Chile Forum

"Many years ago my father asked his children in a dinner-table conversation, "Why will capitalism always survive?" His answer: "Because socialism will always be used to save it."

Ralph Nader <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081013/nader/>

"Wall Street compensation is legendary. Nowhere on earth can one borrow so much to profit so excessively for creating so little. A few exceedingly wealthy and powerful men come from one spawning ground, Goldman Sachs. Their hands should be slapped first. Topping the list is Treasury Secretary Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs. Paulson has overshadowed the Federal Reserve, becoming the arbiter of who lives and dies on Wall Street. To date, two of Goldman Sachs's major competitors, Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, are dead. A third, Merrill Lynch, was handed to commercial banking giant Bank of America, which saved its stock from free fall. Meanwhile, if he succeeds, Paulson will have maneuvered the greatest transfer of risk ever from Wall Street to Washington, at a tally of $1.2 trillion or more."

Nomi Prins <http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081013/prins>

cali_chile48 wrote:"Many years ago my father asked his children in a dinner-table conversation, "Why will capitalism always survive?" His answer: "Because socialism will always be used to save it." . . . . if he succeeds, Paulson will have maneuvered the greatest transfer of risk ever from Wall Street to Washington . . . .

All very disturbing, of course. But we may wish to remember that nearly all Americans -- most of whom are descended from post-colonial immigrants who came here chiefly for material advantage -- are much better off in the United States than their ancestors were in Europe, Asia, or elsewhere. Can we salvage more from the present chaos? Yes. Even with this harm, however, the over-all situation is not an unalloyed horror.

well, yes, rws, nearly everyone on the planet is "better off" (in a material sense) than than their ancestors were, and the US still has the best the best infrastructure of any large country and the highest standard of living of any large country. i expect this to be true for some years to come....BUT....if it wasn't obvious to anyone before, it should be now, that we are going in the wrong direction and IMO we have been since the reagan years.

one of the important roles of government is to prevent the powerful from preying on the weak, and in this respect, the bush government has failed miserably. the current financial crisis is only the most recent example of corporate misbehavior that forces average go-to-work-everyday-joe into a worse situation month by month. the hypocrisy and arrogance of the wealthy who are crying for help now after cheating and manipulating the system to benefit themselves for years is beyond belief. i want to see some of those people face the american people and explain themselves. of course, they won't, because they are cowards.

the big questions are.....if congress sends wall street a huge check, will it help? who will it help? how bad will things get if congress doesn't absorb a lot of the "toxic debt" in the system? which investments are (relatively) safe?

CC48, my points (not too plainly stated, I agree) were both that the rich on the whole have generally profitted from whatever situation more than have the poor on the whole but that all, rich and poor, have profitted enormously from life in America. Does this excuse the bad behavior that we've seen for a long, long time (not just from ca. 1981)? No. Does it indicate that the poor -- which includes most of so-called "middle-class America" -- will necessarily become poorer than they are now? By no means.

However, we entered a period of flux (in the 1960s, by my lights*) that will be more and more difficult to resolve in favor of continued dominant American affluence. Perhaps that now will be to the good, for both America and the world; we'll see.

*I write as a former historian, though I confess that my doctoral work did not deal directly with twentieth-century America.

rws...i think we'd both agree that "abuse of power" is nothing new in human history. what i find remarkable about what has happened in the US is that so few people seem to be aware of how wall street, madison avenue and washington are working together against the general population. the politicians are in bed with the corporate powers, and they manipulate the media to misinform. as long as average joe has his 6-pack and his bag of chips and his recliner and his football game, he's happy. he's the frog in the simmering pot of water and he doesn't know it. he's being cooked alive, manipulated, used, misinformed, poisoned and he just keeps trusting the "system", believing all the idealistic crap he was taught in high school about US government. the lack of awareness and growth on the part of the american people is stunning.

i'd also agree that the poor in the US are better off than the poor anywhere else, except for a few select socialist countries like sweden and norway. but i don't think that the "middle class" will be able to maintain their convenient lifestyle. population levels have increased to the point where the resources are becoming scarce, and other countries with VERY large populations are developing their own consumeristic middle class. the US has been exploiting more than its share of world resources for decades and it simply cannot continue for very much longer. there is a distinct downward trend for most americans as the world economy "adjusts" and the illusion that we can pay for everything with a credit card or a home equity loan is exposed for the lie that it always was.

traumas have a way of making people pay attention and re-think their priorities. perhaps the silver lining to all of this is that the US population will become more aware and more disciplined...but as i have said in previous posts....i have been waiting and hoping for that since i was in junior high school. it hasn't happened yet....and i'm not planning on sticking around and waiting anymore. i'll watch from the outside.

El P said, "and yet we were all too busy to do anything about it...". I think this raises one of the most important points in discussing, and understanding how the current financial and political state occured. People seem to live on sound bites these days. They live on fast food, throw-away conveniences, USA Today and Fox News (DANGER! ALERT! DANGER! tag lines running across the bottom of the screen 24-7). People seem to be working more to get more money to buy less economical items to save time so they can work more to buy more crap. And utlimately find themselves too busy to PAY ATTENTION. I seem to recall several years back when there were some fairly large failing companies (Enron, Tyco etc.) resulting in large numbers of individuals losing life savings, and other seeing their 401K's swindle because their companies had invested their retirement funds in those companies...the government solution to that? CEO's would now have to sign the companies financial statements verifying the contents. Sheesh, that made me feel more confident.

Fast forward to late last year, earlier this year and the parade of buffoons on TV telling us all (read my lips) "We are not in a depression. The economy is sound." All the while a sector of the financial and real estate profession was shoveling huge profits into their secret doomsday bunkers, laughing all the way.

You can't tell me that if people on this forum saw it coming, that the people in charge of oversight and regulation didn't see it coming. Reminds me of being in the Army...we just finished a grueling day of playing war games...First Sargeant says to us...."Smoke em while you got em," and everyone, even some who didn't smoke, lit up and burned as many cigarettes as they could, while the gettin was good. I suspect alot of folks knew, and decided to get what they could while they could.

Few were paying attention because their brains were too dulled with sound bites, they were too busy, or too tired, or too poor of intuition to sit down and read, research, sort out all the crap and see what was going on.

Paulson got down on one knee to beg Pelosi?!?!?! McCain suspended his campaign and rushed back to save the United States from financial ruin? All the political bull I've watched in these past two weeks reminds me of a poorly directed, poorly produced episode of the Three Stooges.

NYET NYET NYET (Curley and Moe taking turns poking each other's eyes out)

Vicki

p.s. I meant to bring this back around to how I thought this current situation might effect Chile...but got too caught up in my anger and disgust. Ultimately, cities will be affected first in a global financial crises I suppose. Rural areas where people depend on what they produce, bartering and those who have food and water sources locally will see less impact. I forsee that financially it will impact me less in an area where I don't depend on a municipality for water, garbage pickup, transportation, entertainment....but that higher fuel prices will drive up the costs of items I might need to purchase. Propane for hot water, fresh produce in winter months, staples such as sugar and flour. For the most part that has already happened in Futa since the volcano. A simplistic view of the possible scenerio, I'm sure.

Vicki

Vicki and Greg Lansen wrote:. . . . Ultimately, cities will be affected first in a global financial crises I suppose. Rural areas where people depend on what they produce, bartering and those who have food and water sources locally will see less impact. I forsee that financially it will impact me less in an area where I don't depend on a municipality for water, garbage pickup, transportation, entertainment....but that higher fuel prices will drive up the costs of items I might need to purchase. Propane for hot water, fresh produce in winter months, staples such as sugar and flour. For the most part that has already happened in Futa since the volcano. A simplistic view of the possible scenerio, I'm sure. . . .

Not at all simplistic, I think: simply simplified! (Were it not, you'd be writing a dissertation in economics.)

The mass media has been whipping up the sky is falling stories and I am starting to see people becoming openly concerned. Most have used the word "denial" to describe where they are at, and that translates to inaction. It's almost like any other media wave, where an issue saturates everything, and after a couple weeks something else comes along for a 24/7/360 degree CNN-style "analysis" by less than competent analysts that is hardly from all sides.

Charles - you are correct, people are spooked, pulling out of the market, and sitting on the sidelines. I thought Buffet's $5B vote of confidence might help, at least in the short term, but I'm not so sure. There was a fund-raising round this summer for an internet-based knowledge content & service company I work with that had a very hard time getting initial investors to pony up additional dollars or even attract new ones. There was a time when that investor capital would've been all over this company but people held their cards in June/July, and have slowly repositioned and even pulled out. Try to get that capital now is impossible. I perceive the pull out will continue quietly or overtly regardless of Monday's "news."

admin wrote:For our business getting more foreigners to move to Chile this situation is the worse case scenario for us. It is a situation where everyone is in a do nothing, wait and see, don't make a move situation. Either a complete collapse or a roaring recovery would help us, but it is the neither here nor there problem that is killing us and it is the constant dear in the headlights problem that is the real problem of the current economic/political/whatever situation.

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Calm before the storm. We have people coming from stateside to visit our area in Chile, and I expect that requests to visit will increase - translates to you might be careful what you wish for as a flood of people make the decision to bail/seek new opportunities.

Lisa said the AA plane was almost full, but we did have several flight changes initiated by AA from purchase date to actual flight - consolidation and cutting flights.

This may calm down short term but there are a number of hurdles coming - election results and the perception of those results for example, may set off another crisis of confidence. I spoke with a colleague, an elder stateman in our area, who happens to be a lawyer with frequent interaction at the state and national levels. He indicated fear is clearly apparent, that people are taking steps to protect themselves, that Congress-person's phones are lighting up with concerned senior citizens scared they'll lose their retirements and on the other side, those who see the gov't intervention in the private sector as an outright betrayal of principles whether those principles were long ago abandoned could be discussed all day.

On a lighter or much darker note, depending on how you take it, Go to youtube and search for "Diebold Election Results 2008" It's a 3:00 newscast I won't give away the punchline. The video is appropriate for everyone, rated G, but the implications do raise issues that go to confidence levels in November.

I do believe the "deer in the headlamps" syndrome has been carefully cultivated by our minders who are implementing the best research and tools known to man on human behavior and psychology.

Can't have the people/slaves causing market crashes, bank runs, hoarding goods, protesting, rioting, going on strike before TPTB have taken out their share and completely gutted the system for their benefit. They'll then hit the restart button, change costumes and appear as the man on the white horse to lead us to the promised land so they can do it all again.

Me cynical? Naahhhhhhwww.

We should start a new thread or continue the others on how to live cheaply in Chile as that subject may ultimately be key to long-term expatting in Chile.

Anyone around age 40 + or older that grew up in Chile among the lower or working class will have a boatload of info and memories on how to keep the belly feeling full and body functioning under dire economic circumstances. Also time for us city folk to solidify connections with those who would accept us in el campo if things came to that.

Cheers

hokku

loads and loads of shit..
organic fertilizer!
we'll plant a garden