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To: elmatador who wrote (22751)	8/17/2002 3:59:52 AM
From: smolejv@gmx.net	Respond to of 74559

Message 17888903 (I'm repeating myself ;)

To: elmatador who wrote (22751)	8/17/2002 1:07:31 PM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 74559

Hi Elmat - In response to the things you complain of, I would like to remind you that it is mathematically impossible to have at the same time free flow of capital, fixed exchange rates, and full freedom to enact desireable domestic social policies. There's no use complaining about it, it cannot be done. members.cox.net The EU has accepted it, and decided that they wanted free flow of capital and fixed exchange rates, so they have adopted austerity measures that are sometimes galling (high unemployment in Germany, etc.). They gave up the freedom to do whatever they want vis-a-vis domestic social policy. The US has accepted it, and gave up fixed exchange rates, opting to keep free flow of capital and the freedom to enact desireable social policies. Latin American countries insist on trying to have all three at once. It cannot be done. Devaluation is an inevitable result of having an indefensible fixed exchange rate -- well, the alternative is deflation, but then foreign capital flies away anyway. If the response is to halt free flow of capital, well, you see, you can't have all three. Hernando de Soto, a Peruvian economist who doesn't get much respect in Latin America, says that Third World countries need to get rid of corrupt governments and corrupt legal systems before they prosper. Privatization in a corrupt system may be very problematic -- the former Soviet Union found it so. Selling industry to the highest briber rather than the highest bidder is not good for the country. Brazil, I think, is a good case in point. The disparity between the lower classes and the upper classes is extremely large. Class hatred seems to be the order of the day. The poor want to take from the rich in the hope that it will make them richer. But even if you completely strip the rich of all wealth, there isn't enough to go around to make the poor much better off. The alternative to borrowing from the IMF is to get private financing. Brazil isn't a very attractive investment for me, personally, not sure how other private investors feel but I suspect it's the same. Ya'll do need labor unions, but ya'll also need capital. Ya'll also need real democracy, good education, honest governments, honest courts, honest cops, decent housing, a clean environment. The way to do it is to produce more than you consume. JMHO.

To: elmatador who wrote (22751)	8/26/2002 6:26:13 PM
From: Joe S Pack	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 74559

Elmo, I don't like all the side effects J6P's money does to the receiving (begger ) countries. Given a chance I won't allow J6P country to mortgage all its moral values for the sack of WallStereet and big corporate crooks. But at the same time I have less sympathy for all those idiots running other begger countries who brought them to this sorry state. You may argue that they were not fortunate to begin with, not educated well, poor etc. etc. But if you analyse properly most of these countries are run into ground not by the local uneducated poor souls but by a group of power hungry/corrupt Western educated crooks. So the blame is on both sides. Supply and demand applies well here too. Why create demand? What the money from J6P achieves. These effects include: imposing austerity measures that force poor countries to slash spending on education, health and social programs; encouraging privatization, which transfers public assets to wealthy elites and foreign investors and creates unemployment; stifling local industries by making it hard for local people to get loans; destroying the savings of poor people by causing devaluation of national currencies; and forcing governments to remove trade barriers and dismantle their regulatory mechanisms, which results in: lower wages for local workers, bankruptcy of local corporations, and layoffs weakening of environmental standards for the sake of economic productivity, and subsequent pollution and destruction of the environment, appalling working conditions and human rights abuses, and suppression of union organizing. Is this something you should proud of?