Chile Forum

The inauguration of the new president is today. We are crossing our fingers, praying, and rubbing our rabbits foot for good luck that this change of government in the middle of this national crisis goes smoothly and real long-term assistance plans can be rolled out now.

I sincerely hope a lot.
I for one have never been a rampant vote nor paid attention to politics until after 2000. I had always felt, little affects me directly and most politicians are liars, cheats and thieves, its just a different face.
I wont get into US politics but for some reason I have a little more faith in the man Pinera and what he has done and hope that it remains that way. All politicians will get stuck in politics as is the game but he has the upper hand to transform and advance Chile towards the developed world, rebuild the infrastructure by necessity and clean up the remaining remnants of poor South American that remain. I dont believe any president in Chile has been put in such a position as he will have due to the various circumstances that surround the country.
I hope that they increase the attraction of foreign investment, increase ProChiles funding and find more useful staff, increase Corfo's budget for attracting foreigners and take care of the flaite issue which plagues the city streets.

Thus far these are all on the list, lets pray they get done. I have to say they are making me an attractive offer now to invest further in Chile and have indicated that this should increase under Pinera.

Pinera is now president. He took office with a 7.2 earthquake taking place in the middle of the ceremony and a possible tsunami alert being issued.

Got to say a president that can make the earth move for his inauguration is going to have to do very well!

What luck! Anyone got that on tape?

yea, we were recording it because we have million other things going on. I did not see it yet, but it has to be in the recording.

some people associate earthquakes with the departure of great people.....adios bachelet

I just seen the tape. They cut to the studio, and then back to the procession when all the foreign dignitaries were entering the congress.

it's obvious that pinera will promote a more business friendly environment. he stands to benefit from that personally much more than most. he has picked a very smart, economics-oriented cabinet. the emphasis under bachelet was more humanistic, more of an emphasis on education and health care.

but let's not fool ourselves....democratic institutions are cumbersome and slow moving. pinera can't change that. we will see some new faces, and a guiding philosophy that is more business oriented, a tweak to the right....none of those are really bad things....but will he make radical changes? can he make radical changes? no. and no.

he can't, because the institutions are bigger than he is, and he has no motive to, since he has benefited greatly from the system JUST THE WAY IT IS.

Cali,
you are correct in your analysis however he and others around him will benefit even more with his more economic focused policy which for me, is more positive than that of the left that for the simple reason of need.

The left are based on humanity and healthcare since the assumption is that the govt is the only one that can provide that for you so there is no reason to lift up the people financially and get them to create their own future, its all about state dependence, in extremes they are suppressed so they continue to vote that way.
For Pinera and the center right, its more about self-reliance and grades of success, if we empower the people, they themselves will take charge and create small businesses which will increase employement. In any case, there are always issues with both since there are those that will never strive to become more than welfare recipients and then those that corrupt business but at this point, IMO, his ideas are what Chile needs to take it to the next level and elevate the bottom to at least move into the working class.

Hopefully he has sufficient economist in his cabinet that understand economics 101: poor people can't buy stuff.

At some point if you want to get richer, you got to get everyone else richer first.

He just appointed my wife's boss at the Austral Law school governor of Los Rios region today. We might even get some help with our aid project from them, as one of his stated goals was to help rebuild the other regions.

You got to hand it to Pinera though. He cancelled all of the normal inauguration events, and ordered his ministers in to the effected area. He is suppose to be near the epicenter of todays earthquake right now and then was going to talca and Concepción. I hope someone takes charge of this mess.

Cali, normally I would tend to agree with you but in this case - no matter how much I dislike politicians - I think Pinera WILL make a difference. As an ambitious entrepreneur he will want to roll up his sleeves and make things better and see more progress starting from the bottom up. If anything, he will motivate people to work hard, improve their lives and be more in control of their destiny instead of passively relying on 'big brother' government or some myth (religion) to pull them through.

A.

Time will tell.....I think he's a decent man, very smart and a hard worker. He'll demand excellence and performance from his cabinet, and he'll ride the "let's fix chile" wave for six months or more. Maybe he'll guide the country through the earthquake recovery and, oh yeah, the global economic crisis. Eventually, though, he'll have the same problems every president has, and he'll have the same limitations that every president has.

For the record, I think it's healthy for a society to shift back and forth from center left and center right. The US has been doing that for a long time. Chile is taking an step in that direction, and that's good. Some smart economic policy should help everyone.

I believe he does have a strong economic team, thus far I have only heard great things about them.
Like most presidents, the first year is the most important as power will run out to change more but if he can set a strong base running, which it seems he is, with a team that is motivated to clean out the closests then I think it can only go up. They do ideally have a perfect opportunity to empower small business and make the poor people wealthier at the same time.
I think the focus in Chile is to embolden the lower economic class, which he must do and move those people to the middle income bracket so they can build nicer places and get better things which should reduce some petty crime at least.

I think it's hard to say what he will really do. He says what he would like to do- like merge banking and the stock exchange and further privatize Codelco. I personally don't like either of these ideas-I've seen what the merging in the US and "bigger is better' attitude got us. And the copper revenue gave Chile a nice cushion. The Concertacion was fiscally responsible yet Pinera says he will bring fiscal responsibility-we will have to see just what fiscal responsibility is to him and his team. He announced that he would be giving a March bonus of $76 to 4 million. I have a bad feeling more money("tax incentives") will go to large corporations that add to GDP and people at the bottom or middle class won't be empowered. A balance is needed. The Congress is split, nearly 50/50. Pinochet's constitution(the one in effect) makes it extremely difficult to pass important legislation without a much larger majority. So I think he will be constrained from some of that/.

Education is very important. Pinera favors building private schools with scholarships but I fear this would leave a large part of the country uneducated and stuck in the lower class. It would make sense (to me) to educate as many as possible so more people have elevated incomes and are buying and consuming more. Yes, and paying more taxes.

Business is always about connections but I think it is much worse here. I am afraid things get done-or don't get done, not because of need or what's right or even what makes financial business sense or how intelligent someone is but is often because of those connections-who you know, who your family is...And I think Pinera is pretty connected.

I was explaining the concept of trading on insider information(months ago) to a Chilean friend and mentioned Pinera was accused of that. My friend said "But we don't care! If someone is smart enough to "win" money like that, we think they are smart! "

I do hope Pinera will be good for Chile. I always wish Chile the best. Chileans have decided. And will decide and shape their own future.