Posted on 03/21/2021 2:52:54 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Two things that I can think of:
1) Socialism will always be popular with those who think you can get something for nothing, i.e., vote yourself other people's money.
2) There's always a strong attraction that people want to be a part of the in-crowd.
For a time the helicopter tourism industry flourished.
I'll say it. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte--one of the heroes of the Cold War.
One very important data point is that while most people are cleaver, they are not smart. That is why we have Democrats.
The majority of people simply aren’t all that “bright”. Thus they are easily led into destructive situations. The USA is failing because we have Democrats and allow them to vote.
This is why Chile has failed.
I can fix America in 20 years, just repeal the 16th, 17th and 19th amendments. That gets rid of pretty boys, brings back states rights, and takes the money away from the Feds.
Will that happen? No.
So the USA will die and we will fragment.
Good while it lasted.
Amen to that!
Nations, no matter how “good” and “perfect” the laws are - they are still run by fallen man.
And no matter how good those men are, these nations are still full of people. And those people eventually become full of sin.
That doesn’t mean God isn’t a nationalist - He most certainly is, but in this Church Age, we all have a better country awaiting us in His Kingdom.
The fall of Chile is a warning to America
by Stephen Moore
| March 18, 2021 11:00 PM
Back in the 1970s, the nation of Chile embarked on one of the boldest sets of free market economic reforms in history. The government called in the Chicago Boys, as they were called, led by Milton Friedman and other University of Chicago free market economists.
They were given a free hand to redesign the Chilean economic system with property rights, a low flat tax, privatization of the Social Security system, and industry deregulation. In 1991, Friedman wrote that Chile now has “the three freedoms: economic freedom, political freedom, and human freedom. It will be interesting to see if they can keep it.”
For four decades, the experiment worked better than anyone could have imagined. According to a study by economist Axel Kaiser for the Cato Institute: “Between 1975 and 2015 per capita income in Chile quadrupled to $23,000, the highest rate in Latin America (CNP 2016). As a result, from the early 1980s to 2014, poverty fell from 45 percent to 8 percent (CNP 2016).” Chile became one of the wealthiest nations in South America. And it happened in three decades, an eye blink of history.
The Marxists and intellectual class of Latin America always hated the free market reforms. They disparaged the Chicago boys as “fascists.” They spent decades attacking the policies (with the stooges in the American media echoing their protests) even as Chile became the jewel of South America.
The Marxists invented a narrative of “inequality,” “the rich were getting richer, and the poor were getting poorer,” and capitalism is evil.
They infiltrated all of Chile’s cultural institutions: the media, the schools, the universities, the Catholic Church, the arts, the unions, and even the corporate boardrooms. They spread their poisonous creed of collectivism to the populace.
Is any of this sounding familiar to our situation today?
Eventually, the leftists pulled off a political coup. In 2013, the Left won the Chilean presidency. The free market reforms were systematically replaced with “spread the wealth” platitudes. In October 2020, voters approved a rewrite of the constitution, and now property rights and the rule of law are in danger.
Chile is now in economic free fall. The poor are getting crushed. The rich are pulling their money out of the country. They have arrived at “equality.” Nearly everyone is suffering.
Meanwhile, back in America, we have an economic transformation of our own going on. The Biden administration promises to help the middle class by handing out trillions of dollars of free money to citizens and paying people more money for not working than working. We will borrow trillions of dollars and pray that the Chinese continue to buy up our bonds and that our currency holds up.
Many of our constitutional protections and congressional rules of behavior, such as the filibuster, which protects the rights of the minority, may be headed to the shredder. The election laws are getting rewritten to benefit, significantly, the party now in power — the Democrats. The House has passed a bill requiring millions of working-class people to join unions and pay dues. The Left is saying, don’t worry, this compulsion is going to help the working class. Sure.
A sock-it-to-the-rich tax increase is coming that will make the productive class and the job creators pay their “fair share” with tax rates of 50%, 60%, and 70%.
Will this story have a happy ending?
The answer to that question might be contained in the frightening example of what happened in Chile. It is what our children and college students should be learning in the classrooms — fat chance. The Left runs our schools now too.
Note: Some use wealth for good, but most do not. They use their wealth to indulge themselves, even if they know that indulgence is either morally and/or legally wrong.
The U.S. economy was/is well on the way towards eventual collapse, via the socialism which has been underway for decades.
The final blow will come via the stupidity of ‘cancel culture’. The socialists who infiltrated the economy have now latched onto a weapon that threatens to end the best economic engine the world has ever known. Who’s going to survive being canceled? For anything? The real name for what’s happening should be ‘idiotic cultural redefinition’. We are being redefined into extinction.
Looks like we’d have to kill some people to succeed. Who’s gonna go that route? I remember Pat Buchanan saying “Those that were killed shod been killed!” Blew me away because i admired him. It was on the McGlocklin Group.
Go to the link in #6.
The American Left is using the same “inequality” lie to justify destroying our free market economy.
Marxists from INSIDE THE COUNTRY!
Did Pinochet REALLY toss commies out of helicopters?
I don’t agree with much of this incomplete article.
Chile’s number one contributor to it’s GNP is mining...almost exclusively copper mining. The mining industry is responsible for the development of the largest middle class in Latin America, (LA).
It is almost the only country in LA where a middle class family can afford to put their kids through university...it isn’t just the wealthy with college degrees.
If you drive around any city in northern Chile, La Serena, Antofagasta, Copiapo, you will see housing developments all over the place...small, single family homes with a Toyota parked out front. This does not happen in most LA countries.
The main reason for the continuing dance with the Marxist left is is the Marxist takeover of the universities. All the kids I worked with had degrees in mining engineering, chemistry, geological engineering...the hard core science and engineering degrees...they all cursed the stupid leftist direction the country was heading and despised the university left movement.
The left in LA is very well organized...much more so than the working stiffs who just want that home with a Toyota.
The left, as someone else mentioned, controls the universities, the corrupt left-leaning Catholic Church, leftist environmental groups, and of course, the media who produce a constant drumbeat of how worker’s wages haven’t kept up with inflation, yadda, yadda...the usual drivel.
And another seldom mentioned ingredient is that the agriculture industry is very sympathetic to the left...they are the favored industry of the left and the industry greatly resents the mining industry. The mining industry pays very well and nab the best and brightest of the labor force. The Ag industry has to compete for labor and always lose to the miners. There aren’t many Toyotas parked in front of that small home owned by workers in vineyards.
The Ag industry has been responsible for preventing several new mines from going into production, not only in Chile, but Peru and Argentina as well.
They do this by teaming up with the left, the Church, and NGO environmental wack jobs. I have photos of a Catholic church in a small Andean town located miles below a new mine in the permitting stage where the Church allowed the anti-miners to paint a mural on the walls showing all kinds of disasters if the mine went into production.
Just a few thoughts on some of the reasons Chile is circling the bowl...I’m not so certain it is as dire as this article sort of suggests...the article is a little short on examples.
As long as copper continues to provide the bulk of the country’s GDP the left will have a hard time doing the Salvador Allende thing again. In spite of what the leftist media yammers, Agusto Pinochet was NOT unpopular in Chile. I have had this discussion with Chileans and many, many will quietly say that Pinochet saved Chile and the country would be just another Peru, Ecuador, or Bolivia if it wasn’t for Pinochet.
I lived for a year two doors from Pinochet’s Santiago residence...very safe neighborhood!!
‘Cause OSG’s got
No Job,
No Wife and No Sense
To keep their’Yapper’Shut!
My neighbor, 2000 - 2001
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