Crisis devastated middle class

[bemildred]

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina - (KRT) - Seated at a small table in his living room, Enrique Jose Belchior gently folded his expensive wired-rimmed glasses, one of the few reminders left of a time when the 55-year-old had a decent-paying job and faith in the Argentine economy.

''I wouldn't be able to afford new ones,'' Belchior explained as he cradled the designer case that looked so out of place among the sparse possessions in the bungalow he rents in a working-class neighborhood south of Buenos Aires.

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Until the early 1990s, about 60 percent of Argentines were considered middle class and had a high standard of living, according to economic reports. Middle-class Argentines ate steak daily and, thanks to an overvalued currency, could easily afford travel abroad to Miami and Europe.

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''Beyond the fact that you just can't do the things you used to do before, what bothers you is all this was imposed on you'' - even the sight of children eating from the garbage in downtown Buenos Aires, said Belchior. ``I don't expect anything, anything at all, from this country or from business groups.''

Sun Herald

[gratuitous]

1. The Bushistas' Dream

An entire nation of citizens who "don't expect anything, anything at all, from this country or from business groups." So much easier to plunder the United States when the middle class is so beaten down they don't even hope anymore.

[bemildred]

4. Coming soon to neighborhoods near you ... nt

[Eloriel]

22. Yep -- must read link if you doubt it

The Economic Tsunami : Coming Sooner Than You Think
(The country has been intentionally plundered and will eventually wind up in the hands of its creditors as Bush and his lieutenants planned from the very beginning....This same Ponzi scheme has been carried out repeatedly by the IMF and World Bank throughout the world; Argentina being the last dramatic illustration.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=118706&mesg_id=118706
Link: http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16735.shtml

[Demit]

2. Off-topic, but I clicked your link to read the article and

whoever is the brainiac who put a banner ad of cockroaches crawling around at the top just got my vote on how to make a reader close the page really fast without reading the article underneath. Sorry.

[bemildred]

16. The need to draw attention trumps worry about annoying viewers. nt

[Demit]

20. Disgust trumps everything. nt

[Mandate My Ass]

3. Coming soon to America

courtesy of GW Bush and the moneyed elite he serves.

[earth mom]

11. Exactly!

and it's time for America to WAKE UP!

[Dora]

5. What caused the Argentine crisis?

What caused their economic downfall? Can someone explain it for me simply?

[ibid]

6. deficits

:-(

[Mandate My Ass]

7. IMF, for the most part

Good summary here:

http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1230-01.htm

Argentina
Blame the IMF Crowd
The One-Size-Fits-All Globalization Model Just Didn't Work

by Marc Cooper

A businessman trafficking in women in the red-light district of Buenos Aires refers to his most sought-after prostitute as la mina--the gold mine that produces his wealth. That's precisely the unfortunate role Argentina played in world markets over the last decade--it has been a gold mine for overseas investors.

Throughout the 1990s, Argentina dutifully carried out the orders of the men who run the international financial markets. It privatized state-owned industries, selling them off to foreigners. It embraced free trade and pegged its national currency, the peso, to the U.S. dollar. That Argentina was ruled by a gangster regime for most of the decade--former President Carlos Menem was only recently released from house arrest for his role in an international gun-running scheme--seemed to matter little to world bankers. As long as it remained a lucrative investment for mobile international capital, as long as it churned out double-digit profits for wealthy overseas bondholders, Argentina was the darling of globalization. But after bloody civil unrest drove President Fernando de la Rua from power earlier this month and Argentina suspended payments on its international debts, the global money managers acted as if they had nothing to do with the country's economic collapse. It was Argentine mismanagement and corruption that were to blame. True, they were contributing factors. Yet the men who run the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other multilateral financial agencies have some explaining to do, too. Argentina obeyed to the letter the nostrums the IMF routinely prescribes for the poorer half of the world: It cut social spending, reduced wages, raised prices and balanced the budget to attract foreign investment. Even as default loomed, the IMF pumped billions of dollars more into Argentina in return for its obedience--and the economy still collapsed.

[UpInArms]

10. privatization of all public entitles, utilities, etc

google for bush+enron+argentina

it will make your skin crawl

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. privatization of their economy although they had problems prior

[reality based]

18. Greg Palast has answers

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=96&row=2
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=169&row=2

[enid602]

8. Argentina

Don't forget that it was Menim's (then Argentine President's) attempt to privatize social security that (after many years of high government spencing) that caused 'el crisis.'

Ironically, the dollar's fall has made their dollar-denominated foreign debt easier to digest, and HUGE agricultural exports to the dollar-laden Chinese made for 9% growth last year, and 7% growth this year. Nice to see that at least one country can profit from our ills.

[UpInArms]

15. more on GHWB and Menem

http://ahrc.com/old/HOAorg/Media/ma_050700_LAT_CHUBB.html

excerpt (please read the entire article)

Bush's closeness to Menem has led to considerable--and sometimes erroneous--speculation in the Argentine press. First elected in 1989, Menem, who served 10 years, is credited with modernizing and bringing stability to Argentina's economy but has been tainted by allegations of corruption against members of his inner circle and former Cabinet aides.

Since leaving the White House, Bush has met with Menem during five trips to Argentina and three Menem visits to the United States.

In 1994, Bush traveled to Buenos Aires twice, delivering paid speeches to banker and pharmaceutical groups. That April, Bush also did a favor for gambling mogul Wynn, who often hosts the former president at his exclusive Las Vegas home and golf course.

Menem had issued a decree allowing construction of a casino in Buenos Aires. Wynn's Mirage Resorts Co. wanted to build it. At Wynn's request, Bush wrote Menem that Wynn was favorably known to him while stating that he had no financial interest in the deal, Peressutti said. Wynn thought the note would "establish his credentials," said Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman.

After local officials objected to the Argentine federal government's making such decisions, Menem withdrew his approval and Wynn's casino project died.

Nevertheless, after Argentine news accounts of Bush's visits and alleged Bush family meddling in government decisions, seven members of the country's Chamber of Deputies sent extensive written questions to Menem about his relationship with the Bush family.

...more...

[TahitiNut]

9. Gini index of around 0.53 (U.S. is about 0.44)

Income distribution in Argentina has changed drastically over the past twenty years. In greater Buenos Aires, the gini coefficient, or the measure of the income inequality in which zero equals perfect equality and one equals perfect inequality (one person has all the income), has risen from around 0.38 in 1980 to nearly 0.53 in 2002. As the country’s income distribution has worsened, the rates of poverty have risen as well, especially since the high rates of economic growth in the early 1990s.

http://info.worldbank.org/etools/bspan/PresentationView.asp?PID=370&EID=186

[RaleighNCDUer]

12. That sounds disturbingly familiar. nt

[tom_paine]

13. Which is EXACTLY the kind of 'crisis' the Busheviks are purposefully

formenting here in Imperial Amerika.

But if they think for a SECOND that Free America is going down (REDACTED), they have another thing coming!

[leftofthedial]

14. Murka 2008

Neocon wet dream

the actual consequences of the repuke ideology.

[Jose Diablo]

19. It's really too bad that most people in America

Do not know what Bu$h and his 'globalist' buddies have done around the world. If it became common knowledge, everyone could then see the similarities between what Bu$h is trying to do here, and how these same people have screwed people all over the world.

[struggle4progress]

21. "What we've done to others, we can do to you." -- The Ownership Society