What Pinochet Did For Chile

[r3volution 3.0]

http://www.hoover.org/research/what-pinochet-did-chile

The 1973 coup is often represented as having destroyed Chilean democracy. Such characterizations are half-truths at best. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Chile’s democracy was already well on the road to self-destruction. The historian James Whelan caught its tragic essence when he wrote that Chile’s was a “cannibalistic democracy, consuming itself.” Eduardo Frei Montalva, Chile’s president from 1964 to 1970, who helped to bring in Salvador Allende as his successor, later called the latter’s presidency “this carnival of madness.” Freedoms increasingly overwhelmed responsibilities. Lawlessness became rampant. Uncontrolled leftist violence had also been escalating during the government of Christian Democrat Frei Montalva, before Allende became president and long before Pinochet played any role whatsoever in Chilean politics.

In 1970, Allende won 36.2 percent of the popular vote, less than the 38.6 percent he had taken in 1964 and only 1.3 percent more than the runner-up. According to the constitution, the legislature could have given the presidency to either of the top two candidates. It chose Allende only after he pledged explicitly to abide by the constitution. “A few months later,” Whelan reports, “Allende told fellow leftist Regis Debray that he never actually intended to abide by those commitments but signed just to finally become president.” In legislative and other elections over the next three years, Allende and his Popular Unity (UP) coalition, dominated by the Communist and Socialist parties, never won a majority, much less a mandate, in any election. Still Allende tried to “transition” (his term) Chile into a Marxist-Leninist economic, social, and political system.

Allende’s closest UP allies were the Communists, the right wing of the UP, but both were pressed to move faster than they wanted by the left wing of the UP, mainly members of Allende’s Socialist Party, and by ultraleftists (the term used by the Communists) to the left of the UP. Violence escalated rapidly, with the extreme left, including many members of the president’s own party, seizing properties and setting up independent zones in cities and the countryside, often contrary to what Allende and the Communists thought prudent. In the process Allende, his supporters, and extremists they could not control virtually destroyed the economy, fractured the society, politicized the military and the educational systems, and rode roughshod over Chilean constitutional, legal, political, and cultural traditions. Thus by July 1973, if not earlier, Chile was looking at an incipient civil war.

Many on the left had long believed that capitalism and democracy were incompatible. In a brazen demonstration of its contempt for majority wishes, and for the institutions of what it called “bourgeois democracy,” the pro-Allende newspaper Puro Chile reported the results of the March 1973 legislative elections with this headline: “The People, 43%. The Mummies, 55%.” This attitude and the actions that followed from it galvanized the center-left and right, whose candidates had received almost two-thirds of the votes in the 1970 election, against Allende. On August 22, 1973, the Chamber of Deputies, whose members had been elected just five months earlier, voted 81–47 that Allende’s regime had systematically “destroyed essential elements of institutionality and of the state of law.” (The Supreme Court had earlier condemned the Allende government’s repeated violations of court orders and judicial procedures.) Less than three weeks later, the military, led by newly appointed army commander in chief Pinochet, overthrew the government. The coup was supported by Allende’s presidential predecessor, Eduardo Frei Montalva; by Patricio Aylwin, the first democratically elected president after democracy was restored in 1990; and by an overwhelming majority of the Chilean people. Cuba and the United States were actively involved on opposite sides, but the main players were always Chilean.

...

It has become fashionable in some quarters lately to claim that Chile’s successful record of economic development in recent decades actually began in 1990, during the first civilian government since 1973. That claim is false. The historical record is clear. President Pinochet and his civilian advisers, after an elaborate and lengthy process of deliberation and decision making in 1973–1975, in which various alternative courses of action were considered, put in place the radically new set of market-oriented structures and policies that have been and remain the foundations of Chile’s subsequent three decades of economic and social development. This new model, which we call social capitalism, was adjusted, revised, and supplemented during the Pinochet years, most importantly in response to an economic crisis in the early 1980s and also in the post-1990 civilian years. But its main elements have not changed, and thus far no post-1990 government has proposed or seriously considered going back to either of the two previous, failed models, namely, state capitalism (1938–70) or state socialism (1970–73).

...

The innovations in economic and social policy of the Pinochet government had significant influences on, and implications for, not only subsequent governments in Chile but also the rest of Latin America and the wider world. Today almost the entire globe relies on the state less and on markets more than in 1973. The first country in the world to make that momentous break with the past—away from socialism and extreme state capitalism toward more market-oriented structures and policies—was not Deng Xiaoping’s China or Margaret Thatcher’s Britain in the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan’s United States in 1981, or any other country in Latin America or elsewhere. It was Pinochet’s Chile in 1975.

[Petar]

Most advanced country in SA.

Still can't condone them throwing people into the ocean for so little as the crime of having a tattoo.

[openfire]

[jmdrake]

http://www.hoover.org/research/what-pinochet-did-chile

Pinochet was a butcher and a fascist. I'm surprised you'd post this tripe considering how much you are against Trump and that the worst thing that can be said about Trump is he is an economic fascist and doesn't believe in civil liberties.

[Ronin Truth]

What did Pinochet do TO Chile?

[luctor-et-emergo]

Most advanced country in SA.

Despite, not because.

Still can't condone them throwing people into the ocean for so little as the crime of having a tattoo.

Damn right. Individual rights > economic success.

[jmdrake]

Despite, not because.


Damn right. Individual rights > economic success.

You know, when you think about it, Adolf Hitler turned the German economy around despite having the economic philosophy of national socialism.

[luctor-et-emergo]

You know, when you think about it, Adolf Hitler turned the German economy around despite having the economic philosophy of national socialism.

That is exactly why I don't care much for economic development unless I am free.

[Ronin Truth]

You know, when you think about it, Adolf Hitler turned the German economy around despite having the economic philosophy of national socialism.

Are you a fan of Juan Peron of Argentina, too?

[r3volution 3.0]

So, on balance, you all think that communism under Allende would have been preferable to Pinochet's relatively pro-market dictatorship?

...no comprendo.

That is exactly why I don't care much for economic development unless I am free.

How do you figure you'd be free in a communist state?

[luctor-et-emergo]

So, on balance, you all think that communism under Allende would have been preferable to Pinochet's relatively pro-market dictatorship?

...no comprendo.



How do you figure you'd be free in a communist state?

There is no freedom in a communist state as there is no individual.

[r3volution 3.0]

There is no freedom in a communist state as there is no individual.

Right

So, I ask again, why would you have preferred communism under Allende to Pinochet's relatively pro-market dictatorship?

[luctor-et-emergo]

Right

So, I ask again, why would you have preferred communism under Allende to Pinochet's relatively pro-market dictatorship?

Where exactly have I said that ? First of all, I have no clue what that country would have looked like absent Pinochet, neither do you. Second, I'd probably get the $#@! out if I had to choose between Communism and a Fascist dictatorship(or whatever the $#@! that was). I don't like to choose between two evils.

I have however voted for a leftish/socialist party here in the Netherlands, who happen to be Eurosceptical, not nationalist but pro individual. It's kind of a weird mix but they have over the years shown to be more decent in regard to individual rights than any other party and in regards to government spending... The most socialist party here only wants to spend like 5% more than the most 'capitalist' party...... So really, I just get to pick from socialists. But I'll gladly vote human rights over economics if the difference in economics is very minimal but the difference in regards to human rights is vast.

[r3volution 3.0]

Where exactly have I said that ?

You said:

Individual rights > economic success.

That is exactly why I don't care much for economic development unless I am free.

I took these comments to mean that you thought you'd have been be more free under Allende's communism than under Pinochet's regime.

...that you'd have rather lived under the communists than have Pinochet suppress them and reverse their policies.

First of all, I have no clue what that country would have looked like absent Pinochet, neither do you.

Well, its president was an open Marxist who allowed communist para-military groups to run rampant through the country establishing their own de facto revolutionary communist governments, while he himself was pushing through legislation for the collectivization of agriculture and industry, all the time expressing contempt for the Chilean constitution, for which he was denounced by the courts.

Allende was working toward a coup of his own, except his would have resulted in a communist dictatorship, instead of a pro-market one.

And, had he succeeded, no doubt he would have treated the anti-communists much as Pinochet did the communists.

[jmdrake]

Are you a fan of Juan Peron of Argentina, too?

1) Never heard of him.
2) What do you mean by "too?"

I'm neither a fan of Pinochet nor Hitler. One institute market "reforms." The other instituted socialist "reforms." Both arguably turned around basket economies for the better. Both butchered their own people. This thread is pointless.

[jmdrake]

You said:





I took these comments to mean that you thought you'd have been be more free under Allende's communism than under Pinochet's regime.

...that you'd have rather lived under the communists than have Pinochet suppress them and reverse their policies.



Well, its president was an open Marxist who allowed communist para-military groups to run rampant through the country establishing their own de facto revolutionary communist governments, while he himself was pushing through legislation for the collectivization of agriculture and industry, all the time expressing contempt for the Chilean constitution, for which he was denounced by the courts.

Allende was working toward a coup of his own, except his would have resulted in a communist dictatorship, instead of a pro-market one.

And, had he succeeded, no doubt he would have treated the anti-communists much as Pinochet did the communists.

Your point is?

[r3volution 3.0]

Your point is?

...that relatively pro-market Pinochet was much better than hardcore communist Allende.

That, contrary to communist and fellow traveler history, Chile was saved by the coup.

That Pinochet deserves a monument, and Allende deserves to be dumped into the south Atlantic.

[presence]

Chile was saved by the coup.

Chile was saved by the rising price of copper on global markets and before and after the coup copper was nationalized in Chile. So don't get ahead of yourself.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Codelco

The Chilean economy depends heavily on copper price and state run copper to this day




Pinochet greatly reduced tariffs, pegged the currency to the dollar, and privatized several government run industries to his cronies on the cheap... then resocialized most of them later buying them back with state funds from his buddies. The economic reforms all sponsored by CIA operatives; "The Chicago Boys".

Allende was an economic commie dip$#@! that hated fascism.
Pinochet was an economic fascist dip$#@! paid to hate communism by the US.

Neither was really interested in free markets. Pinochet had little interest in political liberty or the right of free association or press.

The market and the market alone can solve the employee to employer relationship problem.

Pinochet liberalized the economy for employers while jackbooting employees.


That's not freedom.

http://www.spunk.org/texts/otherpol/.../sp001280.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_history_of_Chile
http://marginalrevolution.com/margin...od_was_pi.html
http://chomsky-must-read.blogspot.co...-in-chile.html



All of this goes back to the difference between deregulating an economy and dis-intervening in an economy. Pinochet's disinterventions just led to alternative moral hazards.

see:
http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthr...wledge-Problem

Why Disintervention Fails The Flaws

Interventionism is distortive, disruptive, and potentially socially destructive because it attempts to defy the criticisms and possibilities of centralized planning according to the market process view of the dynamic market. Yet disintervention faces the same problems. When disintervening, political actors with necessarily limited information and knowledge must somehow decide, not only what to liberalize, but how and when. It is perhaps these latter considerations which are the truly crucial elements for successful disintervention. "Crude" disinterventionism enacted without understanding the complex interactions that occur between an intervention, other interventions, and the dynamic market process may very well lead to cascading negative unintended consequences. Deregulation in the one sector, let's say housing, might lead to bottlenecks in another complementary (or even seemingly disparate) sector, say in finance, which might cascade into other areas in unpredictable ways.

To better assert this point I offer the following: not all interventions are created equally. I say this to emphasize the fact that not all acts of government interference with the economy can be equally harmful, even according to the most stringent anarcho-libertarian standards. A price floor that falls below the current market rate is not as harmful as the price ceiling that (attempts) to cut the price of a product in half from its going market rate. There also exists the possibility that there may even be less obvious interventions that are unintentionally "beneficial" relative to others given the uncoordinated nature of the interventionist system. Likewise, even many free-market economists would agree that if a banking system must rest upon a "lender of last resort" with its subsequent moral hazard, then some regulatory framework preventing the to-be-expected excessive risk-taking may be justified or necessary in the meantime, even if the longer-run disinterventionist goal is a free market banking system.

The mixed economy often also contains entire markets built on the backs of previously distorted market processes. The wholly superfluous market process emerges where opportunities for profit would otherwise never have existed outside of the influence of interventionism (Kirzner 1985). In the real world this can mean entire industries built on the shaky grounds of government intervention. Though due to a lack of unencumbered price signals, few if any might be able to realize this. Thus there also exists the chance that by liberalizing one sector, or removing one control, that a large collapse may be unleashed and backfire in the face of the disinterventionists harming the political capital necessary to continue with any necessary disinterventions.

All this leaves the question of

which ones are perhaps justified in the mean time in order to prevent further harm by "holding back" other interventions?
How is a planner with their limited knowledge supposed to be able to tell the difference?
Lastly how can these two answers explain in what order to disintervene?

The policy problem I have presented - in the form of entrenched and overlapping, uncoordinated interventions - is one of organized complexity. Even presupposing that the number of interventions is set at point m, what still remains is a complex series of interlocking problems with no clear solution available to anyone guiding the disintervention. Of course I am describing the knowledge problem, traced along its implications for the possibility of (dis)interventionist coordination. Yet it must also be remembered that the knowledge problem is overcome everyday by the market process acting through the price system. Even if the planners understand this insight, they must still ask themselves: "So in a mixed economy, even one completely distorted by rampant intervention, why can't piecemeal disintervention of markets be relied upon to provide the intended results?"

The disinterventionist planner may note that the market tends towards self-correction, and that surely if he just lets the market work, then this problem will sort itself out on its own. While a free market would have the mechanism of the discovery process, guided by profit and loss, for realizing the most socially beneficial ends from available means, interventionism lacks this mechanism in any true spontaneous form. If a disinterventionist plans to liberalize successfully they must decide at some point what to disintervene, when (in what order), and how. Markets are spontaneous orders lacking any centralized direction, made possible by the institutional settings that shape their incentive structures and guide the market process towards socially beneficial ends. So whereas the market process encourages decentralized entrepreneurs to utilize their particular knowledge of the time and place to drive the market towards self-correction and satisfaction of consumers' wants, the command economy - and any decision making in this vein such as (dis)interventionism - lacks the institutions and incentives required to drive a spontaneous process embodying society's dispersed knowledge. In a sentence then, interventionism - and its mirror lacks a spontaneous discovery process for systematically uncovering and incentivizing the correction of its past errors to the benefit of society. Disinterventionism as a policy necessarily confronts the knowledge problem, but this by itself is not enough to sink the mainstream "crude" disinterventionist position. After all, markets and the price system routinely overcome this problem everyday and do so remarkably well. Yet the more specific point I am arguing is that

there is no tendency in piecemeal disintervention
to successfully liberalize
via correctly discovering the proper order, rate,
or even what and where to disintervene.

Pinochets disinterventions clearly stand out as having net negative effect on GDP from 1972 to 1985. He didn't create free markets, he created different markets.

[r3volution 3.0]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile

[Krugminator2]

Chile was a Communist country with hyperinflation when Pinochet took power. Pinochet hired Chicago School economists and made FA Hayek chair of his council of economic advisors.

Chile today is the most economically free country in South and Latin America by far. Chile is more economically free than the US. http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

Chile has the highest per capita GDP of any country in South America. Anyone living in Chile today is indisputably better off for having Pinochet in power.

The question isn't if Pinochet was a good guy or not. The question is whether they were better off with a a Communist or Pinochet. Milton Friedman thought Pinochet. Hayek said he ""not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende."

[presence]

Chile is more economically free than the US. http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

they rank 77.7 (chile) and 75.4 (US) so they are a statistical parity.

from your source:

CHILE:

Property Rights 85.0
Freedom From Corruption 73.0
Government Spending 83.1
Fiscal Freedom 74.8
Business Freedom 72.1
Labor Freedom 64.3
Monetary Freedom 82.9
Trade Freedom 86.4
Investment Freedom 85.0
Financial Freedom 70.0

UNITED STATES of AMERICA

Property Rights 80.0
Freedom From Corruption 74.0
Government Spending 54.7
Fiscal Freedom 65.6
Business Freedom 84.7
Labor Freedom 91.4
Monetary Freedom 77.0
Trade Freedom 87.0
Investment Freedom 70.0
Financial Freedom 70.0

So whereas the US has a fiscal and government spending issue. Chile has a labor freedom issue.

What does this mean?

Four Freedom Categories:

• Rule of Law
• Limited Government
• Regulatory Efficiency
• Open Markets

Fiscal freedom is a measure of the tax burden imposed by government. It includes direct taxes, in terms of the top marginal tax rates on individual and corporate incomes, and overall taxes, including all forms of direct and indirect taxation at all levels of government, as a percentage of GDP.
Fiscal Freedom: How Tax Burden Affects Economic Freedom

www.heritage.org/index/fiscal-freedom

Government Spending



This component considers the level of government expenditures as a percentage of GDP. Government expenditures, including consumption and transfers, account for the entire score.


No attempt has been made to identify an optimal level of government expenditures. The ideal level will vary from country to country, depending on factors ranging from culture to geography to level of development. However, volumes of research have shown that excessive government spending that causes chronic budget deficits and the accumulation of sovereign debt is one of the most serious drags on economic dynamism.
The methodology treats zero government spending as the benchmark, and underdeveloped countries with little government capacity may receive artificially high scores as a result. However, such governments, which can provide few if any public goods, are likely to receive lower scores on some of the other components of economic freedom (such as property rights, financial freedom, and investment freedom) that reflect government effectiveness.
The scale for scoring government spending is non-linear, which means that government spending that is close to zero is lightly penalized, while levels of government spending that exceed 30 percent of GDP lead to much worse scores in a quadratic fashion (for example, doubling spending yields four times less freedom). Only extraordinarily large levels of government spending—for example, over 58 percent of GDP—receive a score of zero.
The expenditure equation used is:

GE_i = 100 – α (Expenditures_i)²

Labor Freedom



The labor freedom component is a quantitative measure that considers various aspects of the legal and regulatory framework of a country’s labor market, including regulations concerning minimum wages, laws inhibiting layoffs, severance requirements, and measurable regulatory restraints on hiring and hours worked.
Six quantitative factors are equally weighted, with each counted as one-sixth of the labor freedom component:1

• Ratio of minimum wage to the average value added per worker,
• Hindrance to hiring additional workers,
• Rigidity of hours,
• Difficulty of firing redundant employees,
• Legally mandated notice period, and
• Mandatory severance pay.

Based on data collected in connection with the World Bank’s Doing Business study, these factors specifically examine labor regulations that affect “the hiring and redundancy of workers and the rigidity of working hours.”2

so in the US you have a value added per worker of 57194 and a minimum wage of 7.25; $7888 value added per dollar of minimum wage
in chile you have value added per worker of 6638 and a minimum wage of 2.83; $2345 value added per dollar of minimum wage.

as we understand from the austrian school, as we increase minimum wage relative to value added, you price out minimum wage workers in favor of technology and overall less economic output.

The equivelent minimum wage in the US would be 57194 / 2345 = $24.38 per hour
which constitutes one of the primary plights of the Chilean economy.
Either you're worth $25 an hour or you don't have a job.


which is why chile has substantial issues with human trafficking; child prostitution, and domestic violence/slavery.

You're worth $25 or you're worthless.




http://www.tradingeconomics.com/coun...r-wb-data.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_...cking_in_Chile
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domest...lence_in_Chile


so whereas the gdp of chile has risen substantially since the time of pinochet; so too has unemployment and percent living in poverty; and we're not talking US iphone poverty; chile had an issue with indegence by 1987; 17%. http://web.worldbank.org/archive/web.../PDF/CHILE.PDF

the percentage of Chilean population living in poverty rose from 17% in 1969 to 45% in 1985.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile


it wasn't until Chile had achieved both financial and political freedom in the 90's that the economy really began to grow; which shows that no amount of piecemeal disintervention will solve the market problem. In many ways "the people" are better off under a well organized socialist state than they are under a poorly planned disintervention. Even though the economic output of the country as a whole may be rising under disintervention, the little man gets squeezed if the changes benefit primarily big business.





Milton Friedman, like Ron Paul... foresaw that radical change in economic policy moving towards "more free" on the spectrum would have immediate negative effects on the poor, pushing them temporarily towards indigent. Pinochet chose to ignore the warning.

[Friedman] proposed relief of cases of real hardship among poorest classes.

http://www.ecaef.org/klex/user/1/41894820_10_10.ppt

That suggestion was ignored until Aylwin took office in 1990; which is when the real growth in the chilean economy has occurred.

The economic intervention of the State causes poverty.
Elimination of the economic State (disintervention) causes the most needy to become completely indigent on the short horizon.

Pinochet took the nuclear approach.

So, on balance, you all think that communism under Allende would have been preferable to Pinochet's relatively pro-market dictatorship?

...no comprendo.

for the average joe, yes; communism under Allende was better than the immidate effects of living under Pinochet

it is simply impossible to know how all of these rules, codes, and regulations affect one another. To remove one intervention that seemingly causes clear negative unintended consequences, may not actually erase those negative effects. There may still be other complementary interventions, or the market process may have been so distorted under the intervention as to render those effects inflexible. It should therefore come as no surprise if an intervention is finally removed unaccompanied by any positive effects as were expected. There is also the possibility that disintervention can make the economic situation worse than it had been.

and you have to note all of this discussion is also tainted by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Condor

After Pinochet assumed power, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told Nixon that the United States "didn't do it" (referring to the coup itself) but had "created the conditions as great [sic] as possible".^[32]

So we can assume there was great manipulation by foreign actors in the chilean economy during Allende's rule.

[ThePaleoLibertarian]

Pinochet was a thug, but a right wing thug is always better than a left wing thug (barring bizarre aberrations like Nazism, whose status as right wing is at least debatable). The fact is, that sometimes countries need a thug to run the place. Latin American countries seem to have nothing but.

Keep in mind that during the beginning of Pinochet's rule, the Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. The French Revolution had Year One and The Terror; the Khmer Rouge had Year Zero and horror that would make Colonel Kurtz blush. There were many mass-murderers in the 20th Century, but none had such an insane break from reality as the Cambodian Communists did. There was a real fear of a Khmer Rouge-like regime arising in Latin America. Would Allende's theoretical Chile have turned into Cambodia? Probably not, Pol Pot's communism was... unique to say the least. Bust still, it's not a risk worth taking. Compared to some theoretical libertarian government, Pinochet was awful, compared to the actual options available at the time, he was the best there was. By far.

[farreri]

barring bizarre aberrations like Nazism, whose status as right wing is at least debatable

They were right wing socialists. I'd even argue North Korea are right wing communists since NK's ideology is the Korean people are the most pure race on the planet--something influenced on them by fascist Japan at the time--and don't allow non-Koreans to live in NK.

[Occam's Banana]

Damn right. Individual rights > economic success.

Fixed version: individual rights = economic success

You know, when you think about it, Adolf Hitler turned the German economy around despite having the economic philosophy of national socialism.

Did he, though? Seems to me the Piper eventually got his pay - with interest.

One way or another, that is always what happens when you try to shortcut or cheat reality.

(And the laws of economics are quite real ...)

[r3volution 3.0]

FDid he, though? Seems to me the Piper eventually got his pay - with interest.

One way or another, that is always what happens when you try to shortcut or cheat reality.

(And the laws of economics are quite real ...)

Yes, Hitler, much praised by Keynes at the time, turned around the German economy in the same way that FDR ended the depression.

i.e. only in his own propaganda

[Lamp]

>only killed 3200 people and most of them were Cuban/Chinese/Soviet allied guerillas
>most advanced and just about the only decent country in SA
>left after 17 years after giving his people the vote
>Actually listened to Uncle Miltie

sounds like a pretty ok guy to me

[r3volution 3.0]

Yes, fellow, with odd Japanese name (stop watching anime, bad, bad), you have the hang of the reign.

[Lamp]

Um not sure how that relates to anything but I'm not really breaking the law or doing anything morally objectionable when I sit down and read my comics for fun

[r3volution 3.0]

I was just harassing you, as a new member.

The important thing is that Pinochet did indeed, despite the lingering leftist sentimentality of certain folks here, save Chile.

And this says something very important about the future of American politics.

(...which you appear to appreciate)

[Natural Citizen]

Um not sure how that relates to anything but I'm not really breaking the law or doing anything morally objectionable when I sit down and read my comics for fun

Well not yet anyway. But they better not be fake comics.