An exploratory study on how to improve the economy of American Samoa

Deep in the South Pacific region about 2,300 miles southwest of the Hawaiian islands1 lies a United States territory that many Americans have never heard of nor known anything about. However, some famous Americans such as Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers, semi retired professional wrestler Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, and Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard have genealogical roots there. More importantly, many of the Territory’s sons and daughters have served and lost their lives for the United States flag and the cause of freedom around the world. This place is called American Samoa, a collection of seven islands that if glued together would have a total landmass of approximately 76 square miles, just a tad bigger than the capital city of the United States. According to the United States Census Bureau, there were 55,519 residents of American Samoa in 2010.1 The majority of them are ethnic Samoans, a Polynesian sect that traces its history back to early migrants from Southeast Asia who settled the islands around 1500 B.C.2 3 The climate is warm all year long and the forests along the mountains are ripe with vegetation. The main island is Tutuila with its beautiful and coveted landlocked harbor that was used as a coaling station by the United States naval ships during World War II. In fact, it was the Pago Pago Harbor that diminished the impact of the 2009 Tsunami that devastated the Samoan islands by channeling the waters of the Pacific Ocean towards the end of the harbor instead of flooding many other villages surrounding the Pago Pago Bay area. Lives and property were destroyed near the end of the Harbor but it could have been worse for the entire Bay area. Locally grown foods include coconut, taro, banana, guava, sugar cane, papaya, yam, pineapple, and breadfruit. It is completely surrounded by the Pacific Ocean from which the locals obtain a variety of seafood. There is a popular saying in Samoa that goes, “In Samoa, it is impossible to starve 1 American Samoa Department of Commerce, 2012 Statistical Yearbook, http://www.doc.as/wpcontent/uploads/2011/06/2012-Statistical-Yearbook-1.pdf 2 U.S. Census Bureau News, U.S. Census Bureau Releases 2010 Census Population Counts for American Samoa, http://www.census.gov/2010census/news/releases/operations/cb11-cn177.html (Aug. 24, 2011). 3 3 J. Robert Shaffer, American Samoa: 100 Years Under the United States Flag (Honolulu, Hawaii: Island Heritage Publishing, 2000), 34. 4 because people live off of the land’s and the ocean’s abundant resources.” To the west of American Samoa lies a larger group of four islands that make up the Sovereign State of Samoa, which became independent from New Zealand in 1962. Samoa and American Samoa share the same language, culture, and religion but are divided by government and political systems. The focus of this study will be on American Samoa, which became a United States territory in 1900 when the principal chiefs of Tutuila (the largest island in American Samoa) ceded the islands to the United States.

Dip financing of financially distressed companies in Brazil – the conditions provided by the brazilian bankruptcy law act as real incentives for dip lenders as in chapter 11 of the American bankruptcy code?

O objeto deste trabalho é a compreensão do financiamento de empresas em crise, mais especificamente, o financiamento concedido após o pedido de recuperação judicial, como forma de permitir que a empresa saia da situação de crise e retorne à condição de normalidade. Para tanto, nos apropriando do termo cunhado pela doutrina norte-americana, para fazer referência ao aporte de recursos em empresas em dificuldade, utilizaremos o termo DIP financing ou financiamento DIP. Para uma compreensão adequada do objeto, é necessário que entendamos a origem do DIP financing nos Estados Unidos e como é a regulação norte-americana sobre a matéria atualmente. O segundo passo será avaliar a possibilidade de aplicação da mesma estrutura de aporte de recursos no Brasil. Ao estudarmos a origem desse mecanismo nos Estados Unidos, veremos os problemas que surgiram ao longo dos anos e como foram superados jurisprudencialmente e doutrinariamente para que o financiamento DIP se consolidasse como uma das formas de aporte de capital em empresas em crise, culminando no desenvolvimento de uma verdadeira indústria de crédito às empresas em dificuldade. Uma análise dos problemas enfrentados pelo sistema falimentar americano nos levará a hipótese de que, a menos que sejam afirmados mecanismos que assegurem a quem concede o financiamento após o pedido de recuperação judicial, uma super prioridade no recebimento após a recuperação judicial, será possível o desenvolvimento de um mercado de DIP financing no Brasil.

Analysis of the economic and financial relations between Latin American and the Caribbean and the BRICS group

This document has been prepared in compliance with Activity III.1.2 of the Work Programme of SELA for the year 2015, entitled “Analysis of the economic and financial relations between Latin America and the Caribbean and the BRICS countries”. The document comprises an introduction, four chapters and a final section with the conclusions and recommendations stemming from the study. Chapter I describes the economic performance of the BRICS countries, their economic relations with Latin America and the Caribbean and the functioning of the development banks of the member countries. Chapter II assesses the financial architecture of Latin America and the Caribbean and explores the needs for financing in the region. Chapter III deals with the regulatory frameworks governing public and private investments in Latin America and the Caribbean and the Bilateral Investment Treaties with the BRICS countries. Finally, Chapter IV describes the main features of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the Contingent Reserve Agreement of the BRICS

Why has productivity growth stagnated in most Latin American countries since the neo-liberal reforms?

Latin America’s economic performance since the beginning of neo-liberal reforms has been poor; this not only contrasts with its own performance pre-1980, but also with what has happened in Asia since 1980. I shall argue that the weakness of the region’s new paradigm is rooted as much in its intrinsic flaws as in the particular way it has been implemented. Latin America’s economic reforms were undertaken primarily as a result of the perceived economic weaknesses of the region — i.e., there was an attitude of ‘throwing in the towel’ vis-à-vis the previous state-led import substituting industrialisation strategy, because most politicians and economists interpreted the 1982 debt crisis as conclusive evidence that it had led the region into a cul-de-sac. As Hirschman has argued, policymaking has a strong component of ‘path-dependency’; as a result, people often stick with policies after they have achieved their aims, and those policies have become counterproductive. This leads to such frustration and disappointment with existing policies and institutions that is not uncommon to experience a ‘rebound effect’. An extreme example of this phenomenon is post-1982 Latin America, where the core of the discourse of the economic reforms that followed ended up simply emphasising the need to reverse as many aspects of the previous development (and political) strategies as possible. This helps to explain the peculiar set of priorities, the rigidity and the messianic attitude with which the reforms were implemented in Latin America, as well as their poor outcome. Something very different happened in Asia, where economic reforms were often intended (rightly or wrongly) as a more targeted and pragmatic mechanism to overcome specific economic and financial constraints. Instead of implementing reforms as a mechanism to reverse existing industrialisation strategies, in Asia they were put into practice in order to continue and strengthen ambitious processes of industrialisation.

A representação do afro-descendente brasileiro na narrativa ficcional

Módulo 5

Metabolic syndrome in postmenopausal women: higher prevalence in the Northeastern Region of Brazil than in other Latin American countries and the influence of obesity and socioeconomic factors

SILVEIRA, Inavan Lopes da; MARANHÃO, T. M. O.; AZEVEDO, George Dantas. Metabolic syndrome in postmenopausal women: higher prevalence in the Northeastern Region of Brazil than in other Latin American countries and the influence of obesity and socioeconomic factors. Climacteric (Carnforth), v.10, p.438-439, 2007.

Reproductive Patterns and Birth Seasonality in a South-American Breeding Colony of Common Marmosets, Callithrix jacchus

SOUSA,M.B.C. et al. Reproductive Patterns and Birth Seasonality in a South-American Breeding Colony of Common Marmosets, Callithrix jacchus. Primates, v.40, n.2, p. 327-336, Apr. 1999.

Free- and peptide-based dietary arginine supplementation for the South American fish pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus)

Arginine was hypothesized to be a model compound in the present study on molecular forms of indispensable amino acid (IAA) dietary supplementation. Juvenile South American pacu (Piaractus mesopotamicus) were fed diets containing arginine in a protein base (casein-wheat gluten or casein-gelatin), or the casein-wheat gluten base supplemented with dipeptide or free arginine at two levels (5 and 10 g kg(-1)). Growth and protein efficiency ratios were significantly affected by diets, but not by arginine molecular form. Three free dispensable amino acids (DAA) and four IAA in plasma were affected by diet, but plasma arginine concentrations did not differ. Plasma urea concentrations, being very low in the pacu, and hepatic arginase activities, were not affected by diet (P = 0.10-0.11), but together with plasma ornithine, mirrored the growth data. Molecular form of arginine supplementation, free or dipeptide, significantly changed several free IAA (Phe, Leu, Ile, His) and urea, with a higher mean plasma concentration in dipeptide fed fish. The dietary treatments, or molecular form of the arginine supplementation, did not change proximate composition, except that calcium levels decreased with higher dietary arginine supplementation level. The present study indicates that dipeptides can provide IAA to pacu, and that arginine supplemented in this form is utilized as efficiently as in free form.