The Next Africa?

While we're all focused on distant Iraq, our neighbor South America is quietly falling apart.

Maria Amelia Miranda stood yesterday in the Iapi shantytown here in Monte Chingolo, south of Buenos Aires, and cried. Three of her seven children — girls ages 8, 7 and 3 — have intestinal worms, up to a foot long, that she must periodically pull from their bottoms. But the worming medicine costs about $1.40 per child, and she can't afford to buy both the medicine and food for the children.

"Once I did buy a little medicine and gave each of my children a little bit," she said. "But it wasn't the full dose, and so it didn't do any good. So now my children are feeling itchy, and my 8-year-old is losing weight. If they have parasites, it doesn't matter what they eat."

So what should Mrs. Miranda buy — food or medicine? With her husband, a mechanic, getting by only with odd jobs, and bread almost doubling in price over the last year, she can't afford both. For now, she's using the money for food and hoping that the worms do not get worse.

Until now, the only part of the world to suffer a sustained drop in incomes has been Africa. But South America and Central America now risk becoming another Africa, in the sense of institutionalized Western neglect and indigenous despair, of tumbling living standards, of coups and civil war and failed states. If we allow this to happen, we Yanquis will pay the price — in terms of economics, drugs and immigration — for years to come.

Washington's policy toward South America is in disarray, and there has been too little urgency about reaching a new I.M.F. agreement with Argentina. The Treasury, under John Snow, must wake up to its international responsibilities to sustain economic order.

The economic historian Angus Maddison has calculated that in 1900, Argentina's per capita income was almost $2,800, behind the United States then but about the same as Canada and France and more than twice the figure for Japan.

Argentina has been one of the great failures of the last 100 years, for today its per capita income is about $2,500 — that's right, less than it was a century ago. The trajectory is evident in families like that of Eduardo Alberto William, who owes his surname to a great-grandfather who immigrated from England to give his descendants better prospects. It was a bad bet; Mr. William is one of Argentina's 125,000 garbage sorters, who collect recyclables, earning about $2 a day.

With an economy that is shrinking more than 10 percent this year, Argentina defaulted first on its commercial debts and last month on its World Bank debt as well, and even people who manage to get by often support the idea of defaulting.

"How can we pay?" asked Miriam Ganduglia, who was hoeing a vegetable garden. "We're starving."

Starving? She dressed well and had red-painted toenails and fingernails. But Argentinians are traumatized because they had thought they were living in the modern world — and now they find themselves eking out a living in the third world.

It is not just Argentina, for all of South America is in crisis. Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia are as badly off or worse. Brazil could follow Argentina into bankruptcy and default on its $260 billion foreign debt, rattling the entire global economy.

Farther to the north, Colombia is torn by civil war, and Venezuela is paralyzed by a political crisis that could also disintegrate into war. Almost everywhere, the "Washington Consensus" free-market policies of the 1990's are regarded as failed and discredited, partly because we did not fight corruption as aggressively as we should have, and in countries as diverse as Brazil, Venezuela, Peru and Ecuador, recent elections have gone to leftists or populists who tend to make Americans deeply nervous.

Iraq is of course enormously important, because we'll probably soon be at war there. But in today's world, as in chess, you can't afford to follow only a single part of the board. If we let Baghdad blind us to other crises and tragedies, if we allow Argentina to slip from the first world to the third world, and are not attuned to the distress of Mrs. Miranda and millions like her, then we — and the South Americans — will be checkmated.

The Treasury, under John Snow, must wake up to its international responsibilities to sustain economic order. Read: American taxpayers should rebuild South America.

It's not enough that billions go each year to SA from illegals sending money. Now we should outright send tax dollars. No way!!!

Meanwhile, General Pinochet spared Chile from all of this, yet the Left wants to still persecute the man.

Just noticing the odd man out. I hope the Chilean borders are well defended against any influx.

Regards, Ivan

I don't know why there is a problem, all these places are run by leftist and socialist. So like N. Korea, Havana and Massachusetts, living standards must be going up.

Argentina and Brazil are still crippled by a massive government sector. The IMF money is misspent so there's no need to send more until these countries institute some real reforms.

This article didn't really go far enough in pointing out the disparity in incomes in Argentina. That $2,500 is in inflated dollars. The $2,800 average 100 years ago was quite a bit of money.

The Peronist thieves in the provincial govts steal all the money sent down there. I know. I own Argentina bonds.

Short of a post WWII-style occupation and imposition of US-style govt structures, there is literally nothing we can do to help these poor bastards.

There are children literally starving to death down there, and it is 100% the fault of the local political elites.

But since they don't have nukes, like NK, or foment terror, like Iraq, no one has a compelling reason to intervene.

..........in the sense of institutionalized Western neglect and indigenous despair, of tumbling living standards, of coups and civil war and failed states. If we allow this to happen, we Yanquis will pay the price..........
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OK, okay, you win. Here, take the food from my children and give it to their children so that their children can breed even more children.

But South America and Central America now risk becoming another Africa, in the sense of institutionalized Western neglect and indigenous despair...

Try "cultures of corruption", instead. The West isn't to blame for everything.

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