“Why the Water Is Running Out"

The New York Review. October 22, 2015

“Money, Greed, Technology: Financial assets and the world economy,”

Braudel Papers. No. 42/2008. Analysis of the causes and consequences of the wolrldwide proliferation of financial assets.

O Obama desconhecido (The Unknown Obama).”

O Estado de Sâo Paulo. May 30, 2008

The Forgotten Progress of Latin America. “El Olvidado Progreso de América Latina”,

“A democracia ameaçada?”

Especial para o Estado de S. Paulo Artigo publicado no jornal O Estado de S. Paulo, em 09 de maio de 2004

Em entrevista, Norman Gall fala sobre Democracia

Entrevista concedida à Revista Ser Médico, edição 26, Janeiro/Fevereiro/Março de 2004

“Is Democracy Threatened?: Latin America´s struggling institutions”

Braudel Papers. No. 34 (2004). Special edition published in English, Spanish and Portuguese for the international conference on “The Future of Democracy in Latin America,” São Paulo and Brasília, March 2004.

"What is federalism?"

with Marcos Mendes, Braudel Papers No. 23 (2000).

Money, Greed Technology. Part 1: Brazil and the Asian Crisis,"

Braudel Papers No. 19 (1998); "Part 2: Japan, Russia, Brazil," Braudel Papers No. 20 (1998). An analysis of the worldwide proliferation of financial assets in recent years as the driving force behind the Asian crisis, overwhelming institutional capacities to manage problems of scale.

Part 1

Part 2

"Globalism and Localism: What are the limits of competition and security?"

Braudel Papers. No. 16 (1997). With Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development), former Finance Minister of Brazil and Honorary President of the Fernand Braudel Institute of World Economics. Analysis of world trends in trade and investment and of institutional blockages to economic integration.

"Corruption and Democracy: Disclosure becomes the decisive weapon,"

Braudel Papers No. 13 (1996). With Moisés Naím of the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace, Washington. Analysis of the historical roots of corruption and of political, economic and technological trends breeding the current wave of scandals worldwide.

"Wrecking the public sector: What went wrong in in Latin America,"

a review-essay on An Economic History of Latin America since Independence by Victor Bulmer-Thomas. The Times Literary Supplment, London. January 26, 1996.

"The Political Economy of Regeneration,"

Braudel Papers. No. 7 (1994). Resurgent mortality threatens decapitalized complex societies. Comments on Tarun Dutt’s "The Revival of Calcutta: The stubborn pursuit of survival under threat of catastrophe" and Shane Hunt’s "Lima Emerges from Hyperinflation and Violence," both published in the same issue. These experiences generate hopeful messages that collapse can be avoided in cities suffering from overload and fatigue. These messages imply that cities can develop a political economy of regeneration to reverse disorder and decline. The elements of this political economy of regeneration are: (1) balanced fiscal accounts; (2) credible government; (3) cooperation between political and business leaders; (4) responsible social policies and (5) international support.

"Without stability there is no salvation,"

Braudel Papers. No. 5 (1994). Comments on trade regimes and political stability, referring to Rubens Ricupero’s essay on "Trade, Power and the Future," published in the same issue.

"Politics and Markets,"

a 10,000-word dialogue with Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Harvard University on economic reform, Braudel Papers . São Paulo: Fernand Braudel Institute of World Economics, March-April 1993, in English and Portuguese editions. Shorter version published in O Estado de São Paulo . Sunday, March 7, 1993.

"Modernity,"

Commentary. July 1992. A review essay on Paul Johnson's The Birth of the Modern: World Society, 1815-1830, discussing the meaning of modernity as displayed in its great surge after the Napoleonic Wars

"Lessons from Peru and Venezuela"] "Lições que vêm do Peru e da Venezuela"

O Estado de São Paulo, Sunday, May 3, 1992. Full-page article in Portuguese on the implications of the failed military coup in Venezuela and the purges of Congress and the Judiciary announced by President Alberto Fujimori in Peru. It argues that decapitalization threatens reversion of some populations to more archaic forms of civilization and mortality. This threat of regression is driving a shift in the politics of nations from a political economy of entitlements, or acquired rights, toward a political economy of survival. The shift is only beginning and its effects have not come fully into view. Spanish version in El Nacional, Caracas, June 4, 1992.

The DeathThreat.

Analysis of the Latin American cholera epidemic of 1991-92, a warning of deterioration of survival systems under the impacts of rapid urbanization and growth of adult population. While recent cholera death/case ratios have been a fraction of those in the 19th Century pandemics, the new epidemic shows that the low mortality levels achieved in recent decades may be endangered by decapitalization linked to chronic inflation, reducing the institutional capacity of communities and nations to operate complex societies. This study is part of the research program on Chronic Inflation as Systemic Failure: Latin America and the Polarization of the World Economy of the Fernand Braudel Institute of World Economics (1992).

"Shunning Map to Prosperity, Vast Nations Take the Low Road, "

The Wall Street Journal (editorial page). May 31, 1989. Overview of the polarization of the world economy. Portuguese versions published in Gazeta Mercantil (São Paulo) June 7, 1990 and Jornal da Tarde (São Paulo) September 2, 1989.

"A Nova Era da Economia Mundial,"

in Norman Gall and Werner Loewenberg, A Nova Era da Economia Mundial. Proceedings of the inaugural conference of the Fernand Braudel Institute of World Economics. São Paulo: Editora Pioneira 1989.

"Does anyone really believe in free trade?"

(cover story), Forbes. December 15, 1986. "Through gift, theft and license, our technology is leaking abroad almost as fast as we develop it. So scratch the long-term dream of a U.S. living off exports of high technology goods and services." Focusing on the trade conflict over Brazil’s new computer industry.

"What Ails the Developing Economies?"

(cover story), Forbes, July 28, 1986. Focusing on the distressing examples of Peru, Argentina, Mexico and some African countries, this analysis, based on many years of first-hand reporting, blames excessive urbanization for the crippling of many Third World economies, forcing them to concentrate resources on sustaining unproductive city populations and reducing possibilities of both capital-formation and adapting to changes in the world economy. Spanish version published in El Diario de Caracas (Venezuela), August 24, 1986. Complete original version published as four-part series, Jornal da Tarde, January 26-30, 1987.

"We are living off our capital,"

Forbes. September 22, 1986. How fast is the world running out of oil? Geologist Joseph Riva, author of World Petroleum Resources and Reserves, predicts in a taped interview that the Middle East, if not crippled by political disturbances, will compensate for production declines elsewhere by raising its share from 20% today to 50% by 2005 and 75% by 2020, after which world output will start to fall.

"The Dollar: Too Strong for Our Own Good"

(cover story), Forbes, February 28, 1983. Taped interview with Martin Feldstein, chairman of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, on the world crisis in public finance, with U.S. budget deficits driving up interest rates that artificially strengthen the dollar, leading to huge deficits in foreign trade and transformation of the U.S. into a debtor nation.

"Joseph Schumpeter: The 20th Century’s Greatest Economist"

(cover story, with Peter Drucker and James W. Michaels), Forbes, May 23, 1983. In the centenary year of both Schumpeter and John Maynard Keynes, Forbes analyzes the work of both men and finds that Schumpeter’s "Wagnerian vision" of business cycles and "creative destruction" more accurately describes an open and dynamic world economy.

"The World Gasps for Liquidity"

(cover story), Forbes, October 11, 1982. An overview of the world banking and credit crisis in the light of Mexico’s 1982 suspension of payments on its foreign debt and nationalization of its private banks.

"Volkswagen’s Dilemma: Is There Another Rabbit in the Hat?"

cover story), Forbes, August 17, 1981. A survey of the crisis in the world automotive industry as experienced by the leader in small-car exports until the Japanese came along, viewing Volkswagen’s operations in Germany and Brazil.

"The good news and the bad,"

Forbes, October 12, 1981. Taped interview with Princeton’s Ansley Coale, one of the world’s leading demographers, on the results of the 1980 round of national censuses, which recorded the first decline in the rate of world population growth in two centuries.

"Has Germany caught the American disease?"

Forbes, March 16, 1981. Interpretive essay and "round table" of taped interviews with Economics Minister Otto Lambsdorff, Hermann J. Abs of the Deutsche Bank and Eugen Loderer, head of the powerful I. G. Metall metalworkers’ union. Portuguese version in the Jornal do Brasil (Rio de Janeiro), March 8, 1981.

"It’s later than we think,"

Forbes, February 2, 1981. Taped interview with Professor William J. Abernathy of the Harvard Business School, an expert in automotive manufacturing technology, on the nature of the Japanese cost advantage on world car markets.

"Recycling Petrodollars: How Much More Can the System Take?"

(cover story), Forbes, June 23, 1980. An analysis of "sovereign risk" international bank lending in the light of the growth of world money aggregates during the 1970s and historical experience, going back to the involvement of the Medici bank in England’s War of the Roses in the 15th Century. Longer Portuguese version published in Jornal do Brasil, June 8, 1980. French version in L’Expansion (Paris), November 7, 1980. Spanish version in Mercado (Buenos Aires), July 31, 1980.

"It’s a moving target, Gentlemen,"

Forbes, November 10, 1980. Taped interview with Charles Gray, head of the Environmental Protection Agency laboratory setting automotive safety, pollution and mileage standards, predicting a further slide in the competitiveness of the U.S. car industry if greater design innovations are not forthcoming.

"The economy’s problem: it doesn’t pay to invest,"

Forbes, March 19, 1979. Taped interview with one of the world’s leading develovepment economists, Arthur Lewis of Princeton University. Portuguese version, oriented more toward problems of developing countries, published in Jornal do Brasil (Caderno Especial), December 17, 1979.

"Caminhos para Rondônia"

American Universities Field Staff, February/March, 1979.

"A Cheerleader’s Report: Guerrilla Movements in Latin America,"

The New York Times Book Review, March 28, 1971. A review of Richard Gott’s book.

"America Latina: "El Pueblo de Dios."

Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1971 (in Spanish). Analysis of revolutionary movements in Latin American Catholicism.

"Latin America: The Church Militant,"

Commentary, April 1970. Somewhat different Spanish and German versions have appeared in Mundo Nuevo (Paris-Buenos Aires) No. 48, June 1970 and in Monat (Frankfurt) August 1970. An essay on the revolutionary and post-Conciliar movements in Latin American Catholicism. A greatly expanded version of this essay, together with an earlier report on the Catholic Church in revolutionary Cuba (The New Leader, September 14, 1964), appears as a book in Spanish, America Latina: "El Pueblo de Dios", published by Monte Avila Editores, Caracas, January 1971.

"The Failure of the Revolution and the Death of the Revolutionist"

The New York Times Book Review, July 27, 1969. Review of two books on the circumstances of Che Guevara’s defeat and death.

"Rockefeller’s Unfortunate Trip South,"

The World Street Journal, (editorial page), June 12, 1969. Political commentary.

"Guerrilla Saint"

not my title), The New York Times Book Review, May 5, 1968. A critical appraisal of Che Guevara’s political writings.

"The Legacy of Che Guevara,"

Commentary, December 1967. French version published in Esprit (Paris), September 1969. Book version published in Bruce Mazlish et. al., eds., Revolution. New York: Macmillan, 1971. A survey of the failure of the Castroite rural guerrilla movements in the 1960s in Latin America, culminating in Che Guevara’s death in Bolivia.

"Revolution without Revolutionaries,"

The Nation. August 22, 1966. Based on first-hand reporting on guerrilla movements in Latin America in 1965-66