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Thread: El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are Failed States

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    El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras are Failed States

    Interesting read and we're simply located too close to the eye of the storm.

    http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/07/07/...46_180000.html

    El Salvador, with a population of 6.3 million according to official data, has GDP of around $43 billion and per capita income of just under $3,800 a year. Poverty affects 29 percent of the population. It is the fourth-most-dangerous country in the world, with a homicide rate of more than 40 per 100,000 inhabitants and growing. That is 12 homicides a day.

    Aguilar feels that youths are “the main targets of many of these groups, especially the gangs, who because of their greater control over the territory in many communities, have increased their violence against youngsters.” Young people are the ones who die in gang wars, and they are the ones pressured into joining them.
    Meanwhile, in Guatemala, thousands of children are making their way to the United States, driven by extreme poverty, crime and the dream of family reunification.

    In 2013, a child under five died every two hours of preventable causes such as diarrhea or pneumonia. Yet Guatemala is the Central American country that invests the least in children and teenagers. While Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua earmark over six percent of GDP to minors, Guatemala only invests 3.1 percent. This, in a country where 48 percent of the population is made up of children and teens.

    “The state is co-perpetrator of this extermination through the systems of exclusion and inequality […]. Every two days a child dies of malnutrition, while an undetermined number suffer chronic malnutrition that stunts their physical and cognitive development,” reads a report on the state of Guatemala’s children published by the Office of Human Rights of the Archbishopric of Guatemala (ODHAG).


    Guatemala is the Central American country that invests the least in children and teenagers

    Meanwhile, economic rights are faring no better. The bishops’ report notes that six out of 10 working minors suffer workplace exploitation, with 82 percent of boys and 75 percent of girls denied access to social security.

    “The only thing our economic model does is maintain poverty levels,” notes the analyst Gustavo Berganza. “Since 2001 the economy has grown an average 3.4 percent, while demographic growth has been 2.4 percent. There isn’t even a remote possibility of reducing poverty in these conditions.”

    Guatemala is not an attractive country for investors: the average worker is malnourished, unqualified and lacks a quality education. Effecting change is difficult in a country with the lowest taxes on the continent where any attempts at reform are vigorously rejected by the country’s economic powers.

    Meanwhile, the homicide rate among males aged 13 to 29 grew 70 percent in one year, up from 29.9 per 100,000 inhabitants to 42.2 in 2013.
    Honduras:

    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/imm...ds-u-s-n150011

    Honduras' homicide rate was 90 slayings per 100,000 people in 2012, the worst in the world and six times the global average. The U.S. State Department warns that a corrupt and toothless police force means "criminals operate with a high-degree of impunity throughout Honduras."

    Crushing poverty underlies the violence. Nearly two-thirds of the population lives below the poverty line, according to UNICEF. One in three infants is malnourished, and children in rural areas get an average of four years of schooling.
    In the end, it may cost less to send in our armed forces and clean up their countries as opposed to the manifestation of this slow, deliberate humanitarian crisis. That's how incredibly bad this situation is on all fronts.
    Last edited by AuH20; 07-08-2014 at 12:00 PM.



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  3. #2
    My mom lives in El Salvador and my step-dad was their ambassador to Spain until last year. It's hardly a failed state. Poor, but not a failed state at all.

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by AuH20 View Post
    Interesting read and we're simply located too close to the eye of the storm.

    http://elpais.com/elpais/2014/07/07/...46_180000.html





    In the end, it may cost less to send in our armed forces and clean up their countries. That's how incredibly bad this situation is on all fronts.
    So the ends is gonna justify the means.
    “[T]he enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.” (Heller, 554 U.S., at ___, 128 S.Ct., at 2822.)

    How long before "going liberal" replaces "going postal"?

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    Quote Originally Posted by mrsat_98 View Post
    So the ends is gonna justify the means.
    In a perfect world, you shut down the borders and withhold benefits to all non-citizens. Then you prosecute the elements internally within the federal government & those within high finance that are profiting from the drug trade that emanates from Central America. But that ain't happening. Pigs would fly before that happen.
    Last edited by AuH20; 07-08-2014 at 12:05 PM.

  6. #5
    I wonder which of those three countries the CIA has been manipulating, funding death squads in, suppressing political movements in, tying down with World Bank loans, and training brutal military commanders in the art of torture, counterintelligence, and suppressing revolutions?
    “The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.” --George Orwell

    Quote Originally Posted by AuH20 View Post
    In terms of a full spectrum candidate, Rand is leaps and bounds above Trump. I'm not disputing that.
    Who else in public life has called for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea?--Donald Trump

  7. #6
    The Guatemalan president wanted to legalize marijuana but didn't get his way

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/23/world/...-legalization/

  8. #7
    Guatemala is not an attractive country for investors: the average worker is malnourished, unqualified and lacks a quality education. Effecting change is difficult in a country with the lowest taxes on the continent where any attempts at reform are vigorously rejected by the country’s economic powers.
    That is an interesting statement. It has the lowest tax rate, yet it's not attractive to investors? And they beleive that taxes will help with the problems? The conditions in these nations are the results of the economic hit-men in the first place. The last thing they need is more advise from the corporatist banker parasites or socialists and communists.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
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    Quote Originally Posted by Brian4Liberty View Post
    That is an interesting statement. It has the lowest tax rate, yet it's not attractive to investors? And they beleive that taxes will help with the problems? The conditions in these nations are the results of the economic hit-men in the first place. The last thing they need is more advise from the corporatist banker parasites or socialists and communists.
    Sure, the taxes are low but you need a round-the-clock security force to protect your family and property. LOL



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    A great read on why El Salvador is so screwed up:

    http://www.equalexchange.coop/histor...in-el-salvador

    The turbulent history of coffee has left a deep imprint on El Salvador’s history, politics and development. No other country in the region has depended as deeply on coffee, and the country’s fate has risen and fallen sharply with the boom and bust cycles brought by what Salvadorans call “el grano de oro” (the “grain of gold”.) Coffee, however, has treated very differently the elite, whose fortunes rose during the boom years and weathered the bust years, and the small farmers and laborers who have been exploited at nearly every turn.

    For many years, indigo had been El Salvador’s most important export crop. In the 1880s, coffee surpassed indigo as the leading export crop and was viewed as the path to progress and development. Indeed, coffee created both great wealth for the landed elite as well as opportunities to rule.
    Last edited by AuH20; 07-08-2014 at 12:39 PM.

  12. #10
    An NBC article complaining about "lack of labor rights, "low taxes", and lack of welfare, before they go on to blame low wages on poor education, rather than low productivity caused by lack of capital caused by the lack of property rights they support eroding? What a shock!

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    Quote Originally Posted by eduardo89 View Post
    My mom lives in El Salvador and my step-dad was their ambassador to Spain until last year. It's hardly a failed state. Poor, but not a failed state at all.
    Don't MS-13 and Barrio 18 control large portions of the country?

  14. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by eduardo89 View Post
    My mom lives in El Salvador and my step-dad was their ambassador to Spain until last year. It's hardly a failed state. Poor, but not a failed state at all.
    El Salvador was a failed state 30 years ago. Try talking to a Salvadorean who has come to the US and ask why he left (when he left won't matter).

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by thoughtomator View Post
    El Salvador was a failed state 30 years ago. Try talking to a Salvadorean who has come to the US and ask why he left (when he left won't matter).
    They had a brutal and long civil war. That ended in 1992. Sure they still have big problems, but it is hardly a failed state.
    Last edited by eduardo89; 07-08-2014 at 03:11 PM.

  16. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by AuH20 View Post
    Don't MS-13 and Barrio 18 control large portions of the country?
    In the same way Blood and Crips control portions of LA.

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by AuH20 View Post
    In the end, it may cost less to send in our armed forces and clean up their countries as opposed to the manifestation of this slow, deliberate humanitarian crisis. That's how incredibly bad this situation is on all fronts.
    Will I have to chip in or will you be picking up the bill?



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