Free Republic

Like President Trump, Brazil's likely new president, Jair Bolsonaro, is openly embracing free-market economics – the hardcore Chicago Boys kind that was last seen transforming Chile into a first-world country. The real stuff. I'm going to argue that that's big, really big – not only because Brazil is a leftist sump of longtime culturally embedded socialism and dependency - but because hardcore free-market economics, the kind that turned Chile from a Venezuela-style hell-hole into a true first-world economy in a mere decade or two, has long been a dirty word in Latin America. Bolsonaro doesn't care. That is a demonstration...

Economy: President Obama had nothing but praise for Chile's democracy and economic miracle, declaring it a model "for the region and world." So why is he obstructing the same reforms in the U.S. that gave Chile its success? Arriving Monday in Santiago on the second leg of his Latin American tour, the president told El Mercurio he picked Chile as one of his three stops because: "The Chilean experience, and more particularly its successful democratic transition and sustained economic growth, is a model for the region and the world. ... It is also a powerful example of how the opportunities...

It's careful, it's complicated, it's got a catchy name, and it's first. At face value, that's what I see in the Mortgage Bankers Association's proposal to formulate a new, government-guaranteed, mortgage backed securities market to take the place of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.Let's start at the very beginning, with the MBA press release: The centerpiece of MBA’s recommendation is the creation of a new line of mortgage-backed securities (MBS). Each security would have two components – a loan level guarantee provided by privately-owned, government-chartered and regulated mortgage credit-guarantor entity (MCGE) and a security-level, federal government-guaranteed wrap.America, meet the MCGE,...

Milton Friedmanesque reforms helped create South America’s most prosperous nation.There are now two South Americas,” says Chilean economist Rolf Lüders, a former prime minister under Augusto Pinochet. The old South America, which remains mired in populism and Marxist rhetoric, includes Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and Venezuela. The new South America is democratic and free-market-oriented, and includes Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay. Chile is undoubtedly the most prosperous and stable country in the group, with an annual real growth rate averaging 5.5 percent over the last 15 years and a per-capita annual income of $12,000, the highest...

For around a decade in the 1970s and early 80s, 30 Chileans who had studied under the University of Chicago's Milton Friedman transformed their economy. Later known as the "Chicago boys," these economists instituted policies of free trade, stable monetary policies, and deregulating the markets. They essentially de-politicized the economy and put Chile on the fast track of development.