Play Ball

Arnold Palmer, accompanied by his 24-year-old grandson, Sam Saunders, was in Manhattan last week to promote Callaway’s latest driver. Palmer is equally famous for his success off the course, in business and as the sports world’s first television-era superstar, as for his on-course prowess. This trip to New York, whether intended as such or not, was a chance for Saunders, a budding Tour pro himself, to broaden his apprenticeship.

“Every golfer has to develop a style,” said Palmer, 82, in the course of our interview at a midtown Golfsmith store. His personal style was certainly in evidence. White-haired but energetic, he shook every hand in sight and held personable conversations with store staffers and members of a TV crew. This is a man who has been a legend for more than half a century. Not everyone worships him, but he knows how to play the part.

When Palmer talks about style, he means the way a player hits a golf ball as much as his personality. In his mind the two are deeply intertwined. “All the great players developed a style that worked for them,” Palmer said. “[Jack] Nicklaus did. [Gary] Player did. [Byron] Nelson did. They knew where the ball was going. Hogan worked hard and developed a style that was so good, well, that’s why he was a such a great player. And some of the young players out there now have styles. I’ve watched Rory McIlroy and he’s developed a style in the way he plays and swings the club, whether he knows it or not.

“About the only very good player who maybe never did develop a style was Sam Snead, because he was such a natural. He could hit all the shots, but he didn’t have a permanent shot that he could depend on. It might go left or right or it might go straight, but he could never be positive. And that was his problem. He won a lot of tournaments but he didn’t win the ones he wanted to. He never won an Open,” meaning the U.S. one.

When Saunders turned pro two years ago, after playing at Clemson, he approached his grandfather about working with him more intensely than they had until then. “I was at a point where I needed a direction. I didn’t quite know where I was going with my golf game,” Saunders said.

Palmer was thrilled to oblige. They focused a lot on old-fashioned mechanics. They created a drive to take the left side out of play. They hard-wired a putting routine to make Saunders more consistent.

In recent months, however, Saunders has been working more on his own. “He put me on the path. Now it’s just work,” he said. “We still talk. It’s great to have another set of eyes and someone I trust to go to for advice when I need it. But I don’t want to play like anyone else. I don’t even want to play like him. I need to do it my way.”

Grandpa seems pleased with this. “What Sam is doing now is working out his own style,” Palmer said. “When he’s out there in competition, he’s got to know what kind of shot he wants to hit and have confidence that he can do it. It’s all up here,” he said, touching the back of his head.

“Not the back of my hair,” Saunders joked.

“In the head,” Palmer clarified.

Saunders got into eight PGA Tour events this year, mostly on sponsor exemptions, and made two cuts. He also played his way into the final stage at the Tour’s qualifying school earlier this month and came away with partial status on the Nationwide Tour for 2012.

“It’s not a disaster at all,” Palmer responded when I asked if playing on the junior circuit for a while might not be better for his grandson than having to sink or swim on the PGA Tour. “He’s 24. I was 25 years old when I turned pro,” Palmer said, adding that the three years he spent in the Coast Guard in his early 20s were extremely valuable: “They allowed me to mature. To learn about life.”

In 1955, Palmer played with Gene Sarazen, the 1935 winner, in his first competitive round at the Masters. He dined frequently with Bobby Jones, battled Jack Nicklaus in his prime and has known every significant golfer since. I asked him what about golf he most valued to pass along.

“The integrity of the game,” he said, after a moment of thought. “It’s hard to describe what I mean by that. You immediately think of honesty, but it’s more than that. It’s a lifestyle. It’s something people see. It’s something that golf delivers to the public like no other sport.”

Truthfulness is part of it. “I never endorse what I don’t actually use,” he said later, when I asked him why he’d been so successful in business. He didn’t just put his name on the Arnold Palmer iced-tea-and-lemonade drink—he invented it. To our interview he brought an old wooden driver from his workshop in Latrobe, Pa., to show how back in the day he filed the face of his clubs to achieve the kind of ball-flight adjustments that the new Callaway RAZR Fit driver, which is adjustable, makes possible by moving weights and rotating a cog in the hosel.

“Most of the golfers I’ve known along the way had good character. Certainly the best ones did. That doesn’t mean they never did anything wrong. They all had a drink now and then,” he said. But he said the top golfers generally have all been upstanding. “I think that’s very important to impress on the young players, including this one,” he said, nodding at Saunders.

What about Tiger Woods in this context? I asked. “I’m not going there,” Palmer said simply. “There are probably guys that did the same thing along the way, but didn’t go public.”

Integrity, in Palmer’s mind, isn’t far removed from style. The way a player dresses and walks and comports himself, he said, feeds into the way he plays. “You could spot Hogan or Nelson halfway across the course, just walking, not even swinging, and know instantly who they were. They owned who they were. That’s what I want for Sam. I want him to own his style, everything about it. Physically, mentally, even how he ties his shoes.”

All three of us looked down at Saunders’s shoes. “Loafers today,” Saunders shrugged. “No laces.”

—Email John Paul at golfjournal@wsj.com.

Riverhead

A novel that explores racism, anti-Semitism and the will to endure against unimaginable odds.

“The Street Sweeper” by Elliot Perlman (Riverhead, Jan. 5).

Mr. Perlman, author of the ingenious 2004 novel “Seven Types of Ambiguity,” tackles the epic struggles of two persecuted peoples, European Jews and African-Americans, and their sometimes tragic intersections. The street sweeper is a paroled felon working at a cancer hospital, where he befriends a patient, a Holocaust survivor. A third character, a history professor, finds a box of recordings of other Holocaust victims recounting their experiences to a psychologist at the end of World War II. All have extraordinary stories to tell—of racism, anti-Semitism and the will to endure against unimaginable odds.

“The Quality of Mercy” by Barry Unsworth (Nan A. Talese, Jan. 10).

If you haven’t read Mr. Unsworth’s majestic historical novel “Sacred Hunger,” I urge you to do that, ideally before reading this deeply moving sequel. But “The Quality of Mercy” stands on its own as a story of capitalism, class and slavery in late 18th-century England. Mr. Unsworth is equally fluent writing about the lives of bankers and coal miners, judges and slaves, and he brings his characters together with authority and grace. As with all of his historical novels, Mr. Unsworth conveys the sights, sounds and smells of life in another century without the slightest hint of pedantry.

Overlook

Mr. Fry is pitiless on the subject of his young self, but he’s also wry and tender and hilarious.

“The Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography” by Stephen Fry (Overlook, Jan. 19).

The second volume of Mr. Fry’s life story (the first was “Moab Is My Washpot”), “The Fry Chronicles” takes the British novelist, playwright and comedian from Cambridge—after a short stint in prison for theft—to his early days in show business with, among other luminaries, his comedic soul mate Hugh Laurie (now Dr. Gregory House). Mr. Fry is pitiless on the subject of his young self, but he’s also wry and tender and hilarious. “I was the luckiest person I knew,” he writes on the penultimate page. Then, when he was about 30 years old, an actor friend “asked me if I fancied a line.” That chapter of his life (15 years of cocaine use) will be the subject of another book.

—Send your questions about books and reading to Cynthia Crossen at booklover@wsj.com.

Having read many other people’s best-of fiction lists for 2011, I notice that my taste in novels is marching to its own drummer.

I’ve liked some of the overall favorites—Chad Harbach’s “The Art of Fielding,” for example, and Jeffrey Eugenides’ “The Marriage Plot” and Allan Hollinghurst’s “The Stranger’s Child.” I understand why they were applauded, but they weren’t the books I liked most.

My favorites were… I’m struggling for adjectives to describe what the novels that moved me shared. Originality, confidence, respect for language and the reader, surprise, humor and perhaps a touch of humility—that’s the best I can come up with.

Maybe I read them when I was in a good mood or maybe I came to a book with a friendly bias because I’d liked one of the writer’s earlier books. There is so much subjectivity in judging fiction; there are so many variables in the compact between writer and reader. The only claim I stake for the following novels is they made me want to get up in the morning.

“The Inverted Forest” by John Dalton. The story: A young man with a disfigured face takes a job as a junior counselor at a summer camp for more than 100 mentally and physically disabled adults and finds himself the one person who can prevent a violent crime. What I liked: An isolated world, a captive population, people who live on the margins of society being governed by 20-year-olds—everything is inverted here, even the notion of normality.

“The Old Romantic” by Louise Dean. The story: The poster clan of dysfunctional families, the English Goodyews (divorced parents, prodigal children) have been largely estranged for well over a decade, but they will be briefly reunited if it kills them all. What I liked: obstreperous characters, class warfare and Ms. Dean’s signature mordant wit.

“Faith” by Jennifer Haigh. The story: Did Sheila McGann’s brother, a popular Catholic priest in Boston, molest a young boy? If there is no definitive proof, does she have faith in her brother? What I liked: There are no easy answers here, no angels or devils, just people trying to understand what happened to this man of God—if anything—and why.

“To Be Sung Underwater” by Tom McNeal. The story: A boy and girl fall in love, go their separate ways, find each other again years later. Can anyone make such an old story feel fresh and original again? Yes. What I liked: Sparkling prose, flinty dialogue, skillful pacing, equal parts wise and funny.

“State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett. The story: A medical researcher goes to the Amazon to find her former mentor, who has disappeared while testing a promising new drug. What I liked: A twisty plot, intriguing characters and writing that is so assured that you’ll follow the author anywhere, including the jungle, where anything not eaten by insects is quick to rot.

“Doc” by Mary Doria Russell. The story: Doc Holliday really was a doctor—a dentist—and his gambling and gun fighting in Dodge City were only a small part of what made him a folk hero. What I liked: In the tradition of the best historical fiction, Ms. Russell has transformed a legend into a complicated, vulnerable, compassionate man trying to keep peace in one the wildest towns in the wild West.

“Blueprints for Building Better Girls” by Elissa Schappell. The story: Eight linked short stories about modern women coming to terms with sexual freedom, the bonds of marriage and motherhood, infertility, anorexia and “battered party girl syndrome.” What I liked: Ms. Schappell’s unflinching dissection of the ambivalence women feel about their roles as lovers, sexual partners, mothers and daughters in the 21st century.

“Sex and Stravinsky” by Barbara Trapido. The story: Two mismatched couples and their adolescent daughters figure out what’s wrong (and what’s right) with their families against a backdrop of ballet and pantomime, England and South Africa, coincidence and masquerade. What I liked: Ms. Trapido has a light touch, a puckish wit and a gimlet eye, and she juggles characters and subplots with aplomb.

“The Submission” by Amy Waldman. The story: In a blind architectural contest to design the World Trade Center memorial in New York, a Muslim wins. What I liked: A large cast of characters, representing every shade of pride and prejudice on the subjects of immigration, religion, meritocracy and politics, all get to make their cases.

Por IAN TALLEY

WASHINGTON (EFE Dow Jones)–La futura participación del Fondo Monetario Internacional en un programa de préstamos griego debe estar totalmente financiada y el acuerdo de deuda con los bonistas privados debe cumplir los objetivos de deuda fijados por el FMI, dijo el jueves un portavoz del FMI.

Mientras tanto, el grupo bancario que está negociando el acuerdo de canje de deuda con Grecia en Atenas no pudo alcanzar el consenso necesario para ampliar el programa de préstamos para el maltrecho país. Miembros del Instituto de Finanzas Internacionales –IIF por sus siglas en inglés– dijeron que importantes aspectos de las negociaciones para reestructurar la deuda griega siguen sin resolverse tras las negociaciones del jueves y que se está agotando el tiempo para alcanzar un acuerdo voluntario.

European Pressphoto Agency

El portavoz del FMI, Gerry Rice, explicó que el fondo mantiene su objetivo del proporción deuda/PIB del 120% para 2020. De conceder el FMI más préstamos a Grecia, éstos se basarían en esa referencia, lo que significa que cualquier acuerdo con los bonistas que están negociando una quita tendría que ser de un calado suficiente como para alcanzar ese umbral.

El economista jefe del FMI dijo recientemente que basándose en una previsión de recesión mayor de la original en la eurozona, los bonistas podrían tener que asumir mayores quitas para alcanzar los objetivos de deuda.

Los informes del FMI indican que un ratio superior al 120% sería insostenible a largo plazo.

Además podría resultar necesaria más financiación pública de Europa para cubrir el creciente déficit de financiación.

“Debemos esperar a ver cuáles son los detalles de la conclusión final del acuerdo, hacer una valoración sobre ello, ver cómo cumple los objetivos de sostenibilidad de la deuda que se han fijado y entonces ver en qué medida es necesaria la participación del sector privado y la financiación oficial”, dijo Rice.

Por su parte, representantes de los acreedores del sector privado que participan en las conversaciones dijeron el jueves que Importantes aspectos de las negociaciones para reestructurar la deuda griega siguen sin resolverse y es clave que se solventen tan pronto como sea posible.

Después de un primer día de reuniones en Atenas con el primer ministro griego, Lucas Papademos, y el ministro de Finanzas griego, Evangelos Venizelos, Charles Dallara, del Instituto de Finanzas Internacionales, –IIF por sus siglas en inglés–, y Jean Lemierre, de BNP Paribas, dijo que continuarían las conversaciones allí el viernes.

“Se discutieron una serie de asuntos y algunas áreas clave siguen sin resolverse. Las discusiones continuarán en Atenas mañana, pero el tiempo para alcanzar un acuerdo se está agotando”, dijeron en un comunicado Dallara y Lemierre, que co-presiden el comité negociador en nombre de la mayoría de los acreedores privados de Grecia.

“Es esencial con el fin de finalizar el acuerdo de participación voluntaria del sector privado que se dé apoyo por todas las partes oficiales en los próximos días (…) Es importante que Grecia llegue a un acuerdo con el sector privado sobre un canje de deuda voluntario tan pronto como sea posible”, añadió el comunicado.

The clerk at my building’s convenience store is from the Middle East. I was carrying John le Carre’s “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” and he asked me to lend him books that he could read to improve his English. He wants adult books (I asked him about Harry Potter) and presumably fiction. Do you have any suggestions?

—M.B.M., St. Paul

What a cheering question: An immigrant with what I imagine to be a fairly difficult job wants to polish his English-language skills by reading books.

The first novel that leapt to mind was Andre Dubus III’s “House of Sand and Fog,” because it’s about a well-educated immigrant from Iran forced to settle for a job as a convenience store clerk. But things don’t end well for Genob Sarhang Amir Behrani. Another novel about an immigrant, Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake,” has a more hopeful outcome. The writing in both books is accessible (in Ms. Lahiri’s case, it’s often beautiful).

I looked online for lists of books recommended by librarians and teachers for so-called emergent adult readers. These books are also sometimes known as “high-low,” meaning high-interest plots with lower levels of vocabulary. Many of the suggested books are short, which doesn’t always make sense to me. One of the most demanding books I’ve ever read was “The Red Badge of Courage,” whereas some of Stephen King’s door-stoppers seem ideal for reading practice. Another short book that often appears on these lists is John Steinbeck’s “The Pearl,” which seemed like a tough slog to me when I read it in school, although I ended up loving it. Also, the idea of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” being a good book for emergent adult readers strikes me as ludicrous. Better one of Larry McMurtry’s Western hulks, Pat Conroy’s yarns or Herman Wouk’s sagas.

If a virtue of a book for inexperienced readers is brevity, then collections or anthologies of short stories might be worth a try. The annual edition of “Best American Short Stories” includes works by some of the finest short-story writers of our time, and may help a reader better define what he or she is looking for in longer fiction. (There are also annual collections of Best American Mystery Stories and Best American Essays.) Short-story collections by Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald or J.D. Salinger might also be a manageable path into American literature.

If your man is willing to experiment, I recommend he try a graphic novel, though you may have to overcome a very understandable aversion to comics. Art Spiegelman’s “Maus” books are beautiful and powerful, and the illustrations reinforce the language. Two other good graphic novels for adults are Craig Thompson’s “Blankets” and “Habibi.”

I hope all American citizens, immigrants or not, know they have free access to books at their local libraries, and also free access to the recommendations of their librarians. Most librarians I know are proud of their ability to find appropriate books for readers at different levels of proficiency and interests. Many libraries also have book clubs, so readers less confident of their judgments and analyses can try them out with their book-loving neighbors.

Audiobooks are another way to read, with the added benefit of hearing English spoken by narrators who have (for the most part) excellent diction. Most libraries have collections of these, too. The mellifluous actor Erik Steele reads Peter Benchley’s “Jaws”; Garrison Keillor reads a collection of Lake Wobegon monologues for a compilation called “My Little Town”; Gary Sinise reads John Steinbeck’s “Travels with Charley in Search of America.”

Immigrants to America don’t necessarily want to read fiction about immigrants to America, but if they do, there’s a rich field of literature to choose from: Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle”; Colm Toibin’s “Brooklyn”; Chang-Rae Lee’s “Native Speaker”; T. C. Boyle’s “Tortilla Curtain”; and Aleksandar Hemon’s “The Lazarus Project.”

In a sense all American fiction is immigrant fiction. It’s “the literature of crossings, of uprooting and transplantation,” wrote the critic Charles L. Crow. “New settlers seek fresh starts, but bring selves nurtured elsewhere. If regions confer identity, the identity of the immigrant is never fixed, but always floating between two realms.” In this era of easy mobility—the average American moves 11 times in a lifetime, according to the Census Bureau—that description would seem to fit many people like me, born and raised in America.

—Send your questions about books and reading to Cynthia Crossen at booklover@wsj.com.

Write to Cynthia Crossen at cynthia.crossen@wsj.com

Por ERIC MORATH

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–Economistas de 11 grandes bancos de Estados Unidos estiman que la economía registrará un crecimiento moderado este año, pero continúan con un tono de cautela al tiempo que persisten los temores sobre la inestabilidad del mercado inmobiliario, la elevada tasa de desempleo y la crisis de Europa.

En las proyecciones publicadas el jueves, los economistas proyectaron que la economía crecerá un 2,4% este año, pero que estiman que habrá poca mejora en el mercado laboral o en los precios de las viviendas.

Los economistas, que pertenecen al comité de asesores económicos de la American Bankers Association, mostraron opiniones divididas sobre si el leve crecimiento impulsará a la Reserva Federal a tomar más medidas para estimular la economía.

“Estamos pasando de un ambiente difícil a uno que está lentamente comenzando a mejorar”, señaló George Mokrzan, presidente del comité y economista jefe de Huntington Bank.

Mokrzan señaló que los consumidores, que su mayoría se han mantenido al margen de la reciente recuperación, ayudarán a impulsar el crecimiento este año.

Los expertos proyectan que la tasa de desempleo se ubicará en un 8,5% en el cuarto trimestre, mismo nivel que la tasa informada por el gobierno el mes pasado. Se prevé que la inflación se mantenga controlada al tiempo que los economistas dijeron que el índice de precios al consumidor subiría solo un 2,0% sobre una base anual.

El atribulado mercado inmobiliario es un factor importante en qué tan sólida será la economía este año, indicaron los economistas.

Los economistas esperan que los precios de las viviendas sigan declinando, pero a un ritmo menor que en años recientes. Los economistas dijeron que los precios de las viviendas caerán un 0,6% este año, lo que se compara con la caída del 1,1% registrada en 2011 y el declive del 3,9% en 2010.

“Si los precios de las viviendas se mueven en una dirección positiva, disminuiría la probabilidad de medidas futuras de la Reserva Federal”, dijo Mokrzan. “Lo opuesto también sería cierto”.

En tanto, el miembro del comité Scott Anderson, quien además es economista senior de Wells Fargo & Co., cree que la Fed tomará acciones adicionales, quizás en la forma de compras de valores hipotecarios, porque el banco central ve al mercado de la vivienda como “el último impedimento local” que frena la economía”.

“Un crecimiento del 2% no reducirá el desempleo”, dijo Anderson. “Eso hace probable que la Fed haga algo para acelerar la recuperación de la vivienda”.

El banco central ha considerado realizar otra ronda de compras de bonos en un intento por apuntalar la economía.

Sobre este punto, los economistas se mostraron divididos casi a partes iguales.

El miembro del comité Scott Anderson, economista senior de Wells Fargo & Co., cree que la Fed tomará medidas adicionales, posiblemente en la forma de compras de valores hipotecarios, porque el banco central considera que el mercado inmobiliario es el “último impedimento interno” que frena la economía.

En tanto, Scott J. Brown, economista jefe de Raymond James & Associates y miembro del comité, dijo que una recesión menor en Europa tendría poco efecto sobre Estados Unidos, pero que un declive importante tendría implicaciones a nivel global y arrastraría a Estados Unidos a una recesión.

Para el mercado laboral, los economistas esperan que Estados Unidos agregue 1,6 millones de puestos de trabajo este año, en línea con el crecimiento de las nóminas en 2011.

I have an idea for what I think could be a cool, maybe best-selling novel. I have never written a book before but my high-school and college teachers used to tell me I was a good writer. Do you have any advice for how to get started?

—C.T., New York City

Of the billions of words of advice that writers have given writers over the centuries, my favorite is that of the French short-story virtuoso Guy de Maupassant, who needed only four: “Get black on white.”

A short stroll through the massive library of advice books for writers proves that if there’s anything writers like more than writing, it’s telling other people how to do it. But not surprisingly, no two writers ply their craft the same way. Some writers outline their books, some don’t. Some start with a character, some start with a scene, some (like Charles Dickens) know what the title is going to be before they write a word. Some insist that you should write in longhand; others swear by their laptops. It’s a reminder of W. Somerset Maugham’s statement that “There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.”

If you’re looking for practical advice on, say, how to spin a plot, there’s “Plotto: The Master Book of All Plots,” with templates for 1,462 possible story lines (“A, with the help of B, overcomes an ignoble weakness. A’s gratitude to B blossoms into love, and, when A is sure he has rehabilitated his character, he proposes marriage to B and is accepted”). If you need help developing characters, there’s “Bullies, Bastards and Bitches: How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction” or “What Would Your Character Do?”: “Your character is trapped in an especially boring day. How does he react? First of all, does he even notice?” I suppose these could be helpful tools for the novice though it’s hard to imagine Tolstoy putting Vronsky through a series of personality tests.

My favorite book of writing advice is the “Modern Library Writer’s Workshop” by Stephen Koch. Mr. Koch presents the basics of the craft for the novice writer including plot, characterization and style; he also recommends some other books on writing, including Anne Lamott’s “Bird by Bird”; Stephen King’s “On Writing”; and Ray Bradbury’s “Zen in the Art of Writing.”

A quirkier compendium of advice from writers to writers is “Rules of Thumb: 73 Writers Reveal Their Fiction Writing Fixations” edited by Michael Martone and Susan Neville. There are nuggets of practical advice—”No characters named Brooke or Amber” (Frederick Barthelme); “Your fingernails do not have to be clipped until after the day’s production of words is done” (Robert Olen Butler)—but there is also sage advice about advice. “Thumb-rule number one for aspiring writers, it goes without saying, is: Be wary of writers’ rules of thumb,” wrote John Barth.

In 2010, the Guardian asked a few dozen writers to list their rules for writing fiction. They are fascinatingly diverse in tone and content. Elmore Leonard: “Try to leave out the parts that readers tend to skip.” Margaret Atwood: “Nobody is making you do this, so don’t whine.” Anne Enright: “Only bad writers think that their work is really good.” Jonathan Franzen: “It’s doubtful that anyone with an Internet connection at his workplace is writing good fiction.”

I have two pieces of advice. The first is, don’t trust your mother/spouse/lover/best friend’s opinion of your work: They’re lying! They love you and don’t want to hurt your feelings. Find someone who doesn’t care if you ever speak to them again and beg them for the truth. Better yet, pay them to tell you the truth.

Finally, write because it’s fun or entertaining or interesting to write and not because you have visions of royalty checks and literary prizes dancing in your head. The chance of an established publisher buying your first novel is probably about the same as your chance of falling down a well. (Though, like an increasing number of writers, you could try the self-publishing route.) As the prolific and prosperous writer Irwin Shaw once said, “Writing is finally play, and there’s no reason why you should get paid for playing. If you’re a real writer, you write no matter what. No writer need feel sorry for himself if he writes and enjoys the writing, even if he doesn’t get paid for it.”

Now get to work.

—Send your questions about books and reading to Cynthia Crossen at booklover@wsj.com.

Por ROGERIO JELMAYER y TOM MURPHY

SAO PAULO (Dow Jones)—Dieciocho años después de su lanzamiento, el real brasileño aún está lejos de ser una moneda convertible mundialmente que iguale las ambiciones económicas del país, según uno de sus arquitectos.

El Plan de Estabilización del Real fue cultivado durante los ocho años del gobierno del presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso, el cual finalizó en 2001. “Durante ese tiempo, impulsamos al real por la senda de una moneda convertible”, dijo el economista Edmar Bacha, quien ocupó puestos clave. “Pero no lo llevamos hasta su punto culminante “.

Una moneda plenamente convertible permitiría a las empresas de Brasil e incluso a los individuos, a invertir libremente, comerciar bienes y comprar y vender propiedades en cualquier parte del mundo usando el real brasileño.

Los esfuerzos se interrumpieron en 2003, durante la presidencia del sucesor de Cardoso, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, del Partido de los Trabajadores, o PT, uno de los gestores del plan de estabilización de 1994 que creó al real.

Los gobiernos del PT, bajo la presidencia de Lula y de la actual presidenta Dilma Rousseff, han favorecido un control estatal más fuerte sobre funciones económicas clave, incluido el crédito, la energía y el tipo de cambio.

Pero Bacha, de 68 años, añadió, “una moneda plenamente convertible es inevitable. Los inversionistas brasileños lo exigirán, especialmente a medida que las empresas de Brasil se vuelven multinacionales estableciendo operaciones en el extranjero”.

Una moneda convertible podría ayudar a resolver otro problema en el mercado de divisas de Brasil, como las estratosféricas tasas de interés, dijo Bacha. El alto precio que paga Brasil para endeudarse atrae inversiones de corto plazo, las cuales —el año pasado— elevaron a la divisa a niveles históricamente altos frente al dólar.

Hay ciertas peculiaridades en el mercado de divisas local que necesitan ser resueltas, dijo Bacha, director del Instituto de Investigación Económica Casa das Garcas.

El mayor problema es el acceso limitado al mercado de contado, lo que significa que los volúmenes del mercado de futuros pueden ser 10 veces superiores a los del mercado de contado, mientras que en Estados Unidos es cerca de tres veces superior.

“Hay muchos exportadores, empresas y bancos que necesitan operar en el mercado de divisas, pero está impedidos para operar de contado”, dijo Bacha. “Esto los lleva hacia el mercado de futuros”.

El banco central sólo autoriza a 14 bancos locales a operar como intemediarios de divisas, un hecho que desde hace tiempo ha generado enojo entre los operadores, empresas de corretaje y bancos más pequeños. Muchos acusan a los operadores -todos ellos grandes nombres domésticos o instituciones internacionales- de un tire y afloje en las cuotas diarias de divisas para su propio beneficio.

“No hay duda que esta situación provoca distorsiones”, dijo Bacha. “Una solución sería abrir las operaciones para más agentes económicos, pero las reformas en esta área ahora están a paso de caracol”.

Como la mayoría de bancos centrales, el de Brasil es naturalmente cauteloso, añadió Bacha. La crisis de la deuda externa de las décadas de los 80 y los 90, combinada con la hiperinflación y las elevadas tasas de interés, dejaron un legado duradero. La cautela fue reforzada durante la crisis del crédito del 2008 y 2009, cuando una cantidad de empresas brasileñas presentó enormes pérdidas en operaciones con futuros de divisas.

Dos grandes empresas, el productor de papel y pulpa Aracruz y el frigorífico Sadia quedaron cerca de la bancarrota y fueron forzados a fusionarse con sus rivales o desaparecer.

No obstante, dichos problemas no están siendo abordados directamente, según Bacha.

“Al regular celosamente el mercado de contado, el gobierno ha descuidado las regulaciones de las operaciones a futuro”, dijo. “Hay poca transparencia en las transacciones con futuros. Incluso el banco central no puede saber qué posiciones están siendo asumidas y por qué empresas. Eso deja un margen para las sorpresas desagradables”.

Portavoces del ministerio de Finanzas, el banco central y el PT prefirieron no emitir comentarios para este artículo.

Bacha dijo que el gobierno debería permitir a los brasileños invertir en el exterior, creando una nueva fuente para la demanda de dólares. Las restricciones actuales solo permiten hacerlo a los muy ricos.

El único gran cambio de política de los últimos meses fue un nuevo impuesto sobre las operaciones financieras de futuros. La intención fue reducir los ingresos de flujos no deseados de capitales extranjeros de corto plazo.

“Otro impuesto no era el modo correcto de abordar el tema”, dijo Bacha. “La fuerza principal que está detrás de la apreciación no deseada del real frente al dólar siguen siendo las altas tasas de interés. La reforma más bienvenida de todas sería una reducción de las tasas de interés”.

Reputation is a tricky business. And not just for politicians anymore. This year we’re all worried about approval ratings—or should be. Reputation was once a qualitative measure of our behavior, vital but vague. Now it’s getting quantitative. Soon there is likely to be an actual numerical reputation score for each of us, like a FICO credit score but for our whole lives.

Getty Images

Soon there is likely to be an actual numerical reputation score for each of us, like FICO, but for our whole lives.

Ready?

We’ve got the precursors now, whether or not we’re aware of them. Companies such as PeerIndex, Twitalyzer, Talentag and PostRank (bought by Google) already apply online analytics to establish the heft of an individual’s or business’s “social capital.” This means, broadly, your influence online. How many people do you reach and how many of them take action based on what you say? Are you a preacher or a wallflower?

There seem to be endless proprietary mechanisms for measuring social capital. Each company uses a different combination of metrics (they’re cagey about the specifics). Twitter assigns a reputation score to every user as part of their “Who to Follow” formula. A start-up called Klout, founded in 2008, has something more public in mind.

Klout watches your behavior on a range of online services, including Facebook (posts, comments, likes), LinkedIn (comments, likes) and Google+ (comments, reshares, +1s). Then it boils down your social Web activity to a score between 1 and 100. Higher means more influential. “Top influencers” get a gold sash around their number, like a beauty pageant winner. Low scorers, their sense of self-worth dashed by an algorithm, reapply the lipstick and keep trying. The company has indexed more than 100 million public profiles.

Even if you’re not online much, your reputation there could still affect you elsewhere. Future reputation scoring will take this into account—not always for the worst. Take a woman of 45, just divorced. She didn’t buy her home, hasn’t worked in years and seems a bad bet for a loan. She’s also a mother, a volunteer, trustworthy. From alternative online data—maybe a church-group blog—a reputation score might build a composite that’s a truer gauge of her risk-worthiness. Some scenarios could be more dastardly, of course. Either way, keeping the right company online, as off, is a good idea. What others say about you matters more and more.

“There will be a reputation score, and it will be used to make decisions about you,” Owen Tripp, co-founder and chief operating officer of Reputation.com, told me. The digital privacy and online reputation company helps individuals, and some businesses, look good online. And it has just been granted a U.S. patent for its scoring methodology.

Reputation.com does everything from deleting negative online mentions to removing private data from information-brokering websites that store Social Security numbers and more. We could probably do this ourselves—if we had 55 hours in the day and a best friend who’s a private investigator.

There is a difference between professional and casual reconnaissance. The ability that you and I have to search online and “forensically re-create” other people is very high now, said Mr. Tripp, “and the risk we’re willing to take on people today is very low.” So we rely on what’s online, often what’s on the first search page, to make quick decisions—whom to hire, ask to dinner, lend money to. Two minutes of Googling can make us unjustifiably confident.

We might have the wrong person. The National Security Agency calls this “the 27 Mohammeds problem.” How do we sort the one terrorist from 26 law-abiding U.S. citizens? An error could affect any of us. “What about those 3% to 4% for whom it goes grievously wrong?” asked Mr. Tripp. “That’s why I started this business. I’m not comfortable with someone wearing a scarlet A for the rest of their life.”

Even if we get the person right, the picture may be misleading. Folks between 30 and 50, who are relative tech newbies, are particularly vulnerable. But younger tech natives, too, may have been Yelp-ing since they could talk and still suffer. During the boom in user-generated content—a nearly universal spilling-of-guts in the past half-decade—they often said more than was wise.

“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.” Honest old Abraham Lincoln knew what he was talking about. Just imagine his reputation score. But today, even his shadow would look longer.

Por TOM BARKLEY y IAN TALLEY

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)–El déficit comercial de Estados Unidos aumentó en noviembre por primera vez en cinco meses, después que las alzas en los precios del petróleo contribuyeran al incremento en las importaciones y que las exportaciones a la eurozona experimentaran una fuerte disminución.

El déficit en el comercio internacional de bienes y servicios fue de US$47.750 millones en noviembre, lo que representa un ascenso del 10,4% frente al déficit de US$43.270 millones del mes anterior, informó el viernes el Departamento de Comercio.

El aumento de noviembre fue el mayor desde mayo pasado.

Economistas encuestados por Dow Jones Newswires habían proyectado un déficit de US$45.200 millones.

El déficit de octubre fue revisado a la baja, a US$43.270 millones, desde la estimación inicial de US$43.470 millones.

Las exportaciones estadounidenses a países que utilizan el euro se redujeron un 6,9% en noviembre, lo que elevó el déficit comercial con la zona del euro un 20,8% a US$8.360 millones.

Los precios del petróleo reanudaron su ascenso en noviembre. El precio promedio del crudo importando aumentó US$3,66 a US$102,50 el barril. El costo total de las importaciones de petróleo en Estados Unidos ascendió a US$27.290 millones, frente a los US$26.010 millones del mes anterior.

Estados Unidos pagó en noviembre US$34.830 millones por las importaciones relacionadas con la energía, superior a los US$32.600 millones de octubre.

En tanto, el déficit comercial con China se redujo un 4,3% en noviembre, al ubicarse en US$26.870 millones. Las exportaciones al segundo mayor socio comercial del país crecieron un 2,1% a US$9.940 millones, su nivel más alto en casi un año, mientras que las importaciones descendieron un 2,6% a US$36.810 millones.

El déficit comercial real, o ajustado por la inflación, creció en noviembre a US$47.490 millones, frente a los US$44.050 millones del mes previo.

Las exportaciones en Estados Unidos se redujeron un 0,9% a US$177.840 millones, sin ajustes por inflación. En tanto, las importaciones aumentaron un 1,3% a US$225.590 millones.

El déficit con Canadá creció en más de un tercio a US$2.980 millones, mientras que el déficit con México ascendió un 4,8% a US$5.510 millones. El déficit con Japón creció un 0,1% a US$6.210 millones.

The National Basketball Association, as part of its new labor agreement, has inaugurated a brilliant new waiver rule. This one-time “amnesty clause” allows teams to waive—that is, cut—one ridiculously overpaid player without having his pay count against the team’s salary cap. This enables teams saddled with bad player contracts to get rid of high-price dead wood and start building for the future.

American society in general could use a waiver rule like this. Everywhere you look, we are hamstrung by vastly overpaid people who need to be given their walking papers.

I’d like to see Katie Couric get waived off television. Like a lot of past-their-prime NBA stars, she makes a ton of money, takes up way too much space and impedes the development of younger talent. The only thing she’s got going for her anymore is that fierce perkiness. The thing is, we don’t need both Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric. Let’s give her a waiver.

Ralph Nader also needs to be waived. Whatever function he once served, it’s pretty much agreed that he’s hung around too long, doesn’t contribute anything to this society and has a bad attitude. Not even Democrats like him any more, not after he cost Al Gore the 2000 election. We might also think about waiving Al Sharpton and a bunch of other big-ticket loudmouths who have overstayed their welcome and are forcing younger talent to remain on the bench.

All kinds of politicians deserve to be waived. A lot of people think Newt Gingrich is now the equivalent of hoopsters Baron Davis, Gilbert Arenas and Richard Jefferson: onetime stars whose continued presence was killing their teams. Nancy Pelosi fits that category, too. And I personally feel that the libertarian field needs to be winnowed a bit by waiving either Ron or Rand Paul. If it were up to me, I’d waive the entire family, Ru included. I think libertarians are flakes.

A lot of veteran TV stars should be waived. The actors who played Chandler and Joey on “Friends” keep reappearing with new projects, but they never gain traction. Let’s waive them. And let’s waive Jenny McCarthy and get her out of here once and for all.

Much like aging, decrepit athletes, a number of aging rock stars definitely qualify for waiving. I’d get rid of Kiss in general and Gene Simmons in particular. For obvious reasons, Michael Bolton, Barry Manilow and John Tesh all need to go. So do those Rip Van Winkle folk singers who keep turning up on PBS. In fact, if it keeps trying to appeal to a younger, hipper demographic by airing specials showcasing cataleptic folk singers, I’d waive PBS.

The beautiful thing about a national waiver rule is that you don’t have to limit the purge to people. You can also waive devices, concepts, trends and even corporations. Sears ought to be waived. The BlackBerry guys, too. Ethanol recently got waived, which was a nice start, but let’s finish the job and waive taxpayer-subsidized windmills and electric cars, too. I mean, really.

Let’s not forget Wall Street. The New York Stock Exchange, albeit battered and bruised, currently stands only 13% below its all-time high. Meanwhile, Nasdaq, a decade after hitting 5000, is still treading water around 2700. Clearly, Nasdaq is no longer getting the job done of raising seed capital for exciting new start-ups. So let’s waive it.

I would waive Geraldo Rivera, Susan Lucci, the National Hockey League, the cast of “Twilight,” Newsweek, Jon Corzine, Richard Simmons, anyone who identifies himself as an “ethicist” and the Commerce Department. I really would. I just don’t see why the Commerce Department needs to exist anymore. Maybe it already did get waived. It’s not like anyone would notice.

I would also consider waiving the entire state of Delaware. Except for traffic jams and satanic senatorial candidates, what does it contribute to American society? Oh, right, I’m sorry: Joe Biden.

Dow Jones Newswires

Italia vende máximo planeado EUR4.750m; rentabilidad cae en bonos 2014

El Tesoro italiano vendió el viernes en una subasta el máximo planeado de 4.750 millones de euros en tres bonos, o BTP, dijo el Banco de Italia.

Pagó una rentabilidad menor en las dos líneas de bonos a 2014 y mayor en el bono a 2018, todo ello en comparación con sus respectivas subastas anteriores.

El Tesoro planeaba vender entre 2.000 millones de euros y 3.000 millones de euros en bonos a noviembre de 2014 y una cifra conjunta de entre 1.000 millones de euros y 1.750 millones de euros en las otras dos emisiones de bonos.

Las ofertas de estos bonos son reaperturas de emisiones lanzadas en 2011, 2011 y 2008, respectivamente.