Jobs?

[Harold]

It has been my impression that Mercosur has not worked well. That the region is not as integrated as it could be. I'm assuming that the organisation does not have the enforcement mechanisms that other trade blocks have. For the life of me I don't understand why Kirchner wants to provide a boon to Brazilian beef producers with his beef export tax. But I suppose he has his reasons.As to the price controls and the likehood of more inflation, I'm thinking that it would be better to sign a longer term lease when I find a place I like.As to the bipartisan support for various US encroachments of fundamental liberties that does not give me any assurances. I'm neither a Democrat or a Republican. But though only a few have felt the heavy hand of tyranny at the present, the legal precedents are being laid. Absent invasion, a police state does not appear overnight. We agree that currently power seems to have shifted towards the executive. The imputeous of that shift is the 'War of Terror'. War has a general rule shifts power to the executive. The 'War on Terror' is not a war that can be won. It can easily last decades. Therefore there a bipartisan trend towards greater executive power. If the 'War on Terror', however nebulous it might be, can't be won abroad; the struggle will be refocused domestically, hence a police state.
The lobbying system is merely the tip of the iceberg. There is a direct relation between power and the abuse of power. To limit corruption, power itself must be limited. There can not be great power without great corruption.

 

Kirchner's behavior to date has not been logical. He has done just about everything possible to scare away investors. At the moment he is at war with the French. Chirac is soon going to make a trip to Brazil and Chile. He is deliberately avoiding, or rather snubbing, Argentina due to disputes involving French business interests here. Keep in mind that Kirchner was a Montanero, student radical, in the 1970's. He has never grown up and has filled his cabinet with like minded anti business extremists.

As for flats here...By law there are no leases of less than two years in Argentina and those require guarantors who have to virtually sign their lives away. If you are coming here without a corporate or other sponsor you will be on your own and will probably have to find a short term rental at an inflated dollar rate. If you plan on staying for awhile you might want to buy something.

I can not argue with your lucid analysis of the dangers facing the United States at this time. I pointed out that the war in Iraq and the US Patriot Act were the result of bipartisan agreement as I hear constantly, especially from expats here, that Bush is responsible for virtually all of the ills in the United States. These people are missing the big picture, i.e. Bush is nothing more than the mouthpiece for a radical switch in the philosophy unpinning American democracy. It makes little sense to rant and rave about the religious right or the neocons. Democrats have been coopted into this gradual subversion of American democracy and have given more than tacit approval to the dangerous shift to excecutive power that we see today. One can argue that this is a form of moral corruption but it has not yet become the kind of overt corruption we see in Argentina. Few Americans are aware of what is happening to their country - they remain naively confident that their leaders are doing the right thing. In Argentina corruption is taken for granted as the norm. The United States has not yet reached that point. The ignorance of the American people that freedoms have begun to erode is perhaps the greatest danger.

 

[bigbadwolf]

My thinking is puzzled. The Argentine government appears to be of two minds. It seeks greater economic integration at least regionally if not globally. But at the same time it is attempting to manage the Argentine economy ala Keynes or Keynes lite, via Chicago School of which Freidman is an adherent.

You're talking of Milton Friedman, the U of Chicago economist famous for his monetarist outlook: that an economy can be managed by controlling the supply of different kinds of money. Keynes' ideas are more concerned with governmental spending --usually deficit financing -- to pump up demand to keep a national economy on an even keel, and thus avoid phenomenon like the Great Depression.
I'm not sure how au fait Kirchner and his gang are with any of these ideas. I suspect they have no systematic economics background at all, and their approach is seat-of-the-pants, involving expedient reaction to events around them. But this is conjecture.
There's no smooth transition to an economy that is seamlessly interwoven with the global setup. As guest has pointed out earlier, even increasing public transport fares slightly would involve distress. Even a casual observer like myself can see that there's massive overemployment: every small shop I enter has half a dozen employees where one would do fine. I hear Southern Winds has one plane but 900 employees. Attempts to change this are going to involve prolonged distress and doubtless the toppling of the present government. These measures have to be taken at some time or another, but the politicians in power -- like all politicians -- are probably more concerned about their own short-term survival. Again I stress that this is all conjecture on my part.
I don't know how seriously Mercosur can be treated. It seems presently more as a political instrument to thwart US intentions to have a free trade agreement for the Americas than a body akin to the old EEC, let alone the EU. I don't think the USA is all that concerned about this agreement: it's been on the back burner for over a decade, Bush was coming down here anyway for the conference, and so the US administration probably thought, what the hell, we might as well discuss resurrecting this idea, there isn't that much else to discuss anyway.

 

[Nigel]

I think earlier the conversation waa about Friedman, the New York Times writer - not Milton Friedman, though the latter may have entered into the conversation.

I don't know that Argentina really has two minds about Mercosur - it has never been taken very seriously. There are constant disagreements and the rules don't seem to be followed. I would agree that it is to some extent an instrument to thwart US interests - especially now that Venezuela has joined. FTAA however is not as dead as everyone says. Most of the countries (I beliueve 29) are in agreemen. Trade deals are going to be made even if Mercosur resists. Chile for sure is not going to lose out.,

 

[bigbadwolf]

I think earlier the conversation waa about Friedman, the New York Times writer - not Milton Friedman, though the latter may have entered into the conversation.

I don't know that Argentina really has two minds about Mercosur - it has never been taken very seriously. There are constant disagreements and the rules don't seem to be followed. I would agree that it is to some extent an instrument to thwart US interests - especially now that Venezuela has joined. FTAA however is not as dead as everyone says. Most of the countries (I beliueve 29) are in agreemen. Trade deals are going to be made even if Mercosur resists. Chile for sure is not going to lose out.,

Right you are: the Friedman referred to earlier was Thomas, an intellectual featherweight who's found his true calling as a cheerleader for capitalism, and the Friedman mentioned later was Milton, a Nobel-prize winning economist at Chicago, whose school has trained scores of third-world economists on how to keep foreign investors happy (but ruin their social welfare programs, and make their economies ever more dependent on Western interests).
Of the 29, perhaps Chile counts for something. Mexico is in already. The heavyweights (relatively speaking, of course) are Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela. We can forget about countries like Bolivia, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Panama. An FTAA without the Southern heavyweights I've mentioned above won't deserve the name.
Like Chavez and Kirchner, I look at the FTAA askance. It won't serve the interests of North American workers: I suspect there will be a further haemorrage of jobs there. Nor will it necessarily serve the interests of South American workers. It will serve the interests of global finance and transnational corporations working hand-in-glove with local business elites (who will also prosper). Financial and corporate power will become ever more tightly concentrated.
Sorry if I sound an ambivalent tone about capitalism and globalisation. My political outlook is way left of centre; I see playing the global poker game as a necessary evil which every country has to participate in to some extent as the alternatives to participation are even worse (witness Argentina)

 

[Harold]

Yes, I was speaking of Thomas Freidman. I don't even recall what gave me the impression now, but I'm under the impression that he is of the Chicago School. Though I may be easily mistaken. He could be a Keynsian. He most certainly isn't an Austian.
As far as my politics, the guess description would be to consider me a mish mash if you use traditional labels. I'm distrustful of big business and big government. Both are generally in bed together and their offspring are shall we say 'illegitamate'. But on social issues I'm rather conservative. But at least I saw today that the beef export tax is not going to happen, probably.. As to the FTAA, generally the only interests supporting it in the US are big business and their bought organs and think tanks.