Propuestas instructional viedos

 

propuestas*

1. Colocar un espejo de cuerpo entero en una puerta de algún salón de la UdeM.

La gente al llegar a su salón y "tratar" de abrir la puerta azul, se topará con "otra persona" sorpresivamente.

2. Tejer una colcha de la bandera de Estados Unidos, pero en vez de que las estrellas sean blancas, sacar los porcentajes de la población afroamericana y por supuesto la chicana, y según estos números hacer ajustes con las estrellas, pintar unas blancas, otras negras y otras cafés. Comer en McDonald's con la colcha encima, cual si fuera un chal.

3. Poner un maniquí en el baño de mujeres, invadir la privacidad con un objeto que impone presencia.

Analyzing Krens: The Tofu-Brained Monster

• Krens had borrowed Clinton's rosy-cheeked trappings all right: the utopianism, the surface populism, and most of all the innocent faith that all of the barriers of class had come down like so many Berlin Walls of culture, That an Invisible Hand had erased all distinctions in the art world as it erased them in all realms, everywhere.... Invisible Hand, my foot.

• All he had to do was apply the principles of free-market capitalism to the museum as a whole and the pesky little details would take care of themselves.

• Krens could only visulaize cyberspace as a container for art; he had the same conception of the real space of the Guggenheim. In his view Wright's architecture didn't even do for art what the skin does for the body, it was more like the cheap plastic jewel case for a CD: no dynamic interaction between container and context... To Krens, the Guggenheim building was like a box of corn-flakes: container, plus decoration.

• "The function of a musem is to create a situation in which viewers do not feel they are tyrannized," Krens explained to his Naphta-kissing pals up on the Magic Mountain, with a telling turn to the double negative.

• Krens didn't really address Wright's architecture, but merely dusted it with sparkles. And the decor was as decorative as the art: the greenery and flash, the sense of "being in the right place" were the only justifications for coming.

• The catalog was the second level in the Great Pyramid of Krens; it was just another joker in his house of cards... They're objects of pride, of pride in being bright, and they guaranteed an income as surely as a Wright or Ghery building guaranteed a "gate," a minimum cash flow no matter what was showing. And because catalogs sold regardless of content there was little interest in catalog content... The Guggenheim's catalogs were more likely to contain criticism and essays than empirical data.

• Krens seemed to be gambling on a collateral he blew out of his tears like a junk-bond gambler, but the return on his investment -- the justification for the gamble -- was made out to be the spontaneous appearance of hordes of visitors through the galleries.

• Krens imagined that circulating new objects (bikes or blouses) through auratic channels (museums) would automatically confer an aura on them and authority on the museum.

• He had a habit of leaving his hog by the staff entrance, perhaps to console the rest of us for not owning a BMW or more likely out of his usual, sublime indifference.

• His critics were wrong to claim Krens was trying to commodify culture: he was trying to culturificate commodities, and he failed.

• "I am not interested in being just an elitist institution that des not speak to a broad cross-section of the population," Krens claimed... Krens bragged that the number of visitors had gone from 350,000 a year to 3 million between 1989 and 2001, but it wasn't clear where attendance had risen, and for what shows, and what the investment had been for each... Besides, if admissions really covered expenses what would be the point of donors and trustees and sponsors?

• As Kimmelman pointed out, Krens was too much concerned with the bottom line. He had to be: he never had the wiggle room of a traditional museum director. There were financial gains and losses and then there were other gains, of the cultural kind, not easily banked and not easily used to offset financial losses... Krens was offering his expertise, the expertise of his staff, of his pet architect, his curators and [Werner] to whatever government, power group or corporation might think to benefit. This went beyond what museums had been doing for centuries.

• What Kimmelman denounced as "commercialism" was so mush wishful thinking, as if putting on a show of religious art made you a high-payed lobbyist at the Vatican. Krens was steering the Mother Ship where no museums had ever gone before: authority regardless of content. But if the only meaning you got from your visit was the authority of free-market capitalism then you might as well go to the mall.

• Museums were the engines of a new economy, and Krens, Ghery, and Koolhaas the acknowledged legislators of the world.

• Krens was trying to transmutate symbolic capital into financial capital and back again as if it were the easiest thing in the world to shift assets form one column to another.

• "Democracy" is okay to the extent that it divides people into spectators and participants. Krens got stuck somewhere in between... "People say that the distinctions between fields are shrinking," he insisted. That shrinking was not apparent in the day to day operations of the Guggenheim, or of any other museum.

• When Krens insists that "the function of a museum is to create a situation in which viewers do not feel they tyrannized" one has to wonder if he means tyrannized by the content of the museum, or its staff.

• Krens claimed democracy consisted in not forcing people to plunk down fifteen bucks to see something they never wanted to see anyhow, but now, after 9/11, that's not his problem any more. His problem now is bringing them in.

• From the outset Krens just wanted them to keep on coming; he wanted the twin balance sheets "fashionable" and "finance" to match up. He wasn't particularly interested in controlling what they saw, or even how they saw it, and the same archaic relations of production have now returned to bite him, bite us all, in the butt.

• Krens, too, got caught up in the spiraling cost of getting people interested in something they just aren't that interested in... When Peter Lewis, the Guggenheim's chairman, grew concerned, Krens fired him for gross fiscal competence with the help of a Board packed of real-estate especulators. The New York Times calls this a victory over money, which it is: a triumph of the belief that art makes money over the certainty that money makes art.

• Krens believed in the green. He also believed in the art. Problem is, he believed in them both in the same fashion... K's vision of the museum was something like a DNA strand: two parallel systems, one based on the belief that art would improve us, the other based on the belief that money would; built, actually, on a slipshod model of capital, symbolic capital, and their relation.

Guggenheheheim

Monsters, Inc. (jaja)

 

• Tom Krens tuvo el ingenio de percatarse que el arte circula como dinero: todo está en lo que piensas acerca del arte y dinero y éstas a su vez combinadas.
• En el caso del Guggenheim, se pensaba que los visitantes fueran no tanto por el “show” sino por el edificio.
• Su mayor acción fue “diversificar el portafolio”: “hot-from the studio artworks acquired or often donated because the very fact that they were in a museum gave them more value”.
• Whose Muse?. Art Museums and The Public Trust: Krens was driving down the value of his portfolio through risky ventures, and that threarthened to indermine “Public Trust” in museums.
• Transformar el arte en objetos de autoridad y confianza.
• “Art is a lousy investment”
• “External validity”: antes de medir un frijol, sería mejor que definieras lo que éste es. Muy triste que no haya definición para el arte.
• “It’s not about how fast the nag’s gonna run, it’s about how fast they’re gonna make you think it’s gonna run”.
• En Europa, se han hecho esfuerzos por cambiar el espacio público en exhibiciones privadas.
• En medio de la Revolución Francesa emergió el Museo Moderno. Justo como el estado tenía monopolio sobre la violencia, paz y guerra, también lo tenía sobre el arte.

1.     Pelear el valor real de la obra de arte.

2.     El valor-uso del arte es que no lo tiene.

3.     El estado se convirtió en el lugar de descanso para todas las problemáticas sin resolver del mercado del arte. (árbitro).

4.     El “aesthete” era la persona que podría definir la diferencia del arte, aquel que se ponía “al servicio” del estado, la belleza y el pueblo, o cualquier cosa pero ssu propia avaricia. (lo que más le afectó, el museo se convierte en su propio árbitro y controlados).

 

·      La autoridad moral del museo se deriva de la apariencia de un conflicto resulto felizmente, donde de hecho no había conflicto alguno entre el interés propio, y en el arte.

·      Cambiar la palabra “Picasso, Raphael, Rembrandt”, por “motocicleta” (jajaja).

·      Glen Lowry: Museos como parte de una matriz de instituciones donde se transmiten ideas, imágenes, instrucción y placer al público ¿?… desde el siglo XVIII el público se vuelve participativo en vez de pasivo.

·      El buen museo: da poder a la audiencia… los otros subrayan a los que están in y out.

·      “Being unexplicable becomes its own use-value”.

·      El cliché de que el museo no es para divertirte, esconde otro significado: en el museo aprender que hay cosas desconocidas para uno, que son “conocibles”, sólo que no para ti.

·      Krens buscó quitar las barreras entre lo que el museo era y quería ser, entre la democracia y la realidad de la autoridad.

·      Krens hizo por Montebello, lo que Olympia hizo por Venus: reveals desinterestedness as a sham.

·      Krens tenía un cerebro de tofu: absorbe el sabor de otros sin tener un sabor propio.

·      Con la PC, nuestra relación con la información había cambiado, y con esto, nuestra relación con la cultura, el jefe.

·      Para Krens el el edificio del Guggenheim era como una caja de cornflakes: contenido + decoración.

·      Expo’s en el Guggenheim suponían debían ser divertidas, no por infantiles sino porque no te hacía sentir mal ni trataba de consolarte por no poseer ciertas cosas “stuff”.

Museum, Inc.

• Example: Show "The Art of the Motorcycle"

Interaction was diagonal: cooperative, born of a mutual exchange, reaching the participants where they lived and thought.
Encouraged various narratives, they work best when they're at cross purposes, exposing the contradictions in the work and in our own interpretations of the work.

• Benjamin: the "the aura", the sense of authority attached to art objects, would survive even in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction but that it would require new strategies for its enforcement or transformation, not simply new labels.

• Special exhibitions don't build audiences. The only way to make permanent supporters is to include them in the museum's own approach to the topics that attracted them to begin with.

• No museum was interested in being "just" an elitist institution in the 90s, when the argument circulated that there were no classes anymore and we were all equal.

• Visitor attendance translated into cash or covered expenses? the needs of the visitors were in any ways commensurate with the services provided by the museum? (free-market model)

• If admissions actually covered expenses what would be the point of donors, trustees and sponsors?

• It's not the cutting-edge art but what the cutting-edge art does for you!

Anybody with money can buy old masters. but investing in cutting-edge is supposed to require some particular brilliance.

• Max Weber: the public presentation of art is about the manufacture of class distinctions.

• It's better to look free-marketous than to be free-marketous.

• Speculation in architecture keeps museums going: speculation "in" and "about" architecture.

• "Museums must re-assert their authority on what beauty really is, thereby reclaiming the idea of quality in art."

• Guggenheim leading people to freedom through beauty..by Frank Gehry.

• "The function of a museum is to create a situation in which viewers do not feel they are tyrannized."

• Gehry's construction_Cutting-edge architecture: architect is more interested in illustrating principles than providing for a practical function.

• "We have a Guggenheim brand that has certain equities and properties."

• Guggenheim was delivering an audience, but it was to their own sponsors and trustees, not to a 3rd party as yet undetermined. It's stated missions was no longer making art available to and audience, its was delivering "its" audience to a new sponsor.

• At the museum social groups and individuals come united by an interest in culture, but they're also involved in a silent struggle among groups and within each individual to define what culture is.

• People don't see the same artworks from the same social position.

• Audiences have been separated into subjects and objects, more and more the audience is dragged in to see the elite, not the art; often they're dragged in to see nothing at all.

• Museums are in crisis, and they won't face up the real reasons.

• Triumph of the belief that art makes money over the certainty that money makes art.

CAE_Biotech Projects

GenTerra by Critical Art Ensemble used a harmless form of gut E. coli to educate the public about genetically modified organisms.

GenTerra is a fictional biotech company dealing with "transgenics" and driven by profit, but also by a sense of social responsibility. Products created through this process—-for example, transgenically modified foods—-have often caused controversy. GenTerra claims to produce organisms that help solve ecological or social problems

GenTerra is essentially a participatory "theater" comprising a lab, computer stations displaying the company’s informational CD-Rom, and a bacteria release machine. Scientists and artists are talking the public through the process and implications (whether they are purely profit-driven or feature some utopian qualities) of transgenics. Materials are then provided to allow people to get a hands-on experience by creating their own transgenic organism, using human DNA derived from blood samples.




"Marching Plague" mocks the notion that biological terror presents any serious practical threat, arguing instead that extravagant spending of tax dollars to defend against bioterror is no more than a means of "maximizing profit and consolidating power through the matrix of biocatastrophe."

It advances on several fronts at once (with an installation, a performance piece, a film, and a book) and is not explicitly identified with any individual artist. This time out, they've taken on an unwelcome but highly effective artistic collaborator: the US Department of Justice, which continues its pursuit of a two-year-old case against one of the key artists behind the project, Steven Kurtz.

The prosecution of Kurtz is a work of political theater that starkly illuminates one of the chief arguments of "Marching Plague": that microorganisms are practically useless as weapons but are a highly effective tool for scaring a citizenry into accepting tighter government and corporate control.




"Free Range Grains" included a mobile DNA extraction laboratory for testing food products for possible transgenic contamination. It was this equipment which triggered the Kafkaesque chain of events. It allowed participants to test food for the presence of genetically modified organisms and like GenTerra it had also been performed internationally.

Public was invited to bring their own food – especially that labeled as GM-free (free from genetically-modified organisms) or organic – and use a simple test lab to detect the presence of contaminant genetically-modified ingredients.

Critical Art Ensemble obtained ‘Roundup Ready’ canola, soy and corn and reverse-engineered the seeds to yield regular oil’ plants for the exhibition Molecular Invasion. They did this using a nontoxic chemical disrupter, calling the process Contestational Biology. In the installation’s accompanying position paper, the artists describe the use of ‘genetic un-design’ as ‘Fuzzy Biological Sabotage’.




Contestational Biology consisted of an ‘amateur’ scientific experiment that ‘reverse engineered’ samples of the Monsanto Corporation’s Round-Up Ready corn, canola and soy products, three of the many genetically modified organisms rapidly being integrated into modern agriculture industry. The ultimate goal of the installation, however, was to raise public awareness about the sweeping privatization of the human food supply by directly contesting Monsanto’s right to create and patent customized life forms for corporate profit.




Cult of the New Eve reacts to modern biotechnology as manifested in its promises of salvation by practising a »new eve« cult aimed to unmask the utopias. In this performance, an intermeshing of electronic information systems with performative theatre practice, CAE explores and provokes the discourse of life science.
In addition to art productions, the artist group CAE organises performances and theory lectures in which they adopt a critical stance towards models of representation geared to a capitalist, political, economic ideology.
CAE ‘perform’ dressed as a cross between the Heaven’s Gate Suicide Cult and the Unabomber. Cult of the New Eve addressed the rhetoric that was being used (particularly by scientists) to calm public fears.




The “Society for Reproductive Anachronisms” was the opposite of the BioCom Corporation of "Flesh Machine." The SRA position was that there should never be medical intervention of any kind in reproductive process. They worked on the street setting up tables, as activists do, and provided information and services on the current state of reproductive process. Because they were so militantly embodied and sexuality positive, they were quite a popular stop, particularly on university campuses. “Extreme medical intervention in reproduction and the attack on sexuality” It engaged the audience in dialogue about the problems of medical intervention in reproduction.





FLESH MACHINE: A Genexploitation Project

THEORY / PERFORMANCE: In a multimedia lecture the American artist collective Critical Art Ensemble explains the context of the event.

THE CLONING PROJECT - CAE allowed those who were interested to take actual screening tests for donor DNA, cytoplasm, and/or surrogacy. In doing so, the users could find out if they were considered "fit" or "unfit" for reproduction in a pan capitalist society. If they were "fit," users were asked to donate DNA to be stored in cryo-tanks, and received a certificate of fitness.
It looked at eugenics as central to a capitalist enterprise dedicated to "the total rationalization of culture." The project created settings for participants to explore issues firsthand, in this case by answering questionnaires designed by the industry of reproductive medicine to assess the quality of their own genetic material.

Critical Art Ensemble Defense Fund

 

CASE UPDATE, June 11, 2008:

DR. STEVEN KURTZ CLEARED OF ALL CHARGES!

Department of Justice Fails to Appeal Dismissal

Kurtz Speaks about Four-Year Ordeal

Read the full press release >

Thanks to your continued support, the FBI has finally returned the art projects, research materials and personal belongings seized in its 2004 raid on Steve’s home. Steve’s attorneys are now working to determine whether he is eligible for any reimbursement from the state for his legal fees. Please join our low-frequency email list so you will be informed of any important updates and Action Alerts.

As Steve has often said, the positive outcome of his case is an exception, and there are many other similar cases still pending that need our support. For more information, please visit the website of this important organization, wh

ich is working to defend others who have been falsely accused in the "war on terror" and to preserve our fundamental rights: The Center for Constitutional Rights.

A Thank You Letter to Supporters from Steven Kurtz    

  

 July 12, 2008

Download PDF of letter

Dear Supporters,

After four long, difficult years I have been released from my legal ordeal. I want to thank everyone who supported me through this—the greatest challenge I’ve ever had to face. I feel vindicated today because I am innocent, but today I am also humbled by a legal and political victory that is not mine alone. Everyone who contributed their support to this case can lay claim to a victory against the forces aiming to abridge our fun

damental rights. I am mindful that my case was just one of many examples where fear and irrationality gained the upper hand after 9/11. I am aware that my vindication is an exception. I continue to have anxiety about the outcome of many pending cases still awaiting justice.

Although it seems that my case has come to a conclusion, it is only now that I can fully comprehend the immensity of what happened. The tragic death of Hope was a profound loss. The unfortunate events following Hope’s death occurred at a moment of intense pain and sadness for all of us. Neither my life nor the work of Critical Art Ensemble has been the same without her. If she were here today, I know she w

ould be proud of everything that has been done by all the people involved. Collectively, we stood without flinching, and defeated a monster of social injustice. Hope always said that we should “never surrender” to authoritarian power, and we didn’t.

I was extremely fortunate to have a team of people immediately form a defense group at the very beginning, when I was still in shock. I want to thank the members of the CAE Defense Fund for coming to my defense from the beginning of the ordeal.

Throughout the past four years, so many people ra

ised their voices in my defense, and that of my friend and co-defendant, Robert Ferrell. So many contributed time, energy, and resources. We could not have adequately defended ourselves without the labor and activism of thousands—individuals, groups, artists and activists. I am grateful to everyone who donated their work and talent to fundraisers for our legal defense. And although I cannot thank everyone by name, to all of you worldwide who helped organize fundraisers, letter writing campaigns, conferences, teach-ins, protests and other events, your actions made a real difference in this case.

To all my friends, thank you for helping me through my darkest hours.

To everyone, please accept my humble offer of than

ks. I am grateful. I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to all of you for seeing me through this terrible period.

Please remember also that this case was about so much more than just keeping me out of jail. This is a great legal and political victory that will affect many cases to come. Through its prosecution of this case, the Department of Justice was hoping to expand the most broadly written law on the books (mail fraud) into an all-encompassing Leviathan that could be used at its discretion against any citizen at any time. Not only did we prevent this dangerous expansion of the law, the precedent we set has narrowed it. Because of our collective effort, a bogus charge like the one targeting Bob and me is unlikely ever to happen again—and if it were to happen, any competent attorney could easily shoot it down.

What have I learned from my ordeal? I’ve learned that with tens of thousands of supporters, with hundreds of thousands of dollars, with one of the best legal teams in the US, with a crack media team, with a group of experienced fundraisers, with four years of one’s life, and with total innocence, sometimes one can slice off a piece of American justice. Which in the end means: The overwhelming majority of people ain’t gettin’ justice, and we have to keep fighting until they do.

With Sincerity, Gratitude, and Appreciation,

Steven Kurtz

 

 

CAE

Critical Art Ensemble

Collective of five tactical media artists dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, critical theory, and political activism. Each artist has her or his specialised talents and skills, including performance, book arts, graphic design, computer art, film/video, photography and critical writing.

CAE chooses a subject in a specific cultural situation and creates a work within that context, with that particular audience, and within the social space and performative matrix of everyday life. They use the skills and the media that will best address the content and situation, moving to any site - galleries, the internet, the street – in Europe and North America.

For the past seven years, CAE has focused on biotechnology, its colonising effects and ideological layering, and the biorevolution in global capitalism. The public’s access to the processes of biotechnology is limited; it is only the resultant product that appears as a commodity, resulting in misleading speculation, fear, disinformation and communicative disorder. CAE hopes these performances contribute to the development of an informed, critical public discourse on biotechnology.


Case: May 2004

In May 2004, the Joint Terrorism Task Force illegally detained artist and SUNY Buffalo professor Steve Kurtz of Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). They seized documents, computers, and equipment used in four of CAE’s projects, including scientific equipment used to test food for the presence of genetically modified organisms. The seized materials included a project that was to have been part of an exhibition and performance at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and three other projects that had been safely displayed in museums and galleries throughout Europe and North America. The New York State Commissioner of Public Health determined that the materials seized by the FBI pose no public safety risk. All of the materials are legal and commonly used for scientific education and research activities in universities and high schools, and are universally regarded by scientists as safe. Nevertheless, today Steve Kurtz and Robert Ferrell, Professor of Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health, face a possible 20 years in prison in what has become increasingly clear is a politically motivated attempt to silence an artist and scientist whose work is critical of government policy.

.....Dr. Steven Kurtz is a Professor of Art at SUNY Buffalo and a founding member, with his late wife, Hope, of the internationally acclaimed art and theater collective Critical Art Ensemble (CAE). Over the past decade cultural institutions worldwide have hosted CAE’s participatory theater projects that help the general public understand biotechnology and the many issues surrounding it.
In May 2004 the Kurtzes were preparing to present Free Range Grain, a project examining GM agriculture, at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA), when Hope Kurtz died of heart failure. Police who responded to Kurtz's 911 call deemed the couple's art suspicious, and called the FBI. The art materials consisted of several petri dishes containing three harmless bacteria cultures, and a mobile lab to test food labeled “organic” for the presence of genetically modified ingredients. As Kurtz explained, these materials had been safely displayed in museums and galleries throughout Europe and North America with absolutely no risk to the public.

The next day, however, as Kurtz was on his way to the funeral home, he was illegally detained by agents from the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force, who informed him he was being investigated for "bioterrorism." At no point during the 22 hours Kurtz was held and questioned did the agents Mirandize him or inform him he could leave. Meanwhile, agents from numerous federal law enforcement agencies - including five regional branches of the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, and the Buffalo Police, Fire Department, and state Marshall's office - descended on Kurtz's home in Hazmat suits. Cordoning off half a block around his home, they seized his cat, car, computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body from the county coroner for further analysis. The Erie County Health Department condemned his house as a possible "health risk."

A week later, only after the Commissioner of Public Health for New York State had tested samples from the home and announced there was no public safety threat, was Kurtz allowed to return to his home and to recover his wife's body.
While most observers assumed the Task Force would realize its initial investigation was a terrible mistake, the feds have instead chosen to press their "case" against Steve Kurtz, Robert Ferrell, and possibly others (see below for more information on the charges). Despite the Public Health Commissioner's conclusion as to the safety of Kurtz's materials, and despite the fact that the FBI's own field and laboratory tests showed they were not harmful to people or the environment – it would actually be impossible to make any sort of weaponized or dangerous germ from them – the U.S. District Attorney continues to waste vast sums of public money on this outrageous and politically motivated persecution.


Dr. Ferrell got minimum sentence.



June 11, 2008: Kurtz is cleared of all charges.
Department of Justice Fails to Appeal Dismissal
FBI returned the art projects, research materials and personal belongings that they took in 2004 at Steve’s house during his detention.

Claire Pentecost
Background on CAE... Analysis compiled by her
Reflections on the case...Reflections on the Case by the U.S. Justice Department against Steve Kurtz and Robert Ferrell by her

Una mirada al proyecto en sí

la otredad inventada por cocofusco*

Cómo fue a darse la crisis mundial... y ¿qué nos espera?

The world crisis... in a nutshell

La crisis que ha estallado a escala mundial este último mes y que ha llegado a afectar a practicamente todos los habitantes del mundo por una serie de "chain reactions" extremadamente complejas, indiscutiblemente lleva cocinándose desde hace unos cuantos años en Ustados Unidos. A continuación, se presentará una no tan breve explicación cronológica de los eventos y decisiones que llevaron a este desastre económico del mundo actual... 

2005-2007. 

La Reserva Federal baja el precio del dinero del 6.5 % al 1 %.   Con una tasa de interés para hipotecas tan baja, aparece el “boom” inmobiliario. En 10 años, el precio real de las viviendas se duplica en Estados Unidos. Empieza el problema: Lo que para un pequeño inversionista americano es una bendición, para un banquero se vuelve un dilema de rentabilidad, pues aunque coloque muchos créditos, sus ingresos promedio por el cobro de intereses baja.   Ante esto, banqueros americanos deciden hacer lo siguiente: Dar préstamos más arriesgados (por los que cobrarían más intereses), y compensar el bajo margen aumentando el número de operaciones. En cuanto a lo primero, es decir dar créditos más arriesgados, decidieron ofrecer hipotecas a un nuevo tipo de clientes llamados los “Ninja” (siglas que para el sistema bancario americano significa 'no income, no job, no assets'), y cobrarle al ninja más intereses. Sobretodo, querían aprovecharse del boom inmobiliario. Decidieron conceder créditos hipotecarios por un valor superior al valor de la casa que compraba el Ninja, ya que de acuerdo a las tendencias del mercado, esa casa en pocos meses valdría más que la cantidad dada en préstamo. Además, como la economía americana iba muy bien, el deudor podría encontrar trabajo y pagar la deuda sin problemas. A este tipo de hipotecas les llamaron “hipotecas subprime”, ya que tienen más riesgo de impago. Todo este planteamiento funcionó bien durante algunos años. En todo este tiempo, los Ninja iban pagando los plazos de la hipoteca y además, como les habían dado más dinero del que valía su nueva propiedad, se habían comprado carro nuevo, habían hecho remodelaciones en la casa y se habían ido de vacaciones con la familia. Todo ello seguramente pagando a plazos y con el dinero de más que habían recibido del banco. 

En cuanto a lo segundo, es decir aumentar el número de operaciones: Como los bancos se vieron de repente dando muchos préstamos hipotecarios a la vez, notaron que se les acababa el dinero. La solución fue muy fácil: acudir a bancos extranjeros para que les prestaran dinero.

Resulta que existen las “Normas de Basilea”, que exigen a los bancos de todo el mundo que tengan un capital mínimo en relación con sus activos. Se empeora el problema. Un banco  “empaqueta” las hipotecas prime y subprime  en paquetes que se llaman MBS ("Mortgage Backed Securities" o Obligaciones Garantizadas por Hipotecas). O sea, donde antes tenia 1,000 hipotecas “sueltas”, dentro de la cuenta “créditos concedidos”, ahora tiene 10 paquetes de 100 hipotecas cada uno, en los que hay de todo: bueno (prime) y malo (subprime). El Banco busca compradores para esos 10 paquetes. El dinero que obtiene por la venta de esos paquetes va al Activo, a la cuenta de “Dinero en Caja”, que aumenta, disminuyendo por el mismo importe la cuenta “Créditos concedidos”, con lo cual la proporción Capital/Créditos Concedidos mejora. ¿Quién compra esos paquetes para que el Banco “mejore” su balance de forma inmediata? Este Banco crea unas entidades filiales, los “Conduits” que no son Sociedades, sino Trusts o Fondos, y que por ello no tienen obligación de consolidar sus balances con los del banco matriz. De esta manera, los paquetes hipotecarios se fueron vendiendo como en cadena cada vez escalando a bancos más grandes y poderosos. Al final de esta cadena se encontraba una de las Compañías Aseguradoras más grandes de Estados Unidos, ya que la gran mayoría de estos instrumentos de inversión, tan riesgosos pero tan rentables a la vez, fueron asegurados por empresas de reconocido prestigio y trayectoria con el fin de “proteger al inversionista.” 

A principios de 2007, los precios de las viviendas norteamericanas empezaron a bajar. Muchos de los ninjas se dieron cuenta de que estaban pagando por su segunda o tercera casa más de lo que ahora valía y decidieron o no pudieron seguir  pagando sus hipotecas. Automáticamente, nadie quiso comprar estos paquetes hipotecarios y los que ya los tenían no pudieron venderlos. Truenan después de un rato los grandes bancos que poseían la mayoría de estos paquetes hipotecarios así como las aseguradoras que los respaldaban.

Crisis de Confianza

Como nadie sabe el mugrero de instrumentos financieros que tienen los bancos en los paquetes de  hipotecas que compraron, los bancos empiezan a no fiarse unos de otros. Como no se fían, cuando necesitan dinero y van al mercado interbancario, que es donde los bancos se prestan dinero unos a otros, no se lo prestan o se lo prestan caro. Por tanto, muchos bancos emproblemados se ven de repente con problemas de liquidez. Como consecuencias de esto, se paraliza el sistema crediticio e hipotecario estadounidense, y millones de inversionistas que han comprado acciones de todos estos bancos empiezan a ver como el valor de sus acciones se van de picada. 

Entra Europa al Panorama

El Banco Central Europeo empieza a subir sus tasas de interés. El Euribor a 12 meses, que es el índice de referencia de las hipotecas, empieza a elevarse. Como los Bancos no tienen dinero, venden sus participaciones en empresas, venden sus edificios y hacen campañas para que mas inversionistas inviertan más y a mejores condiciones. Ahora resulta, que también las familias en europa empiezan a sentirse apretada por el pago de la hipoteca, se infesta Europa de hipotecas subprime. Al subir la tasa de interés la cuota de la hipoteca sube. A las familias no les queda mas remedio que recortar gastos y tratar de llegar con suficiente dinero al final del mes.

Con la baja en el consumo, los comerciantes compran menos a los fabricantes, lo cual reduce la demanda y por ende termina reduciendo la cantidad de producción. Esto, obviamente, lleva a un recorte de personal en las empresas que nada están ligadas con los bancos ni las hipotecas. Con esto sube el índice de desempleo.

¿Cómo viene a ser afectado México?

México se había mantenido bastante independiente de estos problemas económicos estadounidenses, por más que sean nuestros vecinos. Sin embargo, estas últimas semanas es notorio el impacto en México de esta crisis, que aunque no nos ha pegado tan fuerte como a otros países del mundo, se empiezan a ver cada vez más indicios de que no podremos sacarle la vuelta a esta problemática actual.

Primero que nada, es importante plantear que el 80% de las exportaciones de nuestro país son a Estados Unidos, formadas en gran parte por la industria manufacturera así como la industria alimenticia. Con la baja de la actividad de exportaciones, se reduce la producción nacional y con ello aumenta el desempleo en nuestro país.

Por otro lado, cuando pensabamos que la crisis no llegaría a nuestro país tan fácilmente, nos llegó por donde menos lo esperabamos: Europa. En otras palabras, no había escapatoria. La mayoría de los bancos que operan en México son propiedad de bancos europeos. Al afectar la crisis a los bancos en el Viejo Mundo, se ve directamente afectado el sistema bancario de México. Otro problema ligado también al sistema bancario mexicano, es que al estar las matrices de los bancos en otros países, al verse necesitados de fondos o liquidez las casas matrices en EUA o Europa recurren a los bancos menores que les pertenecen (situación que incumbe a la mayoría de los bancos que operan en nuestro país) para sacar dinero.

Un problema aún mayor que ha salido a la luz en nuestro país en esta última semana es el de la especulación. Con la bancarrota recientemente anunciada de una de las grandes empresas mexicanas, todas las empresas multinacionales de nuestro país se ven obligadas a respaldar sus deudas, por lo que se empieza a mover el peso drásticamente en relación con el dolar (fluctuaciones exageradas que se percibieron la semana pasada). Los extranjeros, por lo tanto, se apresuran a sacar el dinero que tenían invertido en México y lo cambian a dólares americanos. ¿Qué es la mayor consecuencia que esto trae consigo? Una crisis de confianza, sucede lo mismo que pasó en Estados Unidos. Se paralizan los créditos interbancarios y entre empresas, se paraliza la bolsa y aumenta el desempleo.

¿Qué es lo que nos espera?

Un año difícil. Mientras no termine la crisis de confianza que rige el sistema financiero en la actualidad, nuestro futuro es negro. Sin embargo, para México más que en otroS países se ve una esperanza en el futuro próximo. Aunque en México podemos esperar una temporada indefinida de menos construcción, menos turismo, menos petróleo y una disminución en la industria automotriz, se espera un crecimiento del 1%, que aunque sea menor que el pronóstico anterior de 2.6%, sigue siendo un número positivo (Estados Unidos ya se encuentra en un crecimiento negativo.) La inflación (según las expectativas de Banamex que salieron este pasado 20 de octubre) para el final de este año 2008 se espera esté en un 5.66%, sin embargo para finales del siguiente año 2009 termine en 3.54%. Son éstas buenas proyecciones para nuestro país ante una catástrofe económica tan grande. Por lo pronto no nos queda mas que esperar que así sea, y que se debilite la crisis de confianza que ha estancado nuestro sistema económico nacional.

Al preguntarle a un financiero que como ciudadanos normales qué podemos hacer para sobrevivir o no veernos tan afectados por esta crisis mundial, la respuesta fue concisa y hasta humillantemente obvia: AHORRAR Y TRABAJAR.