EconoTrix

The Recipe

pelleb — 2009-07-27T13:08:03-05:00

Translation of La Receta by MOISES NAIM of Spain’s El País. This was just too good to leave only for Spanish Speakers.

The idea of this recipe is to offer the ingredients and the preparation necessary for coups which (at leaset initially) don’t depend on the military. As it is known the world isn’t all that keen on military coups now a days. This intolerance has created a new fashionable way of cooking up the taking of power. The new recipe uses a base more of lawyers than colonels and as it’s fundamental ingredients constitutional reforms and referendums instead of tanks and armed attacks on the presidential palace.

The recipe is different, but the results the same: An Autocratic leader who under the appearance of democracy retains the power for unlimited time and does what he wants. It is important to realize that, similarly with other recipes being spread internationally this also needs changes for each country.

For example the Zimbabwean elections that have kept Robert Mugabe in power for 29 years were cooked in a different way than the electoral gastronomy of Russia. There the recipe guaranteed that no matter what the elections said, Vladimir Putin is still in command even though he is not president. Iran has it’s own way where they like to eat politics with a dressing of religion. The supreme chief Ali Jamanei explained that the overwhelming and suspicious electoral victory of Mahmud Ahmadineyad was a “divine signal”. Those who took to the streets of Teheran to protest, convinced that the vote was stolen, where beaten by the regimes civil militias. These militias are an indispensable ingredients of the recipe. In the Latin American version the recipe depends more on constitutional manipulation than all the other ingredients.

To continue I offer you the ingredients with Latin flavor and their preparation.

Ingredients

1. Millions of poor. An overwhelming majority of the population that have always been promised a lot yet little given.

2. A large dosis of inequality. Unimaginable poverty coexisting with incalculable fortunes.

3. Injustice, social exclusion and racial discrimination

4. Corruption at abundant levels

5. Political and Economic Elites complacent and secure that “nothing is going to happen here”.

6. Very discredited political parties

7 An apathetic middle class disillusioned with democracy, politics and the politicians.

8. Parliament, judiciary and armed forces so slow that their spine has “softened”e. It is important to ensure that these institutions are masters of inefficiency, laziness and corruption. It should be easy to buy a judge, a senator or a general.

9. A news media used mainly by its owners to promote their own commercial interests or election.

10. A foreign superpower neutralized or distracted by other priorities and congested by emergency.

11. General world apathy and public opinion with attention deficit disorder.

12. An external enemy which is easy to denounce as a threat to the nation or as the cause of any major problem. The CIA is always ideal. A neighboring country will do or immigrants of a different skin color. If not there are always the Jews and Mossad.

13. “Peoples” shock brigades well armed and trained to break the heads (and more) of the members of civil society who dare to react against the “Peoples revolution”. It’s not important that there are many of these brigades, but their members must be violent and willing to do anything “in the name of the revolution”. Their connection with the state should always remain hidden. Prisons are great centers of recruitment for these “Peoples Brigades”.

Preparation

1. Shake the most poor part of the population well with as aggressive and intense campaign of polarization and social conflict as possible. Social harmony is an obstacle and should be eliminate, while the hate between social groups should be maximized. This is easy enough to do with the ingredients above.

2. Reach power through a democratic election. This is easy enough to do if the traditional parties are disgraced or the opponent is a novice entrepreneur or a member of the political classes that have always dominated power.

3. Win all new elections. Any way you can. Never leave office. Elections aren’t for this.

4. Change the senior officers in the military to promote loyalty to the president and his “project”. Reward loyal officers with promotions and material benefits. Punish those less enthusiastic. Spy on all of them all the time.

5. Do the same with the judges and magistrates

6. Once the previous step is completed propose constitutional changes via a national referendum. Provoke the opposition to abstain.

7. The new constitution should guarantee all kinds of rights of the citizens (in particular the poor) while limiting their own duties and obligations. Promise that the new constitution will alleviate poverty and reduce inequality. You should include hard to understand amendments to concentrate the power in the presidency and permit his indefinite reelection.

8. Discredit, minimize and repress the political opposition.

9. Control the news media. Tolerate a few outlets with a small reader or viewer base critical of the government as an example that you respect freedom of expression.

10. Repeat step 3 indefinitely.

¡Buen provecho!

mnaim@elpais.es

Cristina Kirchner's courageous plan to increase the digital divide

pelleb — 2009-06-10T10:40:31-05:00

I’m not sure how I missed this, but Argentina’s already high taxes on electronics are going up.

Essentially Cristina proposed to raise the VAT from 10.5% to 21% on all electronics not manufactured in Argentina. Now you have to remember that this is on top of the import duties. It is a bit hard to find the exact figure of the import duties for regular wholesale importers, but from this government customs site it looks like it is 50%. Diego Gomez confirms via Twitter that it is indeed 50% of purchase value and 50% of shipping cost.

Here is a real world example using the cheapest MacBook White, which currently retails for $999 in the US:

In Argentina it costs $1599 in Argentina at MacStation. I’m not sure what the wholesale price is from Apple to MacStation on a MacBook, but it sounds about right.

Note the ad says $1499 but that is if you pay in USD. AR$5999 is US$1,596.09 at todays rate of (1 USD = 3.75855 ARS). If you like most people in Argentina make your money in Pesos, you pay the extra $97.

I am not sure how they reach these calculations but most news reports says that prices to consumers on computers and cellular phones will go up by 35% with this tax hike.

In any respect. This is bad news for Argentina’s consumers and real tech industry. This tax was done to in the typical Peronista corporatist fashion to protect a small insignificant electronics industry.

Argentina is a country filled with smart educated people. I’m willing to bet that Argentina’s highly skilled and sought after offshore programmers who’s rates are climbing due to their high quality of work do more to help Argentina’s GDP than these 2 or 3 television companies (or whatever they are) selling (probably crap) equipment to Argentina’s poor.

I’ve written before about how the protection of Industria Argentina is nothing but bad news to consumers.

The real threat to Chavez

pelleb — 2009-06-08T11:04:02-05:00

These 3 photos were part of a publicity campaign designed by a German company, Ogilvy & Mather, for the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR). It won a bronze medal in the prestigious CLIO Awards which took place last week in Las Vegas. The publicity campaign was prepared by the ISHR to let the world know how 3 dictators, Raul Castro, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez are scared of the Internet.

Also Raul and Ahmadineyad.

Thanks to Real Cuba for finding these.

God's own country

pelleb — 2009-05-03T19:28:07-05:00

Growing up in Denmark I always heard the term “Gud’s eget land” or “God’s own country” used about the US. I never quite questioned it, until recently when a Danish blogger living in the US keeps using it.

I started thinking that you hardly ever hear that expression in the US. In Denmark it is always used with a kind of snarky tone implying that us atheist Danes are smarter than those silly religious Americans. I do have some vague recollection of hearing it used the same way in English by the famous chattering classes in the UK.

So I googled it in English. Almost all references are to the state of Kerala in India. Wikipedia has a neat list of all areas calling themselves by the name God’s own country. These include New Zealand, Rhodesia, Kerala and Yorkshire. No mention of the US.

As I know the term more in Danish than English I figured I should google it in Danish .

Besides a bunch of people using it about the US, the Danish paper Politiken took the time to research it’s use :

It isn’t exactly possible to discover why exactly people say “God’s own country” about the US. According to “Gyldendal’s History of the US” by Erling Bjøl American’s started calling it “God’s own country” after the 1st world war. During the war American soldiers were in war for the first time in Europe and they missed the US, where the quality of life was growing and their appeared to be possibilities for all. The concise Oxford Dictionary says that “God’s own country” means a paradise on earth, in particular with regards to the US. When you search Danish news databases and compare them to American ones, you will see that we in Denmark use the expression “Gud’s eget land” a lot more than American journalists use “God’s own country”.

I am not quite sure I by the Mr. Bjøl’s explanation of it. It certainly doesn’t explain Dane’s obsession with the term. Also I couldn’t confirm the Oxford’s dictionary reference as it doesn’t seem to occur in the online version nor does it pop up in dictionary.com.

The term God’s Country does exist in Dictionary.com which says:

an area or region supposed to be favored by God, esp. a naturally beautiful rural area.
an isolated rural area.
one’s native region.

I’m wondering if it comes from people saying during wars “God is on our side”? But just about every country under the earth has said that as such time, in particular during times of war.

The other more likely possibility is that many religious immigrants to the US did consider it the promised land.

Anyway even if it has it’s roots in the US, it still doesn’t change the reason it is used by Danes. It will probably always be a very sarcastic term used between Danes showing that we are better than them. As a Danish/American it does however leave me slightly annoyed.

How deregulation became the rebirth of American Beer

pelleb — 2009-03-09T15:11:58-05:00

This is a great example of what happens when you start deregulating an industry. The opening up of brewing to homebrewers in 1979 allowed hobbyists to take the craft on and experiment in ways that no large company ever would.

These hobbyists became what we now call micro brewers and the large brewers are trying to copy them. It completely revolutionized a really sore spot in American culture and industry and now US beers routinely win beer prizes around the world.

Living of Coconut Water

pelleb — 2009-03-06T14:26:47-05:00

This is part of my series of translations from Spanish of Dia a Dia’s People like me. Real stories of real micro entrepreneurs in Panama. Keep coming back for more.

Vive del agua de pipa

Jesús Simmons | DIAaDIA

Fighter. There is no better word defining Fernando Cajar, because when he was left without a job he didn’t cross his arms to think about what to do with his life, instead he quickly pushed his mind towards work.

This is how his mind arrived at the idea of starting selling coconut water at the traffic light at the San Miguelito bridge, close to station 180.

As he didn’t have any capital to start his business, he asked a friend to lend him US$50 and with this small investment he started his life as an informal worker and nothing bad has happened because of it.

His raw material are the coconuts he buys at the Abasto market and he has to rise at 3 am to buy them. At 7 am he is at his work spot.

His earnings depend on how the day goes, but because of his friendliness and his clean business he always brings home a good sum of money home.

With this money he maintains his family and he promises they don’t have a need for anything, for this he works hard. He also pays someone to clean the area where he works.

This humble Panamanian dreams of having a chain of coconut water sellers at different traffic lights throughout the capital, and that way convert himself to be a coconut water businessman.

To make this dream reality he works more than 8 hours daily and saves all he can, because he isn’t planning to spend the rest of his life in the street and also this way create the opportunity of honest work to others.

According Fernando, his success is because he offers a quality product to the public and even more important it’s natural. For this it is without a doubt very attractive for his customers to pay the 50 cents a glass.

Construction

Before losing his job he worked in construction. He has now been selling coconut water for 4 years.

The Queen of Ceviche

pelleb — 2009-03-04T13:49:30-05:00

This is part of my series of translations from Spanish of Dia a Dia’s People like me. Real stories of real micro entrepreneurs in Panama. Keep coming back for more.

Reina de los Ceviches

Viola Guevara Gallimore | DIAaDIA

Ceviche, ceviche!! is the refrain you hear when entering the Seafood Market from the voice of Dayanara Rodríguez.

Dayanara has been selling ceviche since she was 14 years old, even though she admits that before starting her business she wasn’t doing anything, but one day she decided to make herself independent and she started the business.

Besides selling it in the market, she also makes ceviche for a man who distributes it.

Dayanara is selling from Wednesday to Sunday from 5:30 am to 4 pm, for this she is convinced that God helps her from the early morning.

She stands out from the rest of the sellers by being happy and outgoing. The force for maintaining this spirit which helps her out perform are her children of 6 and 1 years old. “They are my inspiration” she confesses.

Of all varieties

Dayanara sells all kinds of ceviches and sea food cocktails. Corvina (white sea bass), Conch, Calamari, mixed, shrimp, king prawn and lobsters. Her best sellers are corvina ceviche and shrimp cocktail.

The sales woman says that what the people like the most is that the ceviches are cheap and sizable.

While talking to her in less than 5 minutes she attends around 10 people from the line waiting.

Independent

Dayanara lives with her boy friend, but she is an independent woman. She emphasises that women should have a job and not be dependent of their sentimental companions. “Even the lowest job is still a job and should be done with pride”, she adds.

Friendly

Dayanara stands out in being friendly with her clientele who she gives complete attention.

Update Here’s another photo tour of Panama’s famous seafood market

With the flavor of Darién

pelleb — 2009-03-03T13:14:36-05:00

The return of my series of translations of Dia a Dia’s People like me. Real stories of real micro entrepreneurs in Panama.

Con Sabor Darienita

Viola Guevara Gallimore | Dia a Dia

Don’t discount the fire of work. Cerafina Rodríguez is from Darién and started the business of food from her province.

To start with she sold the famous mango and orange salads. Then she started selling fried foods like hojaldres (fried pancakes), tortillas (thick corn pan cakes), fried pork, Patacones (fried plantains) and now chorizos and Yuca with beef.

Very Active

The lady states that to achieve progress with a business you must keep moving. She, besides having a small restaurant in San Miguelito sells at country fairs, parties and even on building sites where she does very well.

Her best accomplishment

With this job, that she has been doing for 20 years, she has managed to bring up her 4 children of whom she is very proud, because they managed to do something she couldn’t, finish school.

Secret Recipe

She admits that she has Colombian roots, because her mother is from there. She reveals that her meats have a secret her mother showed her years ago, and this is the touch that everyone loves. Evidence of this is while we are talking, lots of people arrive to buy it.

Doesn’t tire

With her 56 years she still has all the power necessary to keep working and she says she will do so until her body can’t continue any more.

Honesty

Mrs. Cerafina says that if anything has helped her in life it has been her honesty and work ethic.

If you have strong opinions, don't waste your vote on Obama or McCain

pelleb — 2008-10-17T14:08:57-05:00

This election I will be voting for Bob Barr. I am a libertarian, how could I not vote for him? However you hear many prominent people who claim to be libertarian talking about voting for Obama or voting for McCain, because they don’t want to waste their vote on a candidate who will never win.

I hereby call bullshit on that. If you want the major political parties to count on your vote, you must show them that you mean business. If you vote for Obama or McCain your vote is not counted as libertarian, you are just another fool. If you vote Libertarian, your real voice is counted.

This is the same for all the small parties. If you are an environmental nut, why the hell are you voting Obama? Vote Green or Vote Nader.

Voting for the Status Quo is the real wasted vote if you are for change.

Why Free Speech is a good idea

pelleb — 2008-04-25T20:41:16-05:00

Penn from Penn and Teller always says the best weapon against extremists is free speech. Here from Reason.tv is a great example of the quality arguments coming from todays left in the US:

Let me guess that the leninists wont win power any day soon in the US.

Bonus link Penn and Teller did a similar piece on the Environmental movement a few years back

Free Ingrid Betancourt

pelleb — 2008-03-26T13:12:13-05:00

Seesmic a video conversations service has been running a campaign to Free Ingrid Betancourt.

Ingrid was a Colombian presidential candidate who was kidnapped in 2002. Read more on the Ingrid Betancourt Wikipedia page

Together with large demonstrations in Colombia, the US and elsewhere hopefully we can get Ingrid and the 3000 other hostages freed.

Here was my own video:

Politicians don't create jobs

pelleb — 2008-03-06T04:55:02-05:00

I’ve heard a lot of foolishness in the US primaries, but one of the biggest pieces of dribble that Clinton supports keep coming out with are all the jobs that the Clinton’s supposedly created during their last rein.

Unfortunately there are only 2 types of jobs that presidents create:

Government Jobs
Jobs with government contractors

Both of these types of jobs are bad for all kinds of reasons. They cause unfair competition in the real world as well as cost us the tax payers way too much money, that again stop us from creating real jobs.

The real job creators are businesses. These can be small and large (in the US they tend to be small). They can be local or foreign. They do this as long as the market opportunity is stronger than the government road blocks.

A good presidents job with regards to job creation is to step the hell aside and stop building barriers for the people who are actually creating jobs.

Unfortunately Presidents can easily kill jobs and job growth. They do this by adding more and more barriers for businesses. This is where Hillary looks like she might have her real strength.

Amendment 28 of the US Constitution

pelleb — 2007-12-30T17:55:25-05:00

Just thought of a great amendment:

Congress shall make no law.

I’m not sure it would pass though. But it would get rid of riders and maybe provide more spare time for impeachment procedures.

An alternative could be:

Congress shall make no law consisting of more than 1000 words.

Which would probably not help with impeachment, but at least get rid of riders.

How many businesses do you see?

pelleb — 2007-12-30T17:03:58-05:00

Another fantastic photo by Wakalani

Santa Claus is Chinese and other such worries

pelleb — 2007-12-20T13:05:32-05:00

Christmas is the time of christmas trees, caroling, shopping and lots of stress by people from both the left and the right worrying why Barbie is made in China and not New Jersey.

One such rant from last year was recently forwarded my way: Santa Claus is Chinese, Or, Why China is Rising And The United States is Declining by Lester Brown of the awfully impressively sounding Earth Policy Institute :

I know Santa Claus is Chinese because each Christmas morning after all the gifts are unwrapped and things settle down I systematically go through the presents to see where they are made. The results are almost always the same: roughly 70 percent are from China. After some research, it seems that my one-family survey is representative of the country as a whole.

If your patient enough go read the whole thing. It’s filled with scary information such as:

This year Americans will spend over $1 billion on Christmas ornaments from China. And in perhaps the greatest irony of all, even nativity scenes are made in China. Last year Americans spent more than $39 million buying nativity scenes shipped in from the East. China’s success in attracting foreign investment capital and mobilizing this huge workforce has made it the workshop of the world.

Damn, that is ironic??? Actually, someone explain to me why it’s ironic? What is ironic is the only hint that this article wasn’t written by Pat Buchanan was the nice hippie like “earth” in the institute’s name.

It is often hard to make out when reading anti globalization rants whether they are from the left or from the right. I guess it doesn’t matter anyway, both sides are filled with demagogues ranting scandalous news bites out onto the unsuspecting public.

From Pat Buchanan’s site

Last year, we incurred a $450 billion merchandise trade deficit and manufacturing jobs declined to levels unseen since the Civil War. A quarter of our steel, a third of our autos, and two-thirds of our textiles were imported. America, once the world’s greatest creditor, was once again its greatest debtor.

From Lester Brown’s article:

he U.S. trade deficit is growing by leaps and bounds, nearly doubling from $452 billion in 2000 to an estimated $850 billion in 2006. Rising oil imports and the trade deficit with China account for over half of it.

The fact of the matter is that trade deficit on it’s own is a fairly irrelevant figure. For example it doesn’t take into account most of the services that the US export. In particular Financial Services is an important one. Chinese and others invest their money in the US not to “enslave” us, but to make good returns.

With this money US fund managers invest in US businesses and jobs. When people lend you money to build new stuff it’s called investing and it’s a good thing for both parties.

In other words we focus on what we are good at, which is our advantage. It is not in our advantage to have Barbie doll factories in Mountain View or a Nativity scene manufacturing plant in Chicago, but it IS in our advantage to have Google, eBay, Nasdaq etc.

The US still has fairly low unemployment. Which brings me to my point. People like Buchanan and just about everyone on the left have this nostalgic view of a time period that now is past.

Unfortunately though we must accept that the time of the fat top hatted capitalist smoking cigars while millions of dirty workers in blue overalls leaving the factories at 5pm when the whistle blows is over. It did provide a fun packed black and white version of the world. Good vs Evil and all.

Cars have replaced horse wagons and planes, trains. It might be fun to think about the good old days when nativity scenes were made in Pennsylvania, but really what most people consider the good old days was a relatively prosperous 10-20 year period which coincidentally includes the childhood of most baby boomers. However that short period itself was a huge economic and demographic change over the US just 15 years earlier, where people were quite literally starving on the streets.

Things ARE getting better all over the world, even the US. Poverty is declining world wide at levels unheard of before. If current trends continue even Africa the last outpost of the “old” world will see major change over the next 20 years. All of these are because of globalization, which works hand in hand with technology to change everything.

I am personally happy to see so much stuff from China in my shopping basket. The parents of the people who made those things were no doubt affected by the massive famines they had during the 50’s-70’s. Here is hoping that in 10 years time when I buy my first plastic christmas tree, that I can look at it and it says made in Ethiopia.

The Chinese manufacturing revolution is also helping lower the barriers of entry into the middle class for people all over the world. After all all the creature comforts are now a lot cheaper than they were.

I’m also happy that by some long trail of events that smart investors in China are investing in silicon valley, helping the cream of the worlds intelligensia work on the next generation of economy changing services and products right here in the US.