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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Who names a country after a food? Chile thread.
 
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Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

Absurd Alhazred posted:

What do you think about Michelle Bachelet? Any good critiques of her current plans?

She's doing a lot to make the system more equal (raising taxes, education reform, indigenous rights), but many of those who voted for her are saying she needs to move faster. The big deal right now is making education free at all levels and reforming the constitution (or just straight up rewriting it). A lot of my Chilean friends thought she wouldn't have the balls to call a Constitutional Assembly, so we'll see if that happens.

Here's an article in English on her first 100 days and here's one about education reform. She says her goal is free education for all by 2020.

* # ¿ Jul 25, 2014 23:26
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Badger of Basra
Jul 26, 2007

wateroverfire posted:

Working on this. Don't have a ton of time.

The TLDR -

Bachelet is making a lot of (business) people nervous.

She proposed a tax reform that would have eliminated the corporate veil WRT taxation and passed retained earnings (money taxed at the corporate rate but left in the company) through to the owners as personal income. This would have raised the corporate rate, effectively, from 20% to 35% and utterly hosed the shareholders of public companies with detrimental effects in Chile's stock market, for pension funds, etc. That did not happen, thankfully, and the compromise that seems set to pass raises the corporate rate from 20% to 27% among a bunch of other more technical things.

She is committed to education reforms that, partly because of the tax compromise and partly because the original tax proposal was total fantasy anyway, there is no way to pay for. Free higher education for all Chilean students would cost approximately 9 billion dollars, or about 3% of Chilean GDP. Her education minister had talked about buying all the hybrid public-private institutions and making them fully public. Depending on whose estimates you take on the value of those concerns the cost could be 5 billion or 17 billion. Either way the money isn't there. Education is a big sexy issue competing right now with issues like public health spending (very underfunded) and Chile's growing energy needs.

*Axes Hydro Aysen. Declares victory for SOCIAL JUSTICE. Pays highest rates for energy in Latin America and wonders why poo poo is so expensive to make here*

And in general there's a populist vibe that reminds many people uncomfortably of the bad old days.

That said, Bachelet enjoys wide support in general despite approval having come down from the stratospheric heights it attained during the primaries.

How does it feel to be a Matthei voter?

* # ¿ Jul 28, 2014 18:36
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Who names a country after a food? Chile thread.