September 7, 2012
The Roots of Chile’s Malaise
by Andres Velasco
Andrés Velasco was Chile’s finance minister from 2006 to 2010, earning praise for innovative policies that included a measure to save Chile’s copper windfall in a rainy-day fund. At the forefront of Latin America’s economic transformation as both an academic and a policymaker, he served as chief negotiator for Chile’s participation in NAFTA in the 1990’s, and has consulted for the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Inter-American Bank, and several Latin American governments.
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Margaret Thatcher famously once said that “there is no such thing as society.” Today, the people of Chile are showing just how wrong she was. For more than a year, young Chileans have been taking to the streets to protest. Many foreign observers have declared themselves surprised. Why would the citizens of a successful emerging country be so upset? What could they be upset about?
Chile’s student-led protest movement has generated much re-thinking within the country. Intellectuals of the old left, pointing to persistently high income inequality, have argued that the economic gains made in the 22 years since the return of democracy were more illusory than real. In this view, Chile’s economic model has failed its citizens and is in the process of “collapsing.”
Defenders of Chile’s current rightist government, pointing to ongoing economic growth and unemployment under 7%, have argued that there is no deep reason for discontent. In this view, if the government stays the course and the economy keeps growing, the malaise will pass. Read On: Project Syndicate
Politicians everywhere have become too self absorbed to listen to people who elected them. Malaysia is a good example. Time to refocus on serving people.
Reading this report is like it is about Malaysia. Will UNDP do us a similar favour?
Hey, it rains dogs and cats here. How come the only ‘rainy-day’ fund seems to be jerky cash handouts by Jibs to the disenfranchised? And the Bersih hecklers depend on local torpid rain-showers to take away the sting of CS gas.
The Latin American countries, including Brazil seem to pouring their capital into R&D, innovation and corporate responsibility, although their GDP ain’t that great. Their income disparity is horrendous. Some, like Chile concentrates on educational policies but their social safety net is like ours – zilch. No point having pissed off ‘thinking’ students, better keep them uneducated – like our most awesome Umnoputra brain-dead undergrads.
Furthermore the Chileans are somewhat hard-wired rightists, whatever that means. They do have good intellectual capacity but tend towards tokenism, like our most famous dick-head. Pinochet mentalism seems inherent, like our rabid MahaOctoism.
Our very own Petronas seems to have been saddled with enormous corporate responsibility to sustain subsidies to not only the IPPs, but to the the public-domestic/industrial gas and petrol complex. If the authorities had somehow collected all that fart and other eructances from our politicians as bio-fuel, we won’t even need these subsidies. We could even light up Petronas twin towers indefinitely.
Well, even in Singapore, the highly competent there facing the same old problems. The difference is how government could preampt & react to changing circumstances. Government ain’t god & they don’t have all the answers. So long that they are trustworthy, accountable, transparent & have peoples in their heart, they will win all the time.
I personally see the difference 2 long ruling political parties. How pap are more successful. How lee kuan yew is a better stateman than that Apanama