The attenuation of the increase in greenhouse gas emissions by anthropic action, which is one of the main causes of climate change, is one of the main global debates today. In recent years, there have been major worldwide institutional developments, in accordance with one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations (UN)[1]. Despite the broad consensus among scientists and organizations about the causes and possible consequences of climate change, several factors explain the political contradictions surrounding the issue, for instance: the discrepant socioeconomic configurations between societies, the recent disengagement of some rich countries which emit high levels of greenhouse gases (GHG), mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), and the lack of effective mechanisms to identify violations and punish their perpetrators.

Although the discussions on the need for environmental protection have accompanied human history from the beginning, only in the 1970s the issue started to be faced in a genuinely global way, after the Stockholm Conference (1972) took place. Since then, the World Meteorological Organization, a specialized body of the UN System, has been increasingly relevant. This trend culminated in the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in 1988, whose goal is to provide scientific research for the international negotiations on the topic.

There are currently three main provisions that stipulate norms and standards to mitigate global GHG emissions, namely: the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. The UNFCCC was one of the outcomes of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which is the official designation of Rio-92. Since then, the countries that signed that instrument have held annual meetings, the Conventions of the Parts (COPs), which are the main decision-           making bodies under the agreement and aim at advancing the most substantive discussions on the subject. In November 2017, the COP-23 will take place in Bonn (Germany).

One of the guidelines of the UNFCCC is the notion of “common but differentiated responsibilities”. It recognizes that the more industrialized countries should bear a significantly greater burden to mitigate the problem, given their historical CO₂ emissions. Two special lists of countries have been created, Annex I and Annex II, which were given additional attributions. Annex I encompasses the “industrialized countries”, including Central and Eastern Europe “transition economies”. In the year 2000, all these nations should have maintained emissions below the level recorded in 1990. They were also required to submit annual reports on their national policies to the Convention. Annex II countries, all of which are included in Annex I, should also allocate funds to finance projects to minimize climate change effects in developing countries and facilitate technology transfer to the latter. Developing nations, which are absent from both lists, are also expected to submit reports, but less frequently and with more generic targets than those specified in Annex I. The agreement also gives special attention to ecological problems in less developed countries[2].

The second pillar of this regime — the Kyoto Protocol — was established in Japan at the 3rd COP, in 1997 (in force since 2005). Through this protocol countries commit themselves to pursue reductions in emissions through binding targets, but the differentiation principle between developed and developing nations is maintained. The first emission reduction cycle started only in 2008 and ended in 2012. In this period, the Annex 1 governments complied themselves to reduce GHG emissions in 5% in comparison with the 1990 levels. The second period, decided at COP18, in Doha (Qatar), shall take eight years, from January 2013 to December 2020, with targets of 18% below the 1990 levels. In addition, the Protocol provided three flexible mechanisms: international emissions trading[3], clean development mechanism (CDM)[4], of which Brazil was one of the sponsors, and joint implementation[5]. In general, the parties of the Kyoto Protocol have been relatively successful in achieving the goals of the first cycle. One of the main reasons is the sharp reduction in the emission levels in almost all transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe, given their persistent economic difficulties, especially in the 1990s. Russia, which is one of the major global emitters, “managed” to reduce its emissions by almost 30% between 1990 and 2009, while Ukraine cut them by more than 60% in the same period.

The third and most recent pillar of this regime is the Paris Agreement, which has been in force since October 2016. Its main goal is to keep the average global temperature at most up to 2 degrees above the pre-industrial average. An important breakthrough is the provision that all countries, regardless of their stage of development, shall report on their efforts and intentions to mitigate the problems in a more frequent basis, the so-called “nationally determined contributions” (NDC), which thereby has softened the principle of differentiated responsibility under both the UNFCCC and the Kyoto Protocol.[6]

Evidently, the economic, demographic and social differences between the countries fuel the political divergences between them and create enormous difficulties to reach a consensus. When the UNFCCC was signed, in the early 1990s, there were major controversies about the differentiated responsibilities between the developing and the developed countries towards the GHG emissions. To make matters worse, some developing nations, such as China, India and some oil-producing countries, have increased their emissions dramatically since then. China, which has been the largest emitter of CO2 since mid-2000s, currently accounts for almost twice the emissions of the US, the second largest polluter.

However, as argued by the Chinese, the Indian and even the Brazilian governments, any negotiation on new agreements or targets should always be based on per capita comparisons and on the level of development of each country, as some can afford or are more flexible to invest in cleaner technologies. When we take these parameters into account, the picture becomes quite distinct as regards the absolute emissions. In general, countries that are major oil producers, have high income per capita or are located in temperate regions tend to have higher emission rates.

In this context, the Brazilian government has been historically a supporter of the notion of sustainable development and the principle of differentiated responsibilities between governments. In addition to the general trend of alignment with major emerging nations, the national diplomacy has actively worked with the US to formulate and implement the CDM. In 2015, in its NDC of the Paris Agreement, the nation proposed to curb GHG emissions “by 37% of the 2005 levels by 2025” and “43% below the 2005 levels by 2030”.[7] However, there are still serious doubts about whether the goals established will be achieved by the deadlines set, given the recent increase in the deforestation of the Amazon rainforest (one of the main causes of GHG emissions in the country). Furthermore, some important members of Temer’s cabinet have explicitly expressed their discomfort at the way Brazil participates in the Paris Agreement.[8]

This set of agreements, which has enormous potential for effectively softening global ecological problems, has also created and reproduced important contradictions that may jeopardize the global effort to promote the adoption of cleaner economic growth models. Thus, the lack of periodic revision of the lists of the Kyoto Protocol has generated blatant cases of opportunism in relation to some former “developing” countries. Despite presenting very high per capita income levels and being among the largest polluters in relative terms, the Persian Gulf monarchies remain free from the commitments of the Annex I nations. Moreover, some high emitters have been disengaging from the climate change regime. In addition to the notorious example of the United States, which refused to approve the Kyoto Protocol and, more recently, has sought to detach from the Paris Agreement, other great powers have followed suit. Canada, claiming economic problems, withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, while Russia decided not to participate in the second round of emission reductions under that treaty and has faced strong internal opposition to ratify the Paris Agreement.

Although the international climate change regime has experienced undeniable progress and has been able to count on increasingly effective monitor and control mechanisms over the last few decades, there is no guarantee that the trend will continue in the same direction. Unlike the previous decades, when disinterest in the issue was greater in developing countries, in recent times, there has been an increase in criticism in richer nations. Unfortunately, the US case cannot be seen as an exception, but rather as a rule. At the same time, countries of later industrialization, such as China and India, have been playing a leading role in the development of a cleaner energy matrix, given the serious environmental problems that their populations have been undergoing.

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[1] UNITED NATIONS. Department of Economic and Social Affairs. Sustainable Development Goals. Retrieved from on Jul 26, 2017.

[2] The expression “least developed countries” (LDC) is used extensively in the UN system and is updated annually by the General Assembly. In 2016, for instance, it decided that Angola would be no longer considered a LDC after 2021.

[3] It establishes a system of carbon credits based on a logic of economic incentives to promote the reduction of greenhouse gases. The issuing authorities are normally governments (national or local). In short, companies that want to increase their emissions need to buy carbon credits from the government or from other companies that own credits.

[4] It enables a part of Annex 1 countries to invest in carbon cut projects in developing countries.

[5] It allows a given country in Annex 1 to invest in carbon cut projects in another country of the list. In this case, the reduction will be accounted for by the former, while the latter will obtain foreign investments and technology transfer.

[6] THE WORLD BANK. Total greenhouse gas emissions (kiloton of CO2 equivalent). 2017. Retrieved from on Jul 27, 2017.

[7] REPÚBLICA FEDERATIVA DO BRASIL. Pretendida contribuição nacionalmente determinada para consecução do objetivo da Convenção-Quadro das Nações Unidas sobre mudança do clima. [2015]. Retrieved from on Jul 31, 2017.

[8] GINARDI, G. Para Blairo Maggi, metas brasileiras para o clima são só ‘intenção’. Portal Estadão, 17 de novembro de 2016. Retrieved from on Jul 31, 2017.

The 2016 U.S. election showed a polarization which was barely seen in the political scene of the United States in the past century. The primaries of the two major parties of the country were extremely competitive and presented fratricidal features. On the Republican side, the constellation of traditional politicians was surpassed by Donald Trump and his populist rhetoric, creating a great divide in the party. As for the Democrats, the victorious candidacy of the Establishment, represented by Hillary Clinton, faced Bernie Sanders’s platform of socialist shades, causing fractures that were observed in the party’s national convention held in July 2016.

Several U.S. electoral disputes throughout the twentieth century showed great cleavages around political and social issues. At the same time, in adverse economic situations, the American voters tended to punish incumbent governments. The turbulent 1968 elections, amid the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, the 1976 election, which took place under the aegis of Watergate, and even the fierce 2000 election, which took place under the impact of the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal, can be considered disputes of social and political nature. On the other hand, the 1932 elections, in the midst of the Great Depression, those held in 1980, which took place in the throes of oil shocks, and the 2008 ones, at the height of the subprime crisis, were resolved in the incontestable government party replacements by the opposition party. This U.S. election, at first sight, reproduces the dispute of different social and political views. Topics such as racial conflicts, immigration, gender issues and the fight against terrorism are in evidence in the media and in political speeches. However, the interpretation of the meaning of Donald Trump’s and Bernie Sanders’s candidacies undergoes a significant economic transformation that occurred in the United States in the last decades of the twentieth century.

 

Since the mid-70s, American society has had an increase in income inequality. This represents a shift in the virtuous growth trajectory of the ‘Golden Age’ that took place in the post-war period. The Golden Age was characterized as a period in which economic growth and distribution of relatively equitable income coexisted in a compatible manner. Thus, both the personal income distribution (PID), which indicates the income earned by individuals or households, and the functional income distribution (FID), which represents the proportion of the national income appropriated by capital providers (profit shares) and labor providers (wage share), have shown changes over the period.

According to Graph 1, the Gini coefficient[1] for U.S. households showed expressive raise in the period between 1967 and 2014. The data show a persistent increase trend in income inequality in the U.S. households which started in the mid-70s and reached 2014, the last year of available data.

The functional income distribution, in its turn, has also changed. Regarding the data, some issues associated with the measurement of the wage share are worth mentioning. The social accounting standards establish that the wage share should  include the total compensation paid to workers, which comprises paid wages and social security contributions. The share of capital, on the other hand, involves the aggregation of profits, property income and other income sources apart from work. A third component lies in the so-called mixed incomes. These yields are obtained in activities in which there is no clear distinction between labor and capital income. Graph 2 shows the evolution of the wage share with adjustments for mixed incomes.[2] There is a mild upward trend in this segment until the beginning of the 80s. This trend is followed by a period of large fluctuations that occur within a general downward trend in the wage share.

The process of concentration of the PID in the U.S. has generated a vast literature that discusses the various individual and household characteristics, in order to explain this phenomenon. Topics such as education, race, gender, age and professional choices have subsidized a profusion of studies that are replicated around the world. The goal of this type of analysis is to grasp the wage inequalities.

As regards the FID, it started receiving more attention in the late 90s. The 2008 crisis and its strong consequences, both economic and political, deepened such analyses, generating a stimulus for further research on the FID and its relationship with the PID in the USA. In other words, besides the inequality among wages, the inequalities among labor income and capital income are also sought to be understood. Regardless of the degree of relevance of the wage share contraction over the personal income distribution, the fact is that American society is going through distributive issues that seemed to have been overcome in the mid-60s.

There are many explanations for this trend, and some of them carry elements that are linked with the political rhetoric that is present in the troubled U.S. electoral scene. Two major groups of explanations can be cited: one focuses on the effects of neoliberalism and financialization on the United States, and the other one tackles the recent standards of technical progress.

The adoption of neoliberal policies in the early 80s was characterized by a change in the main goal of economic policy, which switched the focus from achieving full employment to controlling inflation. This coincided with the advance of the financialization process, in which the relative importance of the financial capital progressively increased in comparison with that of the productive capital, shaping both the economic structure of the country and the behavior of its companies. In macroeconomic terms, the counterpart of the emphasis on fighting inflation corresponded to a tolerance towards higher rates of unemployment, in a general context, observed over the 80s, in which both the workers’ bargaining power and their unions were weakened. This was associated with both the reduction of the share of industry in the employment and a greater exposure to the international competition with low labor cost countries, observed in the 90s. As illustrated in Graph 3, these changes are associated with a new relationship between the workers’ remuneration and the labor productivity. Wages began to grow below productivity, breaking the pattern of the ‘Golden Age’.

The behavior of companies, in its turn, shows a twist from the traditional investment and growth strategies aimed at long-term results to the prioritization of costs reduction, the distribution of short-term dividends and the value of their shares. This is expressed in the general orientation of ‘prioritizing the creation of value for shareholders’. Inserted in a context of flexibilization of labor relations and weakening of trade unions, whose starting point was the defeat of the air traffic controllers’ strike, in 1981, during the Reagan administration, these processes resulted in an increase in wage dispersion at the expense of lower wages, combined with a reduction in the wage share.

The standard of technical progress is also pointed as one of the causes of the increase in inequality in the U.S. From a conventional perspective, the existence of technical progress is discussed in terms of two characteristics: it may have a bias in favor of skilled labor and, at the same time, an increase in the productivity of capital. These two characteristics may have contributed to the increase in income inequality. However, recent studies have shown limitations in demonstrating that these processes  have effectively caused such an increase.

With the recovery of the economy after the 2008 crisis, discussions about income inequality took shape again due to the acceleration of the income concentration standard. To face this crisis, the federal government and the Federal Reserve System (Fed) made use of unusual fiscal and monetary measures that injected millions of dollars into financial institutions and companies with problematic balance sheets and also acted as a ‘last-resort negotiator’, buying private securities, thus preventing the collapse of the financial market and the risk of paralysis of the economy. In the labor market, however, the recovery followed the pattern observed since the late 80s, known as the ‘jobless recovery’, in which production recovers faster than employment and the labor market stabilizes in conditions that are worse for the working class than in the previous cycle.

Besides the slower recovery in terms of output since World War II, the current scenario of the U.S. economy is the one that shows more dramatic results in terms of concentration of additional income gains. From the post-war period until the late 70s, the expansion of the average income of the poorer 90% was higher than that of the 10% at the top. Such a pattern was reversed and deepened from the 80s on. Between 2001 and 2007, 98% of the increase in the average income was allocated to the richer 10%, which was intensified even more after the crisis: from 2009 to 2012, the richer 10% appropriated 116% of the growth in income in the period, which means a drop of 16 percentage points in the average income of the poorer 90%, and 95% of the earnings ended up in the hands of the richest 1% in society.

Considering the fact that most of the American population is in worse material conditions than that experienced in the pre-crisis period, there are enough elements for the emergence of political forces not linked with the current status quo. Such forces, expressed in Trump’s and Sanders’s candidacies, seem to represent the frustrations faced by most of American society. The revival of the slogan used in Ronald Reagan’s campaign in 1980 by Donald Trump in 2016 — ‘make America great again’ — indicates that many sectors of American society seek a return of the shared prosperity pattern experienced in the period prior to neoliberalism. Apparently, America can only feel great again when the regressive trends of its income distribution are reversed.

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[1] It is worth noting that the Gini coefficient varies between 0 and 1 and measures the inequality of the distribution of personal income. Thus, the closer to 0, the more equal the distribution of income; the closer to 1, the more unequal the distribution.

[2] The correction is performed considering that the proportion of labor income in the mixed income is identical to that observed in the compensation paid to employees and in the share of capital.

Os rumos da política monetária dos EUA têm implicações financeiras e econômicas tão abrangentes que o futuro das taxas de juros norte-americanas é conhecido como “a questão de um trilhão de dólares” entre os analistas e especuladores financeiros. Ela ganha maior relevância — e se torna mais difícil de responder — quando se sabe que os caminhos percorridos após a crise de 2007-08 pelo Federal Reserve (Fed), o banco central do País, levaram a uma situação inédita de taxas de juros muito próximas a zero, situação comum aos demais países desenvolvidos. E, ainda menos convencional, isso ocorre em um contexto econômico global de crescimento relativamente baixo e com recorrentes pressões deflacionistas, acrescentando elementos que tornam imprevisível o timing da retomada da situação pré-crise, de taxas de juros reais positivas. Não se trata de mero acaso que as expressões “estagnação secular” e “novo normal” estejam tão em voga no jargão econômico criado após 2008, denotando a ideia de um ciclo longo, de baixo crescimento, no qual as políticas monetária e fiscal têm capacidade de amenizar, mas não de resolver, o baixo crescimento.

Os condicionantes da atuação do Fed, hoje, ultrapassam os limites dos EUA. Embora desde que o dólar se tornou efetivamente a moeda de reserva internacional inconteste, ou seja, a partir dos anos 50 e, ainda mais, a partir da liberalização financeira dos anos 70, as decisões de política monetária nos Estados Unidos afetem decisivamente os demais países, é na atual década, após a crise financeira de 2007-08, que o Fed assume que a situação financeira em outros países pode influenciar de forma importante suas decisões. O combate aos efeitos da crise financeira ampliou o papel do Fed na conformação de uma rede de bancos centrais pelo mundo todo, a partir de uma sucessão de acordos de ajuda mútua em caso de crises. Além disso, pode-se inferir que, tendo sua atuação posta em xeque no episódio da quebra do banco Lehman Brothers em 2008, que deflagrou uma crise no sistema financeiro internacional, o Fed tenha adotado elementos de cautela quanto aos efeitos inesperados de suas decisões.

Em um momento em que a solidez do sistema financeiro, sobretudo na Europa e no Japão, não está consolidada e em que diversos países apresentam taxas de juros nominais negativas, o Fed parece não desejar adotar a tradicional postura norte-americana de tomar suas decisões de forma relativamente independente e deixar que o mundo reaja de forma adaptativa. Embora seja reconhecido que uma elevação nas taxas de juros nos EUA fortaleceria ainda mais o dólar, com consequências para o crescimento que ultrapassam em muito as fronteiras dos Estados Unidos, não seria esse o elemento externo crucial na mira do Fed, mas sim aquilo que se sabe que irá ocorrer e cujos efeitos são desconhecidos (known unknowns), ou seja, as consequências sistêmicas radicalmente incertas sobre os mercados financeiros interconectados que uma elevação das taxas de juros poderia ocasionar a partir das mudanças nos preços dos ativos que certamente ocorreriam. Cabe aqui destacar que a manutenção de taxas de juros muito baixas por razoável período de tempo tem levado a mudanças no portfólio das carteiras de aplicações financeiras em direção a ativos de maior risco e formado novas bolhas — como nos mercados de ações e em alguns mercados de imóveis —, o que seria impactado em caso de uma rápida retomada de juros reais positivos pelos EUA, com consequências sistêmicas desconhecidas. Também a possiblidade de redução do ritmo de crescimento da economia mundial e dos efeitos aí encadeados parece ter sido levada em conta, ao menos no episódio do início de 2016 que apontava uma desaceleração do ritmo de crescimento chinês, o qual influiu nas decisões norte-americanas quanto à elevação dos juros. Ao que parece, prudentemente, o Fed não está disposto a correr o risco de ser apontado como partícipe de um novo episódio de crise com consequências mundiais e tem considerado também as consequências externas de sua atuação em suas decisões.

Entretanto, é sabido que a situação interna dos EUA ainda é o elemento principal na tomada de decisões pelo Fed. E, aqui, as informações disponíveis revelam um quadro contraditório capaz de afetar o ritmo da normalização das taxas de juros, em tela desde 2013. É necessário relembrar que o Fed, no combate aos efeitos da crise financeira, aumentou sua carteira de ativos de US$ 1 trilhão para US$ 4 trilhões entre 2007 e 2014, com adoção de sucessivas rodadas de aquisição de títulos públicos e privados, com o objetivo principal de dar liquidez a mercados específicos e reduzir as taxas de juros de mercado.

Essa política inédita de expansão monetária, replicada por outros bancos centrais de países desenvolvidos e, com especificidades e maior agressividade, pelo People’s Bank of China (PBOC), teve resultados controversos até o momento. Sendo uma política com objetivos primordialmente financeiros, essa, não por acaso, teve seus melhores resultados justamente nos mercados diretamente relacionados às finanças. Assim, foi inequivocamente bem-sucedida na tentativa de estabilizar a crise financeira e dar uma aparência de normalidade aos diversos mercados, apesar dos efeitos já mencionados sobre os portfólios de ativos. No entanto, foi incapaz de promover um ritmo crescente de avanço na atividade econômica, com um crescimento abaixo das expectativas de mercado na primeira metade de 2016. E, para piorar o quebra-cabeça envolvendo as decisões de política monetária pelo Fed, a inflação não atinge a meta proposta pela instituição de 2% ao ano, enquanto o desemprego se encontra em um nível relativamente baixo, flutuando em torno de 5%. Assim, os principais indicadores não fornecem, até o momento, uma clara direção quanto à conveniência e à funcionalidade de uma elevação dos juros no curto prazo.

É certo, no entanto, que o Fed, ao encerrar a política de facilitação monetária em 2013 e aumentar pela primeira vez sua meta de juros, em dezembro de 2015, para uma faixa entre 0,25% e 0,50%, tem promovido a ideia de uma normalização futura nas taxas de juros, o que tem sido capaz de trazer um equilíbrio instável aos mercados de ativos, funcional ao objetivo de ganhar tempo no sentido da busca de um consenso mínimo que reduza a dramaticidade dessa prometida normalização monetária. O ritmo tem sido lento, e essas expectativas, instáveis. O ano de 2016 se iniciou com expectativas de mercado de até três elevações de juros pelo Fed. Até setembro não ocorreu nenhuma, e as expectativas haviam-se modificado no sentido de que apenas um único aumento ocorreria no ano, em 0,25 ponto percentual, embora nem mesmo essa elevação possa ser considerada certa.

As expectativas majoritárias no mercado norte-americano até meados de 2016 sinalizavam taxas de juros em torno de 1,5% ao final de 2017 e 2,5% em 2018, antes de se estabilizarem em 3% em prazo mais longo.

Como já afirmado, nada garante que, tal qual no passado recente, essas previsões não possam ser revisadas. E, pior, considerando-se as seguidas idas e vindas da instituição, embora plenamente justificáveis dada a complexidade do cenário econômico atual, o mercado financeiro começa a apontar uma falha do Fed em orientar de modo crível as expectativas futuras. A pesquisa CNBC Fed Survey[1] realizada ao final de agosto de 2016, na qual 60% dos agentes de mercado afirmaram que falta ao banco central dos EUA um quadro de análise claro quanto à orientação de suas decisões, demonstra essa crescente desconfiança. Ao mesmo tempo, a baixa taxa de juros tem levado tanto os bancos comerciais quanto as seguradoras e os fundos de pensão a demandarem uma revisão premente da política monetária nos EUA, dado o impacto dos juros reais negativos sobre sua rentabilidade. Ou seja, o Fed vem sendo pressionado pelo mercado a afirmar mais claramente aquilo que é determinante para suas decisões, abandonando a conveniente dubiedade prevalente entre 2014 e 2016.

Na ponta produtiva, é reconhecido desde os anos 50, quiçá desde os anos 30, que apenas condições favoráveis do lado da oferta são incapazes de alavancar novos investimentos, caso a oportunidade para tal não esteja claramente afirmada também pelo lado da demanda. Como mostra o economista Phillip Arestis, a efetividade das políticas de facilitação monetária para o crescimento econômico depende do que os agentes afetados (detentores de títulos e bancos) pretendem fazer com as somas adicionais de recursos e, ao mesmo tempo, do modo como os mercados financeiros e as empresas reagem em suas expectativas de gasto, especialmente quanto à inflação futura. Ora, ao mesmo tempo em que frações dessa riqueza são destinadas aos mercados de risco, a despeito das baixas taxas oferecidas, os mercados de dívidas governamentais batem recordes de demanda, exacerbando as contradições quanto ao destino desse excedente monetário e reforçando a proeminência da preferência pela liquidez.

Ademais, o contexto da economia mundial não ajuda em nada a conformar condições mais favoráveis para que as decisões acima expostas se resolvam positivamente. A realidade é que o comércio internacional e a produção industrial mundial têm crescido a taxas em ritmo lento, ao mesmo tempo em que prossegue o deslocamento do dinamismo capitalista em direção à Ásia. Isso aumenta as dúvidas sobre a capacidade de condições favoráveis de endividamento em trazer efeitos duradouros sobre os investimentos produtivos nos EUA. Em contraposição, a capacidade de geração de empregos de sua economia se reafirmou após 2010. Entretanto, esses empregos reproduzem em sua característica o padrão do ciclo de crescimento anterior (2002-07), ou seja, estão ligados ao crescimento do setor de serviços, à recuperação da renda e da capacidade de endividamento das famílias e aos efeitos das novas bolhas financeiras na geração de uma sensação de normalidade. A propalada retomada do investimento industrial em território norte-americano segue, até o momento, ligada principalmente à indústria de extração de petróleo, também abalada em sua capacidade de expansão pela queda nos preços dessa commodity após 2015.

Em suma, a estabilização precária dos mercados financeiros soma-se a uma frágil retomada da atividade produtiva, em condições internacionais adversas. De momento, a única certeza que esse conjunto de variáveis nos impõe é que o horizonte do retorno das taxas de juros reais positivas de forma consistente nos Estados Unidos ainda deve ser bastante lento.

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[1] LIESMAN, S. Fed doesn’t have real plan to make policy: CNBC survey respondents. CNBC, 24 Aug. 2016. Disponível em: . Acesso em: 04 out. 2016.