An overview of some historical brazilian macroeconomic series and some open questions

This paper presents an overview of the Brazilian macroeconomy by analyzing the evolution of some specific time series. The presentation is made through a sequence of graphs. Several remarkable historical points and open questions come up in the data. These include, among others, the drop in output growth as of 1980, the clear shift from investments to government current expenditures which started in the beginning of the 80s, the notable way how money, prices and exchange rate correlate in an environment of permanently high inflation, the historical coexistence of high rates of growth and high rates of inflation, as well as the drastic increase of the velocity of circulation of money between the 70s and the mid-90s. It is also shown that, although net external liabilities have increased substantially in current dollars after the Real Plan, its ratio with respect to exports in 2004 is practically the same as the one existing in 1986; and that residents in Brazil, in average, owed two more months of their final income (GNP) to abroad between 1995-2004 than they did between 1990 and 1994. Variance decompositions show that money has been important to explain prices, but not output (GDP).

William Gaddis's aesthetics of recognitions

William Gaddis’s The Recognitions (1955) is a selfreflexive novel that portrays Wyatt Gwyon’s trajectory from childhood to maturity, as he rejects and searches for originality. The present work bestows an analysis of William Gaddis’s The Recognitions focusing on the problematization of originality and authorship proposed by the novel by means of the central issues of forgery and plagiarism, which bring with them two larger and more important sister-notions: authorship and originality. The novel questions the prevailing demand for originality and discusses the possibility of being original. It formulates an aesthetics of recognitions defended in the novel and used by the author in the making of this text. In order to do that, this work provides a view on the different concepts associated with the terms originality and original, as well as some of the main infringements related to them in contemporary society. It also offers an account of the development of the concepts of originality and authorship in Western society, showing the growing importance of the figure of the author and the parallel development of the concepts of plagiarism and copyright. The next three chapters are dedicated to attempt to provide an account of William Gaddis’s The Recognitions focusing on the main artist characters and an analysis of the novel in the light of the theoretical and historical background provided. The first of these chapters focuses on Wyatt’s trajectory and his visions of art. The second identifies and analyses Wyatt’s mirrors in the narrative, which reinforce the self-reflective structure of the novel. And the third chapter exemplifies and analyses Wyatt’s aesthetics of recognitions, which turns out to be Gaddis’s own aesthetics in the making of his fiction.