Chile Forum

Many of you probably have finical portfolios the assets of which you have quite properly diversified. My wife and I currently own a house in northern Thailand, one in the US and depending on wether we like Chile or not we will get one there as well along with residency and eventually citizenship. This is my version of diversification. I will then have 3 places to chose from if one goes to pot we simply move to another one. The difference between the police in Chile and the ones in the US can best be determined by going to youtube and typing in police brutality. Choice, life is all about making sure that you have the greatest number of choices possible.

Will be interesting to come back to this thread in one year.

Think about it:

(1) If the rumor of a covered up deficit in Chile is true or even just the lack of the touted reserve turns out to be reality, (2) you factor in the HUGE economic impact the earthquake will have on Chile's economy and (3) the resulting impacts of the previous on social stability, Chile will be no better off than the majority of nations in the world and might have to resort to more authoritarian internal control measures. Even then, Chile's advantages will still be the ability to feed itself, abundant copper and other metal reserves, and only 16,000,000 persons over a diverse geography to keep relatively happy.

eeuu makes a good point about food production. If you are looking for a stable country with things go tits up look for a country with a stable food supply. There are countries out there teetering right now on the edge of food riots because they can't produce enough food for themselves, a little shock is all that takes to make them go over the edge.

When I was in the Philippines, there were rice shortages from March to August of 2008. They couldn't find enough rice to import at a decent price and prices just about doubled on rice. Families were going without food and lining up for cheaper government rice, lines were hours long just to buy a limited amount of rice.

If you are looking for stability in the form of a net food exporting country then there aren't very many of them(Thailand, Canada, US, southern cone countries, Australia, New Zealand, and some western European countries). I don't know about the rest of you, but I have shortened that list down quite a bit.

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Hightower wrote:

eeuunikkeiexpat wrote:
(1) If the rumor of a covered up deficit in Chile is true or even just the lack of the touted reserve turns out to be reality, .

Are there any links in the (English) press about this? IS so could you post any, please?

I second that request...and add that I'm fine with either English or Spanish...

Only stuff out there is in Spanish about Piñera's comments earlier in the same week of the EQ and only specifically about the official fiscal deficit run for the past year. Any further speculation is only speculation.

Google:

Piñera deficit fiscal

and other search variations.

Piñera is playing the usual legacy card here. Lower receipts, higher spending, the big '09 deficit was there for all to see. Not that he's wrong to complain about Keynesian policies, but I don't think this deficit is really surprising. Surely he was aware of it while he was campaigning.

I haven't read anything about the bigger fiscal picture being really different from how it's been portrayed so far, but with the earthquake Chile might become again a net debitor (within reason I hope) for a while.