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wateroverfire posted:It's a shame that along with your ability to google export statistics you don't know more history. Copper is not a new thing in Chile, and has been its major export in bad times (60's, 70's, into the 80's) and good. Sometimes it's a drag and sometimes a boon but since the 70's Chile has had nothing like the economic crisis suffered by, for instance, Argentina, despite fluctuating copper prices and, like I said, much lower stocks of human and social capital. By rights Argentina, which also has a plentiful endowment of resources, should be the most stable and prosperous country on the continent. Instead its neighbor takes that prize and policy is the reason for that. I recognize bad policy when it is apparent, and even then I don't think the current government is Argentina is great but in comparison you haven't offered anything. Copper prices were very high most of the 2000s, and in 2008/2014-15 took dives which has shown up the Chilean economy. That said, Argentina has bad leadership but the worst of it was in the 1990s and it wasn't very leftist. You can criticize the current administration (and its predecessor) for not fixing it, but it isn't a story that starts with them and going back to previous policy isn't going to fix it either. quote:As part of a stable economy that can support that spending, yeah, education and social spending are potentially productive and good long term investments. In the context of an economy that just cracked down on travel agencies to prevent dollars leaving the country, that confiscated billions of dollars in private pension funds and forcibly converted them to pesos, that is right now in litigation over defaulting on hundreds of billions in externally held debt and had to do a deal with China just to stave off collapse, one has to wonder whether priorities are misplaced. Or if, as you believe, leftism cannot fail but can only be failed. Yeah that is pretty much what I expected considering. Anyway, like I said there is no free lunch, and if they strap the budget now then they are going to have to pay for it later in a different form. It isn't even just illiterate children and riots you have to worry about, but a shortfall in income and taxation. I believe non-sense that doesn't work shouldn't be tried again, that goes for both left-wing and right-wing policy. As far as open borders and attracting investment line, I heard it a million times before. As far as their options, if Argentina wants to attract manufacturing they will have to drop wages to their competitors (the developing world). As far as Argentinian exports, they are still largely dominated by agricultural products, and Argentina simply doesn't have the mining/metal industry that Chile has. It doesn't it have an energy export market either. It has people with skills but it isn't easy to turn that into hard capital by having foreign investors come in (despite what many people think). Edit: That capital isn't going to come in necessarily either because middle income emerging markets are toxic. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 18:18
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Jack of Hearts posted:Since when is Peronism leftism? Don't let the kids know Peronism is a conservative ideology! 
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Apr 29, 2015 18:21
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Future Days posted:Don't let the kids know Peronism is a conservative ideology! It is a syncretic ideology that more or less is corporatist, authoritarian and populist at the same time. It isn't liberal or socialist.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:24
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Future Days posted:Don't let the kids know Peronism is a conservative ideology! Anything to the left of El Capitán General and His Prophet, Jaime Guzmán, is leftism. (But UDI's current official tagline is "el Partido Popular"  )
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Apr 29, 2015 18:24
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wateroverfire posted:"Not real leftists" is also a popular response. =/ That doesn't really address the question.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:30
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Peronism my rear end, this is just Mussolini's ideology with a wig.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:31
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Ardennes posted:Ultimately you are just shifting costs, and to be honest, I don't know what type of social efficiency you are going to get out of this especially since services were already means-tested to some extent. Yes, it is shifting costs. Now you tell me: why should we keep giving the state's money to giant service corporations, instead of investing that money in things that generate REAL growth? The cons are: -People will pay more tax The pros are: -People will be forced to use energy more conservatively, thus lessening the overal expenditure in service provision. -More eco-friendly usage of services -Huge rear end reinvestment in other parts of the economy that REALLY need that money (health, education, infrastructure). -Corporation's profit now being paid directly by the consumer, thus eliminating most of the governments role as middle man between the service corporations and the consumer. -This renowed consumer-corporation relationship would open doors for other service providers to enter the competition (lets also add that most of this corporations that we are talking about are holding a monopoly on their areas). Ardennes posted:The bracket system of the income tax needs to be adjusted for (market) inflation but it is still not as regressive as a VAT. If you get rid of all income taxes there is going to be a giant gap in the budget. If anything much higher brackets need to be added to it. I agree with you on this one, and i'm sorry if it seemed like i said i wanted to remove income tax. It has to be adjusted, yes; today, some people earning just a little bit over the living wage are already paying income tax, which actually decreases their income to living, sometimes sub-living wage ammounts. Ardennes posted:Isn't that the dream? But rarely economics works out so simply and to be honest, you are way over estimating how much savings you are going to get when you consider when costs are actually calculated for lower and middle income families. I think you are misunderstanding what i'm talking about here. Where are you from? Economics and politics work very differently here than in the West. It's not about savings and taxes, and borrowing and spending. We have, in Argentina, ludicrous ammounts of public resources invested in straight, useless poo poo. We live in a country in which 10% of the population is less than poor, in which people die due to lack of drinkable water, and the government spends money to buy the exclusive rights to televise football. There is some deep, immoral poo poo going down, and that's what we have to tackle first. TheLovablePlutonis posted:Peronism my rear end, this is just Mussolini's ideology with a wig. Amen to that, brotha!
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Apr 29, 2015 18:45
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Yggdrassil posted:Yes, it is shifting costs. Now you tell me: why should we keep giving the state's money to giant service corporations, instead of investing that money in things that generate REAL growth? Yes, I know the argument, but I honestly don't think the savings you are going to get from energy savings is going to add up to what you expect to pay for improvements. One thing is most likely you are going to have spend most of the money on subsidies from the consumer end, and even then because of the Peso's instability, consumers may be shortchanged as subsidies don't match costs. Ultimately you may end up still savings some money, but it isn't a country savings measure then of course also it is very possible deregulation could backfire. quote:
I agree with that totally, but my criticism is to interject what is going to be possible. I would certainly like to see a new government in Argentina that does work to eliminate poverty and improve infrastructure but the way to get there is quite murky.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:58
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Ardennes posted:I recognize bad policy when it is apparent, and even then I don't think the current government is Argentina is great but in comparison you haven't offered anything. What do you want? I'm offering my criticism of your non-criticism. Ardennes posted:Copper prices were very high most of the 2000s, and in 2008/2014-15 took dives which has shown up the Chilean economy. That said, Argentina has bad leadership but the worst of it was in the 1990s and it wasn't very leftist. You can criticize the current administration (and its predecessor) for not fixing it, but it isn't a story that starts with them and going back to previous policy isn't going to fix it either. The world economy took a dive in 2008 and trade in everything with its major partners took a dive at the same time. Chile bounced back pretty quickly, though. 2014-2015 is partly copper and partly political. The dollar has actually been coming down a little because despite low copper prices imports fell off a cliff and we're piling up dollars. Ardennes posted:Yeah that is pretty much what I expected considering. Anyway, like I said there is no free lunch, and if they strap the budget now then they are going to have to pay for it later in a different form. It isn't even just illiterate children and riots you have to worry about, but a shortfall in income and taxation. LOL. Truly, the only way forward for Argentina is to keep digging. And definitely not to reform energy subsidies so it can sell natural gas to Chile and its neighbors.
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Apr 29, 2015 18:59
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wateroverfire posted:The world economy took a dive in 2008 and trade in everything with its major partners took a dive at the same time. Chile bounced back pretty quickly, though. 2014-2015 is partly copper and partly political. The dollar has actually been coming down a little because despite low copper prices imports fell off a cliff and we're piling up dollars. It seems mostly to be copper, and general economic currents. The big aberration seems to be in the early 1990s but that is in part likely do to political change. You presented Chile as a model but ultimately Chile is a commodity focused economy both historically that doesn't map to Argentina. As for imports falling, it is probably a combination of a weaker currency, lower commodity prices on what Chile doesn't have (oil/gas) and general internal weakening. quote:LOL. Truly, the only way forward for Argentina is to keep digging. And definitely not to reform energy subsidies so it can sell natural gas to Chile and its neighbors. Argentina would have to dramatically slash usage for it to happen. Yeah you can do that but in the end someone has to pay. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 19:16 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 19:14
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Ardennes posted:Yes, I know the argument, but I honestly don't think the savings you are going to get from energy savings is going to add up to what you expect to pay for improvements. One thing is most likely you are going to have spend most of the money on subsidies from the consumer end, and even then because of the Peso's instability, consumers may be shortchanged as subsidies don't match costs. Ultimately you may end up still savings some money, but it isn't a country savings measure then of course also it is very possible deregulation could backfire. Again, Ardennes: this is not about savings. It's not about scraping some part of the corporate subsidies. It's about taking the whole thing down. Today, we pay just a fraction of what people in the rest of the world pay in regards of energy. To give you an example; i'm living with two other people in my house currently. We have air con, TV, and all the middle class ammenities you would normally expect. We paid, last month, on our electricity bill, the equivalent in pesos to 8 U$S. People SHOULD pay more. The balance, whether you like it or not, has to be done (in this department) on the backs of the population. That way, the state is not in the need to pay more subsidies, therefore being able to invest that money in health, education, infraestructure, etc. These are NOT energy savings. These are very heavy subsidies reforms that predate on FIFTY PERCENT of our growth investment funds. Julio De Vido, our Plannification Minister had 150.000.000.000 U$S to invest in our growth. Half of that has gone to subsidies. The other half has mostly disappeared thanks to payments on debt interests, corruption, etc. Ardennes posted:I agree with that totally, but my criticism is to interject what is going to be possible. I would certainly like to see a new government in Argentina that does work to eliminate poverty and improve infrastructure but the way to get there is quite murky. It is murky indeed 
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Apr 29, 2015 19:22
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Ardennes posted:It seems mostly to be copper, and general economic currents. The big aberration seems to be in the early 1990s but that is in part likely do to political change. You presented Chile as a model but ultimately Chile is a commodity focused economy both historically that doesn't map to Argentina. As for imports falling, it is probably a combination of a weaker currency, lower commodity prices on what Chile doesn't have (oil/gas) and general internal weakening. Chile is a pretty decent example of not loving up internal policy in a way that destroys decades of accumulated capital and leaves the government scavenging travel agencies for dollars, is the point. It's not down to the winds of fate that Chile didn't end up that way. Argentina's policies are going to look a little different because Argentina is different but the point that it can't afford, for instance, to subsidize an $8 monthly electric bill for a modern household of 3 still remains. Bachelet and her coalition are at least as important a factor in the recent slowdown as external factors. =/ Ardennes posted:Argentina would have to dramatically slash usage for it to happen. Yeah you can do that but in the end someone has to pay. Slash usage and invest in production, yeah. It's a thing that needs to happen.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:45
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Yggdrassil posted:Again, Ardennes: this is not about savings. It's not about scraping some part of the corporate subsidies. It's about taking the whole thing down. Today, we pay just a fraction of what people in the rest of the world pay in regards of energy. To give you an example; i'm living with two other people in my house currently. We have air con, TV, and all the middle class ammenities you would normally expect. We paid, last month, on our electricity bill, the equivalent in pesos to 8 U$S. It is ultimately about how the accounting balances out, you can pay more for energy as a consumer and then in turn have to cut back elsewhere at an individual level. It is likely that energy usage will go down with higher prices, but ultimately a lot of energy usage is going to be hard to get rid of. You can lower further with energy efficiency programs but usually that is a long term solution. There is also an issue with the companies themselves who outlaid an investment counting on subsidies, and in turn they have sunk costs. Ultimately, they will have to make these back some how, and if you price control without subsidies they will take the brunt of it. I don't necessarily even think it is that bad to continue to means test and moderately raise prices for some consumers, but it isn't going to be necessarily the jackpot you think it will be to pay for all those extra expenses. It just simply isn't a issue of you eliminating the subsidies then everything just sort of works out.
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Apr 29, 2015 19:54
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wateroverfire posted:Chile is a pretty decent example of not loving up internal policy in a way that destroys decades of accumulated capital and leaves the government scavenging travel agencies for dollars, is the point. It's not down to the winds of fate that Chile didn't end up that way. Argentina's policies are going to look a little different because Argentina is different but the point that it can't afford, for instance, to subsidize an $8 monthly electric bill for a modern household of 3 still remains. Chile wouldn't necessarily be immune from the issues Chile has, if anything Chile is very reliant on external factors. That said, during the 1990s, Chile had better governance than Argentina...it was also largely left of Argentina as well. As far as energy efficiency, you can probably get most of your efficiency through moderately raising tariffs starting from the top and moving on down but honestly I don't see Argentina finding that much more savings out of it unless you go for Ceausescu style austerity. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Apr 29, 2015 |
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Apr 29, 2015 20:01
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Given that Venezuela has it's own thread, i'm toying with the idea of starting an Argentinian thread. After all, poo poo happens here every day, we are a never-ending source of stories (for better or worse).
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Apr 29, 2015 20:11
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Not to dredge what is maybe a dead subject: but I was looking at recent statistics (2012) and Argentinian electricity consumption was 286 watts per capita, a little more than Uruguay (273) and Brazil (268) but ultimately under the world average. I was actually a bit surprised it would be under China (458), I guess manufacturing it partly up to blame. Also, Chile was 369 watts per capita.
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Apr 29, 2015 21:32
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Yggdrassil posted:Given that Venezuela has it's own thread, i'm toying with the idea of starting an Argentinian thread. Please do. I hope we eventually get our own Borneo Jimmy.
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Apr 29, 2015 22:00
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Azran posted:I hope we eventually get our own Borneo Jimmy. Yeah, someone from La Campora will do...
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Apr 29, 2015 22:04
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So how about those teachers in Paraná?
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Apr 29, 2015 22:26
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 We're all for education, but the opinions and expectations of actual teachers are too detached from the policy realities of educating people.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:09
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Apparently 17 policemen refused to join the others when they started beating the poo poo out of the protesters and got arrested for that 
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Apr 29, 2015 23:13
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See, it's not about how you protest, it never is. It's about who is protesting.
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Apr 29, 2015 23:24
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TheLovablePlutonis posted:Apparently 17 policemen refused to join the others when they started beating the poo poo out of the protesters and got arrested for that Traitorous scum, I hope they hang.
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Apr 30, 2015 00:16
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Dias posted:See, it's not about how you protest, it never is. It's about who is protesting. Protesto que pede Intervenção Militar é tratado com Educação. Protesto que pede Educação é tratado com Intervenção Militar. (I stole this from someone else)
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Apr 30, 2015 00:19
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bagual posted:We're all for education, but the opinions and expectations of actual teachers are too detached from the policy realities of educating people. This specific conflict was about a law that made some changes to the pension plan for all state employees, the teachers were there because they are already on strike.
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Apr 30, 2015 00:22
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Magrov posted:This specific conflict was about a law that made some changes to the pension plan for all state employees, the teachers were there because they are already on strike. Which makes the situation ironic and depressing, because that law project also fucks with policemen's rights. So the PM was beating up people standing up for them, basically. Ain't Brazil beautiful.
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Apr 30, 2015 00:36
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Yggdrassil posted:Again, Ardennes: this is not about savings. It's not about scraping some part of the corporate subsidies. It's about taking the whole thing down. All of it, no exceptions for any socially-vulnerable sectors? Mind you, residential energy subsidies are focused on the B.A. metro area so I'd love to see real impacts on revenue (re)distribution. quote:Today, we pay just a fraction of what people in the rest of the world pay in regards of energy. To give you an example; i'm living with two other people in my house currently. We have air con, TV, and all the middle class ammenities you would normally expect. We paid, last month, on our electricity bill, the equivalent in pesos to 8 U$S. There is a voluntary opt-out mechanism for these subsidies. Not many have put their money in their mouth. I still agree with the general concept of raising those rates for most. quote:It is murky indeed I don't like it either, but on the two occasions where the current govt wanted to slash those subsidies, the backlash was huge. I wouldn't want to fall into a simplistic analysis of this situation.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:06
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Tony Sorete posted:All of it, no exceptions for any socially-vulnerable sectors? Mind you, residential energy subsidies are focused on the B.A. metro area so I'd love to see real impacts on revenue (re)distribution. All of it. And regarding socially-vulnerable sectors, the real way to deal with that is reforming current social subsidies -of which we have several. Also, i love your forum name.
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Apr 30, 2015 01:18
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Well, according to the Parana government representative, the response of using dogs, rubber bullets and batons to disperse the protesting teachers was not disproportionate. It would only be excessive if they had used lethal force. And here we have a video shot by members of the PSDB government celebrating the police attacking the teachers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ram0jFobI2s For the non-Brazilians who may not be familiar with what is going on: the state government of Parana (run by PSDB) has decided to cut pensions of certain public servants. These include police, teachers, etc. The teachers were protesting the vote peacefully when what is depicted above happened. The contrast is with the demonstrations against the federal government (run by PT), asking for military intervention, which were not only protected by the police, but had special police schemes to make it easier for protesters to get to the sites. Similarly, the media has treated the two protests very differently. For the Anti-PT protests, publications like Folha and Estado had schedules, ways to get to the protest, a whatsapp number to send pictures and testimonials to, etc. For these ones, they went unannounced and, once they happened, always described as a protests by the unions.
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Apr 30, 2015 18:49
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joepinetree posted:cut pensions of certain public servants. This is incorrect. A state can't cut state employee pensions because both the value and the requisites for the benefits are defined in the federal constitution. What happens is that according to the current law, the state is directly responsible for the payment of some current and future benefits, structured under a pay as you go regime. There is also a capitalized fund that is responsible for the rest of the benefits. The proposed law shifted a bunch of curent retirees from the pay as you go regime to the capitalized fund. Theoretically this is good for the state employees because the capitalized system is theoretically more robust. In practice, the state is just reducing its present contributions to the pension system (saving R$ 150 million per month) and shifting the burden to the future. So, the pensions are not being cut right now. But this law reduces the capitalization levels of the state pension system (which is one of the largest in the country), and will certainly increase the pressure for cutting benefits in the future by changing the federal constitution.
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Apr 30, 2015 19:22
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Which is a distinction without a difference. Maybe I should have clarified that it wouldn't affect current retirees right now. But the bottom line is that the proposal creates serious problems long term. Which is the pretty standard way in which governments cut pensions. Cutting pensions outright is political death in any democracy, so the way governments do it is via things like this. By putting current retirees on the capitalized system (which currently runs a surplus because it is a newer system), it creates a serious long term solvency problem. One that will only be solved by either greater contributions or lower pensions in the future.
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May 1, 2015 00:30
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Yggdrassil posted:Yeah, someone from La Campora will do... Actually, only the unbiased perspective of a lily white American suburb-dweller will be able to adequately correct the errors and biases among Argentinian posters.
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May 1, 2015 01:17
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As someone who saw the Nueve Reinas remake I'm an expert of Argentina's economy and culture...
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May 1, 2015 02:10
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Jonad posted:Actually, only the unbiased perspective of a lily white American suburb-dweller will be able to adequately correct the errors and biases among Argentinian posters. Snobbish Argentinian middle-upper class ignorants will nod with delight to those Americans that dare post their opinión.
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May 1, 2015 03:01
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Happy workers day everybody. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm67dMztvqk
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May 1, 2015 04:54
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hecko posted:Happy workers day everybody. Haha, this is amazing. I work freelance tho.
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May 1, 2015 05:10
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My employer pays double if i work tomorrow, AND he gives me a day off that i can schedule whenever i want. I love holidays.
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May 1, 2015 06:33
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joepinetree posted:Which is a distinction without a difference. Maybe I should have clarified that it wouldn't affect current retirees right now. But the bottom line is that the proposal creates serious problems long term. Which is the pretty standard way in which governments cut pensions. Cutting pensions outright is political death in any democracy, so the way governments do it is via things like this. By putting current retirees on the capitalized system (which currently runs a surplus because it is a newer system), it creates a serious long term solvency problem. One that will only be solved by either greater contributions or lower pensions in the future. I work with this stuff, and you are mostly wrong. First of all, not affecting current retirees right now is a big loving issue. Secondly, the law increases the state contribution in the future, offsetting the contribution holiday it is giving itself. Thirdly, state pensions are defined in the federal constitution, so there is no way to lower the state pensions unless the federal congress agrees to cut every federal/state/municipal pensions by issuing a constitutional amendment. As easy as it is to side with the teachers in this case, technically speaking the issue is pretty complex. The same teachers that are protesting against this law would be the first to support it if part of those R$ 150 millions saved were used to increase their salaries. As it has happened in other states, by the way. Also, state pensions are broken as poo poo and should be reviewed. The vast majority of the municipalities and states are currently unable to sustain their pension plans. The only reason these plans still exist is because: 1 - its an easy way to make a lot of money by investing public funds in private investiments 2 - according to the constitution, the federal employees are subject to the same rules. Also, if you are worried about state pensions, the MG state pension fund is waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more hosed than the paraná one (even considering the new law). Obviously there is no reason for anybody be attacked by police dogs and water jet tanks and tear gas and stuff for protesting against this law. gently caress that poo poo. Beto Richa is the scum of the earth and should lead the line to the guillotine. Magrov fucked around with this message at 08:06 on May 1, 2015 |
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May 1, 2015 08:01
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Cool, you are a loving expert. I'd rather stick with what people like the president of the Comissao de Direitos Previdenciarios da OAB (who actually supports the law) who talked about the project reducing the solvency of the system from 54+ years (depending on the estimate) to 29. http://www.alep.pr.gov.br/web/baixarArquivo.php?id=54498&tipo=I As the technical note in the attached law shows, the immediate impact is that the state saves R$142 million a month that now starts to come from the surplus of the capitalized fund. Meanwhile, it also establishes that the royalties from Itaipu would be used to fund the capitalized fund in the future, but with a 1 billion reais limit. No other additional state contributions are established. And the pension funds in most states and cities are hosed precisely because of laws like this, where the surplus is squandered in exchange of a promise to contribute more in the future. As for the constitutionality of lowering pensions, all one has to do is look at EC 41, or any of the changes to pensions, really (including the creation of retiree contributions in Parana in 2012). You don't need to actually cut pensions to reduce the take home pay of retirees. The reason for these protests is not that the unions can't do math. joepinetree fucked around with this message at 16:31 on May 1, 2015 |
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May 1, 2015 16:19
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Reports say Canada, the US, and Uruguay are the top consumers of cocaine. Welcome to the First World, guys!
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May 1, 2015 16:44
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