “Uber succeeds when our partner-drivers succeed,” Behrend said.

But that is just empty spin: drivers aren’t partners — they are laborers exploited by their company. They have no say in business decisions and can be fired at any time. Instead of paying its employees a wage, Uber just pockets a portion of their earnings. Drivers take all the risks and front all the costs — the car, the gas, the insurance — yet it is executives and investors who get rich.

Uber is part of a new wave of corporations that make up what’s called the “sharing economy.” The premise is seductive in its simplicity: people have skills, and customers want services. Silicon Valley plays matchmaker, churning out apps that pair workers with work. Now, anyone can rent out an apartment with AirBnB, become a cabbie through Uber, or clean houses using Homejoy.

But under the guise of innovation and progress, companies are stripping away worker protections, pushing down wages, and flouting government regulations. At its core, the sharing economy is a scheme to shift risk from companies to workers, discourage labor organizing, and ensure that capitalists can reap huge profits with low fixed costs. There’s nothing innovative or new about this business model. Uber is just capitalism, in its most naked form.