Obaca First Argie Black Presidential Candidate 2015

[sesamosinsal]

They PEGGED their currency to the dollar, which is different.
Countries like Argentina don't adopt the dollar because it simply prevents them from printing.
What Argentina did was that they CLAIMED that for every peso in circulation, there was an equivalent dollar stored in the central bank, and any Argentine could exchange their pesos for dollars at request. But the reality is that the claim was simply not true, specially as the government printed more and more pesos to cover their expenses. And once the market realized that, the whole thing imploded.

Thus the reason I said "in principle." -- The market just didn't "decide" something; the Central Bank wasn't able to defend the peg because there weren't enough dollars to do so. In the case of Ecuador, should oil prices/demand drop any further, accompanied by a severe reduction in Ecuador's FX reserves (<$2 billion), there might be serious discussions about leaving the dollar. Correa thinks it was a bad decision, and I am sure he'd love an excuse to stop supporting the Evil Empire.

 

[Ceviche]

Ecuador is in a bind; can't devalue the dollar currency to make their products more competitive, and with lower oil prices has a serious crisis

Its a banana republic. Once I went to Guyaquil, and everyone and anyone seemed to be selling bananas.

 

[ElQueso]

Why doesn't the state try living within its means? You know... import less than they export and spend less than they take in from tax collection. Nestor Kirchner did it (on both fronts) during his first administration 2003-2007 and we had 7-9% GDP growth during all 4 years. Not a bad result at all.

Saludos.

Because most states are worried about maintaining their power, not the actual welfare of their citizens (including whether or not they have freedom).

I think the only reason Nestor was able to do it without printing money was because of the high commodity prices and the fact that they defaulted on their "invalid debt". But how can you continue to provide far-reaching social programs to a goodly portion of South America (if you count all the free health care and education, among other things) when you have almost no industry for trade outside the country, except for those commodities, which aren't seeing the prices from ten - twelve years ago.

Are Argentines truly better off because of these social programs? Not in my opinion, but then I expect more out of life than free health care and free education (both of which, to me, are of questionable quality anyway). I also don't depend on (nor believe in depending on) the state for my well-being and happiness. But social programs and authoritarian policies are the mark of Cristina's version of politics and it will never go well.

I love Obaca, BTW. I was looking at his videos months ago and found them hilarious and quite good, if not a bit obvious, satire

 

[scotttswan]

Because most states are worried about maintaining their power, not the actual welfare of their citizens (including whether or not they have freedom).

I think the only reason Nestor was able to do it without printing money was because of the high commodity prices and the fact that they defaulted on their "invalid debt". But how can you continue to provide far-reaching social programs to a goodly portion of South America (if you count all the free health care and education, among other things) when you have almost no industry for trade outside the country, except for those commodities, which aren't seeing the prices from ten - twelve years ago.

Are Argentines truly better off because of these social programs? Not in my opinion, but then I expect more out of life than free health care and free education (both of which, to me, are of questionable quality anyway). I also don't depend on (nor believe in depending on) the state for my well-being and happiness. But social programs and authoritarian policies are the mark of Cristina's version of politics and it will never go well.

I love Obaca, BTW. I was looking at his videos months ago and found them hilarious and quite good, if not a bit obvious, satire

The social programs are not the problem, social programs are good. The problem is the huge wastage in shit like football para todos, the increase in bureaucracy in the country, patronage jobs, officials getting the government rate in dollars and then arbitraging against the blue, public funds being funneled away from where they should be going etc.

A fundamental change needs to happen within Argentine political culture, i don't think it ever will though.

 

[nkotb]

Ejcot: your first and second sentence contradict each other.

EDIT: Mikic - the type of social programs supported by Latin American populists and friends quickly and predictably evolve into bloated spending sprees, corruption and bureaucracy. If you support a nanny state, don't be surprised when the nanny makes you watch futbol para todos.

 

[mikic007]

Ejcot: your first and second sentence contradict each other.

Not really, second sentence describes corruption, not social programs. Since when is watching (mediocre) football social need?

 

[ElQueso]

The social programs are not the problem, social programs are good. The problem is the huge wastage in shit like football para todos, the increase in bureaucracy in the country, patronage jobs, officials getting the government rate in dollars and then arbitraging against the blue, public funds being funneled away from where they should be going etc.

A fundamental change needs to happen within Argentine political culture, i don't think it ever will though.

I was pointing out two examples of social programs simply because Argentinos often brag in one sentence about their great free health and university-level free education and complain in the next that others are coming here from other countries and taking advantage of it. I wasn't terribly clear, perhaps, but everything you mentioned I was thinking of as social programs, in that everything is meant to pay off certain groups of people in certain ways. The government jobs you mentioned I've mentioned many times as well. Of course it's patronage and even clientelism, but it's a type of social program for those who are in power, as are many things the government does that involves money.

And then, to listen to Cristina, everything the government here does is geared towards enforcing or even creating supposed "equality" (defined by her and her party, of course). The biggest social program of them all, perhaps.

Social programs run by a government are only as good as the government who runs them. When I speak of social programs here benefiting or not, I mean all of this, which seems to spring from the general desire to be taken care of for life with minimal effort on the individual's part, while having a general acceptance of corruption (in various forms) as a means to achieve it. Social programs can be run by some governments at reasonable efficiency (though still a cost and more expensive than private industry in most cases, if not all). To me most "good social programs" are an oxymoron, but to each their own opinion.

Here, however, I don't believe the Argentine people would be better off with high inflation and all of their "social programs" as they would be with a freer market and less government intervention.

 

[thorsten]

Would you consider the 'freer market' of health insurance in the US (before the recent changes) a good example compared for your point ElQueso?

 

[nicoenarg]

The US health insurance system was/is not freer market at all. The fact that one couldn't purchase health insurance across state lines because of overwhelming regulations in and of itself kills competition and hence by definition is not free market. In fact it is one of the best examples of what happens when government takes away the right to choose from people.

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But I digress, I'm sure someone will come up here saying "Somalia is free market!" pretty soon.

 

[ElQueso]

Would you consider the 'freer market' of health insurance in the US (before the recent changes) a good example compared for your point ElQueso?

Hell no. And Obama's made things worse, not better. To me it goes to show that government has no idea how to make things "better". They tell you they do to keep in power - after all, if you didn't feel you needed government so much, would you pay so much for it?

I've written about this a while back, but to me, the current health care system in the US has been in serious problems for decades. My grandmother used to tell me stories about when she first started raising my father and uncle as a single mother in the '40s and '50s. She worked as a teller at a bank. A doctor's visit for her or her kids cost around $1. No insurance. A couple of years after being at the bank (if I remember correctly, early or mid '50s) the bank offered their employees something new. Health insurance. The doctor still made house calls, but he now charged $2.50. But, as he explained to her, not to worry, even though you still pay me the $1 you always have as part of the house call, the insurance picks up the rest.

People in the US are so worried about having insurance for little things like a runny nose that they have forgotten what insurance was originally for - emergency care. Now, people are happy if they have a $10 co-pay for visits or medicine, while companies pay hundreds and hundreds of dollars a month for those who work for companies who offer insurance. Those who don't work for companies who provide insurance and have to pay for their own bitch that they don't have the same low co-pays and other benefits. The insurance industry has placed itself between care providers, care providers have over-inflated egos (some say God complex), on top of having to buy their own insurance due to frivolous lawsuits and pay people to manage their billing to insurance companies, so on and so forth.

It's no wonder in my mind why health care in the US is so screwed up, and although to me it's easy to see what the big issues are, I have no idea how to fix it because the memes floating around in people's heads prevent any real reform. But putting more bureaucracy on top of that which is already there is not going to fix things.