I couldn’t agree more
Estilicon: what, you’re defending your rich people as if they were some kind of race? Did I offend some Mercedes-driving, polo playing buddy of yours? I’m so sorry.
Taking it one at a time:
1 - The behavior of the rich in most of LA can be inferred from the massive economic failure of countries like, well, Argentina and Venezuela. A Latin country defaulting on its external debt is an event about as surprising as a taxi running a red light in Manhattan. More on this below, as I see no reason to keep the kid gloves on any longer.
2 - Racism: I’ll put my wife’s lifelong experience up against any of you any day of the week. Sorry if I trust her more than I trust you guys, but I do know her just a bit better. Anyway, I asked her about the existence of same, and how some posters here were trying to minimize it, and she just busted out laughing, and said it was worse down there than it is here in the U.S. I don’t know about that, but she also said the lighter you are the higher your status, without a doubt. A staple plot on the telenovelas, she tells me, is the black baby born into a white family, which then reveals “the family secret”. I’ve had my own experiences as a result of my background (see below) but I demur to her because I’ve never had to actually live in any country in LA.
Now, on to your rich classes. A more useless bunch doesn’t exist anywhere on the planet. Above I characterized Venezuela as a “supply region”, meaning that its principal export was oil, which accounted for 80% of its export revenues. This is a shameful fact, reflecting the lack of entreprenuerial imagination there. But it hardly stops there. Let us proceed to, say, Argentina. Argentina goes with default the way pancake goes with syrup. Any history of debt defaults in Latin America has Argentina at the top, because if you go by history, it sometimes looks like Argentina has never seen a loan it could repay.
So, taking a page from the CIA World Factbook for Argentina, we find the following:
Exports - commodities: edible oils, fuels and energy, cereals, feed, motor vehicles.
Not a list to be proud of. Not until the very end do you get to a manufactured article. Compare and contrast this to Brazil:
Exports - commodities: manufactures, iron ore, soybeans, footwear, coffee, autos.
Great countries are not built on exporting edible oils. Or fuel and energy.
Your rich classes have nothing to be proud of, unless you call a history of squandering a huge advantage as what had been the most advanced country in LA, and chronically defaulting on the external debt, something of which to be proud.
As for my own background:
My great-grandfather emigrated to a country in LA from Corsica (a small island in the Mediterranean), and married a mulatta. My grandfather, his son, read one day in the papers about a frost in the coffee growing region of Brazil. He went to my great grandfather on my mother’s side, and got a loan from him. He then went all around town, buying up the coffee. When the price went up he sold it, and with the profit he paid back what he owed, firstly (there’s a lesson there. Pay attention.) and then with the rest bought more than 100 acres of rocky land just outside of town. He spent the next twenty years slowly breaking those rocks and turning it into a farm that had planted on it citrus, coffee, avocados, beans, and Lord only knows what else. Not to mention pasturage for cows, pigs, chickens, and some other farm animals I’m sure.
My dad moved here, being as he wasn’t going to inherit anything and he’d made a few enemies in the dominant political party of the country. When he got here he did any kind of work that came to hand, including delivering liquor, and working weird jobs in various factories, until he got his degree and could work as an accountant. All three of his children, including me, have been successful. On trips back home my uncle, who came here with my dad, mercilessly upbraids the locals for their resentment of the Cubans who moved in and now make up a substantial portion of the merchant class. He has no patience for whiners.
Neither do I.
What your rich classes could use is a few more swift kicks in the butt from some legitimately elected left leaning leaders (not another Castro, just to be clear on that), so that they stop taking their wealth for granted and start using it to better themselves and their countrymen. Like what Roosevelt did up here during the Depression. The rich folk kicked and screamed and cried bloody murder against his Administration, but this country’s been prosperous ever since.
You need some presidents like him. Then maybe one day the words “default” and “Latin America” will no longer go together.
For Venezuela, Chavez could be the one. Or he could just wind up being another Huey Long (a corrupt and demagogic governor of the state of Louisiana), or even worse, Fidel Castro.
I truly wish you people in Venezuela well. Just remember, coddling your rich people will get you exactly nowhere, as time & experience should already show.
I’ve seldom seen so little content in so many words.
First, I couldn’t care less if you believe your wife or not because, guess what, I AM Latin American and I LIVE in Latin America and I have done my homework.
Using a broom in liew of a brush to paint those wide generalizations is not helping your credibility. If want to feel superior to us dumb, pathetic and corrupt Latin American then go ahead. My treat.
On point one and two: cites?
Pray tell, is that the only thing that Argentina exports. Enlighten me. And please tell me exactly on what is a country’s riches built so we can start producing it this very instant.
lieu, not liew. Dangit.
Manufactured goods.
Value added services.
Since you asked so politely.
Or better yet, look at the list for those dumb pathetic Latins in Brazil. Those guys even export fighter jets.
Sometimes the answer is right under your nose.
>Manufactured goods.
Unheard of in Argentina?
>Value added services.
Never heard of in Argentina?
>Or better yet, look at the list for those dumb pathetic Latins in Brazil. Those guys even export fighter jets.
And tell me, who’s the Chavez-like president that supposedly built that rich country that you claim Brazil is. Did you just started to read newspapers lately. Brazil has been up and down many times on the Argentinian path. Have you ever heard of the word favela?
I asked you for more than an opinion, cites maybe. Right now I have to go to bed since it is past midnight here. I will find the time tomorrow to put my ideas in order and try explain a few things to you. Chavez is not the Mesiah.
No, I’ve been reading the papers since I was 5, and travelling back and forth to Latin America since I was 9. Frequently. I’ve also invested money in the company I profile below.
The figures I quoted above come from the CIA World Factbook: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index.html
I also quoted the following: http://www.geographyiq.com/index.htm
Now, back to business.
Nobody said Brazil is rich. Per capita, Argentina is richer. And I do know Brazil has been down the same path as Argentina.
However, I’ll make a bet with you that in 10 years on a per capita basis Brazil will be ahead of Argentina. They’re already ahead on a gross basis.
To be more specific, let’s look at Embraer, a Brazilian company, the one that makes those fighter jets. Its still partially owned by the government. But its managers have followed a very smart strategy, where in the commercial area they have gradually increased the size and speed of the aircraft they manufacture. They’ve gone from building turboprops to regional jets that can hold about 50 or so passengers, and count Continental as among their customers in this market. I have no doubt that their long range plans include getting to the point where they will be building long range aircraft that will be able to compete with the offerings of Boeing and Airbus.
Even if they never get to that point, the thing is they’re progressing down a rational path of building a viable business. This is how it’s done, one step at a time, slowly building up your expertise and marketing savvy.
So what if they have favelas? There’s no such thing as a country without slums. The point is, they’re trying and they’re doing a good enough job to attract and keep foreign investment for more than just a few short years. Including my money.
Unlike Argentina. To paraphrase a prominent investor up here, I wouldn’t even invest your money down there, not with their proven history of default and crisis.
And unlike Venezuela, they don’t depend on a single product for their export earnings. All around, a better deal.