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Thread: There goes Chile. "Poised to Move Sharply Left"

  1. #1

    There goes Chile. "Poised to Move Sharply Left"

    Statism is not only a sickness, it's a pandemic!

    I can't imagine Galt's Gulch selling many lots now. We won't be buying one, and we were planning to go check it out.

    Chile Is Poised to Move Sharply Left
    Michelle Bachelet wants to amend the constitution and expand the welfare state.
    http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...84781618992494

    ...Mr. Piñera's whims have been more dangerous. Early in his administration he terminated the construction of a coal-fired electricity plant as environmentalists in the streets were demanding. GDF Suez had spent some $15 million on assessments and clearing regulatory hurdles. But Mr. Piñera agreed with the protesters. So he made a "suggestion"—as he explained during a visit to the Journal's office in September—to the head of the company that the plant be moved. The project was canceled, and the investors went away.

    The president doubtless believed he'd maneuvered brilliantly out of a tight political spot. But blowing off an institutional ruling in favor of the mob was like putting blood in the water. His opponents realized that they could devour him by taking to the streets.

    Going forward, the collateral damage could be worse. A President Bachelet is likely to find Chileans in the streets useful if she doesn't have the majorities in Congress to fulfill her agenda.

    Ms. Bachelet wants to expand the welfare state. To pay for it she wants to raise corporate tax rates and to tax shareholders on retained earnings along with the dividend taxes they already pay. She would restore a role for the state in the now privatized pension system and has called for an "exhaustive review" of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that would deepen Chile's commitment to free trade. Labor unions would get more power, and education spending would be sharply higher. Most troubling, the self-described admirer of Fidel Castro proposes changes to the constitution that would extend the reach of government and has not ruled out calling a constitutional assembly.

    Ms. Bachelet's main opponent is center-right Independent Democratic Union (UDI) candidate Evelyn Matthei. UDI is a coalition partner with Mr. Piñera's National Renovation Party and from 2011 through July 2013 Ms. Matthei was labor minister.

    She ought to be having an easy time of it. During Mr. Piñera's tenure, Chile has grown 5.8% per year on average. When he took office, annual per capita income was $15,000. Today it is $20,000. That's not far from the $23,800 annual per capita income needed to qualify as a developed country.

    But Mr. Piñera has been no champion of economic freedom. His government introduced a six-month maternity-leave mandate, which he claims "doesn't affect job creation because it is funded by the government. It is not a cost to the companies." That's silly. Someone is paying for it and firms are harmed when a job has to remain unfilled for a half year or filled by a temporary worker.

    The Piñera government raised corporate taxes after a magnitude 8.8 earthquake struck the country in 2010. The increase was supposed to be temporary. But when students, led by communist activists, took to the streets to demand state-paid university education in 2011, Mr. Piñera devised a generous package of freebies and subsidies for them—and the tax hike became permanent. His government also added a new preschool entitlement for all. A hydroelectric project in the south of the country, which environmentalists bitterly oppose, has been waiting for approval from his government for two and a half years.

    Mr. Piñera seems to have viewed himself in the presidency as a genie who grants wishes when the spirit moves him. But Piñera populism has whetted the public's appetite for more—and the national debate about the role of the state has shifted hard to the left, leaving Ms. Matthei behind.

    Now the Communist Party is flexing its muscles and Ms. Bachelet is a fellow traveler.
    Chile has strong institutions and its open markets will react quickly to a pernicious policy mix. But that won't make the country's political polarization any less intense.
    Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
    --Albert J. Nock



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  3. #2
    Chile Is Poised to Move Sharply Left
    Michelle Bachelet wants to amend the constitution and expand the welfare state.
    By
    Mary Anastasia O'Grady
    Nov. 10, 2013 6:36 p.m. ET

    New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Chilean President Sebastián Piñera are billionaires. Both ran for office as center-right candidates. Both have a reputation for an arbitrary and capricious style of governance.

    It now looks like they will have one more thing in common: hard-left successors. On Tuesday, Sandinista-supporter Bill de Blasio won the New York City mayoral contest. Polls suggest that this Sunday former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet—running for president again—could win in the first-round election....
    Troubling news. Especially with border nation Argentina having runaway inflation that is so bad that if people question the government's fake numbers, they are fined or sent to jail.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...dent-says.html
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...repare-go-jail
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  4. #3
    Evelyn Matthei was actually pretty good. Wish she had won. This socialist will just turn Chile into another Argentina.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by compromise View Post
    Evelyn Matthei was actually pretty good. Wish she had won. This socialist will just turn Chile into another Argentina.
    I doubt/hope it doesn't get that bad. Argentina has a totalitarian dictatorship. It's like a light version of Venezuela or Cuba. The only current socialist/communist leader in South American that is even halfway decent is the leader of Uruguay, Jose Mujica. Sure, he is a socialist but at least he lives a simple life, instead of spending $4,000,000 on is upcoming holiday vacation to HI as Obama is doing. Plus he is allowing marijuana to be legalized, instead of trying to murder medical marijuana patients/growers, like Obama.
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.

  6. #5
    Can a book that's been dropped from a few thousand feet kill someone on the ground, or would it open and flutter all the way down? I'm thinking about proposing an idea to Bitcoin millionaires to fund a venture dumping pallets of Economics in One Lesson over major cities in the world. I think it would make news in those cities and people would read the book. But again, would it possibly kill people?

  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith and stuff View Post
    Troubling news. Especially with border nation Argentina having runaway inflation that is so bad that if people question the government's fake numbers, they are fined or sent to jail.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-1...dent-says.html
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-0...repare-go-jail

    Define "irony"...

    Under President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, the government in 2011 began fining economists who publicly questioned the official data 500,000 pesos, which at the time totaled more than $120,000 and is now $83,000.

  8. #7
    Oh and Yay for democracy and unfettered immigration.

    We need millions more of people voting just like that, here.

  9. #8



    With strong support from the Communist Party, self-styled “Socialist” Michelle Bachelet cruised to a widely anticipated victory in a run-off vote for the Chilean presidency.


    Freedom, Prosperity Threatened in Chile With Election of Socialist


    The New American
    16 December 2013


    After securing the greatest number of votes in the first round of Chile’s presidential election last month with strong support from the Communist Party, self-styled “Socialist” Michelle Bachelet cruised to a widely anticipated victory in a run-off vote for the Chilean presidency held December 15. The former defector to the mass-murdering Soviet bloc, who took refuge under the brutal Communist regime ruling East Germany, is hoping to replace Chile’s freedom-preserving constitution with one that allows government to take over everything from healthcare to higher education.

    According to analysts, with the “deep reforms” promised by Bachelet, the foundation of Chilean liberty and prosperity are now under threat. Latin America more broadly, meanwhile, has been almost completely conquered by a tightly knit network of communist and socialist forces working to impose tyranny on the people of the region. However, whether Bachelet will succeed in her quest to re-shape the most prosperous and successful nation on the continent remains to be seen, and opposition to the plan is growing.

    “Chile, one of the few remaining bastions of freedom in Latin America, is in danger of going communist,” noted anti-communist author and analyst Trevor Loudon. “Can the U.S. afford to lose yet another friend? Can the West afford to lose Chile — one of the most strategically situated nations in the world? The encirclement rolls on.” Along with numerous other experts on the region and communism, Loudon argues that the ongoing socialist takeover of Latin America represents a major threat to the United States and freedom.
    ...


    Full Story:
    http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-...n-of-socialist
    ----

    Ron Paul Forum's Mission Statement:

    Inspired by US Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, this site is dedicated to facilitating grassroots initiatives that aim to restore a sovereign limited constitutional Republic based on the rule of law, states' rights and individual rights. We seek to enshrine the original intent of our Founders to foster respect for private property, seek justice, provide opportunity, and to secure individual liberty for ourselves and our posterity.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by green73 View Post
    Can a book that's been dropped from a few thousand feet kill someone on the ground, or would it open and flutter all the way down? I'm thinking about proposing an idea to Bitcoin millionaires to fund a venture dumping pallets of Economics in One Lesson over major cities in the world. I think it would make news in those cities and people would read the book. But again, would it possibly kill people?
    Create a pamphlet version without hard binding.
    "We do have some differences and our approaches will be different, but that makes him his own person. I mean why should he [Rand] be a clone and do everything and think just exactly as I have. I think it's an opportunity to be independent minded. We are about 99% [the same on issues]." Ron Paul

  12. #10
    That sucks. Chile was one of the places on my "well if it gets really bad I can maybe move to Chile".

    Looks like I'll be crossing that one off my list.

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by VoluntaryAmerican View Post
    Create a pamphlet version without hard binding.
    Yeah, I don't know if pamphlets would have the same impact.

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by green73 View Post
    Yeah, I don't know if pamphlets would have the same impact.
    The Bastiat Collection · FREE PDF · FREE EPUB · PAPER
    Frédéric Bastiat (1801-1850)

    • "When law and morality are in contradiction to each other, the citizen finds himself in the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense, or of losing his respect for the law."
      -- The Law (p. 54)
    • "Government is that great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
      -- Government (p. 99)
    • "[W]ar is always begun in the interest of the few, and at the expense of the many."
      -- Economic Sophisms - Second Series (p. 312)
    • "There are two principles that can never be reconciled - Liberty and Constraint."
      -- Harmonies of Political Economy - Book One (p. 447)

    · tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito ·

  15. #13
    Chile: Bachelet sworn in again as president
    http://rationalreview.news-digests.com/archives/152191

    "Michelle Bachelet returned to Chile's presidency Tuesday after a four-year break, facing an economic slowdown and student-led protests that have paralyzed the country in recent years and now will likely challenge her promises of profound social changes. ... The election victory of Bachelet, a moderate socialist, followed a campaign of promises to finance education reform with higher corporate taxes, improve health care, change the dictatorship-era constitution to make Congress more representative and reduce the vast gap between the rich and poor."
    Her "New Majority" coalition welcomed Communists, street activists and former student leaders, and won in December by the widest margin in eight decades of presidential elections.

    Chile's economy thrived under Pinera, but metals prices have dropped and growth has slowed just as Bachelet hopes to take in about $8.2 billion in taxes from businesses to fund her education reform.
    SMH.
    Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
    --Albert J. Nock

  16. #14
    I wonder how this will affect the startup of Galt's Gulch down there.

  17. #15
    I don't imagine it would be a positive thing. I think they're in denial. I can't find one word on Bachelet from either Jeff Berwick or Simon Black. John Cobin's talking about it though (his community is called Freedom Orchard):

    The government reported that only 41.9% of registered voters actually went to the polls. This result is partly because the Left believed that they would win big (and did) and because the Right did not at all like their candidate. Thus the result was somewhat of a protest vote. A foreigner should certainly not come away with the idea that Chile is 62% leftist from the 2013 election. There are 6 popularly elected communists in the Congress. But there are far more than that who are libertarians. We must not lose perspective.
    http://escapeamericanow.info/?s=Bachelet
    Based on the idea of natural rights, government secures those rights to the individual by strictly negative intervention, making justice costless and easy of access; and beyond that it does not go. The State, on the other hand, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing.
    --Albert J. Nock

  18. #16
    Dang, I have a friend in Santiago. I am hoping to go visit there someday. Never been to South America except when we sat off the coast in '89 in support of the President Bush's visit.
    Insanity should be defined as trusting the government to solve a problem they caused in the first place. Please do not go insane!



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  20. #17
    "She promised a lot of things, a lot of reforms, so people expect many things to happen," said Patricio Navia, a Chilean political scientist at New York University.

    "But the economic conditions have changed," he added. "The economy is not growing quite as fast and Bachelet is not going to have the leverage to introduce all the reforms."
    It looks like the money is drying up so she won't be able to increase taxes as much as she promised. Bad news is good news?
    Lifetime member of more than 1 national gun organization and the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance. Part of Young Americans for Liberty and Campaign for Liberty. Free State Project participant and multi-year Free Talk Live AMPlifier.



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